and remember, these kids, these black kids that are already attending some of the lowest performing schools, with some of the lowest performing teachers. now we re going to relegate them to the most violent schools as well? again, i just don t see how this is in the interests of closing the achievement gap and helping the black underclass. donna, you want to respond to that? first of all, children should be in school. they should be in school to learn. and the fact is that there is a very large amount of black kids, african american kids who are being kicked out for so-called disruptive behavior, and white kids who commit the same offense, they re not being expelled or suspended. we know that this has a disproportionate impact not just on the child, but also on the school and the community. if we want to really address some serious issues, this is one where i think we need to all start by saying you know what? we need to bring everybody together. we need the school. we need the tea
aggressive you say you feel threatened. you think about ms. alexander a warning shot and got 20 years yet you kill a young african-american and you just walk and you are the victim. it is too much disparity, the law is sloppy and needs to be cleaned up. it started with a doctrine meaning if you break into my home. now it spreading to the theater and streets. it is something wrong with the law. and it sends the wrong message to the overall society it s okay for me to be the aggressor because i felt threatened. it is unacceptable. i am glad you said theater because you have the incident with the man killing someone in a theater in florida because they got in an argument threw popcorn at him. he is citing stand your ground.
little bit of tracy martin. he spoke with reverend al sharpton on politics nation. let s play what he has to say. it seems like it s an epidemic where the value of african-american kids lives really don t mean anything. we ve got to stand up as fathers, we ve got to stand up as leaders and let this country know, you know, it s not okay to kill our kids. and, i mean, trymanine. tell me where you feel the state of that conversation is now? i think the question now is we ve seen through the sparking of different movements throughout our history, you take these very emotional, palpable moments and turn them into political action. early on when you saw all of that energy swirling around not just the case but the stand your ground laws and even the president and attorney general eric holder said we have to look at these. but a committee in the state
are marijuana users. it s more important than all other drugs combined. let s talk about the reason why president obama wanted these experiments to go forward in washington state and colorado. he said, middle-class kids don t get locked up for smoking pot and poor kids do. and african-american kids and latino kids are more likely to be poor and less likely to have the resources and the support to avoid harsh policies. we should not be locking up kids for long stretches of jail time when some of the folks who are writing those laws have probably done the same thing. fair criticism? we haven t locked up kids for a long time for 18- and 19-year-olds, when he said kids. i m saying we don t lock up he hasn t kept up with the fact that the criminal justice system is now the single biggest source of referral to treatment of any institution in our country including the health care system. we take people and sort them with drug courts and diversion programs who get into the crimin
statements, if you look at the numbers, reflecting where the debate is already headed rather than leading it in a new direction. i think the statements ultimately are less controversial than the headlines rendering them would have you believe. at the close of last year, 58% of americans, according to gallup, supported legalization. that was up ten points from the previous year. so this is moving fast, and he is running with the debate, not ahead of it. with one exception. and that is his very strong introduction of race into the conversation, which i think is in fact significant. well, let s listen to that part of the interview. he said, middle-class kids don t get locked up for smoking pot, and poor kids do. and african-american kids and latino kids are more likely to be poor and less likely to have the resources and the support to avoid unduly harsh penalties. we should not be locking up kids or individual users for long stretches of jail time when some of the folks who are writin