real, those principles that their parents and teachers told them were true but perhaps never fully believed themselves. jerron and christian, i ll start with you. the president, in that statement, and even through my brother s keeper, is putting a lot on your shoulders. this is a long-term preposition. are you ready for it? yeah. i mean, just focusing on my friends and school and always helping them, and always having their back is more important and just keeping faith in my people, my family, keeping faith in my friends. and jerron, do you think well, one, i know you re ready for the long-term proposition. what about your friends who may not be on the journey with you, what do you say to them? you know, for one, it s never too late to start a journey. you can always join me whenever you want to, and also me being a repository of information, i
see for most of my teenage years was not a budding leader, but rather a lackadaisical student, a passionate basketball player of limited talent and an incessant, dedicated partier. no student government for me, no eagle scouts or interning at the local congressman s office. through high school, my friends and i didn t discuss much beyond sports, girls, music and plans for getting loaded. president obama, i want to know what did getting loaded look like? and what moved to you be a little more forthcoming? misspent youth? i actually go in detail in first book about you weren t president then the. but it s the truth. and part of the reason is i talked about this in conversations i had with jerron and christian and others as part of my brother s keeper, and one of the goals of my book in
program has served as the umbrella, the vehicle to change the mind-set. if we want to change america, we have to change the mind-set of individuals and that these young men know that they are important, that they count, and that we have to ensure that they important, that they count, and that we have to ensure that they are in charge. you ve been superintendent of the yonkers schools for six years? give or take. give or take. so pre-mbk and post-mbk, my brother s keeper, have you noticed a change in those young man? absolutely. when i became superintendent, the graduation rate was 76%. the graduation rate in the yonkers school is close to 90% right now. you know why that s happening?
they still only want to talk about criminal justice reform like bail reform effectively let criminals out of jail and hold police accountable. instead they demoralize them and not able to do their job. ainsley: to your point there was a movie i watched recently and an interview with guys who been incarcerated who were in gangs the title of the movie is the gang is my father. the gang was my father. brian: it here we go again. pete: remember when barack obama talked about that, at the very least he talked about fathers and families? not black, white, anything. but you don t even hear that today. it s not part of the discussion. brian: he also had that foundation my brother s keeper, i think, he asked bill o reilly and other people to go down there. i thought that was an alarm to minority communities that family matters. pete: yeah. absolutely. in other news, we go to a fox news alert. tropical storm elsa slamming parts of the south as it heads up the east coast. south carolina taking th
hyde park academy high school on the south side of chicago, mr. obama is catching up with them again. james and lazarus are now 26. christian is 25. he says talking with the president back then was life-changing. it was so crazy, that first period that i went to class, it was like, i m going to meet the president on my lunch. like, that was the most inconceivable thing you could possibly think of. then my heart was, like, racing, when we were sitting down, he walked in, i was just like, i m forever grateful and it changed the trajectory of my life dramatically. [ applause ] that meeting had a big impact on president obama as well. one of the things that led him to launch an initiative called my brother s keeper which he announced at the white house in 2014. christian, lazarus, and james were there. james, when you went to d.c., that was your first time out of chicago, right? yeah.