0 hall special. good evening. the second in a continuing series of "360" town halls on race and justice in america. tonight, we look at hidden biases that exist based on race, which studies show even exist among people who don't believe they have any racial biases. we're also going to look at juries in this country and how the racial makeup of a jury can impact what decisions the jury comes to. is this a discussion worth having? how you answer that question may depend on your race. there's new polling out from the pew research sent they are finds 8 in 10 african-americans say that the killing of trayvon martin raises important issues about race. but 6 in 10 white americans say the issue of race is getting more attention than it deserves. this town hall is about challenging assumptions. raising questions, contributing to a discussion we hope in a positive and helpful way. george zimmerman's attorney stated if his client was black the case would have never gone to trial. many of the african-american guests we had in our last town hall felt if george zimmerman was black, he would have been arrested that night. take a look at a pair of photographs. think about it, had george zimmerman looked like this and trayvon martin looked like this, would the case have played out differently? would you have seen the case in the same way? so first i want to talk about hidden bias, and researching today's town hall, i came across a university of chicago study which researchers sent out identical resumes for jobs. some were given white sounding names like emily walsh or african-american names like la'keshia. emily was 50% more likely to get a call back. people make assumptions whether it's about trayvon martin, even the future president of the united states. >> there are very few african-american men in this country who haven't had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a department store. that includes me. there are very few african-american men who haven't had the experience of walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the drs of cars. that happens to me, at least before i was a senator. there are very few african-americans who haven't had the experience of getting on an elevator and a woman clutching their purse nervously and holding her breath until she had a chance to get off. that happens often. >> president obama joined the conversation asking americans to ask themselves, am i ringing as much bias out of myself as i can? joining us is andre perry, founding dean of urban education at davenport university. cnn contribute for charles blow. mikayla angela davis. david webb, host of the david webb show. and hip-hop artist nas. welcome to you all. appreciate you being here. [ applause ] that picture where george zimmerman is black and trayvon martin is white, do you think had those roles been reversed this case would have played out in the same way? >> i think that's an important question to ask. it is really hard to know, but what we know from the science, and you know a lot of the science, i know a lot of this science from looking at the studies, is that most americans have implicit biases along racial lines. that's just the truth. project implicit is the biggest one of these. they looked at hundreds of thousands of people who have taken this test. it's partially maintained by harvard, and it shows that when you break it down, whites have an incredibly high implicit racial bias that is pro right and anti-black. and they use it by asians and blacks and whatever. what is most interesting to me is that when you look at who had the least amount of bias, that group is african-americans. it's even. it's more even than the rest of them. i think part of that is because like this panel, black people spend a lot of time talking about bias, so their kids grow up talking about bias. and that weaves it out of you, to a certain degree. >> that's what was so striking looking at that photo. i identify as an image activist. a lot is because of the images all of us have been consuming and the narratives we know. many black people have a plethora of a white experience that we can draw on. when most people's narratives around black men are either sports related or imal, and the main stream media. that's what gets triggered in you. we are our stories, and the balance of the stories that people of color, of immigrants, of women are way out of balance with the stories of white male, heterosexual christian people. so we don't know who we are. i think there's a way to not even love yourself. the study with the black children will have more sympathy with a white child, because we're just learning how to -- >> that's one of the studies we did last year or two years ago, we recreated that famous doll study. very young african-american kids have a perception of white skin as somehow better. do you believe it's as biased and widespread, charles? >> i don't believe it's as widespread. but there is bias. there can be bias in imagery. you can see a black man getting out of a black car here in new york, and if he looks like he's in hip-hop, you're going to assume hip-hop. there are many ways we can go about this. so we can't say that bias and racism doesn't exist, but we can't pretend it exists in everything. you brought up a very good point about how we see ourselves. whether you see a sports figure or a rap star or whatever the case may be. what about what you do to create your open stories? i come from a multiethnic family, so i have seen this, i've traveled the world, i have family all over the world. when i look at this, i see what my environment was like, what i was taught and taught how to act. so people with bias, you're never going to remove it from society. short, tall, old, young, women, there's some bias somewhere in the world. what you do with it matters. so we have to do what we should do and what we can do, rather than constantly looking for someone to blame. >> you're saying -- >> this is a question about institutionalizing our biases. 1 in 7 black men in new orleans are either in prison or parole. not because they're born prisoners but because we assume they are criminal. the statistics are overwhelming, and it's not just around criminal justice, because we've been talking about it because of trayvon. but when you look at the number of new teachers hired in our grand education reform, guess who we're hiring? young, smart people. but largely white. and so when you look at the statistics about how we want to change in this country, it's always negativity impacts african-american and latino people. i point to the data in terms of incarceration, length of time served, who gets hired. >> charles, you were mentioning the study, you talked about doctors prescribing -- doctors are more likely to prescribe innovative surgery for african-americans than they are for whites. and it cuts across all socioeconomic lines. >> right. in addition to that, it's all kinds of doctors in the study. i mentioned last time about pediatricians and how cruel it was that -- how bias shows up in these cruel ways that the pediatricians were less likely to prescribe pain management for young black kids than they were for white kids. how cruel is that? >> but i was looking to the study. my understanding is when they were informed about that bias, they were able to correct it. >> i have looked at that from an insurance point of view. one, access and ability, two, education, which is a key part of that. if you don't understand what you need to do for yourself, what your role as a patient or with a patient advocate, then your decision may not be the same as someone who has a better level of education. >> i don't challenge my doctor, i don't educate myself on being a patient. >> but you should. >> why should an african-american person have to do that? i can kick back and my doctor goes out of his way to be nice to me. >> because you're you. [ laughter ] >> but it is your responsibility as a patient, you cannot separate, which i think you're getting at is personal responsibility from historical traumas. there is this much african-american history in american life, this much free african-american history in american life. and you -- there's very few periods in american life where you can look at black people and say you've had a chance to catch up. from slavery, to social and cultural violence, to jim crow, to mass incarceration, war on drugs, which is basically a war on black and brown people. you go down the line to now, and say black people, we just want you to turn on a dime or turn on a decade and pull it together an get over it. cultural memories don't work that. >> let me bring in nas here. i know because i get a lot of tweets when these town halls, when they air and i read them all. there are a lot of people who are no doubt listening to charles and saying why is this guy talking about slavery and stuff that happened so long ago? you know, this is 2013. there's an african-american president. it's time to move on. there are going to be some viewers that say that. to them you say what? >> guilt. it's guilt. it's ignorance. we tend to judge each other. if we don't know -- if i don't know something about you, anderson, i'm going to judge you based on a bad experience i had with another white person. if you don't know me and you walk down the street and you see me, my pants are hanging, you're going to assume the worst. we need to learn now to deal with each other basically, because at this point america is looking like barbarians. i go to belgium and romania and i hear -- i go to these places and i hear how these people look at americans. not just black americans but americans. they see the gun poacher is out of control. they look at us like afghanistan. and some people in europe, i was just there, are even scared to come to america. not because of blacks, but because of guns. >> anderson, there's a point that he brings up that's very important here. he said you'll judge it based on a negative experience. you also have the option intellectually to judge it based on a positive or a neutral experience. so making an assumption is not always the way to go. >> but assumptions aren't about intellect, it's about emotion. >> but you have to balance that, and that's something you do as you evolve as a person and as you grow and learn. >> aren't we talking about gut level instant inherent reactions? >> which we often have. >> you can intellectually think i know we're all equal and the same, but in your gut, without even realizing it, studies show you have -- >> it's not just historic. i feel like there's been several administrations whose position it was that if we don't talk about race, then systemic racism was going to be over. so to say we do have biases, but this one around race is killing our sons. so to put it in the same space as having biases, because someone is tall is an insult. >> who is killing our sons? let's go to that issue when we talk about what happens in the community. you have this problem, and charles and i have discussed it, and we need to have an honest discussion, about what you do when black on black crime is at that level. don't blame someone else. >> these are not separate dynamics. >> but they're all part of it. >> it is part of it. no question. but how we respond to a criminal justice system has a direct impact on how we respond to each other. the number of people who are in prison currently are not getting an adequate education while they're there, are currently being released into communities without opportunity to get a job, without an opportunity to get a great school. so all these things are connected. >> one of the reasons they're there, not all the reasons, but you said education. it's a proven track, especially in the black community, which by the way precivil rights, it was a factor. you look at the marriage rate in the 60s versus now, it's flipped. when you have a stronger family structure, you have a better educational foundation, you have a lower rate of going to jail. if i asked america, are there more black men in jail or in college, most would say jail, and they would be absolutely wrong. >> incarceration rates for african-americans have gone down. >> perception is being sold or being consumed that there are more in jail. so that tells you there are other factors to this, education being a key one. >> all of those things are linked. if you have more aggressive policing in one community rather than another, you have greater rate of arrest, greater prosecutions, longer sentences. all of that impacts whether or not a man is marriageable. >> so what do you do? you work to reduce the rate. >> one second, one second. all of those things are working in concert and when you lock somebody up, you do have impacts on their educational opportunities, their employment opportunities. all those things come into play. and then all of a sudden that person is not necessarily marriage -- able to be married. maybe they don't get a great job. then the only options they see, because they're not being creative is to go to more crime. it creates a real -- >> i want to bring in nas again. it seems like these are conversations happening among african-americans but not so much in other communities in this country. it does seem more the expectation, this is something black folks should be talking about, but you don't hear a lot of white folk talking about this. most white people believe too much is being made about race in the zimmerman trial and with the african-americans, not enough is being made about it. >> it's a scary topic. race is something a lot of whites don't want to deal with. it's hard enough to get through the day, so to put race on top of things scares people. >> in that study where you were saying white people don't feel ant race is important, they've not been oppressed by race. it's a luxury they get to have. >> i do think there is white privilege that when you are white, a heterosexual and in the dominant culture, i grew up assuming the police were there to help me. like ponch and john and "c.h.i.p.s." were going to come in and everything was going to be great. whereas a lot of the african-americans we had on the panel laughed and the idea that they were there to help you -- >> it is incredibly uncomfortable. even for good people, to talk about race. but we must, we must talk about it to move forward. particularly, you know, our white friends. i have several friends that are white, and obviously some people in my family. [ laughter ] but we have to steer the burden, because it has been a black burden and it's fatigue. >> we are all in this together. nas, you would agree this is a discussion that is a good discussion to have and needs to be had by everybody not just the black community? >> yes, we are americans. this is the greatest country in the world. but from what i've seen going overseas is that we abuse it. and we don't really appreciate each other like the way we should. and we are in this together, and that's what we have to realize. >> we have to take a break. we'll continue the conversation when we come back. we'll be right back. 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