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Rallies Held in Support of Trayvon; Exploring the Generation Gap; The Impact of Trayvon Martin

Aired July 20, 2013 - 18:00   ET

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

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Don Lemon in New York. You are in the CNN NEWSROOM.

We have a very interesting hour for you. We are going to talk race. And I want you to join the conversation. Make sure you join me. Go to @DonLemonCNN or @timjacobwise. You can send my comments -- you can send your comments to me or to Tim Wise who will join us for the full hour. We are going to talk about everything to do with race, the Trayvon Martin story, George Zimmerman, the president's comments, and the generation gap when it comes to race in this country as well.

So, we are going to start with this. This is a story that has captivated the nation.

In more than 100 American cities this summer day was set aside for crowds of people to gather, demand justice, and remember one name -- Trayvon.

(VIDEO CLIP PLAYING)

LEMON: Some of the rallies were small and muted. Others were larger and louder. In Atlanta today people who still can't believe the verdict in the George Zimmerman trial shouted and prayed together.

This is Sanford, Florida now where Trayvon Martin was killed and where George Zimmerman was acquitted. People carried pictures of Trayvon Martin there and in nearby Orlando and also in Daytona Beach.

And look at the crowd in downtown Chicago today. They shouted, no justice no peace. Rally leaders in Chicago are joining a nationwide call for federal charges to be filed against George Zimmerman. Trayvon Martin's father attended the rally in his son's honor in Miami today. Tracy Martin says he is moving forward from his son's death but that he will never recover completely.

CNN's Nick Valencia talked with him.

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Don, the demonstrators have come and gone but the rally did last for two hours between 10:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m. this morning. Hundreds and hundreds of showed up including the father of Trayvon Martin, Tracy Martin. He was a headliner here in Miami at this event. It was a very emotional day for Tracy Martin. He teared up while he was at the microphone speaking about the legacy of his son. He said he would not give up fighting for the memory of Trayvon until he died. He also said he would also fight for the sons of those in the crowd. I also spoke one-on-one with Tracy Martin and asked him how he felt about the support that he was receiving throughout the nation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRACY MARTIN, TRAYVON MARTIN'S FATHER: It was overwhelming. It just goes to show the love and the support that our families and friends have for us here in Miami as well as across the country. And it sends a message to the nation that we're not going to sit back and let our children be killed and don't say anything about it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VALENCIA: After the demonstration was done, some of those in the crowd decided to go on a march. Their initial plan was to block the i-95, which is a major interstate highway that runs through Miami. Those plans changed. They did eventually go to police headquarters only to come back here to the courthouse.

And while they were here, Don, the message was very clear. They wanted to strike down and do away with the Stand Your Ground law. Some of them wanted to amend that law. And others wanted to call attention to this case to the department of justice. They wanted the DOJ to intervene in the George Zimmerman verdict. They want civil rights charges filed against the former neighborhood watchman -- Don.

LEMON: All right. Nick Valencia, appreciate that.

In New York City, the Trayvon Martin vigils got some a-list celebrity support today. Hundreds of people rallied at the courthouse overnight and through the afternoon. The Reverend Al Sharpton called the national day of action and he personally led the rally in New York City.

CNN's Alina Cho was there -- Alina.

ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Don. The keynote speaker at today's rally here in New York City was Sybrina Fulton, Trayvon Martin's mother. It was hard to ignore two of the biggest stars on the planet. Jay-Z and Beyonce were here to lend their support. They did not make any remarks but, frankly, they didn't have to.

The Reverend Al Sharpton can prove they were here. He instagramed a photo of him with the two stars and Sybrina Fulton. Today hundreds of people were here in the crowd in New York City chanting no justice, no peace. Sybrina Fulton said Trayvon was a child and said she vowed to work for Trayvon and said I will work for your children as well -- Don.

LEMON: Alina, thank you very much.

Protesters rallied in Washington, D.C. as well. One speaker on the national mall today said people across the country need to make sure that Trayvon Martin stands not for a moment but for a movement.

Athena Jones is in Washington.

ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Don.

Several hundred people came out for the justice for Trayvon rally outside the federal courthouse here braving the high temperatures. Some of them even wearing hoodies. The demonstration began and ended with song and prayer. And one of the first speakers, a pastor, summed up the message the demonstrators wanted to send.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PASTOR LENNOX ABRIGO, NATIONAL ACTION NETWORK: I'm sure when the system failed to be just to Trayvon Martin our government failed us. And we are here today again not because we're angry but to bring attention. We are asking the department of justice to continue to look at this case and to follow the evidence and bring civil rights violation charges against George Zimmerman.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHO: Now, whether the justice department brings federal civil charges against Zimmerman is still an open question, but I can tell you one of the other big areas of focus here was racial profiling. One speaker got a big response when he questioned a recent column in "the Washington Post" that said people have a right to be afraid of young black men, black men like Trayvon Martin, because black men are committing a disproportionate share of the crimes.

Let's listen to what Joe Madison a radio host had to say to that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE MADISON, HOST, MORNINGS WITH MADISON: If that's the case, we ought to be afraid of every white man, because the hard data says that they are serial killers. We ought to be afraid of every white man because they blow up buildings and kill people in movie theaters and high schools.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JONES: So, those strong words got a big response from the crowd here at what was a spirited and peaceful protest -- Don.

LEMON: Athena, thank you.

I want to bring in anti-racism activist Tim Wise.

Tim, you had a book called dear white America that is out now right?

TIM WISE, ANT-RACISM WRITER, ACTIVIST: Yes.

LEMON: What do you make of it? Let's talk about the last two comments that America has a reason to be afraid of black men because they commit the bulk of the crime. And then, what Joe Madison says, you know, we should be afraid of white men because they blow things up. WISE: We only use racial profiling or the rationalization of it when it applies to the other, you know. When white folks do things disproportionately whether serial killing, mass murder, school shootings, drunk driving, 85 percent roughly of all drunk drivers are white. But we don't hear people saying let's set up road blocks in white suburbs to catch white drunk drivers.

So, in other words, we only apply this logic when it is the other who does something, quote-unquote, "disproportionately." And the problem with that is it is fundamentally un-American, fundamentally unethical to say that every black male under the age of 25 let's say should be considered a suspect just because black males under 25 commit a disproportionate share of crime. If that's going to be the logic then no black male is safe. They are considered guilty until proven innocent. That is fundamentally contrary to the American ideal. It is not acceptable.

LEMON: What is that? Is it psychological? Is there something wrong with that? Is it denial? What is it? Hold your thought. Tim Wise joining us for the entire hour.

Other news now, it's been one year since the Aurora, Colorado shooting but for at least one victim the pain is just as intense as the first hours. His story is next.

And later, the story of four men who say they were held captive and nearly starved. They were locked up, locked in a garage that turned into a prison.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: One year ago today a gunman burst into an Aurora, Colorado Movie Theater killing 12 people and injuring 70 others. People in Aurora are honoring the victims today.

CNN's Ted Rowlands talked to a 23-year-old man who survived the horrific mass shooting at the midnight movie.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A shooting in the Century theater, auditorium.

TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The chaos and fear inside the Aurora Century 16 theater is what 23-year-old Steve Barton vividly remembers a year after getting shot in the neck and chest.

STEVE BARTON, SURVIVED AURORA MASS SHOOTING: I remember the gas line through the theater landing in the center and as that detonated there was this flash of light in the front right emergency exit and then this huge booming noise echoing off the walls. It looked and smelled and seemed like fireworks. I thought someone was playing a prank. I couldn't really see the figure behind the gun. Suddenly I felt this immense pressure against my body and my neck in particular and I knew I had been shot.

ROWLANDS: Over the past year a lot has changed. The theater where 12 people died and 70 others were injured has reopened. The accused shooter James Holmes is claiming insanity. His case is slowly moving through the Colorado justice system. The national debate over guns, which grew after aurora and then exploded after new town continues.

Steve Barton joined other victims of gun violence Friday to remember the aurora victims and call for stiffer gun laws. Tom Sullivan lost his son, Alex, during the aurora shootings and would like to see restrictions on high capacity magazines.

TOM SULLIVAN, FATHER OF AURORA VICTIM: A guy walked into a movie theater a hundred-round drum and one second my son was watching a movie and the next second he was dead.

CARLEE SOTO, SISTER OF NEWTOWN MASSACRE VICTIM: She died shielding her students from the gunman.

ROWLANDS: Carlee Soto's sister, Victoria, was a first grade teacher killed in the Newtown massacre. She came to Aurora to honor the victims who died in the theater shooting.

SOTO: From a movie theater to an elementary school to a church, it's all different but we all share the same grief and we all share the, you know, the wanting to change our gun laws.

ROWLANDS: A handful of gun rights advocates were also there peacefully protesting the event. Police kept the two sides apart.

Why come to their event on this day?

ROB BLANKEN, GUN RIGHTS ACTIVIST: Well, it is an event for all Coloradoans to remember that tragedy. It is also a tragedy that a fire arm was not allowed to be used in the theater that may have prevented that tragedy.

Grace MacDonald, age 7.

ROWLANDS: For more than ten hours volunteers took turns reading thousands of names of gun violence victims ending with a moment of silence at 12:28 a.m., the moment the shooting started inside the theater changing hundreds of lives forever.

There are a couple other events planned over the next few days to commemorate the one-year anniversary. One couple who was together inside the theater during the shooting has actually decided to get married this weekend.

Ted Rowlands, CNN, Aurora, Colorado.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: Thank you, Ted.

We want to pay tribute to all 12 victims killed in the Aurora mass shooting one year ago today. They each went to the movie theater on a summer night to see a midnight premiere and suddenly their lives were taken away far too soon. (VIDEO CLIP PLAYING)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(VIDEO CLIP PLAYING)

LEMON: Well, that was just one of the rallies seen all over the country today in response to the not guilty verdict in the trial of George Zimmerman.

I'm joined now by Tim Wise, a writer, and antiracism activist.

Let's talk about the president's briefing to reporters yesterday, caught everyone off guard here. A really extraordinary, unexpected moment. Let's listen to the remarks he made about history and race in America.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Some of the violence that takes place in poor black neighborhoods around the country is born out of a very violent past in this country. And that the poverty and dysfunction that we see in those communities can be traced to a very difficult history.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: So, I know obviously you think this is an important conversation. I think it's an important conversation that can be had where both sides actually learn something.

Do you think that the president, I mean it's obviously very difficult for him to talk about race because people see him as why is he talking about race? He is the president of all people and not just African- Americans.

WISE: Right.

LEMON: Do we often ignore our own history in this country when it comes to race?

WISE: Well, I think we always do. And that's why when a president actually tries to speak to that history people accused him of being divisive. But it's not the conversation that's divisive. It's the history that's divisive.

If racism and racial discrimination had been part of the history that's the problem with division. It's not talking about it. It's not discussing it. That's sort of like blaming the speedometer on your car for the speeding ticket. You know, the speeding ticket was not caused by the speedometer. The speedometer just lets you know what you did, it is a method of communication.

So, in a sense, what the president has done in a sense is said this is real. And the thing that scares me most about white reaction to the verdict, I think honest people can disagree about the verdict. People can think that the law says what it says and George Zimmerman is not guilty but when you go from that to saying in effect that race had nothing at all to do with his suspicions that night, you are stretching credulity to the point -- I mean, it is absolutely insane to believe that his suspicions of Trayvon had nothing to do with race. And when you say that, what you are really saying to black folks is, you know, that thing you think is happening, yes, it's not. You are hallucinating. You are insane. That is fundamentally arrogant and racist and incredibly disturbing.

LEMON: I want to talk a little bit more about that. I want you to listen to -- I had left work yesterday, anchored a morning show. But I was down covering the verdict. So they were trying to get in touch with me. I was taking a nap. I finally looked at the phone and they said the president is speaking about race. Can you come on and talk about it? And I said sure. And I watched the president. I had never seen him speak that way. Here's what I said yesterday and then we'll talk about it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: This is very personal for African-American men and you could see it was very personal for the president, who spoke from the heart, and it is, let me just -- I'll tell you why. I will read something. I have this ritual I had with my mother that every single -- when I lived in Atlanta, I'm in New York now. I don't drive home. When I lived in Atlanta, this is about a month ago, I drove home from work and I called my mother every time I drove home. And until I got into the house because she knows of these situations. She raised me to -- with these situations in mind and informing me of what you should do if the police stop you. I need to know where you are at all times.

So, every time I -- if I didn't talk to my mom on the drive home, I would call her immediately when I got into the house. And so, yesterday after Anderson's interview with Trayvon Martin's mom and dad, my mom texted me and said, she said, that interview with Trayvon's mom and dad reminded me that I have always feared for you as a male person of color, even today, and you are an adult. Still fear for your safety. You would always wonder why I would always want to hear from you when you would get off work late nights. I could go to sleep once I heard you say, we're inside and I heard your house alarm.

I'm a 47-year-old man and my mom is still worrying that someone is going to mistake me as a criminal. And that's why it is important for African-American men and that's why the president spoke as he spoke. I have been profiled. That is something an African-American man grows up with learning and not -- you raise your voice when you're speaking to people. Oh, yes, sir. You don't speak in your normal, deep voice, because you don't want people to be intimidated by you. Sometimes you don't get on elevators with people. Sometimes you don't, you can't get taxies. It's all well and good. You learn to accept it. But it's a reality. And for people to deny that I think is insulting not only to the president of the United States but for people who helped build this country.

(END VIDEO CLIP) WISE: Incredibly powerful. I think if white folks can learn nothing else from this case and from this conversation, that is the most important thing to learn, that people of color are experiencing this country that we share and that we ostensibly love in a fundamentally different way. And if we can't hear you when you tell that story as a middle aged man still having to sort of prove to his mom that he's not going to be hurt, when I don't have to worry about that as a middle aged white man who, you know, has plenty of problems in the world. We all have struggles. But that isn't one of mine. The fact that I don't have to worry about how I'm going to be seen, and even when I was a young man in a hoodie, you know, I was wearing hoodies before we called them hoodies. We called them sweat shirts. Right? It was a sweat shirt when you and I were in college.

LEMON: Your school made them.

WISE: Exactly.

And I wore them probably from late November in New Orleans when it finally got cold to about early march when it stopped getting cold. No one would ever have thought to say, well that's a thug. And that, to me, if we can't understand that, then it seems to me we are going to have a very difficult time.

LEMON: And to hear people say white men, you know, keep bringing it back to Ben who I like but I think Ben is very naive on the subject. When he says, you know, white men are profiled, you know, what about white men across this country the way they dress? I'm sure they're in some ways maybe young people are profiled but you can always change purple hair. You can always change the way -- not that you should have to.

WISE: Right.

LEMON: That is a whole different thing.

WISE: Listen, I've been in Spokane, Washington when there have been at least three serial killers in the area on the loose and I have been the demographic of the serial killers. No cop has stopped me and said where were you on Wednesday? You might you have been killing three people? That doesn't happen. The idea white people get profiled, we don't get profiled even when there are crimes we commit disproportionately. It's nonsense.

LEMON: Here is the thing. People say, Don, you have a better chance of being shot by another black man. No I don't. I am not -- I'm just going to be honest. For many African-Americans in this country I don't live in a neighborhood.

WISE: Right.

LEMON: Where another person is going to shoot me. If another person is going to shoot me it's probably, when I lived in Atlanta, it's going to be a white person because all of my neighbors were white. I was the only black person on the street and in the neighborhood.

WISE: Right.

LEMON: And I hear that from people who work here at CNN. My kid is pretty much the only black kid at school or at soccer practice.

WISE: Right.

LEMON: So my concern is not that he is going to be caught in the cross fire. By saying that, you are essentially ghettoizing every single African-American in the country and stereo typing every single African-American. Not every African-American in the country has that particular background and experience.

WISE: Not to mention, even for those who do, that is not a legitimate rejoinder to the concern about racism.

LEMON: Right.

WISE: To say black folks should stop talking about racism because of black-on-black violence which is a horribly messed up term. We don't call white-on-white crime, white-on-white crime and there are two and a half times more white-on-white crimes per year, numerically, than black-on-black but we don't call it that. So, that is a whole another discussion. But the fact is to claim black folks talk too much about racism and not that, that is like blaming mothers against drunk driving for not having a campaign to get you to wear your seat belt.

LEMON: Right.

WISE: Like both are good issues but the fact that more people are killed from not wearing their seat belt doesn't mean that we don't deal with drunk driving.

LEMON: One doesn't negate the other.

WISE: Exactly.

LEMON: Stand by, Tim. Because I want you to listen to something else President Obama said in his very personal briefing yesterday about his daughters and how the younger generation looks at race.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: When I talk to Malia and Sasha, and I listen to their friends and I see them interact they're better than we are. They're better than we were on these issues.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: So, this guy is wondering at CNN how does our youngest generation, what do they think about race? Are they color blind? Do you really want to be color blind? Don't answer that. Or do they think the same way about the way things have been or should be or should have been or should have been? You know what I'm saying. We're discussing that. That's next. You don't want to miss it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) LEMON: OK, here is a question for you. Is there a generation gap on racial relations?

Trayvon Martin's friend, Rachel Jeantel, used the "n" word and cracker and -- on the witness stand and in media interviews. She says she and her friends use those words conversationally. Jeantel is 19-years- old.

President Obama got emotional when he talked about race and how he was racially profiled as a young African-American man. The president reminded us, though, that we have made lots of progress on race relations.

I went out and I talked to a few generation Y, generation X'ers and generation Y members about their views on race. I want you to pay close attention to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think that the older generation is more connected to a lot of different things that were occurring because they went through it. And I think our generation kind of takes for granted a lot of things that went on.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My generation is more progressive in terms of race. You definitely see more interracial couples and I think the same, like, stigma with certain races doesn't really exist as much.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Like Barack Obama being mixed race, bringing a lot of mixture, cultures and that people are more willing to accept it now and it's more, like, normal.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think we think about it differently. But I don't think any one generation thinks of it more or less.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have a ton of friends that are like white and Hispanic and Chinese but as my parents look at it they may think, oh, well things aren't fair because you're black or because you're white and things may be different. But for me and for my age group I feel like it doesn't matter.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I feel that there is a little less racism now than there was definitely back then. With older people they seem to be, there's a lot more racial tension. But as a young adult I feel like there is -- I have friends of all races and all types of different people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: So let's talk more about race and the generation gap. I want to bring in now Saaret E. Yoseph, a writer for "The Root" in Washington.

Did I get that right, Saaret?

SAARET E. YOSEPH, WRITER AND FILMMAKER: My name is Saaret. Yes. LEMON: Saaret.

YOSEPH: And I was formerly for "The Root."

LEMON: Saaret.

YOSEPH: I wrote a piece in 2008 called "Gen-Y and the Color Blind Life" for "The Root."

LEMON: Right.

YOSEPH: About the fact that I don't -- I don't believe that Gen-Y is color blind. And I'm happy to talk about that.

LEMON: All right. Thank you. All right, Saaret. Great. Great. Thank you.

Also Charles Gallagher, the chair of the LaSalle University's Sociology and Criminal Justice Department who joins me from Philadelphia, and anti-racism writer and activist Tim Wise joins me here in New York.

So we're going to go to Tim first.

So did my interviews with -- did anything surprise you? And I do have to say that to a person, no matter what -- they're white, Asian, black, whatever they were, they did think that the George Zimmerman verdict, Trayvon Martin story had an element of race, these young people.

TIM WISE, ANTI-RACISM WRITER, ACTIVIST: Right.

LEMON: But 17 to 23 is what I interviewed.

WISE: . I think young folks certainly are more attuned to the reality of race and racism than perhaps our previous generations including my own and yours might have -- might have had. However, I want to -- I want to really caution something because there have been an awful lot of studies on college age students and high school students and their own racial assumptions on the, you know, degree to which racist incidents take place on college campuses.

I speak on college campuses all across the country and have for 18 years. And every single year there are blatant, overt the cases, not just subtle, but blatant cases of racism on college campuses. So I think young folks on the one hand are more attuned to seeing racism and being able to call it out at the same time they're so bought into this notion of being color blind and being color mute not talking about race. But I think sometimes they end up perpetuating racism without even realizing they're doing it.

LEMON: Mm-hmm. And all of them did say that in some way they had experienced racism.

WISE: Right. LEMON: And all of the men, the African-American men I spoke to, the younger ones -- actually I spoke to 14 -- 14 to about 23 and they all said -- all the black men said they had been profiled before.

WISE: Right.

LEMON: And none of the white people said that they had been profiled.

WISE: Right.

LEMON: OK. So, Saaret, Generation Y sometimes uses the N word conversationally. Does that bother you?

YOSEPH: Me personally, yes. I am bothered by the N word and hearing it during conversation. In fact, the piece that I wrote for "The Root" in 2008 was brought about by an event that happened to me where at a party I heard a peer who was white say the N word and I kind of stopped him in his tracks. And he was very blown away and even offended that I would stop him and say that that wasn't OK.

And that was essentially the point that I was making in the piece that because the social terrain for us is so complex now we've come a long way and had so many advancements and yes, there are a lot of interracial couples and a lot more diversity but it's also making it a lot more difficult to speak on issues or to go pierce jokes to the point where we're having serious conversations.

LEMON: Charles Gallagher, I spoke just a short time ago with Leonard Pitts who said that he feels that in many ways that African-Americans, the older generation, has become complacent when it comes to race relations. Do you -- what do you make of his comments? Do you believe that?

CHARLES GALLAGHER, SOCIOLOGY PROFESSOR, LASALLE UNIVERSITY: Well, I don't think it's complacent. I think that, you know, if the word -- you know, a lot of this conversation seems to be if the word cracker and nigger are linguistic equivalents, and you know, I think Tim talked about this before. They're not. I mean, the N word is being used as a way to blanketly always point to a racial hierarchy where blacks were always subordinate to whites.

So -- but I think that is a red herring and I think that you're getting at it. What do young folks believe? And I've been interviewing whites around the country and studying white racial attitudes for almost two decades, and I think that for much of white America they are both delusional and schizophrenic. And they're delusional because they have -- they believe, honestly believe, that we are now a color blind nation and that anybody can make it. Anybody can bootstrap.

If you don't make it, it's your own fault. And exhibit A is Barack Obama. And so they start -- and I think that white America has a vested interest in wanting to believe that the color blind -- that we are color blind because otherwise it means that they've been given advantages. And I think that they're schizophrenic because if you look at the polling data white Americans, a majority now, believe that the civil rights movement, all the goals of the civil rights movement have been achieved. They believe that discrimination and racism is no longer an issue. A lot of whites believe that they are more likely to be acted upon in a discriminatory manner or be treated in a racist way now.

So it's -- you know, we could talk about language, but we don't get the kind of institutional racism, which still defines American society.

LEMON: You brought us to a very interesting point because that was my next segment that I wanted to talk about. But since we are here, I'm going to ask Tim Wise. Because I said, remember in the tease earlier I said, what is it, is it psychosis? I don't know what's going on. Is it denial? And then he says there's a sort of schizophrenia going on.

WISE: Right.

LEMON: So what is actually happening here? Don't answer that. After the break we'll get Tim's reaction.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Back now with my guest writer and filmmaker Saaret Yoseph and also Charles Gallagher, the chair of the Sociology and Criminal Justice Department, and anti-racism writer and activist Tim Wise joins me here in New York.

So before the break Mr. Gallagher said that white people -- some white people in America were suffering from schizophrenia when it comes to racism and the denial of racism. You want to --

WISE: Well, the denial has been a longstanding thing. And there is sort of a schizophrenic element to it. On the one hand I think what really -- you know, we really look at the history of white denial, we find that white folks, even in the early '60s, I mean, before civil rights laws were even passed were actually telling pollsters from Gallup that black people had fully equal opportunity in housing, education, employment.

Now in retrospect we can sort of see that as delusional but honest, decent, white people really believe that. By 1969 there were polls that found that white folks already believed that black people had equal or better opportunity than they did. So, in fact, this whole notion of reverse discrimination is not new. People have been saying that. The Supreme Court actually said that in the 1870s after certain civil rights laws have been passed in the wake of the end of slavery.

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: So what's the upside here? What's the upside for white folk as you say?

WISE: Well, I think the upside is we continue to remain in denial. If we continue to deny the problem, then we don't have to deal with the implications of it. If we're honest about the history of racism and what it has done to this country and the opportunity structure then decent people say to themselves, we've got to do something about that. We have to actually create equity. What does that mean? That's frightening for a lot of white folks to deal with.

LEMON: Before I had even seen --

(CROSSTALK)

Go ahead. And then we'll talk about that. Go ahead, Mr. Gallagher.

GALLAGHER: Yes, I was going to say that. You know, one way to do this is to just demonstrate clearly through good social science how much racism is still a part of America. And we had great matching studies, sending out two people, identical resumes, they had identical and incomes, and send them out to get apartments or housing. And what lo and behold what happens? Blacks are rejected at a higher rate.

I think the stop and frisk that's going on right now is a very, very good example. Brown and black populations being targeted.

I live in a first rung neighborhood in Philadelphia. If the police were to put their energies into these communities, that it's white and middle class, they would have thousands and thousands of white kids, college students, high school students, with their pockets filled with Ritalin and Ecstasy and marijuana in jail. And because we know that whites and blacks do drugs at the same rate.

It doesn't happen. So what happens is that all these stop and frisk things do is confirm in a lot of people's heads, well, blacks are criminal, they're drug users. Well, why don't we start policing in white neighborhoods and you'd see the same outcome?

LEMON: Well, and the people at this -- as far back as college and even some of the younger generation that I know now, the white kids have far more access to designer drugs.

WISE: Yes.

LEMON: Like Mali and even cocaine and prescription drugs.

GALLAGHER: Yes, absolutely.

WISE: Or just weed. I mean --

LEMON: And weed.

WISE: I mean, when I was in college the biggest drug dealer in uptown New Orleans lived right next to me. He was a white dude from Long Island. He would drop quarter ounce bags of weed in the hall. Now we very much appreciated living next to him but the point is, nobody ever thought to arrest us.

GALLAGHER: How much did you buy, Tim? What were you buying, Tim?

(LAUGHTER)

WISE: I didn't buy anything. He would just drop them. You know?

LEMON: No, the interesting thing to me as we were -- as we were coming up with this segment and I was doing the N word segment, and by the way, Charles Gallagher just said the full N word, a white man on CNN. He did so --

(LAUGHTER)

GALLAGHER: I did.

LEMON: That did not surpassed Tim Wise.

(CROSSTALK)

GALLAGHER: Is that a problem? Am I in trouble?

LEMON: No, it's not a problem at all. Tim Wise said, did he just say the full N word? I would never --

WISE: He did.

LEMON: You would never do that.

WISE: I wouldn't. But that's, you know --

(CROSSTALK)

YOSEPH: (INAUDIBLE) pass me.

LEMON: Yes. I think, again, back to Louie C. K. where he said -- and I asked a friend, before I'd see the Louie C. K. thing. We were talking about race, out having wings one night in Atlanta, and beer. Just a white friend. And I said, if you had your druthers, if you could pull a ticket and say, which -- I can come back as a white person or black person which one would you pick? And he said, finally, you know, after some, you know, scuttling around, he said, I'd come back as a white guy.

WISE: Yes.

LEMON: And I think that says a lot. Right?

WISE: Well, there have been studies that have actually -- I mean, you know, professors who have done this in class where they asked their class how much would it take for you --

GALLAGHER: Yes. It's $1 million.

(CROSSTALK)

WISE: If you had to come back as a black person, what would you ask as compensation? And the average answer was $1 million.

LEMON: Yes. WISE: Now if black folks really get all the goodies in life which is what white folks say, oh, black people get all the goodies, all the reverse discrimination, you would not need a million dollars to be black. You would actually pay people to be black if it actually was such a great deal.

GALLAGHER: That's right.

WISE: And that's not what we're saying.

LEMON: Charles, why immediately after the president made his remarks, and obviously, I mean, he went through great pains to do this. It was probably a very -- not probably, it was a very personal moment. I felt him. You know, when people say I feel you. Why immediately do some people have to come out and say that -- your experience is not valid? That does not happen.

This also happens to white people. I am a white guy and people are afraid of me. I'm profiled. Why does that happen? What is that?

GALLAGHER: Yes. You know -- and I think this is part of the color blind ideology is that we're all -- so we're all equal which means that I can equally be discriminated and profiled. It just simply, you know, again, getting back to science, it's just not borne out by the data. And Tim was talking about this earlier. I have never been profiled in my life. And I grew up in a working class neighborhood. I've lived in major cities before.

And my skin color has never been a tax for me. In fact, it's what -- it's -- you know, as we talk about it, it's the wind on my back. So I think what happens is a president, this president in particular, has quite honestly been I think very weak about talking about race. He finally comes out. He personalizes it. And you know what Hannity said. I mean -- I think that people don't like Barack Obama because he's black.

And let's remember that a majority of white Americans did not vote for him. They voted for McCain. So we talk about this kind of, like, this kind of new place in American racial history, but I think if anything what the media has done -- I'm not blaming you -- young people today have been -- they have been raised watching multi-racial, multi ethnic shows so they think because they watch these shows that the world is equal.

You know, all these shows now have the almost obligatory Asian character, black character, a white character. And I think that it creates a reality that's false. Most white people live in white bubbles. They go to white churches. They go to white neighborhoods. They go to white schools. And that's the reality. They learn about race from the television and television is quite honestly it's not real.

LEMON: Yes. I have to end it here. Saaret, I'm sorry I didn't give you more time. But I promise you I will have you back.

(CROSSTALK) LEMON: And we will --

YOSEPH: You have to invite me back for a follow-up conversation, Don.

GALLAGHER: Please do.

LEMON: I will. I will. I will. And I will invite you back. So I keep my promises.

YOSEPH: That was great.

LEMON: Real quickly, where do you live in Philly?

GALLAGHER: I live in Narberth.

LEMON: Narberth. All right.

GALLAGHER: I live in a suburb of Narberth.

LEMON: Yes.

GALLAGHER: Yes.

LEMON: Yes. I used to lived in Monroe --

GALLAGHER: And I lived in Atlanta for 11 years so.

LEMON: Monroe between Second and Third. So I was just wondering. And I lived in Atlanta. And Virginia Highlands so, just so you know.

All right. Thank you.

GALLAGHER: That's where I live. I live on Druid. Very good.

LEMON: Good. A dare. Not there anymore. Thank you, guys. Appreciate it.

My conversation is going to continue now with the family of Dr. King, Bernice King and Dr. Alveda King both join me live.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Two people with a unique perspective on this. The Kings of course. First, Bernice King, the youngest daughter of the late Martin Luther King Jr. She's also a minister, an attorney and a civil rights activist. And Alveda King is a niece of the late Martin Luther King Jr. She is a minister and a civil rights activist and a former member of the Georgia state legislature.

Thanks -- both of you for joining us. Bernice is going to join us in a second.

First to you, Alveda, what do you think of the president's remarks? Did he strike the right tone yesterday? Should he have said anything in your estimation? ALVEDA KING, NIECE OF MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.: I believe it is a good time for the president to begin to talk about the issues of race. We must have that conversation. I hope that it's not for political reasons but out of genuine sincerity.

LEMON: Bernice, how will the president's remarks have an impact on this discussion? Do you think it'll have any impact at all?

BERNICE KING, DAUGHTER OF MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR: Well, certainly, I think it will have, both a positive and perhaps a negative impact. For those who feel like he probably should not have commented, it will have a negative impact. But for those of us who know the importance of a president setting the tone in a nation, I think it will have a tremendous impact on us dealing with race relations in America. We've put it off too long and now is the time to really address it.

LEMON: Alveda, you wrote a column about the Zimmerman trial this week in which you said, quote, you said, "Reasonable doubt was established and thus human justice was served in a human court of law. Yet was everyone so concerned about serving man's legal system that we forgot to serve god? What did you mean by that?

A. KING: I mean that we need to serve God with giving compassion to Trayvon's family. His dreams died with him. His dream is in the grave. If there is anything that can be done to help console this family, I believe that should be done. And, you know, justice is imperfect when humans do it. And so nobody won as far as I'm concerned.

LEMON: Yes. Well -- yes, no one won but especially, and I don't know if I want to qualify this as winners and losers, but at least one family. I mean people -- when people say it's equal for both families, both families are suffering, yes. But --

A. KING: Not equal. No.

LEMON: One -- yes, but only one family won't be able --

A. KING: Trayvon is dead.

LEMON: Yes. You've made the point.

A. KING: Right.

LEMON: I don't need to move on.

Bernice, next month marks the 50th anniversary of your father's "I Have A Dream" speech so famous for the lines about his children. You one day being judged by the content of your character not the color of your skin. I want to play something the president said yesterday about race relations actually improving through the years. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: As difficult and challenging as this whole episode has been for a lot of people, I don't want us to lose sight that things are getting better. Each successor generation seems to be making progress in changing attitudes when it comes to race. Doesn't mean we are in a post racial society, it doesn't mean that racism is eliminated, but you know when I talk to Malia and Sasha, and I listen to their friends and I see them interact, they are better than we are. They're better than we were on these issues.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Bernice, your father's dream coming true?

B. KING: Well, I certainly think that for some people in America it is. There are those who have certain privileges and opportunities to be able to be judged by the content of their character. But when we look at I think the average, everyday African-American in particular, I think we still have tremendous work to do. In fact, depending on whether or not you're in middle class America or as we call it working class America or you're impoverished in the black community, when you look at some of the statistics in our society, there is still a tremendous racial gap.

It's not really even about how far we've come in terms of people's racial attitudes. We've got to begin to deal with some of the systemic and institutionalized racism in our society.

LEMON: Right. Right. Thank you. Thanks to both of you. And we appreciate you coming in on a Saturday. And again, the 50th anniversary coming up. I will be covering that for CNN and I'm sure I will be speaking to both of you as that happens.

A. KING: Thank you.

B. KING: Thank you.

LEMON: Thank you so much.

Quickly, Tim Wise, what do you make of what the president said and the two ladies?

WISE: Well, I think they're right. I mean, there's an awful lot of work to be done. This work for freedom and justice and racial equity is a long distance race, it is not a sprint. And the idea that we were done because enslavement was ended or we were done because segregation was ended misses the point.

The racial drama is the drama of this country. We can either deal with that honestly or we can keep running from it. We keep running from it, we'll keep having this conversation 10, 20, 30 years hence.

LEMON: Thank you for coming on.

WISE: You bet. Thank you.

LEMON: And thank you for watching. We want to continue this conversation. We're not judging each other. We can disagree. I disagree with Ben Ferguson. We're still friendly. Right? We can still about this. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: I'm Don Lemon. Anthony Bourdain begins right after this.