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Aug. 17, 2025 03:09-03:53 - CSPAN

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Washington Journal Robert Woodson

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mimi geerges

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unidentified		From Washington, D.C. to across the country.
		Coming up this morning, we'll talk about the economic and domestic causes behind foreign conflicts engaged in by the United States with author Ivan Eland.
		And we'll discuss the efforts by President Trump to move homeless encampments from D.C. and what the federal government does to provide assistance with National Coalition for the Homeless, Donald Whitehead.
		C-SPAN's Washington Journal.
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mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Welcome back.
		Joining us now to discuss President Trump's actions to address crime in Washington, D.C. is Robert Woodson.
		He's founder and president of the Woodson Center.
		Welcome to the program.
unidentified		Pleased to be here.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Tell us about the Woodson Center, your mission, and your funding.
unidentified		I founded the Woodson Center 44 years ago in Washington, D.C. I'm a veteran of the civil rights movement.
		Became disenchanted because the kind of gains that low-income people did not benefit from the gains of the civil rights movement, that when the doors are opened up, those of us with college education walk through, but left behind.
		I also broke ranks on the issue of forced busing for integration.
		I believe that the opposite of segregation is desegregation, not integration.
		So that put me at odds with the movement.
		And so I left and began to work on behalf of low-income people of all races.
		And that's been the mission of the center, to provide a place where the voices of those that are locked out, economically disadvantaged, can have an opportunity to prosper.
		And so the Woodson Center has been established to do that.
		We're like a Geiger counter.
		We go into low-income communities.
		Instead of looking for pathology, we look for strengths.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And your funding, is it mostly donations?
unidentified		All donations, both large and small.
		We have a base of about 16,000 donors all over the country.
		And we're very blessed to do that.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Well, as you know, this week, President Trump placed D.C. police force under federal control.
		He cited out-of-control crime.
		He also talked about homelessness.
		This is for 30 days.
		So first, what was your reaction to that news?
		And if you think 30 days, what you think could happen in 30 days?
unidentified		Well, I'm not so sure that.
		First of all, we wouldn't be talking about crime if he didn't do that.
		So that's good.
		I'm glad that he put that on the first on the agenda.
		But I think bringing the federal government into federalized things, I'm not so sure that that's the answer, but at least it's a beginning.
		It's like putting a tourniquet on a wound.
		It's crime suppression.
		It's not crime prevention.
		It may be good for the short time to stimulate discussion and action about what should be done.
		But it's a temporary measure to, I think, act as a catalyst.
		But it gives us an opportunity now to focus on how do we prevent crime.
		And that's what the Woodson Center has been engaged in by involving those who are suffering the problem in their solutions.
		Low-income people have been passive over the past 50 years in remedies to address poverty in America.
		Someone said that when bull elephants fight, the grass always loses between the right and left.
		And so what we do at the Woodson Center is give voice to the solutions coming from the communities suffering the problem.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Are you conflating the issues of poverty with crime?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		In other words, is it mostly low-income people that are doing the crime?
unidentified		I don't conflate crime because I don't think being deprived is synonymous with being depraved.
		I don't.
		But the reality is a lot of low-income communities are plagued with crime and violence, and that is preventing them from developing.
		And so I don't associate it necessarily with poor people, but the reality is that when these communities are in distress, violence is a consequence of that distress.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So let's talk about the root causes, because crime is more concentrated in urban areas on a per capita basis.
unidentified		It really is.
		But I think it's important that the big divide in America is not really between blacks and whites.
		It's between those in America who believe in redemption and those who believe in despair and conflict.
		The very fact that we have crime in low-income communities over the years has, there are solutions.
		The solutions is among people suffering the problem.
		I think it was Chuck Twendell, Charles Swindell, Pastor, said that 10% of who we are as a people is external.
		90% of who we are is our attitude about the 10%.
		And for years, the low-income communities have been racked with despair and crime because of the people living there have been ignored and their priorities have been trampled upon.
		And therefore, what we do at the Woodson Center is go into those communities and apply a different approach to solving poverty.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So what has worked?
		You've been doing this for 44 years.
		So you should know what works and what doesn't work.
unidentified		Yes.
		First of all, what doesn't work is parachuting into these communities professional services to aid the poor.
		And what we have done in the past with the poverty programs, we have undermined the very institutions in these communities that enabled blacks to survive in the past.
		We look to the past, for instance, and there are naysayers who say, well, the problems we're facing today is because of institutional racism, legacy of slavery, and Jim Crow.
		Well, we look to the past for examples of resilience.
		And so part of what our research is is how can we learn from the resilience of our past when whites were at their worst, blacks were at their best.
		For example, we talk about education.
		At the turn of the century, there were five major high school black high schools, all black high schools.
		This is during a time when racism was enshrined in law.
		We have five high schools, one in Brooklyn, New York, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, and New Orleans.
		They had used textbooks, half the budgets of white schools.
		Every one of those black high schools out-tested the white schools in those cities.
		We closed the education gap between 1920 and 1930 in the South from three years to six months because Julius Rosenwald partnered with Booker T. Washington and they built 5,000 schools.
		So it was, so during the 1930s, the black marriage rate was higher than any other group between 1930 and 1940 during the Depression.
		So there's evidence that what really enabled blacks to survive during Jim Crow was the value system in the institutions that they designed and built themselves.
		And so what the Woodson Center does is go back and reflect on and learn from these valuable lessons.
		And then what we do is apply them today.
		We don't look at that.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		But I want to let people know that they can join the conversation.
		Republicans can call us on 202-748-8001.
		Democrats 202-748-8000.
		And Independents 202-748-8002.
		Robert Woodson of the Woodson Center will be with us until the end of the program.
		So tell us about how you...
unidentified		Let's take an example.
		28 years ago here in Washington, D.C., there was an area called Benning Terrace.
		It was a public housing development where there were 53 murders in two years in the five square block area.
		The police were afraid to go in there.
		I had been working with a group called the Alliance of Concerned Men.
		These are seven ex-offenders who had been redeemed and were giving back to the community.
		And I said to them, you have the trust of officials and the kids on the street, but no one can measure your effectiveness.
		And a 12-year-old boy was killed there.
		And I said to them, God has chosen your venue for you.
		Go back and go to that community and bring the leaders' warring factions together.
		They went in there and through their trust that they had moral authority and social trust, they were able to bring, identify the 16 boys, just 16.
		And they came to my office downtown.
		I provided, I mean, and they came to the table for a truce.
		And so when the kids said, no one ever asked us to be peaceful, but because of the moral authority and influence that the alliance had, the boys, they identified with them, the boys agreed to a truce.
		Just 16, that's all.
		And after the truce was signed, the housing authority came and provided jobs for them to clean up the very community that they had destroyed.
		And the Woodson Center raised some private dollars for them.
		And so the boys went back into that community, 16, and began to remove graffiti.
		They became coaches to the kids.
		So once the character of these kids changed, their characteristics had an advantage because they had the respect to the younger kids.
		And so as a consequence, these predators that have now been converted to ambassadors of peace served as moral mentors to the younger kids.
		They started three football teams.
		And now people who used to run from them began to run to them.
		So the whole community was transformed and redeemed.
		The Housing Authority was going to tear it down for $13 million.
		But now because of the peace, they were able to take a million of that and invest it in the Alliance of Concerned Men.
		And so for 12 years, we did not have a single crew-related murder.
		The Woodson Center extracted the principles that worked in Benning Terrace, and we have adapted that to Baltimore, Atlanta, Georgia.
		Bernie Marcus, the founder of Home Depot, came to visit us to see firsthand what we were doing.
		And as he was leaving, some junior high school kids saw our older guys who are youth advisors, and they ran up to him and hugged him.
		Bernie said, you can't lip-sing that.
		That's true community.
		And as a consequence, he funded us to start the program in Atlanta.
		We did it in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
		The same approach.
		When you are seeking cures for snakebite, you take the venom of the snake and inject it into the body to trigger the body's own immune system.
		The same principle works here, where you take people from the community and they stimulate the neighborhood's own immune system.
		So they become antibodies.
		So the way you reduce violence is they insinuate them into the community so they begin to have a moral influence over the whole community and it gets redirected from pathology to purpose.
		And so we've done this now in other cities throughout the country.
		Milwaukee, Wisconsin now has adapted it as a part of their school budget.
		We have young adults maybe 10 years older than the kids.
		They're from the same moral and spiritual and geographic zip code.
		And they become moral mentors and character coaches.
		They become surrogate fathers and surrogate brothers and sisters.
		So we have a whole movement around the country that we've demonstrated that this approach can work.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I want to bring callers in, but I just want to ask, like, how do we scale that up?
		I mean, it sounds wonderful, but is it having an effect on a wider scale?
		The cities that you mentioned all have high crime rates, and residents there don't feel safe.
unidentified		They can, but there is a resistance to these unorthodox approaches because elitism is the biggest barrier that we face.
		The assumption is that only professional providers can help people because untutored is unwise.
		But our grassroots leaders have moral authority, but the qualities that make these leaders effective make them invisible because they're not whining and protesting.
		They're not talking about racism.
		They're just busy doing their work.
		But it can be scaled because we've demonstrated it in Milwaukee, Wisconsin for 20 years now, and it's been in part of the school budget.
		Not a single scholar from either left or right came into these communities to inquire as to the success and how we began to write about it.
		And so the biggest challenge that we face is that indifference on the part of the professional community.
		If they didn't create it or invent it, they don't acknowledge it.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Well, let's talk to callers.
		We'll start on the independent line in Albuquerque, New Mexico with Brian.
		Good morning, Brian.
		You're on with Robert Woodson.
unidentified		Hey, good morning.
		Pleasure to speak with you.
		Here in Albuquerque, a growing trend is the violent criminals are getting younger and younger.
		We just recently had 12, 13, and 14-year-olds caught doing armed robberies.
		And of course, they had bags of fentanyl pills in their car with them.
		And they're trying now, our leaders are trying to update our criminal justice code for the juveniles, which badly needs to happen.
		But in my mind, it's the parents.
		How do we get the parents held responsible for what their children are doing?
		They're running wild on our streets all night long, and nobody wants to do anything about it.
		You know, our juvenile jail is full to the guilds.
		Our county jail is full.
		Our DA and the political types, you know, they don't want to put people in prison.
		You know, the Democrats, they don't want to see black and brown boys in prison.
		They say, oh, they'll just come out worse.
		We've got to give them another chance, let them go.
		And then they do another crime, and then they murder a few people.
		Then they decide to put them in prison.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Ryan, we got that.
unidentified		I totally agree.
		And I mean, personally, I have lost a brother to violence on the streets.
		I've also had a nephew shot to death.
		So I'm aware of that.
		But we must exercise control.
		There have to be consequences when people injure people.
		So, no, I think we need to be tough, but we need to be smart.
		We need to combine restrictions on kids, but we also have to redirect them.
		Our grassroots leaders are in these communities.
		A lot of times, the older young men serve as surrogate fathers.
		For instance, our coaches at Benning Terrace, they have worked with the mothers and they work with the mothers and the teachers by establishing strict rules that boys have to obey their mothers if they are going to practice in a football team, and that means a lot.
		So we've been able to exercise parental control of these kids, working with the parents through this kind of approach of using surrogate young men as big brothers and fathers.
		But if we can just invest in these local solutions, these local antibodies, I can tell you that we can bring about a dramatic reduction.
		I can send you information about how schools, South Division in Milwaukee and Pulaski High School, was overrun.
		And dramatic changes have occurred.
		And kids are finishing school.
		And the Pineywood School is a 115-year-old black boarding school in Pineywood, Mississippi, where all of the kids are from urban centers, but 100% go to college from that school.
		So there are examples of moral excellence.
		We just need to invest in them.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		When you say invest, how much is this going to cost?
unidentified		Millions should be invested.
		Right now, we spend $50 million to Abraham Kindy's at Boston University to study racism.
		Harvard gets $100 million to study ancestors of who founders who own slave.
		That's just two institutions, $150 million.
		If we took a fraction of that money and invested in these neighborhood institutions like the Pineywood School, like the Alliance of Concerned Men, like the Running Rebels in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, there are a number of on-the-ground resources that have demonstrated that they can redirect the restore the values and behavior of these kids.
		We just need to properly resource them and properly recognize them.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's talk to Rhonda in New Jersey.
		Democrat.
		Hi, Rhonda.
unidentified		Hi.
		Good morning, America.
		I just want to comment that I think everything Trump's doing in Washington is just a cover up for white supremacy and taking over Washington and turning it into his little mini Kremlin.
		He's putting these National Guards out here to start picking on young black men.
		Now, Janine Sapero is coming out saying we should start locking up 14-year-olds.
		They're looking for young black men.
		They're against browns and blacks.
		He wants to turn the country white, and they're all criminals.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right, Ron.
		Let's get into response.
		Go ahead, Mr. Woodson.
unidentified		Well, first of all, the question is: you know, what is your solution?
		You know, it's fine to sit back and whine and complain about white people doing this.
		I don't believe that our destiny as black people is determined by what white people do or don't do.
		If we were able to maintain strong families, even during slavery, 75% of slave families had a man and a woman raising children.
		When we were denied access to hotels, we built our own.
		If we were able to accomplish these things in the face of a raw racism when racism was enshrined in law, why can't we do the same thing today?
		We need to stop whining about what white folks have done to us or propose to do for us and instead become agents of our own uplift, building on the past success and applying those values to our present day challenges.
		That's what we need to do.
		We need to stop whining about what white folks are going to do to us.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		What do you make of Janine Piero, who's the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, wanting to charge younger juveniles as adults?
unidentified		I don't think that that's the solution.
		They're immature.
		And I don't think that is an approach that works at all.
		In fact, there are several states that tried it, and the reoffending rate is higher among that group.
		That is not.
		But we do need to restrain these kids.
		We do need to, but there has to be something, some intra measure where they are, where the public is protected, but it's wrong to send them into the adult system where they'll be victimized in these prisons.
		We must move beyond trying to be tough and be effective.
		And I'm telling you that I have spent a lot of time with young people whose lives have been redeemed.
		And I think that the Alliance of Concerned Men works with 150 of these hardened young men every week.
		And I think we need to intensify this mentorship of people who can witness through people.
		Values are caught, not taught.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Janice, Republican in San Diego, California.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Janice.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I absolutely love most of what he's speaking on because I grew up in San Diego, California, the majority of my life.
		I got into trouble one time.
		I was 13 years old, 14 years old.
		And a couple of me and my friends were at the 7-Eleven, and a young girl came out, and she was white.
		And a couple of the young ladies that I was with at the time, I didn't know very well, went off on her, started to jack her up, and went there and basically harassed her.
		She called us the N-word.
		They grabbed her purse, they took off.
		Me and another one of my friends never touched her, didn't get a dime.
		Nothing in that purse.
		She had $1.24 in that purse.
		I was arrested at my high school because it was a lunch break during school.
		We were arrested.
		Me and one of my other friends were arrested, went to Juvenile Hall.
		I went before the judge and the judge told me, because I grew up in a very nice neighborhood, pretty affluent.
		My parents both worked.
		My father served the military.
		I got recommendations from my teachers who said I was a great student and I had a good future, blah, blah, blah.
		Went before the judge.
		The judge had told me to my face, he said, Ms. Bradley, if you ever come back in my court again, I will throw the book at you.
		But because I see your recommendations and that you have a future, blah, blah, blah.
		It scared the hell out of me.
		But I was also put on probation.
		I abided that.
		Kids need to have fear.
		The problem today is they have no fear.
		They fear nothing.
		They have no repercussions.
		They have no consequences.
		And it's sad because instead of people looking at the actions of the people and the persons that are doing this, all they're looking at is their race.
		I don't give a damn if you're black, if you're white, if you're Mexican.
		If you invade my space and you hurt my people, I'm going after you.
		I don't care what your race is.
		And for people to go there talking about, oh, Trump wants to turn this into a white racist, this and that, that is absolutely absurd.
		Crime doesn't have a race.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Okay, Janice, thanks for sharing your story with us, Mr. Woodson.
unidentified		Yeah, and I totally agree with you.
		There is a crisis, but you know, something was just reported to me that one of the institutions that we looked to to rescue these kids was a KIPS school.
		There was a series of charter schools that were started 25 years ago, profile, I think, where they had the highest standards for urban kids.
		There are about 5,000 kids attending 15 schools.
		Well, recently, the founders of the KIPP school suddenly got a pang of white guilt and said that as a white man, I do not have enough to fully understand how systemic racism and specifically anti-blackness impact you.
		The slogan reflects white supremacy.
		In other words, what he was saying, it's racist to expect kids, black kids, to conform to the standards of society.
		To me, I would rather be hated than patronized.
		And so it is important for us to realize that solutions exist, that we need to be inspired by examples of these solutions and get behind them.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Let's take a look at what President Trump said about crime in D.C. on Thursday, and then we'll continue our conversation.
donald j trump ▲ ● ▼		Half of the people here, maybe all of the people here, most of you live in D.C., you are petrified to go out.
		And you're liberal.
		And if you're liberal, you're going to have to change.
		You're Democrats.
		You're going to have to change your ways.
		So we will have crime under control very shortly in D.C.
		But there are record numbers.
		And sadly, what I guess the mayor did, but whoever it was, they asked the numbers to be fudged so that it would show less crime than the fact.
		The fact is, it's worse than it's ever been.
		And we will have it just like we did at the border, where borders are totally in great shape right now.
		The best ever, record-setting shape.
		We'll have the crime situation solved in D.C. very soon.
		And we're also going to beautify the city.
		We have a beautiful city, but you can't have graffiti and you can't have roads with potholes and you can't have the medians, the dividers in the roads falling down on the street.
		We're going to be beautifying the city, making it really beautiful.
		We're going to be getting the criminals the hell out of here.
unidentified		We don't want the criminals in Washington, D.C. Mr. Woodson.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		I want to ask you to comment on the Congressional Black Caucus.
		They put out a statement, and here is a portion of that statement.
		We'll put it on the screen.
		Taking over local control of the D.C. Metropolitan Police and deploying the National Guard under the guise of public safety puts residents in danger.
		This unprecedented attack on D.C. home rule is a blatantly racist and despicable power grab, and it won't stop in Washington, D.C. While we don't know yet, we don't yet know the full impact this decision will have on D.C. and the black and minority communities Trump has suggested he may target next.
		We do know this: militarized over-policing will inevitably lead to increased fear and mistrust among communities that have too often been treated as occupied populations rather than as citizens who deserve to be served and protected.
		I wonder what you think of that and if you agree with what they're calling militarized over-policing and increasing fear and mistrust.
unidentified		When, you know, I can best quote a young man when the Klan came to Washington, D.C. was demonstrating.
		A Washington Post reporter went up to an 84-year-old man in Broad 8, one of the highest crime areas here.
		They said, what do you think?
		Are you going to demonstrate against the Klan?
		He said, bring them down here if they can get rid of these drug dealers.
		He was not being some conservative uncaring about race.
		His reality was very different.
		The very fact that less than 9% of people in high crime areas in these cities even vote in the mayor's elections means there's the height of apathy.
		The great promise of the civil rights movement was if you put blacks in charge of these cities, the police departments, the school systems, the great promise was conditions will improve for all blacks.
		Well, some of those same members of the black caucus have been in charge of these cities for 50 years, where the very conditions continue to deteriorate, not for all blacks.
		There are 1,600,000 black millionaires, and the number of blacks who finished college has dramatically increased.
		So if racism were the sole culprit, the question is why are not all blacks suffering equally?
		So the black caucus needs to come up with their agenda for solving these problems.
		What is their agenda for reducing violence about investing in these communities?
		They have none because they profit off of the despair of low-income communities.
		And that's a reality that we must confront.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		On the Republican line in Georgia, Carolyn, you're on the air with Mr. Woodson.
unidentified		Yes, good morning.
		It's good that the Wilson Center, the Woodson Center, is up and running, and also the King Center.
		There are lots of centers in this country, and we need more and more hundreds of thousands of centers across the country to really help these children.
		The King Center is doing a very good job, but there are a lot of people in the community that do not take advantage of them.
		My understanding is that these children are being upheld in wrongdoings.
		That parents behind closed doors are accepting what they are doing sometimes.
		And I've heard a young man to say, young student to say, well, I'm the man of the house, and whatever my family need, I'm going to get it by all means necessary.
		So they go out and bring things into the home, and the parents accept that.
		That's behind closed doors.
		And not only the parents are upholding these children, all kinds of people are upholding them in wrongdoing.
		It used to be said that wrong is wrong and right is right, and these children do not understand which is which.
		And I don't know who are teaching them that wrong is right, but somehow we are teaching them that.
		And this bail thing that no cash to get out, that needs to be eliminated.
		And President Trump is doing a lot, and he's doing very good by doing this to the Capital City because it's a wonderful place to visit, and people need to go in and be proud of that city, D.C. Rev. And so I'd like to know, I know the Woodson Center is a good center and the King Center and a lot of others, but how many more centers do you think we need?
		Because money is being poured into the black community.
		Millions and millions of dollars, all kinds of money being poured into the schools, the community, and we're not getting any better.
		So what about more centers, thousands of centers across the country?
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		All right.
unidentified		Part of what the Woodson Center is trying to do is really develop what we call our Joseph Fund, a $50 million pot, so that we can bring together these islands of excellence.
		The St. Mary School in New Orleans that has 600 urban kids all going to college for the past 17 years.
		The Pineywood School in Mississippi.
		There are other islands of moral and spiritual excellence that exist all over the country where these values are on display.
		The voices of Black Mothers United, thousands of moms who've lost their children to suicide, I mean, to homicide.
		That's a part of our strategy.
		In Racine, Wisconsin, for the last half of the year, the homicides, not a single homicide, because of these community-based interventions.
		So I think the will to achieve is there.
		What we need is the resources to bring these healing agents together so that they can begin to reach the public with these solutions.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Diane, a Republican in DeSoto, Kansas.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Good morning, Diane.
unidentified		Good morning.
		I'm just going to say I'm just blown away, impressed with this wonderful man and his approach.
		I'm donating today.
		I don't have a lot, but I'll do what I can.
		And I just urge others to do the same.
		Thank you so much, Mr. Woodson, for what you've done.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And following that, we got a text from Kendra in Richmond, Virginia.
		She said, Hello, Mr. Woodson.
		As an African-American woman, I love that you are a guest today and you are speaking truth and are mentioning solutions.
		How can people get in contact with you or follow you?
unidentified		Well, you can follow us at the Woodsoncenter.org, 1776unites.com.
		We have a curriculum that celebrates our past accomplishments.
		We have an animated series, for instance, of heroes from the past who have succeeded.
		We have a curriculum that has now, that goes out to all 50 states.
		It's been downloaded over a million times.
		So we are a center of solutions and oriented.
		But also, I think that what we must do as a nation, someone said we must speak to the longing in the hearts of a majority of Americans to re-embrace the values of love of God, love of neighbor, love of country.
		And so people are motivated to change when you show them examples of victories that are possible.
		Not always showing them injuries to be avoided.
		And the Woodson Center has examples, endless examples.
		So please be in touch with us, the WoodsonCenter.org.
		We would love to hear from you.
		We'd like you to participate with us.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And donate.
unidentified		And donate.
unidentified		Always donate.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Your center has established something called Violence-Free Zones.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Can you tell us what that is and where they are?
unidentified		The Violence-Free Zone is what I said at the beginning, where we have a program like the Alliance of Concerned Men, where groups like they come into a school.
		We teach them on our model, where you hire, let's say, if you have a school of 1,000 kids, they're influenced by 10%, and that 10%.
		So we have six or eight young adults who are transformed predators to ambassadors of peace.
		They go in to the school and become part of the school staff, but they are liaisons between the kids and they develop trust with the kids.
		And as a consequence, they are able to redirect that small group that, and then as a consequence of changing and redeeming them, they begin to influence a whole school.
		So we have taken over whole schools, transformed them from the most violent to the most peaceful, where suspensions are down.
		And so that program is in place for 20 years in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. is our most celebrated one with the Alliance of Concerned men.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		And can it not be in all high schools in Washington, D.C.?
unidentified		It should be in all schools, not just urban schools.
		The biggest crisis you see we're facing today is not racial, it's moral and spiritual that is consuming our children.
		According to a Harvard study, the leading cause of death for urban kids, black kids, is homicide.
		The leading cause of death for Appalachian whites is prescription drugs.
		And that the suicide rate in Silicon Valley is six times the national average.
		So it doesn't surprise me that if we keep bombarding our kids with the message that they live in a racist society, if you're white, you are a victimizer.
		If you're black, you're a victim.
		Where does that lead us?
		And that therefore our young people are victims of endemic forces, institutional forces that prevents them from exercising control over their life.
		That's a lethal message.
		Maybe the kids begin to believe that it's because they're unworthy.
		So we must stop this naysayers.
		We must stop the nihilism.
		And we must say to our young people, your destiny is in your own hands.
		And we need to provide the means for them to be inspired to improve themselves and stop all the naysayers.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Here's Naomi in Silver Spring, Maryland, Democrat.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		Hi, Naomi.
unidentified		Hi, thank you so much.
		And thank you so much to the guests.
		I agree this is an incredibly important topic and it's a complicated and new ones.
		I wanted to add or You made a statement earlier that kind of caught my mind and made me pause, but if policies were racist, that you would see the same outcomes across the board for black people in the United States.
		And I think then we could also add in white folks in the United States.
		But I think that that in and of itself may be a racist idea.
		I want to just pause this because it assumes that any exception to the norm or that any outcome that's not based on faith or the expected is an exception so that black folks who are succeeding are an exception to the norms or white folks who are in poverty are an exception to the norms.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		So Naomi, let me just explain, because you've got a bad connection, what she's saying is when you said earlier that if there was systemic racism, then all blacks would be doing poorly.
		And there are obviously very successful African Americans in this country.
		So she says that that in itself is a racist belief that you would have across the board results from systemic racism.
unidentified		Well, why?
		But the assumption is all blacks, the people who make that claim do say that it is across the board.
		That's a racist assumption.
		In fact, mine is just the opposite.
		I'm challenging that racist assumption.
		I'm saying that it is not across the board.
		They're not being affected.
		So no, I agree with you, but I'm not making the assumption.
		But those who use systemic racism as a rationale for what they do, they are the ones who are making the race case.
		Kurt, New Jersey, the Independent Lion, can you be quick, Kurt?
		Yes, Robert Wilson, I am honored to speak with you.
		You are a mentor of mine, your words.
		God will be holding the door for you someday.
		And I think of, you know, I have a healthy white fear growing up in a black neighborhood and being outnumbered.
		And to this day, you know, I can still have that fear.
		But I pray that we find the fear of God, which is the understanding of love.
		I think that's what compels you.
		Thank you.
		I will never forget talking to you.
		Well, thank you so much.
		I believe in this country's values.
		And I know from reading the history that the best is ahead of us.
		But we must stop whining and complaining and looking for each other's, that we should look for positive some solutions and not blame the past.
		We are a country of redemption.
		We are a country of second chances.
		And you can learn nothing by listening to the voices of despair and dissension.
		We must put them behind us.
		And it's not just conservatives or liberals.
		Someone once said that evil is evil, and we must unite against evil.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		It's Robert Woodson, founder and president of the Woodson Center.
		You can be in touch with him at WoodsonCenter.org.
		Thanks so much for joining us today.
unidentified		Thank you.
unidentified		It's been a blessing.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼		That's it for today's Washington Journal.
		We're back again tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. Eastern.
		Thanks everybody for watching and have a great Saturday.
unidentified		C-SPAN's Washington Journal, our live forum inviting you to discuss the latest issues in government, politics, and public policy from Washington, D.C. to across the country.
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