On cspan2. Joining us this morning is ben, the former naacp president and now the current president of people for the american way. You just took over as president for this group. Remind our viewers what is the group . How are they funded and what are you priorities for it . Thank you. So, we were started 40 years ago by norman leer and congresswoman barbara jordan, as a Multiracial Group to really make sure your country stays on a course towards freedom and justice and equality and opportunity for all of us. We organized across the country. In this moment, we have folks who are deeply involved in their cities and their counties on the issue of Public Safety. On the response to covid and who are fighting to make sure that our Supreme Court quite frankly hears back to the values we hold dear. It doesnt keep lurnching towars being the institution that could end health care as we know it since obama passed the aca. Were funded primarily by people. Some support from foundations on the c3 side. Moving doe nar nors across the country who want the make sure that country remains a place for all of us, frankly with the great dream of this country, its a great dream that you can rise as high as your own ambition and intelligence and skills remains true. Because without the american dream, quite frankly, this country would be a r very, very hard place for our families. On police reform, what do you want to see congress do . Were talking a day after the house spent 12 hours marking up a proposal by democrats in congress and at the same time, the Senate Republicans unveiling their legislation. The gops bill i think could be summarized in ten words. The gop is more afraid of Police Unions than police killings. And weve got to get to a place where every person in this country can be certain that their son is going to come home when he goes out to the grocery store. Where black men, we dont have to feel sense of sort of terror when were pulled over by a cop just driving in our neighborhood. And where each of us can count on our tax dollars supporting Public Safety. Which really benefits the pub c public. That benefits each of us. Were so r far from that right now. Ive spent my adult life pushing for criminal Justice Reform tos across the country and as weve made progress, ive worked with Newt Gingrich in georgia and Stacey Abrams and nathan deal to push through sweeping reforms. Weve gotten consensus on a will the of things, but this issue of Public Safety remains highly politicized politicized. Here we are the day before the 135th anniversary of jeuneteent. What makes me excited finally it feels like the whole country after 30 years give or take of watching video of video of black men and women being killed by the very people who had sworn to protect and respect them, has been forced to reckon with what black people have known for hundreds of years, which is that the police dont work for all of our communities and weve got to get to a place where all of us, where we transform Public Safety in a way that allows us to sleep easy at night knowing were being well protected. Want you to respond to senator tim scott who led the republican efforts on the senate side to put forth a proposal and heres what he had to say about the debate over police reform. Let me start by simply saying too off were having a discussion in this nation about are you supporting the Law Enforcement community or are you supporting communities of color. This is a false binary choice. The answer to the question of which side do you support its i support america. If you support america you support restoring the confidence that communities of color have of institutions of authority. You know that the overwhelming number of officers in this nation want to do their job, go home to their family. It is not a binary choice. This legislation encompasses that spirit and speaks to the fact that we believe that overwhelming number of officers in this nation are good people, working hard, trying to keep order in the communities. Your response . Theres nothing that i could disagree with there. Those are general sentiment i think shared by virtually everybody in this country. My family comes is a Law Enforcement family so starting with my grandfather, my cousins this morning picked up their badge and gun and went to work in federal Law Enforcement. The issue is not sort of, you know, the people versus the police. The police are the people. The issue is we have bad officers who have been protected by most officers for too long. There is a code of silence that has to be broken. There is trust that has to be restored. We cannot live in a country where an officer can kill a person because of the color of their skin and get away with it. What we saw in colorado last week, the banning of qualified immunity, was a very good sign, were finally getting to a place where if an officer commits a hate crime, if an officer literally treats somebody differently because of the color of their skin and takes their life, they can be held fully accountable. And weve got to keep moving in that direction. My dads wife, my mom is black, my descends from the revolutionary world, inspired by the boston the first person killed was a young black man. Yet, paul revere himself painted him out of the capturing of that moment. Civil rights activists had to paint him back in. Its a reminder from the very beginning theres been a multiracial opposition to Police Brutality in this country and yet theres been a current of denying this sacrifice that black people have paid, you know, just in a way that is sharp and biting and persistent and leaves all of us feeling less secure. I have no doubt that senator scott is both deeply respected in the state and also has to grapple with the fear that all black men and all black women have to grapple with in our country and i really hope that folks on that side of the aisle listen to him and think deeply about what it must be like to be, you know, the one black senator in your state, i suspect he is often like all of us in a situation where you feel like youre not being judged by the content of your character or accomplishments, but find yourself stuck in an old pattern that goes back too deeply in our country and we need to stop black People Living in terror of the officers that have sworn to protect them not because most are bad, but because a few are and theyre not held accountable by the peers and so now we as a people of the country have to rise up and say no, we will hold you accountable. We will make sure that all of our neighbors have Public Safety they can count on. To calls, brian up for you in michigan, independent caller. Go ahead. Caller thanks. Grew up in detroit, worked in most of your Major Industrial cities, well traveled throughout the world and of course the United States. When we Start Talking whenever i get confused on life i go to math. When we start using words such as systemic and institutional, and we dont support those words with math, but then we do go to the visual and pump that out every single night, i would like to see some math that supports your theory sure. Caller that we have such widespread racism. I have not found that in my life, sir. I grew up in detroit in the time where guys like me, i am a white guy, i grew up in a white neighborhood, i spent a lot of time in the city, im a city boy in that regard, we didnt have any of this. Some of my heros were certainly like Martin Luther king or sports heros of that era because i was impressed how hard they worked and what they believed in. Im not buying it is systemic. No way buying that its institutional. But we do have some jerks in this world, i do admit that, sir, i do admit that. But its not as widespread as the visual being pumped into our brains. Our brains work over 90 over the visual thats coming in okay. I will leave it there so ben jealous can respond to you. To quote will smith, racism is not new, its just on videotape. I would agree with you that videotape weve seen since the rodney king case has forced all of us to really reckon with whats happening in our country. The issues with the Detroit Police department, especially in the 60s and 70s, are legendary. I would encourage you to read that history. They trems doesly abusivive of black detroiters. They have a new chief doing a very hard job of trying to reform that department. Hes there for a reason. Ask wh when we talk about math, there have been studies recently that 10 , 10 to 15 of a Given Department is likely to be abusive and problematic. About 10 to 15 of a Given Department is likely to be courageous and willing to confront that pattern of abuse by one out of ten or one out of eight of their peers. In the middle a vast majority of the department that wants to go along to get along. Doesnt want to rock the boat. Thats the code of silence were talking about. We have a problem institutionally in our departments across this country. Now weve i was talking to two friends who were mayors the other day. One a large city, one a small city. The mayor from the small city said for six years his department has used personality tests to weed out officers who were likely to be abusive and that 75 of the applicants who met every other measure of fitness in the last six years failed that test. Its just a reminder that we have a deep problem and we need, quite frankly, to make sure all of our departments have a High Standard for how officers are trained or how theyre behaved and that they are weeding out the officers likely to be abusive. When you look at officers most likely to kill and studies have been done by professor philip goff and others at john j. College of criminal justice in new york, used to be at ucla, what you find is what may be more important than whether or not an officer is racist or to kill somebody or kill a black person is how authoritarian they are. Thats where Donald Trumps call to the most authoritarian behavior of officers and departments is such an incredible danger in this moment. We have to deal with the history of racism and we have to deal with this crosscurrent of authoritarianism, this band of officers, one out of ten, who if you dont obey them, well that could be the end of your life. Thats what we saw it appears in atlanta at the wendys, the pan was running away from an officer with a nonlethal weapon and shot and killed and theres no way you can say that officer felt like their life was threatened. Its a deeper problem we have to deal with that. Front page of usa today exatlanta officer charged with murder in that case, if convicted the officer faces the possibility of the Death Penalty for life or life in prison. To you want to comment . Georgia needs to abolish the oral histories, u. S. Marine veteran alan clark on serving two tours in korea between 1950l paying taxes. We all deserve to have police officers, Public Safety officers who defend all of our lives, who respect all of us, who work for all of us. I studied criminology in england. In england they have principles going back to their own struggles with the oppression of the northern irish. They decidedh even though most officers dont carry guns, they will train them every six months and how to use force and deescalate situations. That means in a 30 year career and officer in england would be usened 60 times on when to force and went to deescalate. Their understanding would evolve over time, including with new technologies. In the United States we have give or take 16,000 different Law Enforcements, and they are able to determine their own standards for training. The most common standard is one day at the academy. 9 00 to 5 00, one day. A big part of what we are dealing with is we have to break get to a place where we have the highest standards, most professional Public Safety offers in the country. The way there is to stop for a test the way we get there quite frankly is to just stop for a second and say, what if george floyd. What makes you feel good in this moment or content is it feels more and more americans are doing that because at the end of the day, every young person is killed by the police in this country, regardless of their country, is an american child, somebodys son, somebodys father. Somebodys mother, daughter, and thats the way that we need to think about this. We need to think about this as americans who are deeply committed to making sure that every american, every person in this country, feels safe when they interact with somebody carrying a badge. Do you think that the house legislation marked and approved by the Judiciary Committee yesterday, democratic proposal does what youre saying and deals with the culture . It goes it is a huge step in the right direction. A lot of these reforms will be followed up with reforms at the local level. We have people for our focus on the 20 largest metro areas in this country where about half of black folks live and fix the problem 20 metros will go a long way. I think bold federal reforms have to wait for a different president and were making sure we get a different president sooner rather than later. The president for the people of the american way. Thank you for the conversation this morning. Come back again. Thank you very much. President trump is meeting with the nations governors and discuss reopening plans and efforts to help Small Businesses affected by the pandemic set to start at 3 00 p. M. Eastern well have live coverage on cspan 3. The president s from Public Affairs, available in paperback and ebook presents biographies of every president organized by their ranking, by noted historians, from best to worst. And features perspectives into the lives of our nations chief executives and leadership styles visit our website cspan. Org the president s to learn more about each president and historian feature and order your copy today wherever books and ebooks are sold. Cspan has unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the Supreme Court, and Public Policy events and watch all of cspans Public Affairs policy on programming, online, or listen on our free radio app. And be part of the National Conversation through cspans Washington Journal Program or our social media feeds. Cspan, created by americas Cable Television companies as a Public Service and brought to you today by your television provider. Earlier today House Speaker nancy pelosi held her Weekly News Conference and talked about the Supreme Courts ruling to uphold the daca program, and announced the removal of portraits of former House Speakers who served in the confederacy. Good morning. And a good morning it is. The Supreme Court decision upholding president obamas wonderful action to support our