Hello, Van.
Hello.
How are you?
I'm on the Ellen show.
You are.
It's your-- you're on the Ellen show and it's your first time
and we have a policy of showing embarrassing photos.
And we couldn't really find an embarrassing one,
but we found one with hair.
So we have one photo to show that--
[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]
Wow, where did y'all find that?
I don't know.
That's somewhat embarrassing.
Yeah, there's a--
[LAUGHTER]
Now, that is-- that's my year after I
graduated from law school.
Yeah?
Yeah, I'm not joking.
Yes.
So how long ago was that?
I don't want to tell you.
You look good with and without hair.
Thank you, Ellen.
You really do.
That's very good for my self-esteem.
First of all, I really am happy that you're here, because I've
been wanting to talk to--
about this.
I've been wanting to address this issue.
And you are the perfect person to talk to about this.
Recently, there have been so many African-American men who
have been shot by police and nothing seems to change.
Yeah.
I can hardly talk about it without getting emotional.
I'm furious.
As a white person, I'm ashamed.
I see what's going on and I think,
how is this possible that this keeps happening and nothing--
there's just blatant racism.
And it hurts me.
Yeah.
It really hurts me.
I mean, there was just recently a 14-year-old boy was lost
and went to knock on a door to look for--
just to ask for directions.
He was lost.
And they shot at him.
He's OK, but they shot at him just
because he was a young African-American boy knocking
on their door.
There was a kid that was in a parking lot,
was fired 30 rounds into his car because they
believed the car was stolen.
It wasn't stolen.
He was unarmed.
And they fired 30 rounds into the car.
How is this happening?
Well, look, it's one of the things--
I have two kids, two boys, 9 and 13.
And it's something that as a parent
you just worry about every single day.
I can't tell you.
Every single day, you worry about it.
And I think part of it is, it's not just the police.
You know, it's-- we've got some malware glitch going
on in our brains.
You know, I spent my 20s in a drug-infested den of iniquity
called Yale University, OK?
[LAUGHTER]
Where kids were doing drugs all the time.
None of them got shot.
None of them went to prison.
Nobody called the police.
They said, these kids are doing drugs,
let's put them into rehab.
Four blocks away, in the housing projects, kids were doing drugs
and they all went to prison.
Same age group within eyesight of each other.
Because we have this brain glitch that says,
if a white kid does it, eh, maybe they
need a little bit of help.
If a black kid does it, we've got to punish them.
Yeah.
I don't know.
I kind of-- I want to say it's not in my brain.
I don't-- I don't--
I don't believe that.
I don't think that.
I don't see myself in that way at all.
And it makes me angry.
And you're right, it's like it isn't just the cops.
And there are a lot of good cops out there.
Look, I'm from a law enforcement family.
My dad was a cop in the military.
My favorite uncle, Milton--
Uncle Milton, just to get my Thanksgiving brownie points--
but my favorite uncle, Milton, was a police officer.
Here's the problem with law enforcement,
and nobody wants to talk about this.
Any human system that doesn't have adequate checks
and balances is going to tend toward abuse and corruption.
That's why we have meat inspectors, not because we hate
butchers, but because, if you don't have anybody watching,
you're going to get a bunch of spoiled meat.
That's why we have building inspectors.
It's not that you hate construction workers
or you hate architects.
It's that, if nobody is overseeing the thing,
you're going to have buildings falling down.
We have a default, unwritten rule that the police are always
right.
And so, part of what I'm hoping is
that we'll just start realizing, look, guys, law enforcement,
they're not saints.
They're not superheroes.
They're human beings.
They're city employees.
You've got bad bus drivers.
If you don't like bad bus drivers,
that doesn't mean you hate America.
If you don't like bad cops, it doesn't mean you hate America.
It means you want everybody to be treated fairly.
Right, but so we see these bad cops.
And let's say there's one bad cop,
and he gets off-- paid leave.
Like, at what point does someone get punished, and do they--
when do they get punished for doing something like this?
Can you imagine, as a white parent,
if every week you turned on television
and a black officer had shot an unarmed white kid?
Every week-- week after week after week.
By the end of the year, how upset would you be?
How completely out your mind would you be?
That's what's going on right now in Black America.
And it's not to say that we don't have other problems.
But Jesus, you know, if you've got street crime,
that's bad enough.
But then you have police crime on top of it,
where do you turn?
Yep, yep.
And listen, I want this to be everybody's problem.
You know, I love the fact--
I could-- I mean, you guys may not be,
but you're as hurt as my wife is.
And that touches me because, you know,
we should care about everybody's kids.
And I think, if people felt like this could happen to my child,
it'd change tomorrow.
I think there is a brain glitch when it's like, well,
what did that kid do?
Well, what did that kid do?
Listen, by the 27th time you're saying,
what did that unarmed kid do, maybe we should be asking,
what should I do, and what are we doing to make this happen?
[APPLAUSE]
Yep, we've got to change things.
All right, so that is your show, The Van Jones Show.
And what is happening this week?
Well, first of all, you know, The Van Jones Show is--
I call it Sesame Street for grown people, all right?
We try to have meaningful conversations
without the mean part.
You know, cable TV, if you watch that stuff for, you know,
too long, you might want to put your head in an oven.
So don't do that.
Watch The Van Jones Show.
It's a show that really tries to show--
give people a way to see and to learn,
but also to find some hope and some inspiration.
And that's really what children's television does.
We need that for grown people now as well.
Yep, you're right, you're right.
Because no matter what, if you're watching Fox News,
you're watching CNN or MSNBC, depending on what you watch,
you get caught up in that.
And it makes you crazy, you know?
And so, look, on The Van Jones Show,
first of all, the first show, we had
Jay-Z. I wasn't nervous at all.
We've had Oprah.
We've had-- we had Andy Young, who was with Dr. King
when he got killed.
And he came on and talked about that.
We also take Democrats and Republicans,
we stick them in a car.
We lock the doors, and we drive around for two hours
and make them talk.
And we show that.
So we're trying to bring some kind of hope
and some kind of healing forward.
And what is this week?
This week is Bernie Sanders.
Bernie Sanders is going to come on.
Whoo!
Oh, some people, whoo!
[LAUGHTER]
Looks like we've got some Bernie fans in the house.
But Bernie is going to come on.
And we're going to talk to him, and we're
going to see if we can get him to talk about himself.
I want to understand why he cares so much.
You know, his parents died when he was young.
His whole family was wiped out in the Holocaust.
I want to talk to him about that stuff.
So Bernie Sanders, personal.
Fantastic.
All right.
Your sons are fans.
I got them something.
Is it here or is it run in?
All right.
And my sons love you.
It's like nuts.
Well, thank you.
Aw.
[APPLAUSE]
They have a whole bunch of Ellen stuff.
That's good.
Why do kids love you so much?
Kids are in school when your show is on.
I said I was coming on your show.
They have cared about no other show I've been on.
You, they went nuts.
They're like, Ellen!
Is it because of the fish show?
What is it?
How old are they?
The little one is 9.
The big one is now 13.
But they were both--
they get excited about nothing.
They give me one word answers.
But with you, they were actually--
they had a conversation that lasted almost 30 seconds
about you.
[LAUGHTER]
Wow.
Well, I don't know.
I'm amazing.
[LAUGHTER]
Not really sure what it is, really, Van.
But tell them, hi.
And this is the stuff for them.
And The Van Jones Show airs this Saturday
at 7:00 Eastern on CNN.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Hi, I'm Andy.
Ellen asked me to remind you to subscribe to her channel
so you can see more awesome videos, like videos
of me getting scared or saying embarrassing things,
like ball peen hammer.
And also some videos of Ellen and other celebrities,
if you're into that sort of thing.
Ah!
Ah, [BLEEP]!
God [BLEEP]!