second degree murder, and calls are growing for police to form a justice and we are asking the chair of the memphis city council in the minority leader in the tennessee state senate about what part of the city and state have. they want a meeting with president biden to discuss just that, accountability. they re calling for national reforms within the justice system. we are talking to congresswoman, maxine waters, y all. and just a few moments, we re going to find out what the congress plans to ask for, and why. plus, in the lead up to black history month, we re celebrating some pioneers in our community who are living black history right now. starting with dana kennedy, she s the first african american to have a major publishing company. it s one of our living firsts. i have something to say. and then today since the release of videos showing the vicious beating a 29 year old tyre nichols by memphis police officers, we ve heard a lot. anger, fear, sadness across america. th
republicans in congress keep expressing sympathies about tyre nichols death, which i think is important. it does feel like this same old story over and over and they have power to pass police legislation but they have continued to do absolutely nothing about it and then you have republican congressman jim jordan on meet the press today saying this i don t know there s any law that can stop that evil that we saw, it s difficult to watch. that strikes me as a lack of respect for human life. i still think you want to keep this at the state local level. this is a law enforcement issue. you start getting that federal government involved with that of basing in federalizing things, the federal government screws it up so many times. mike, go ahead. thanks again for having me, symone. this is just like the thoughts and prayers response every time there is a mass shooting. there is all this and deference to what happened, acknowledging
see change. kimberly, i see you shaking your head on this. i would also argue, i talked to congresswoman maxine waters at the top, we know the congressional battle black caucus is i had asked all the members i know what more are you looking for. they said, stay tuned. your thoughts on this kimberly? executive action from the president is not legislation. no. and the president is limited in at the power he has to address this directly, whatever we ll have to be done, and i agree with mike that qualified immunity is the most powerful tool to incentivize police departments to change. and that will have to come from the legislative angle. it s interesting to see congressman jordan saying this has nothing to do with us. for the past three years, republicans in washington have been strongly messaging against the grassroots movement since the death of george floyd in
tragedy but doing nothing to resolve it. the big question here is qualified immunity. everything you just pointed to with those three bullet points in the federal legislation aren t going to do that much. even a national registry, sure, it is something. sure, it is helpful. is that going to stop this problem? of course it s not. it s the least we can do. it s the minimum that should be done. republicans are standing in the way of even that. the reason why is very simple. they don t want us to change. it s not about laws, it s not even about virtue, it s about power structure. republicans do not want to give it up. it s not within their dna until we at the grassroots level start to force of this change, bring some focus and intention to these issues. we won t see any. i will agree with what you said earlier and add on to what congressman jordan said. this is a state and local level issue. we are going to have to bring the federal government into this. until we do, until we nationalize r