foundation. the national day of racial healing town hall, live from studio being new orleans. now joined now by chris hayes and join -- >> all right. good evening, and welcome to our town hall of the national day of racial healing and event creating, 60 years ago by our sponsor of the w. e. case kellogg foundation. the specialties held every year on the day after the dr. martin luther king holiday. >> if you look around, you will see that we are in this glorious space, incredible room. it is part of a studio b which is a set of former warehouses turn to an art experience by the artist brandon be mike odoms, here in the by water neighborhood of the great city of new orleans. our colleague jermaine lee who has been doing some reporting for this project is here with us as well and so is the young fella's -- -- the land where we unfortunate to be meeting tonight has made a gathering place and trading hub of different backgrounds and cultures going back centuries. >> and so we want to acknowledge, thank and honor the indigenous people for hume this part of the world has long been home, like the chumuckla, the houma, dozens of others. in a meeting like this in the realm literally, we are drawing on the discuss practice of healing circles, the work we are here to do tonight is for everybody, wherever you came from and wherever you are going, you are all part of the story and you could not find a better spot on earth for our mission tonight, to explore the harm that racism is done to our society and to consider how we might heal from it. now, in a time when those questions feel so urgent for this country, just this week another community is dealing with what appears to be a relationally motivated attack on a college student. stories like these have become all too common and everywhere in the country, everywhere in the country so please have a listen. >> the town of southbury is now the latest to be targeted by white supremacist literature. >> gain racial slurs and words of antisemitism are painted in white. >> someone scribbled hateful, racist rhetoric on the exterior walls and roadways. >> the anti black messages were scrawled with the marker inside a voice restroom. >> racist graffiti at school, white supremacy code angling over the highway, all this incident of hate taking place in this country just in the month of december alone. it is starting to feel like we have reached a breaking point the congresswoman appeared at a white nationalist event on friday. sitting members of congress openly aligning himself with white supremacist leaders. >> guess is an invasion of this country we >> have a little invasion of wallace matt's is fighting over a border for 160 countries. >> number of the l.a. city council caught an audio late last year using racist slurs a. feels like we are backsliding and it is not just violent language, a woman from the philippines recovering tonight from a vicious anti asian kept in yonkers. >> it is a hostile situation in a synagogue -- last weekend, a targeted terrorism of the jewish community. police believe the suspect traveled more than three hours from here to buffalo to carry out the attack as an act of racially motivated violent extremism. >> the justice department naming racially motivated extremism as the biggest threat to our national security. >> dozens of white supreme supremacist march through boston today, hate is on the rise in this country. and it is no longer just looking in the shadows. what do we do? now that racist extremists once again are feeling emboldened to march down our streets? what can we do to stand up to the hate? what can we do to heal? >> joining us now are three women who have come face to face with the hate that is plaguing our nation. >> cohen ochoa's, pulitzer prize-winning reporter and creator of the 16 19 project, which will premiere as a jockey series on hulu. she is now howard university's night chairmen race journalism, also here with us from the anti-defamation league which fights racism and antisemitism globally. and rachel, sorry michelle nation -- is the ceo of awaken. and, the author of the wake up, closing the gap between good intention and real change. so thank you all for joining us, -- part of the discussion. by the way, -- i just want to go ahead and say i am sorry that i bought any names, i do want to start with you, nicole, my friend. you know, i'm so glad that you are here. because, when south africa did sort of a version of it, they tried to do it, they called the truth and risky conciliation in, turns out the truth part is as hard as the reconciliation part for a lot of folks. there has been a resistance to what you have brought to the table, which is truth. and telling the truth about this country, which for a lot of people is more than they can bear. i want you to talk a little bit about what it has been like to experience being a truth teller the way you've been, with the 16 19 project and what you have received in return on a negative side. >> on a negative side. okay. i mean, first i just feel like, to lay the table we have to take stock of where we are. which is, the city that was the largest slave trading city in the united states, and new orleans, most cities we would have one or two places where they would trade african people but in orleans there were 50 spots. if you look at new orleans today, half of black children in the city living powder birdie compared to 5% of white children, so anyone want to talk about healing we have to talk about the truth and we have to talk about how do we stop the harm that is currently being done, then we have to talk about repair and then we can get to healing. this is something we should start with first. so, what we know is that, and the reason we don't want to talk about the truth is that if we acknowledge what this country is actually built on, vic knowledge that the reason that black americans live in circumstances we do is not because of our pathology, but because of a country that was erected literally on extracting wealth from us, then we have to do something about it. so, the backlash that i have experienced, which as you know has been everything from the former president of the united states to sitting senators, to governors trying to legislate against the project, to personal threats, to me is probably my greatest honor. because what it means is that the truth makes powerful people in this country mary scared. i'm glad they are scared. [applause] rachel, we mentioned earlier this awful incident happened in indiana university where we don't have all the details yet but it prepares to be a racially motivated hate crime directed at an asian american. there is a really palpable sense in the reporting i've done the folks i've talked to, asian american folks, of real visceral fear that something has changed or something feels more threatening in the atmosphere. how do you think about that moment right now, what it causes are and how we talk about it in ways that are honest and sort of bridge passed some of the clichés? >> yeah. thank you so much for reporting on the hate crime, i think that this is something that a lot of our community members are aware of in terms of the erasure of what continues to happen around ancient american struggles. i think we would be doing an injustice to all of our community struggles if we failed to connect the dots, back to the 1800s. this is not a new phenomenon, where we are living in a state of oppression. i think that for so long, because we are immersed in the narrative of mock minority mid, a lot of people think that asian americans -- communities at large of doing better than most. and i think that is such a harmful rhetoric that is invisible lies so much of the pain and depression that so many asian americans have been experiencing. not only on the streets, but systemically. whether it is a duck man -- black asian americans, there is a whole plethora of people fighting against oppression in different ways so i think it is an opportunity for us to broaden the scope of conversation and not just talk about the anti asian hate crimes that happened today but also more broadly, over the historical time period. in terms of how we have been oppressed in different ways and indifference fears. >> you know sharon, i want to bring you into this conversation because the thing about american history is that, there have been repetitive traumas that have played out within many communities of color. so you talk about the jewish community, you are a fascinating woman, your from iran and you are jewish. and so you are intersectionality embodied in a person right, so we have also seen along with the attacks on asian americans and along with the continued anti-blackness, content particularly in education, and wanting to resist learning about things that have happened to people of color, there has also been the same kind of fight about the history of what happened to jewish people. there has been an arranger there to, and a push back. they are bending so kind race theory, they're also banning books about the holocaust and we have seen an uptick in attacks on jewish people and jewish symbols around the country. so talk a little bit about how that works, and how, i would love for all of you to jump in and talk about how do we make these conversation up across groups, that we can support one another. >> so first of all, thank you so much for having me here. i am representing atl, the oldest anti-hate organization in america. so when we are founded in 1913, our founders understood, in order to fight antisemitism in the defamation of the jewish people we, need to also secure justice and for treatment for all. so 1913, our founders do that. and we knew that, before the holocaust. we knew that, what is happening to american jewelry will be one that will affect all marginalized communities. we're all stuck in this together. so the antisemitic that we understand in america, we as atl measure through mechanisms that we have, and teams medic surveys of attitudes we, just released one for 2022, highest watermark in decades. we look at incidents of attacks, assaults against jews. highest watermark in decades. again, we look at online hey. we measure that and we see the jews, lgbt, api, those are the groups getting targeted online. that is what a deal does, we have the data that shows that we are in a dire situation right now. and town halls like this are critical to bring this attention to. all >> so you know, there's a sort of abstract sense and there is a political theory about how politics would happen in america right, there's an emerging democratic majority and that it is a country which is increasingly diverse unless white, there would be -- talked about this in the obama coalition he did see asian americans voting for barack obama, african americans obviously, historic numbers of jews as well. but like, in reality and especially if you are around city politics, in the bronx, where i grew up erin orleans, there is lots of beef. it is not like everyone is like oh, we're all fighting the same -- there's lots of beef, there is lots of beef in terms of how groups think about each other, the stereotypes that might have about each other, and i wonder how do you think about pluralism at this time where the threat is very real but there are also a lot of people trying to use pitting groups against each other as a crowbar to sort of pry apart that solidarity and pry apart those sorts of coalitions. >> that is absolutely true. we see it especially in new york, where you have different communities with fear and fearing the other. so jews on black, black on jewish assaults. and it is about going past the stereotypes, that is what our data. shows a, lot of americans believe the conspiracy theories that they read on social media. they believe it. and there's no way to push back against it because the fear that we are all living in today, is the fear of the other. and no matter what the other is whether it is both marginalized communities or -- that is when the hate mongers men, -- kremlin translation, so we don't have our legislators really acting on protecting communities and really are the marginalized communities. >> i go back again to -- project of resetting the understanding of the images of the country, if you were to really upset our understanding we would have to talk about chinese americans and the exclusion of the groups that wanted to come into work but not to stay and not to become american's, or you want to talk about downtown, or as jewish people and black people who are thrown together and now when we start gentrified downtown it is black people being evicted in these groups are not being set against each other, there is so much intersectionality in it and i wonder as a professor, now as a as you are talking about these issues of the back struggle, how do we incorporate that wider story so that we are telling the korean story of across all of these groups. and coalition building? alition building >> the problem is, we are all taught this history so poorly. it's not just that white americans are not learning the history, but that none of us are really learning the history. one of the things that we talk about in my class, it's actually how it's chinese immigrants and black americans who were considered the two groups who could not be assimilated. and before the chinese exclusion act and then after the act, often, you would see black and chinese people being written out of their rights in the law. in fact, the one group who did not achieve citizenship under the 14th amendment were asian americans. and they would have to -- again. again, a very early school desegregation case in mississippi was a chinese family suing not to have their kids in the black school. they were not going to end segregation, they were soon to be counted as white. so it's not learning these histories -- we do have the suspicions of each other. and i always tell, my students, who does the narrative serve? who does the narrative benefit? and when you question that, then you begin to realize that there are powerful interests that don't want us to understand the history, that don't want us to understand the common struggle. and so we are out here fighting for -- and respect while the hierarchies maintain and stays in place. >> i'm curious how you think about this in terms of -- >> [applause] >> -- in terms of identity, right? because one of the things we are dealing with all the time is, like, many of these identities are both created and real, right? so asian american -- from the philippines and from indonesia, there are people from korea and japan and china. it's not all the same place. but it is in the cauldron of -- it's often in the cauldron of american oppression that that identity is forged. >> that's right. >> how do you feel about this identity, asian american or when aapi, at this moment, what is persistent feeling of threat is doing to them as a political -- >> i think it's a complex identity. because, like you said, it is a mix of so many different ethnicity, different groups, that are fighting against, essentially, white supremacy. and up until the 1960s we were known as oriental's. that is very recent. so this collective identity of this political identity of asian america really emerged recently. and i think we are still figuring out how to build coalitions within our communities, we are so much of this conversation can be east asian struggles versus really looking at so many different types of asian people, southeast asian people, and also even the under the category of asian struggles -- we will be talking about people who have been previously incarcerated. are we talking about sex workers? are we talking about undocumented people? because these are all people part of the narrative that are not being visible lies. also, when we are talking about building coalitions, we still suffer so much from the remnants of the political acts that have happened to position asian people as the wedge within the people of color communities, where we, when we go back to history and examine the origin of the model minority myth, being a political weapon that was created by white conservatives to position us as better minorities, compared to people who are marching on the frontline during the civil rights era, who were predominantly black americans -- so really, the fundamental nature of the model minority myth is resting on anti black racism. and so i think that is a really important detail that we need to be addressing and educating all communities around how often this tactic gets used to divide us when the common enemy for us is the root of white supremacy. >> right, and to nikole's point to, the degree to which history is unknown -- the first immigration while this country pass was called the chinese exclusion act and basically said, anyone who could come, but chinese folk -- they don't know. that -- we had open borders for 100 years. dr. sharon nazarian, from the a the l, michelle mijung kim, ceo of awaken, thank you for being here. and nikole, if you stick with us -- >> right, and when we come back, right here to studio b in new orleans, we will be joined by a woman who has spent her life fighting for civil rights. mini jean brown trickie with one of nine students who integrated little rock -- school in arkansas. she is going to join us next. but first, we want to check in with our friend termaine lee -- >> thank you so much, joy. i'm with keith, laura and -- the principal of united home and nation, one of the -- people who call -- home. i want to ask you, native people have experience a unique kind of wounding in this country. and i wonder for you, in that context, what is racial healing? >> it's to be able to acknowledge our contribution to our country, and also to understand all the damage that has been done to the -- people in indian country. and not only that, but to still have a conversation, hard conversations -- we here in new orleans in this beautiful, my favorite city, i am here -- but to be able to still have a conversation about andrew jackson's statue. that has done so much harm to our people. and even the -- indians, the misappropriation there, because it is not our people. and so those are conversations that have not been said here in the city. and our people -- i will speak for our -- people, we built the french quarter, french market, and 99% of the people don't even know that in this city. and -- square where we are at in new orleans, that was some of our ceremonial rounds. we had -- ceremony and most of the people don't know that. and so it's to have those hard conversations about our people here in this country. i mean, this is our land. but people talk to us like it's the past. and in the school system, there is only 27 states in the united states that actually teach native history. and of the 27 states, 89% do not teach tribal -- to the 19 hundreds prior, prior to the 19 hundreds. -- but it's like, wait a minute. we are still here. we have a lot of tribes in the united states and in louisiana. there are five tribes -- 30 something years. and so it is important that we have these hard conversations. because they are very difficult conversations, especially here in the city of new orleans. >> difficult and -- thank you very much. we will be right back. realtor.com (in a 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>> i think it has meant that i did not want any other kids -- no matter who they were, no matter what color -- for that to happen again. and i think that's what i've done as much as i've could with my life. i teach nonviolence and interact with kids as often as i can. i have great conversations in different parts of the world as well as the u.s.. but i just wanted to pick up on the last section and say, what is it that everybody thinks that this stuff is new? this is not new. japanese incarceration -- of course, you talked on chinese exclusion, indigenous genocide, just a whole hatred -- i keep people hearing people talk about death threats. really? death threats? constant. that is the game to try to scare people out of whatever it is they are doing. and i have a story about my three-year-old brother answering the phone. then somebody saying, we are going to come burn the house down, we are going to kill you and all that. and it's the ultimate depravity to do that to a child. but that is the nature of that kind of evil. burn huff or, who was a holocaust victims says,, to speak is to act. and not to speak is to act. so we have this whole constant of people standing by and doing nothing. but anyway -- that's where i am. it is not new. it breaks my heart, as it breaks the hearts of many of us. and i do what i can, and so much of this beautiful space, and these people here, you too -- this woman -- i mean, we are changing it, whether they like it or not. >> and that is your legacy. >> [applause] >> and i think about the bravery that you had to show as a teenager, just to go to school. and i do wonder what your mom said to you as you were talking your books underneath and heading into that national hostile environment, where people were screaming, where peoples moms were yelling, cursing at you. what did she say to you to prepare you for that? what was the thing she said to you before you set off? >> pretty is as pretty does. you are smart, you are talented, and they are just stupid. >> i do want to bring you into this, nikole, because the thing that you have in common is that you have both been on the receiving end of rage for doing something that is very simple. it's sort of asking people -- or trying to learn, or asking people to learn. and that seems like such an elementary thing to do. but the hate has been unreal. i think both of you have experienced it. and i just wonder how this minnijean story falls with you. >> i feel very emotional. i have studied the photos, your heroism. i know you don't like when people talk about your courage. but on my worst day, i don't understand what you went through, and so many people in the movement. so i don't even feel like it's justified to give any comparison at all to anything that i have gone through. and i always reminded myself of that, right, whenever i wanted to feel bad because something has happened, i think about my grandmother, who was born on the cotton plantation. and i think about people like ms. minnijean who -- to be clear, right, we want this to be so far in the wee or view mirror. we want to act like it was so long ago, why don't we get over it? nobody wants to get over this more than black people. >> [applause] >> so, when i think about healing, i think, who really needs to hear it are white people. i think that the idea that -- yes, we have gone through a lot, we have experienced a lot of trauma. we are still being harmed. but the people who caused the arm or the people who need to do the healing, the reflection, the fixing, right? >> [applause] >> it if we were just left alone, we would be healed by now. i am grateful to be in your presence and to be able to tell you out of my own mouth what everything that you did has meant for someone like joy and myself to even be in a room like this, having this conversation. >> thank you. >> i'm just honored. >> [applause] >> okay. so, activism is a life sentence. >> i love that. >> really -- because, there is always something. there is environment. i'm an arrested environmentalist. i have gone to jail. because i see all of this as related and it is about power. now one of the things, for instance -- little rock story usually has one page in american history books for young people. what a denial of our children, because it is so complex. they could learn all about court, they could learn about mob violence, they could learn about persistence of the human spirit. they could learn about journalism, actually. and yet we deny our children truth. and they love truth. they desire truth. so we have an obligation to give them truth and give them complexity and so this is how i see what i said earlier tonight, that 16 took something that usually took a page. >> -- >> the daughters of the confederacy said it in my history book at central high school. they said, slavery was good for black people in the masters were kind. so she took something and showed the complexity and the residents in how it keeps reverberating and how we keep seeing it happen. and so that is the beauty of that, to me, is to bring complexity to things in honor of our children, who want to know more than you do. i almost can't deal with old people, okay? >> [laughter] >> i love it. and we love you. i have to say, when i look at those pictures, what i want to ask is, the white women and men who are screaming, what is it that you think you are losing? because i think one of the reasons people are afraid to confront this history and give it more than a pages that they might have to ask grandma, or might have to ask grandpa, what did you think you are going to lose if minnijean sat in the class with your child? >> yes. >> and that's the question we don't ask when we talk about history. we actually have people of color actually having this conversation, among one another, and we wanted to be done. but where the only ones talking about. so we have to start asking those questions of outside of our own group. i want to thank you very much. minnijean brown-trickey, civil rights activists and -- author of the little black mind and nikole hannah-jones, journalist and puller pulitzer prize-winning -- i love saying -- that creator of the 16 19 project. >> [applause] >> -- divided our community and -- back together. new orleans white house mayor advisor nick -- >> have you ever met any of the -- true ♪ [ chuckling ] ♪ and i hope whatever you've got to do ♪ ♪ is something that... ♪ [ music stops ] [ beeping ] cars built with safety in mind, even for those guys. the volkswagen atlas with standard front assist. ♪ ♪ okay everyone, our mission is complete balanced nutrition. together we support immune function. supply fuel for immune cells and sustain tissue health. ensure with twenty-five vitamins and minerals, and ensure complete with thirty grams of protein. dupixent helps you du more with less asthma. and can help you breathe better in as little as 2 weeks. dupixent is an add-on treatment for specific types of moderate-to-severe asthma that's not for sudden breathing problems. dupixent can cause allergic reactions that can be severe. get help right away if you have rash, chest pain, worsening shortness of breath, tingling or numbness in your limbs. tell your doctor about new or worsening joint aches and pain, or a parasitic infection. don't change or stop asthma medicines, including steroids, without talking to your doctor. ask your specialist about dupixent. migraine hits hard, so u hit back with ubrelvy u level up u won't take a time-out one dose of ubrelvy works fast it can quickly stop migraine in its tracks within 2 hours without worrying if it's too late or where you are unlike older medicines, ubrelvy is a pill that directly blocks a protein believed to be a cause of migraine. do not take with strong cyp3a4 inhibitors. most common side effects were nausea and tiredness. migraine pain relief starts with u learn how abbvie could help you save. ask about ubrelvy, the anytime, anywhere migraine medicine. who's on it with jardiance? 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this >> -- >> post world war ii america, as urban planners look for ways to expand cities into suburbs, many so-called original projects targeted places neighborhoods -- like treme. >> -- >> -- with an eye toward healing. neighborhood folks have been meeting in neighborhood workshop known -- as coming up with ways to help the neighborhood recover from the ocean to build a highway here. >> america and new orleans particular has a habit of just ignoring african american communities. and we need to turn a page on that. or else she will be back in the situation again with another issue -- >> proposals to reconnect tremé include everything from tearing down the freeway to infrastructure improvements, like new lighting, removing ramps and reinvesting federal grant money into the community. >> that is my mom. take a picture, right there. that's my mom. -- >> -- hold on to the neighborhood because -- >> that's right. because of my family. >> susie grandmother was born in tremé in 1890. her grandmother was born here in 1932. she was in grade school when highway construction began in 1966. >> people back then did not have politicians -- to fight for more. i'm not saying our people didn't fight. i believe they fought. i believe they did not want things to happen. but during those days, come on. >> she worries if the freeway is torn down, families like hers will be pushed out of the already gentrifying neighborhood. >> and the people that live in this community that want to stay in this community, leave us some part of something. >> activists amos -- huge cement pipelines now stand. >> why do you think this inter station should be torn down? >> because it doesn't do anything good for the community. >> it's a serious, serious quagmire. you are not going to be able to fix all that you tore up. you can't. what's you tear something up, it's humpty-dumpty. you can't put it back together again. >> how do you put a community back together again? trymaine lee has been here in new orleans reporting that story. and he joins us now, along with mitch landrieu, the former mayor of new orleans, who now works the with the biden administration as a senior and visor on infrastructure spending. mayor mitch landrieu is the author of in the shadow of statues, a white southerner confronts history. also with us -- one of the coolest names you are going to. get who worked on the claiborne corridor in the mitch landrieu administration and now a equity officer for the -- equity -- mayor, mitch landrieu we will start with you. -- [applause] i'm going to put you in the hot seat, because this is the challenge you tear down a highway and whether it is here or in over town or in miami or in five points at denver, -- came in and black meat is got displaced. now you have a community that is, there you tear down the highway, you impact him in a more negative way. you can't necessarily do that. you do the improvements -- gentrification, suddenly it's attractive to rich folks and subway people are displaced. what do we do? >> first of all, thank you for having us here, and it's great to be here, especially with the descendants of -- john ferguson. thank you for having us. we face this in new orleans. and as you just mentioned, this problem is crisscrossed across the nation, whether you're talking about miami, whether you are talking about tulsa, whether you are in the bronx -- anywhere that you are going to, go you have the same problem, because there was a design to actually separate neighborhoods. and the consequence of that design is what we are facing today, and the -- boys working on it when i became mayor. we asked for a grant to try to study the problem, because someone said, hey man, before you go tear that thing down, you might want to go ask people what they think. which i thought was a pretty good idea -- i think we got two point $7 million -- as the folks in the community and i think you can testify more to this than i can. but i think you are surprise that there was some level of ambivalence about what happened. and for talked about this a minute ago. what happened was a travesty but what you are about to do may actually add to it. so, how are we going to add to that problem and the answer is that you have to be intentional about. you have to ask people about it, you have to think about -- with the resources right now. and -- to talk about. but it is a real challenge all across the country to ask the people in that community, what do you want to do now to repair the damage that was done. >> assata, i would love to hear about that process, because when people say the community, it's a single ear singular word, but people have different opinions. right? so that is where it gets tricky. >> people have different opinions, but what we did throughout our process is that there is a way to reach broad consensus. and you are never going to get everybody to agree. but when you present people with the information and first of all you allow people, particularly when we are talking about the home of interstates, not just in new orleans but throughout the country as you mentioned, this was a designed to put in the states through prosperous black and people of color business districts and poor neighborhoods -- that was the basis of the design. and you can read all about it. but if you are not coming at those places with the same energy, if you are not coming to people with the same -- when we started this process, most of our members don't even know this but i was sitting outside of his office and i was hearing him in the communications talking about, how do we need many more community meetings do we need for this project -- is the most community meeting project we ever in the history of new orleans. it's because we kept listening. we had a series of four or five -- you specifically -- you need to talk specifically to young people. and we did that. so you have to keep listening. >> and trymaine, there's always a question of the money. because i think what winds up happening, and you can -- on this as well, mr. mayor, is that the money comes in, the biden bucks come in, the infrastructure money starts coming, you start doing the development, and you look around at the construction side and there's no one that looks like the three of us -- >> that's right. >> you are not seeing the money -- the people who are actually doing the redevelopment are not black. they are not from the community and so that is a another challenge. and i wonder when you talk to folks, is there wherewithal in the community or the development beginning to make sure that the contracts can actually go to people related to the community? >> when you talk to the community, there certainly is the wherewithal. folks are not naive, ignorant or down. they understand the forces at play. i was here after katrina. and i remember reading in the newspaper that katrina did what no other force. they got black people out of the city. -- ran through the black community so that other communities can exploit and extract the resource and get them from the cities to the suburb but also to manage -- in that community. and certainly there is a concern. but i think one thing is interesting. you talk about, there is no real consensus. some folks -- tarrytown because it's a symbol of white supremacist violence, an abstract form of violence, infrastructural racism that, they have to live there. i was talking to folks that were around when claiborne avenue was lined with big old oak trees and businesses and people playing and lovers holding hands and now it is -- and debris and crime. and so how do you put a community back together again when you know the same forces still exist? and when that money comes, 99.99% the chances, it's not going -- to >> one of the things that has happened right now, and this is the first time it is happening 50 -- is one point you trillion dollars has been laid on the table to rebuild road roads and bridges and airports and waterways. and this is the first time that president biden's bill actually does this -- four billion dollars is dedicated to projects that will re-connect communities that are very similar to the one that is being proposed in tremé. but you see this all over. and there is a very significant attention to make sure that the -- 40% of the benefits are in neighborhoods of color. and when this money gets to the ground, 90% of it is going to be spent by governors and mayors. the level of intensity that has to be placed on them to make sure that money placed on the community, with people in the community, to make sure that folks who looked like those in the community are working on the project is really critically important. >> -- >> -- the right governor, but also unique law backs, you need things bill. so, whenever the government does something they make sure that there is all an economic analysis, right? to make sure that everything around money is tight and that it cannot happen if the money isn't right. well, it if it hurts black people, it shouldn't happen either. there should be an analysis. >> [applause] >> -- and while we are super excited about those trillions, we know that it takes 600 million just to take the interstate here down. and that is just to take it down. and so our people are like, you are going to spend 600 million on that but we are sitting down here for underneath -- >> -- to justify. asali devan ecclesiastes, thank you very much. >> trymaine lee -- podcast -- america, and mayor mitch landrieu, we have some questions for you. please stay with us, we will be right back. 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[applause] >> as our audience arrived tonight, we asked them to give their thoughts on what racial healing means. i'm going to be just a couple. racial healing injustice and reparations. it means first admitting there is still racism, that racism is still alive and well -- >> and this one is a good one. rachel healing is true reconciliation in action -- the awfulness and obese with the goal of doing the hard work of repair. >> trymaine, thank you for that. there is a lot of ways to foster healing. the first is that there is always accepting that there is work to do. >> one way to start that working through a healing circle, a powerful safe space in order to promote healing within a community. it is about getting to know your neighbors, asking questions, maybe even changing your mind. and joining us now is lejune montgomery lebran -- we also have hector sanchez flores -- national come padres network. and back with us, former new orleans mayor mitch landrieu. -- people not familiar with the work the foundation is done on racial healing. what is your intro top line to what that work, is what it looks like? >> it's all about improving the lives of the most vulnerable children but we know that children live within the context of their families and families must support them and committees must be equitable places for families to live and thrive. so our work is all about improving the lives of children and structural racism impairs the ability for children and families to thrive. >> i am curious, hector -- i would love to you to explain to me what healing zerkel is, what does it look like -- you have conducted them. what happens and healing circle? >> first, we come to recognize the layers that sit within us, that we have to consider reflecting on and in doing. what things have we learned along this process?