welcome to "our world with black enterprise." on this special episode, we're taking on the current political climate and how it's impacting our community. >> the death of bin ladin marks the most significant achievement of our nation to date to defeat al qaeda. >> that's what's going on in our world, starting now. joining me to discuss the rapidly shifting political ties

and how it may impact you president and ceo of the national urban league. professor of urban studies and author of a new book, and david webb co-founder of the tea party 365. thank you all for joining me. it's a pleasure to have me with you 37. >> this is an interesting moment. we are beyond this historical moment where barack obama comes on television and announces that osama bin ladin has been killed. >> the united states has conducted an operation that killed osama bin ladin, the leader of al qaeda, and a terrorist who's responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women and children. >> i saw a celebration in the streets, democrats and republicans in agreement. >> obama got osama, it's a bit of a return to whatted mood of the country was after 9/11, when

i think there was a unifying sense and a unifying force that the tragedy created that. there's a bit of closure, particularly for the 9/11 families being killed by the navy s.e.a.l.s in afghanistan. is the nation better off if we're unified in purpose? >> you are a conservative. >> yes. >> i haven't heard a conservative yet deny this was the right mission. are there any critiques of this? >> it's a unified thing, i agree with you. there are issues that are outside of race, outside of politics. osama bin ladin's a murderer, a mass murderer who's responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands across the world, and thousands of americans. i don't think you'll find any rational person saying, this was not the right thing to do. >> this is a unifying moment, i

think it does provide some closure, but i am concerned that there may be a revival of some of the kind of islam phobia and hostility toward -- to the muslim world toward the arab world that we saw in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. in this moment, i keep hoping that people remember the kind of -- the wave of revolutions we saw in the middle east and africa, and how we identified with people in that moment. and universal desires for freedom and equality that we saw that exists across borders that transforms our image. in the midst of that, i want us to keep that vision of the middle east in mind. >> i guess that's what worries me sometimes. when we close ranks around something as a nation, we do that as somebody we consider an other. sometimes our fears and the things that bring us together are dangerous. no? >> yeah, i understand, and i

agree with that. in this indication, and i have followed the news reports very closely on this. i have yet to see any backlash against muslims. both president's obama and bush made it clear this was not a war on islam. as a matter of fact, both have made statements to the fact that osama bin ladin does not reflect the muslim faith but is an aberration which is what he is or was? >> i think it's also got to be said, these are not moments when we should rush to engage in hard political analysis. but i do think that this demonstrated a quality about president obama. in effect he spoke -- or walked softly and carried a big stick. this operation was in the planning stages for months and months and months. but at the end of the day, the person that had to make the decision to sign the order was barack obama. and so i want to certainly give the president credit for a great

sense of determination and the way indeed in which it was handled. i don't think that ought to dominate the discussion. it has to be said, because many people questioned whether the president had the determination to make these sort of calls. i think he demonstrated it, not only he did, but he succeeded. let's remember jimmy carter sought an intervention to free the hostages, it did not work. ronald reagan sought a missile strike to take out gadhafi many years ago. bill clinton had an unsuccessful intervention at the branch davidian kpoungd. barack obama has succeeded in undertaking a highly risky, but very important effort. >> shortly after faking office, i directed leon panetta to make the killing or capture of bin ladin the top priority of our war against al qaeda. even as we continued our broader efforts to disrupt, dismantle and defeat his network.

>> what he basically did, he answered the question. and the question has been answered and the debate should be over. >> we'll be right back.

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welcome back. we're here with dr. perry, mark morial and david webb. we're talking about policy issues around foreign policy around afghanistan and osama bin

ladin in particular. i want to shift gears a little bit. david, you had a comment you wanted to make. >> i wanted to add something to what mark said. i understand there are the political credits that's due to the president. after all, the decision is his. this has been an ongoing professional process, whether it was jimmy carter, bill clinton, reagan, bush or whatever. all presidents have to deal with the process that happens to take an action. it's not just, he gets the credit or the blame for the success or failure. we shouldn't ignore the fact that there are professionals that have spent almost a decade tracking osama bin ladin. >> i think one of the challenges, though, is people have accused obama of not being aggressive on terror. he wasn't following the bush plan. >> most of his policies followed what came out of the bush administration, with the war on terror. he's following wartime policy which comes from the professionals. >> does that frustrate you at all? >> no, the president is doing what he said he would do. he always supported the war in afghanistan. he said as a candidate that he

would double up, redouble our efforts, win the war in afghanistan many and that he would get osama bin ladin. he took a different tact in iraq where he said, i disagree with the iraq war and i'm going to wind us down out of that war. you know, it's important to analyze this in a promises made/promises kept analysis. and i sort of look at what the president has undertaken, fulfilling what he said he would do. >> you need to be accurate about this, though. the plan was -- the plan to wind down the iraq war, was negotiated between brennan and nori al malaki in the bush administration. >> it's not about giving credit, it's about -- >> it's about -- >> this plan was in place before barack obama was president. it was part of the military

decision. and this is why i said we cannot just include political without including the process. >> but i'm not -- >> the military. >> i'm not going to let you sit here and diminish the president's contribution. >> i'm not diminishing it, i'm saying needs to be fully correct. >> under the constitution, the president is commander in chief of the military. he has to make the ultimate decisions, i will offer credit. but what this is really all about is too many people sought to diminish barack obama's foreign policy credentials, sought to diminish whether he was committed to taking out osama bin ladin. so what he basically did is he answered the question and the question has been answered. and the debate should be over. >> well, this part of the conversation is certainly over, because i have to change gears a little bit. one of the things mark mentioned earlier is promises kept. he's made promises and kept

them. my concern, and the concern of many people is that he's made so many promises to black people, what do you say to that? >> let me say this. i don't take the position that president obama has particular responsibilities to the black community because he's black. i think he has his particular responsibilities exist because we voted for him in overwhelming numbers. the reality is, we have crisis in black america that are unprecedented at the moment. crisis in terms of education, health care, imprisonment. on and on. and so we do need those crisis addressed in particular fashion, not just by the president, by congress, by our local state governments. we have to be organized in order to get that kind of response, right? so yes i do have that critique of the president, but not exclusively. >> every president has a responsibility to the citizens of this nation, and i think particularly the most vulnerable

citizens. i give the president credit, he's made a lot of important appointments to the courts. his economic policies helped to get the nation out of a ditch. but the unfinished business of more targeted focus on those areas where the unemployment rate is higher. my encouragement has been to articulate an urban policy, to articulate a policy that's more focused on those areas. >> an urban policy? >> i want do push back to you -- this idea of an urban policy seems like he can't say our names. even president bush and president clinton could say i have agendas for black people, gay and lesbian americans. but when it comes to this president, he doesn't seem to say our name why is that? >> i don't know why that is. but it is the case that there are race specific issues. even if you control for class

the discrimination that african-americans experience is greater in consumer purchases, in health care, in education -- i mean, in every area we have evidence that shows there's active discrimination even when circumstances are identical. >> some of the issues that we talked about are economic and job related issues in particular, housing, education, and so forth. there are issues around racism, structurally in society, some of them you talk about in your book that are beyond just one white person and one black person. >> because we see people practice racial inequality in employment in housing, in health care, and education, it's not simply that because black people are more likely to be poor, and more likely to be in areas of concentrated poverty, we get limited access, when you go to the doctor, you're less likely to get necessary tests if you're black, right?

things like that. we need to have some kind of policy initiative that begins to help us control our practices in society so that black people are not systematically disadvantaged. >> how do we enforce -- how do we create a context where people can go to the doctor and get all the necessary tests. >> this is a great question. one of the things they have attempted to do in medicine and people in various fields is to figure out how to address standards of care, so there's not enough -- there's not a lot of discretion that allows people to disadvantage on the basis of rates. they're norms you have to follow through. some of it is controlling processes. the more people know something is a racial inequality we need to keep talking about it because we do better. >> does race matter? >> race will always be a factor

will. where i find agreement with all of you, especially in the fact that we need to focus on poor. wealth, wealth growth. the perception in this country is that if you say there are more poor black people than anybody else in this country? yes, they're wrong. 12% of the population, there are more poor white people. so focuses should be on economic opportunity and economic growth. now, within the black community one of the failures in the black community has been its own empowerment. it's own self-empowerment and taken advantage of what's available to it. you're not going to get 400 years of reversal immediately in decades, because you don't have the basis from whether its industrialization or financial basis for it. it's time to take care of your own empowerment, as for the point why have the president can't say black, my thought is that he doesn't want to be perceived as playing only to black people, because that's political suicide, because then

your detractors will go after you. sadly, politics plays into it. we see political calculus instead of math. >> we have to take a break, when i come back, i want to talk about this big birth certificate controversy, what does that mean? even when you're the president of the united states, right? you still experience a kind of questioning.

welcome back. we're talking about the president and we're now talking about the birth certificate issue. for the last two years, maybe even three years, before he was president. people were raising questions about the president's citizenship. since he's been elected president, the questions have lingers to the point that recently the president had to come out and show his long birth certificate, the full birth certificate, the official hawaiian birth certificate. >> i think it's intellectual ly wrong.

i think it's become a side show. >> no one is prouder to put this birth certificate matter to rest than the donald. and that's because he can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter. like did we fake the moon landing? what really happened in roswell? and where are biggie and tupac? >> you remember tupac? >> my friend -- >> you are where they are. >> let me say this. there are, for every president, if we go back in history, fringe elements that go after them on something. whether it's bush monkey picture, reagan this, clinton this, whatever. the birthers are out there on the fringes. the one thing i'm happy about, if you want to call it -- >> you don't question the president's citizenship?

>> i don't. the extreme elements are off the table. the one good thing about donald trump did, it brought it out and it's been shown and now we can get back to the policies is. as far as the extreme elements, i have a hard time calling people racist and throwing that word around easily, unless they're specific action tells me they're a racist. i -- >> that's a problem i have with -- not just the white/black dynamic. but with any dynamic. >> i think it was pat enltly offensive, it was absurd, ridiculous. clearly it was established long ago he's a citizen. and it smacks of racism because it's consistent with this idea that we're always being questioned, right? the legitimacy, the skill, along with it were these attacks often his academic record that were completely unfounded. >> his transcripts? >> they want these transcripts, and the dynamic this creates is

a collective sense of frustration and humiliation. even when you're the president of the united states, you still experience this kind of questioning. and so for me, it was infuriating, but it also reve revealed something about the persistence of the great nation. >> the infewer yags should have happened in may of 2000 with the boston globe and the washington post and the bush and gore's grades that were put out by them. >> when they were running for president? >> when they were running. and also the same thing with john kerry and the boston globe in 2005, when they obtained transcripts and put them out. confidential transcripts, my point with that is you cannot continue to say that this is a one off and one only -- >> no, but -- >> and no, no. >> the request for transcripts. it was not simply for transcripts. he said he assumed he was an inferior student. notwithstanding the fact that he was editor in chief of the harvard law review.

there's no question that he was an excellent student. >> when you have someone who is a self-proclaimanted billionaire, right? donald trump, somebody who has a degree of respect, has a top television show lending his name to a campaign and leveraging the media like a p.t. barnum we don't need side shows we don't need political entertainment, it's nice to laugh at for a minute or two. when it dominates the airwaves, takes away from what i believe most people in this nation expect of in public discourse. >> mark, dr. perry, david webb thank you for being here. if you have a particular topic you'd like to see us cover, e-mail us at ourworld@blackenterprise.com. aww. you're the best, mr. snuggles. [ thinking another pet name? you're right, puggle-wuggle! [ voice on phone hey, wiggly. all right, i'm smart enough to notice

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that's a wrap for us here. don't forget to visit us at the website blackenterprise.com/ourworld. you can follow me on twitt twitter @marklamonthill. tis. try capzasin-hp. it penetrates deep to block pain signals for hours of relief. capzasin-hp. take the pain out of arthritis.