money out of the police department and put it into services. >> i think completely defunding the lapd and putting it into community services ranging from mental health, health care, just like community, public schooling, like job support. literally anything but funding a system that thrives off policing our bodies. >> reporter: thank you very much. and ali, here let me swing around here and give you guys a shot again of city hall. you know, that's a big question in los angeles. where is that money going to go that's come out of the lapd or will come out of the lapd? at least the city leaders say will come out of the lapd. where will it be allocated and will it be enough for the folks out here. >> from the people i've been talking to we just heard no. the person we just talked to wants to defund the los angeles police department entirely. the mayor said that's not going to happen. there's a lot of work to do out here and that's what you're looking at right now. >> jacob soboroff in los angeles for us. the protests over the past 12 days have brought much needed attention to the problems of systemic racism and police misconduct, but it's important to remember the devastating personal loss faced by the family and friends of george floyd. this week floyd's close friend, former nba forward steven jackson spoke about the loss facing floyd's 6-year-old daughter. >> why do we have to see her pain? why do have a see a daughter getting raised without a father? but you know what, there's a lot of stuff you said he's going to miss that i'm going to be there for. i'm going to walk her down the aisle, i'm going to be here to walk your tears. floyd might not be here, but i'm here for her. i'm here to get justice and we're going to get justice for my brother. and some kind of way we're going to get it. >> joining me now is steven jackson looj with his friend the retired nba star al harrington. thank you for being with us. you grew up with george floyd in texas. you called him your twin. and i think in all the talk of protests and legitimate talk about policing and racism and brutality, it is important we don't lose sight of the fact that a man with a life and a family is dead. tell me about your friend. >> somebody i loved, somebody who really supported me, a stand up guy, damn sure guy that shouldn't have been murdered like that. he spread too much love. he worked too hard to be a great father and spread love around the world. every video i post, it shows floyd saying how much he loved the world, how much he loved people so that's what he was. he's just a great guy. he's definitely going to be missed. >> his daughter you were talking about, 6 years old and she seems to have realized the impact of his death. let's just play this for a moment, please. >> dad changed the world. >> he did what? >> daddy changed the world. >> daddy changed the world. what do you, stephen, hope that his legacy is going to be? >> well, i hope when you hear the name george floyd that'll be the name of change. obviously since he passed, you know, i stepped up and started a movement, man, and this is the first time we've seen 50 states and 18 countries protest at the same time, so i want his name to be the name of change. i want his name to be the name of equality. i want his name to be a name of fairness, you know, and justice, and that's what i stand for. that's what i'm going to fight for and we're going to get it. >> al harrington this week the nfl commissioner roger goodell said the league was wrong in the way it handled players who kneeled during the national anthem. that's such a change for the nfl who really demonized colin kaepernick. do you think it's spreading through all of popular culture and sports to realize we have problems and we have to deal with them together, these are not one-offs? >> yeah, definitely. i think what stephen has done and all the people who got behind him and support and pushed his movement is bringing a lot of change and meaningful. when you think about hearing states like california and having the mayor of l.a. saying like they're going to take funding away from police to invest in social equity, and then obviously big corporations now making stances like nike. and then obviously roger goodell, you know, finally waking up and understanding what colin kaepernick really meant, you know, by kneeling. it had nothing to do with the plaque. it had to do with black people being senselessly murdered by people we paid to protect and serve. >> stephen, one of the things you said is you are not going to let anyone demean the character of your friend. we are in a situation now where protesters are pitted against police. and the only way to get out of this for some people who are on the wrong side of it is to demean the people who have been killed by police, to say they were criminals, to say they were doing bad things, to say they were threatening. how do you prevent that from happening? >> well, telling the truth. it was done to me my whole career. i went to the aid of my teammates twice and i missed a lot of games and all-star stuff because people made me out to be something i wasn't. i know they're trying to do that with my brother and that's why getting ahead of it. and i know for a fact why he was in minnesota. he went there to work, and a lot of people can assume. a lot of people can guess and try to make up stuff but we know who he really was and what he was doing in minnesota, so i'm here to stand on that. i have a voice and i'm going to use it. >> you are using your voice. al harrington, what change do you you want to see if the world is inflamed right now and looking for change. what change do you want? >> biggest change for me i just want to see police officers held accountable. even myself in my adult life i've been assaulted by the police three times. just as recently ast year in l.a. i'm seeing where obviously i was profiled, i was driving a rolls royce and cops came up to my car guns drawn, took me out, and asked me did i have guns in the car and how did i afford this car. at the end i feel like police have been really abusing their power. and when they do abuse their power they're never held accountable. and i also feel there's some unwritten rule amongst them where they don't step up and hold each other accountable when they know other officers have abused their powers. so we just want to see that change. and obviously outocide of that we want to see just more equality. we feel we deserve reparations and different things like that, and we just want to see black people get a fair playing field to go out and be successful in this world just like everybody else. >> you guys do have voices and you are using them. thank you for that. stephen jackson is a friend of george floyd, former nba player and al harrington, former nba player. from the looks of it most of the protests have been peaceful. we'll check in with the mayor of harrisburg, pennsylvania, next for the demonstrations in his city. sylvania, next for the demonstrations in his city a new perspective. maybe we'll see things we've been missing. maybe it'll help us see just how connected we all are. and maybe... just maybe, if we look at the big picture... it'll remind us just how amazing freedom really is. did you know that 70% is located in your gut? so, by keeping your gut healthy, you keep your immune system healthy. try align daily immune support to help naturally support your gut health and boost your immune system, formulated with a quality probiotic strain, align helps power your health from the inside. it adds more good bacteria to your gut, which works naturally with your body to help strengthen your immunity. for a daily boost for your health, take align every day, with a money back guarantee. also try align gummies to help support gut health and a strong immune system. i geh. common bird.e. ooh look! over here! something much better. there it is. peacock, included with xfinity x1. remarkable. fascinating. -very. it streams tons of your favorite shows and movies, plus the latest in sports news and... huh - run! the newest streaming app has landed on xfinity x1. now that's... simple. easy. awesome. xfinity x1 just got even better with peacock premium included at no additional cost. no strings attached. just say "peacock" into your voice remote to start watching today. in pennsylvania a peaceful prayer vigil was held in hara harrisburg today. the community is saying it still isn't enough and it's calling for more action to be taken against police violence and inequality. it was announced late yesterday the city's going to be taking up the eight can't wait challenge, that consists of eight policies local governments can adopt to decrease police killings and they've been shown to work. joining me now is the mayor. thank you for joining me. good to see you. let's talk about first of all what's going on in the streets of harrisburg. >> well, it's a beautiful saturday here in harrisburg. it's peaceful. we had protests and demonstrations this afternoon, a prayer vigil on the capitol steps and everything wept very well. i have to say despite some of the violence we had about a week ago all of these protests have been a great success because we've seen people coming together to demand change at the local level, and i think it's very important that locally elected officials like myself get out, join the protests, and work for that type of policy change. >> that's interesting because the way you characterize that is the basis on which this country was founded, protesters, and then it's good and then local officials are the servants of the people. but that's not really what we're seeing all over the country. so how do we ensure that people do see this as taxpayers, citizens wanting positive change, wanting to be kept safe by their police? >> well, that is what we're seeing in harrisburg. and on saturday a week ago we had some violence around the protests that occurred, and immediately following that both the governor of the state of pennsylvania and myself were out marching peacefully through the neighborhood of harrisburg with the protesters. governor wolf then announced after that march he's going to push for a number of very serious and important changes on the state level including the creation of a new inspector general position to oversee and look out for police abuse on the state level. and on the city level we've announced a number of initiatives including as you mentioned the eight can't wait. and we've setup an e-mail account and taken an actually extraordinary step of inganling with the protesters in a dialogue about how we can make meaningful reforms on the local level. and i think that is the model that our country was founded on, and i'm hopeful it will be a model throughout cities in america. >> so the eight can't wait, i was talking to someone part of that campaign earlier today. there are eight things on that list. six of them look like they can be implemented very quickly. two of them i wonder about. that's something that's going to require better training than police cadets get, longer training, a level of training that in many small places like harrisburg it's hard to get that kind of curriculum in. what's the way to get there because the other things like banning choke holds, requiring mourning before shooting you can implement that policy almost immediately. >> and it should be noted we do have that as policy already. if you look clearly in the general orders it talks about a use of force continuum, it talks about methods of deescalation that are put into practice every day in our city. and you've seen this at play very recently, but your point is correct which is that it's going to require focusing on training, and that's going to require resources. and governor wolf, at least on the state level has been very outspoken in saying he's going to make sure these resources -- harrisburg is the capitol of pennsylvania, which buts it in a sort of unique position because we've got protests all the time, and we're part of on over lapping in our city. we have city police, the state police. all those different agencies not only need the type of training you're talking about but also to make sure they're coordinated so that there's one common message that is being seen throughout all these protests. >> and a lot of protesters would like one common message across the country about what use of force feels like and what rules apply to police, but we'll start with local officials and local mayors and local police forces. mayor, thanks for joining me. tonight is the 12th straight night of protests demanding justice and action in the wake of george floyd's death. we're going to check in with my colleagues after this break. my colleagues after this break. hi. uh, can you tell me how to get to i-70, please? o-okay, are you -- ah, yes. thank you. switch to progressive and you can save hundreds. you know, like the sign says. let's be honest. quitting smoking is hard. like, quitting every monday hard. quitting feels so big. so try making it smaller, and you'll be surprised at how easily starting small can lead to something big. start stopping with nicorette. in an unprecedented crisis... a more than $10 billion cut to public education couldn't be worse for our schools and kids. laying off 57,000 educators, making class sizes bigger? c'mon. schools must reopen safely with resources for protective equipment, sanitizing classrooms, and ensuring social distancing. tell lawmakers and governor newsom don't cut our students' future. pass a state budget that protects our public schools. it is now past curfew in many cities across the country but protests are still in full gear. the demonstrations have been calmer but still mighty proving nearly two weeks after floyd's death the anger has not subsided. my nbc news colleagues are with us tonight. chris jansing outside the barclay center in brooklyn, new york. cal perry in louisville, kentucky. it is a different scene than it was a week ago. chris, i hadn't seen you in person in a few months and then i ran into you on the streets of new york the other night. what's it looking like tonight the. >> reporter: it has been unbelievable the enormity of the people turning out. here this is called black women matter, a tribute to breonna taylor who did not live to see her 27th birthday. no sign of anybody leaving even though it is after curfew. one of the speakers said the reason so many people turned out in the middle of a pandemic is because there's been a pandemic going on for over 400 years. it's called racism, and another woman singing the famous sam cook song" it's been a long time coming but change is going to come" except he wrote that song in 1964. if there's a theme between the four different marches it's people saying we're tired of politicians saying change is going to come and it never does. this time we're going to make sure it does. i was at washington square park for almost four hours. it poured several times. there were so many people, they were pouring into the streets. and i talked to a young man named lou. he told me how tired he was. i hear that a lot, how exhausted everybody is but why he had to come out. and as you listen to him you'll hear him stop for a while trying to collect his emotions. take a listen to what he told me. >> it's the pain of seeing these things happen over and over again and seeing nothing changing. it's the pain of screaming and yelling and crying and not having your voice heard. it's the pain of years and years of frustration. it's the pain of -- of lives taken over and over again. >> reporter: and again for many of the people i have talked to today it's painful for them to watch and i've been on the streets of new york for the last seven days what they say is overly aggressive policing tactics. over 2,000 people have been arrested since the beginning of this but only about 40 last night. you can see over here there's a pretty good police presence. we are surrounded by groups of police, but so far they've shown no signs of doing what we have seen with many of the marchers, and i've watched this night after night after night. i think you saw it you and i saw it, ali. they do something called kettling. they essentially work for marchers to get to a certain point after curfew, they surround them and then they have a choice to go home or be arrested. the problem is now the da's here in brooklyn and bronx and manhattan have said you can arrest them but we're not going to prosecute them. and what these folks say is we're peaceful, we're wearing our masks, why are you doing it, it's too much. one more thing. you remember earlier in the week when mayor de blasio was asked about it he said enough is enough. when we say it's a curfew, we have to enforce it. i asked the young woman today standing in the rain why she was still staying there and she looked at me and she said in a very different light, "enough is enough." ali? >> good to see you, friend. stay safe out there. chris jansing in new york city. in louisville, kentucky, protesters there still demanding justice for breonna taylor who would have turned 27 years old yesterday. her boyfriend who lived with her thought someone was breaking in. he armed himself. he had a licensed firearm and he fired several shots at them. police returned the fire shooting taylor eight times killing her. it later surfaced the person listed on the police warrant was already in custody at the time of the raid. nbc's cal perry has been there for a little more than a week. we were all in some rough spots a week ago. you looked like you were in a war zone. >> reporter: yeah, this was a war zone, this square. and the thing that made it a war zone were snipeorrs on the roof and national guard coming through. the local police are now engaging with the community in a way that is totally nonviolent, completely nonthreatening. the national guard has disappeared and its allowing people to do this march and do it peacefully. this is now day 9. i would echo what chris jansing has said if you question people's dedication to what's happening out here, people are tired, they're hot but still here. you mentioned, of course, breonnna taylor. she is the person people are rallying around. today we saw people making giant birthday cards for her. we saw this beautiful moment where thousands of balloons were released into the sky and we saw local authorities taking part in that. now, we're still waiting for the investigation into her death. the fbi has taken over that investigation. the three officers who went into her apartment are on administrative leave. people here want to see changes. the police chief was fired. he was going to resign this month. he was fired. i think that made a difference, but, again, just to reiterate i think what chachlged henged her louisville in an incredibly dangerous situation is the national guard withdrew. the governor said that's what would happen. the police have broken off and they've started to engage with this crowd. it's made such a difference. we do expect the protests to continue tonight and for there to be protests again as well. it was violent at the beginning of this week and now it's a virtual party out here. >> cal, you and i had a conversation last night and i just want you to repeat this for our viewers because your experience a lot of it has been outside of the united states. you have worked in war zones, and you were talking about how you would cover this if this were somewhere else. >> reporter: yeah, and it's really difficult because we're from here and i'm constantly checking myself as a journalist who's from here. but if we were to sort of report this from overseas it would sound something like the executive branch is shutting down peaceful protests in this country. unmarked security are in the streets to suppress freedom of speech, you know, making your political opponents enemies of the state is something that we've seen. it's just sort of one thing after another that seem tuesday be slipping away, and i think -- look, when you talk to people here they'll tell you they're concerned about the elections. they're concerned about the security of the voting systems, when they hear president trump, say, for example, mail-in voting is fraught with fraud. who's going to monitor this election if donald trump the president continue tuesday say the things he's saying? people here were legitimately afraid of the national guard. when we came here friday night the national guard fired tear gas, yelled at us the media to get out of here. that was something new and really stark for a lot of people. there was a sense around the country something here in louisville something had changed and something had changed forever. you and i don't want to be the story anywhere we go, and there we were in the middle of it because we were singled out. i was having a conversation somebody came up to me yesterday why aren't you marking yourselves as media and i said i don't know that's the right thing to do anymore. if a foreign journalist leaves america now they're leaving their newsroom to go to combat zone. that's what's changed. >> i've never worn a bulletproof vest in america. i've never carried a gas mask in america. i've never worn a hardened helmet in america before this. stay out there and keep reporting. nbc's cal perry in louisville, kentucky. breonnna taylor should have turned 27 years old yesterday. her mother marked her daughter's birthday by remembering how she lived. she spoke to new york zag swreen's the cut saying, quote, i think she was destine today be great. she lit up a room and had this aura about herself. she did everything right. she always wanted to do anything that would help her be a better friend, a daughter, a girlfriend. i was definitely in awe of her. it's hard to breathe without her. it's hard to think about her. she was so much like me it's unreal but she was a much better version. the white house is arguably the most well guarded product in the world. we're going to talk about that when we come back from our break. t that when we come back from our break. what do you think? i don't see it. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ puberty means personal space. so sports clothes sit around growing odors. that's why we graduated to tide pods sport. finally something more powerful than the funk. tide sport removes even week-old sweat odor. it's got to be tide. the white house is arguably the most well guarded property in the world. this week we saw it turp into a fortified bunker in a militarized zone. blocks of tall black fencing have been put up around the white house as protests over the police killing of george floyd made their way to 1600 pennsylvania avenue. protests which have continued today. hundreds gathering on the president's doorstep to call for change. nbc news political reporter monica alba joins us now from the white house. adbuy midnight last night i think he tweeted i don't know what the actual count was but it was about 200 times yesterday alone. >> reporter: it was a new record for the president who issued more than 200 tweets and re-tweets in a 24-hour period break his previous record of about 140. that is where we have heard a little bit from him today. we saw what's known as an early lid here at the white house, which means they told us early in the day he wasn't going to be addressing americans on camera or expect today go anywhere. so he has used that social media m megaphone to amplify his message. as you see those tens of thousands of people just steps from where i am. and a week ago this is when you would hear sirens, clashes with police, more intense confrontations. tonight we really hear music. it's a much more lighthearted and up beat coming together which is clearly heard from it north lawn. and as we see this weekend the president was actually planning it be at his new jersey golf club in bedminster, but aides a couple of days ago sat down and reviewed what would be in their eyes potentially bad optics of the president to be at his own private property while all this was going on just outside the white house, so they decided to scrap the trip. instead he's here with no public events on his schedule. but as you've been showing images all hour, ali, of those lafayette square gatherings that new mural, that black lives matter commissioned by the d.c. mayor he has been been critical but he hasn't acknowledged that nor acknowledged the new name of that plaza, black lives matter put on the streets where we are here tonight but we do see heightened security presence and large fencing components just added a few days ago, ali. >> thank you as always. monica alba for us at the white house. despite yesterday's positive jobs numbers we got the unemployment number yesterday, deep economic inequalities in this country have hardly changed in the past 50 years making it even harder for african-americans to survive the devastating financial difficulties that have been brought about by the coronavirus pandemic and ensuing financial crisis. "the washington post" this week published a brilliant analysis of this problem that read in part, quote, in many ways the gap between the finances of blacks and whites is still as wide in 2020 as it was in 1968 when a landmark civil rights legislation culminated in the fair housing act. in response to centuries of unequal treatment of african-americans in nearly every part of society and business, end quote. joining me to discuss the stark economic divide, robert rice, the former secretary of labor under president bill clinton and a professor at berkeley. he's the author of "the system who rigged it and how we fix it." good to see you again. thank you for being with us. by a few key measures whether it's household wealth or the gap between white and black unemployment there has been a persistent difficulty for african-americans to bridge that gap. average median household wealth for african-americans is somewhere around $17,000. for whites it's about $170,000. what's the issue, and how do we fix it? >> well, it is systemic racism. there's no question about it, ali. and it has to do from everything to employment discrimination to housing discrimination to discrimination with regard to health care and the difficulties that african-american, black people have in creating wealth and this issue, by the way, it's not just 50 years. it's been going on since the founding of the republic. i mean, it's impossible to create wealth if you are systemically discriminated against in terms of housing and every other vehicle for creating wealth. >> so let's say systemic racism, yamiche alcindor yesterday asked the president how he's going to deal with this issue in america we're facing at the moment. his response was the economy. but if as you describe racism is built into the system then the rising of tides is not helping african-americans the same way. so the idea the economy is going to get better and everybody's going to be happy which trump has been carrying on about for 3 1/2 years actually doesn't solve the underlying problem when it comes to african-american wealth and prosperity. >> absolutely not. that's why the issues in this country we feel ambivalent about whetherat whether it's affirmative action or fair housing or any other issues having to do with not only redistribution but also the rules of the games themselves. we've got to and i hope that we are seeing in the demonstrations, in the terrible violent footage of what happened to george floyd, what happened to breonna taylor, the issues people are talking about now, hopefully we are reaching a point at which the consciousness of not just black america but white america has really embraced this notion of systemic discrimination. again, it's not just individual employment discrimination. that's part of it, but it is the system itself. >> so i think to the extent you use the word ambivalent and i think to a lot of people who are not in the midst of these protests, it's someone else's problem in someone else's town or maybe it's in your town but it's still someone else's problem. what do we get out of the ambivalence? how do we get to the point we realize if we are benefitting from a system short changing an entire group of people then that system is bad for us, too? >> well, there's no easy formula, ali. and obviously we have not achieved that, so mainly talking about consciousness raising is not enough. it's got to turn into politics and power. we have seen in this country before there have been movements, but those movements don't turn into political action and political change unless there's a strategy behind them. and i hope that this very, very powerful movement, this outpouring of support for reforms and changes and really a fundamental systemic changes not just in police and policing but also in our system themselves will translate into political change. we've got to talk about power. and if we don't talk about power in this country we're just fooling ourselves, and we're just doing sim bombing things that really don't alter the underlying structure. >> how do we alter -- andre perry from brookings was on with me today, and he said if you take the median black house in america and you pick it up and parachute it into a white area that house will be worth more 22% more immediately. so the house which is big part of wealth for a lot of americans is also not there for a african-americans. you could be dealing with someone that has a higher rate, lower value of the property they own and that's a long way to achieving equality. >> and one way we do it through laws which actually penalize banks in a big way for red lining. we know a lot of big banks in the last 5 to 10 years have reached settlements with the justice department over red lining, bet red lining still goes on. it is still very, very difficult for black people to get the kind of housing that is going to grow in value over time. that's just one of the many, many issues that have to be addressed. >> robert rice, good to see you as always. thank you for joining. robert rice, the former united states secretary of labor in the clinton administration. to continue this discussion dwrpt to welcome the founder and ceo of the center for economic inclusion. tawana, thank you for being with me. let's continue this conversation. african-americans are not equal in american society -- i'm sorry, we do not have tawana. do i still have robert reich, is he still there? i want to ask you something because you were the former labor secretary. you had a chance to see the numbers came in yesterday. and i spoke to kevin hassett a few weeks ago who thought that 14% was an underrepresentation of unemployment. drops to 13.3% yesterday, but it has a big asterisk about the way the survey was conducted and how there may have been a mischaracterization. so the point is that that 13.3% is probably a few percent higher than that. >> yes, it's probably about 16.1%. the point is, ali, there's no victory lap to be taken here. we are still seeing level of unemployment both white people and black people that rival the levels of unemployment we saw in during the great depression of the 1930s. and black unemployment is higher, it is almost always higher than white unemployment. that is a huge problem. but let's not kid ourselves. the level of white unemployment and black unemployment together is just by historical standards is extraordinary, and it's not going to go away soon. the bureau of labor statistics is very, very competent. i don't think there is any question of any manipulation of the figures. i trust the bureau of labor statistics, but it's very, very hard to collect the data during the pandemic. >> yeah. bob, thanks again. robert reich is the former u.s. secretary of labor, professor of public policy at california berkeley and author of the system. tawana black is with me, it founder and ceo of economic inclusion. let me ask you about african-american small businesses. african americans are suffering disproportionately in this recession and pandemic as is always the case for structural reasons we were just talking about as are african-american businesses, too. businesses enriches the kind of wealth that gets passed on. what's your view of how this plays out? >> i think we have a real opportunity to not only be thinking about investments we're making into rebuilding those businesses who have been burned, those businesses who have been looted but make sure businesses are not just reopening but businesses have real ownership in the buildings they are operating inside of. and that can take place both through certainly corporate contributions going out, but also through policies that were just mentioned by our last guest on the show, making sure our public institutions, our state government, our federal government are actually investing in black businesses intentionally and ensuring that wealth is transferring into those businesses, that we think the blocks they're on but also we see venture capital investment taking place and intentionally investing in those black owned businesses. >> one of the things we've seen in these protests in the last couple of weeks is major businesses, fortune 100 companies coming out and making statements unlike i have ever seen before in favor of black lives matter and that movement. how do we translate that into economic gains for african-americans? because to understand that african-americans are subject to police racism and brutality has to be part of a larger understanding that african-americans are subject to systemic racism and inequity across the board. >> i think the words you use are very intentional and it's important to note we can't translate that into real gains. those corporations can translate that into real gains in black communities by ensuring their words are in line with their actions, those investments take place not just right now in the heat of the moment, that we see sustained investment coming out from corporations. we've seen corporations like nike, united health, bank of america make significant announcements in investments they intend to make in black communities. those are great to hear. we need to make sure those investments land in the hands of black owned businesses and black led institutions and it's not only right now but be see it sustained, because we're talking about 400 years plus of disinvestment and undercapitalization of blacked own businesses, black home owners, black families and we've got a lot of making up to do. and it can't be undone by the investments they're making in politicians, policies and other businesses that frankly are not in our best interest. >> it's a tall order, but maybe, maybe everybody's ears are perked and maybe this is time when some of that change can happen. thanks for joining me as always. violent protesting is ingrained in this country's dna. but there's a double standard when it comes to who gets away with it and who gets attacked for it. ets away with it and who gets attacked for it for colon cancer, don't wait. because when caught early, it's more treatable. i'm cologuard. i'm noninvasive and detect altered dna in your stool to find 92% of colon cancers... ...even in early stages. tell me more. it's for people 45 plus at average risk for colon cancer, not high risk. false positive and negative results may occur. ask your prescriber if cologuard is right for you. i'm on it. that's a step in the right direction. riots, protests, uprisings. they've all shaped the united states through history and got us to where we are today as a country. but is there a double standard when it comes to the american riot? that's the question posed by kelly carter jackson's piece in "the atlantic." nationwide protests against police killings have been called un-american by critics but rebellion has always been used to defend liberty. joining me now is kelly carter jackson, historian and author of "force and freedom, black abolitionists and the politics of violence." good to see you. thank you for being with us. i want to quote from your story in the atlantic. riots have a way of magnifying not only the flaws in the system but the strength of those in power. the american revolution was won with violence. the french revolution was won with violence. the civil war was won with violence. a revolution in today's terms would mean they lead to black people being able to access and exercise the fullness of their freedom and humanity. tell me what you mean by that. >> so i think that when -- i'm in a classroom with my students, and i talk to them about major change in history. look at an historical timeline, pinpoints. every single major moment in american history has pivoted around some form of force or violence. the american revolution, the haitian revolution, the civil war. world war i or ii, vietnam, post-9/11. all of these moments involved some form of violence or some form of force to create systemic or structural change. >> there's an nbc/marist poll that asked americans, do you think the demonstrations after george floyd's death are -- and these are the options. 62% said legitimate protests. 28% said mostly people acting lawfully and 10% said unsure. how do you distinguish. i understand the point you're making. this country and many countries were built on violent protests against illegitimate government or lack of freedom. do you distinguish between protests that become violent versus what some would classify as looters or people who engage in deliberate violence? >> sure. i think we have to realize in america we've had an intense double standard, particularly when it comes to black protesters. so when you think of like michigan state winning a game and the city gets turned upside down. michigan state losing a game and the city gets turned upside down. but when we look at black protesters and when there are facets of looting or violence, we make that the center instead of talking about the real grievance which is the fact that a man is dead. that george floyd is no longer with us. breonna taylor is no longer with us. she would have been 27 as of yesterday. ahmaud arbery is no longer with us. i push back on this idea a lot because i ask people what's more important? the destruction of capital? the destruction of businesses? or the destruction of black bodies and black communities? we have our priorities wrong when we pose that question. >> how do we change snat how do people recalibrate their priorities because they think what they think. philadelphia enquirer senior journalist has been relieved of his job after putting a title on a story that said buildings matter, too, or something like that in response to black live matter. >> yeah, that's a real problem for me and it's something that i'm constantly having to reorient people to understand the major grievances. martin luther king said it best. a riot is the language of the unheard. if we're unwilling to listen to the grievances of black communities and people who are in pain and devastated by the fact that hundreds of people have been killed, unarmed by the police, if we don't focus on that and make that the major issue in the center of the narrative, we will lose what's really important about these protests and what's at the heart of these protests. >> riot is the language of the unheard. kelly carter jackson is an historian and the author of "force and freedom -- black abolitionists, the politics of violence." thank you. good to see you. that does it for this hour of msnbc. catch me back here tomorrow morning from 8:00 to 10:00 a.m. on "velshi." after the break, the coverage continues with my colleague joshua johnson. sion to life and save in more ways than one. for small prices, you can build big dreams. spend less, get way more. shop everything home at wayfair today. can leave you holding your breath. ♪ but bristol myers squibb is working to change things. by researching new kinds of medicines that could help you live longer. including options that are chemo-free. because we're committed to bringing new hope into lung cancer care. you ever wish you weren't a motaur? sure. sometimes i wish i had legs like you. yeah, like a regular person. no. still half bike/half man, just the opposite. oh, so the legs on the bottom and motorcycle on the top? yeah. yeah, i could see that. for those who were born to ride, there's progressive. i'm joshua johnson. good to be with you from nbc news world headquarters in new york. it's the 12th night of protests after the death of george floyd. thankfully, and not surprisingly, they have been mostly peaceful. curfews started here in new york an hour ago. that has not stopped the demonstrations, as you can see. practically no big city's curfew has. in washington, many thousands of people spent the day marching down the newly renamed black lives matter plaza, one of the streets that leads to the white house. at times the protest was very lively. parts of the crowd were even dancing. meanwhile, in north carolina, they danced with the holy ghost at a church service for mr. floyd. the memorial was in his hometown of raeford, north carolina. that was preceded by a public viewing. more police officers are coming under scrutiny for their actions during protests. in buffalo, new york, an elderly man remains in the hospital tonight after this happened.