With everything that's going on right now,
our next guest is one of the most vocal figures
on cable news.
He's a CNN political commentator and the CEO
of the Reform Alliance.
Please welcome Van Jones.
Hey, Ellen, how are you?
You know, I'm OK.
How are you, Van?
Same as you.
That's a tough question to--
at times like this, I feel blessed, though,
to be able to try to help.
Well, I know you're a busy man.
And thank you so much for being here.
And that's what this show is about today,
is giving a platform for anybody that we should be listening to.
And it's weird, like you said, that even during the pandemic,
when somebody said how are you, it's a weird way to answer.
But now, how are you, it's a ridiculous question, you know?
I think we have to come up with a different greeting.
Ugh, like that.
Well, I tell you, listening to Mayor Keisha,
that brings me a lot of hope.
And I think the worst part about this
is, there is a way out of this.
I mean, I've never seen African Americans so hurt, I mean,
just devastated.
And I think part of the problem is, as you were talking about,
as a parent, you always have this belief--
we kind of sprinkle this fairy dust on our kids
that, listen, if you don't talk back, and if you don't run,
you don't have any drugs on you, then
somehow, you can save yourself.
This situation just broke all of us.
Because there is nothing you can tell your child
that would save them from a brute like that,
a sadist like that, in a uniform.
And it was a lynching.
That's what a lynching is, when you
deprive someone of their life in front of the whole community.
And lynchings have that effect.
They paralyze community.
They have people feeling completely helpless and broken.
And so this historical trauma that
ripped through our community, the reason
I'm starting to feel more hopeful, though,
is leaders are starting to rise up, like the mayor of Atlanta.
And there's probably 20, 30, 40 million white Americans
who, maybe they've always cared a little bit,
or they thought about it as a possible thing,
but it was number 17 on their list in terms of racism.
They are now, it's number one.
And they just want to know what to do.
That's a different problem than, I
don't believe racism is a problem,
or it's not that big a deal to me, to what do I do.
So we are in a better--
there is hope.
It's just hard as hell right now to keep
hanging onto it when what you see on TV just
gets worse, and worse, and worse.
Yeah.
And like you said, first of all, you have to tell your children,
if you don't run, if you don't-- if you have to even say that,
which is unbelievable.
And then you have Ahmaud Arbery running, jogging.
And it's just-- but I don't know how people are standing
by, and watching this, and not--
I'm sorry, I have so many questions to ask you.
But there are people--
people are saying Black Lives Matter.
And then there are white people saying, all lives matter.
And I think that needs to be explained
to people who really don't understand why
that's wrong to say right now.
Yeah.
Well, I think that there are people--
if you're not close this community,
and you don't understand what we go through literally
every single day, every time you get in a car, you're nervous.
Every time your kid leaves the door,
you're nervous, not because you're afraid of a mugger,
but because you just don't know if there
might be some negative interaction with law
enforcement.
But I think when people hear Black Lives Matter,
they might hear, only black lives matter,
black lives matter more than white lives.
What they mean is, black lives matter, too.
When you hear "Black Lives Matter,"
just add the "too" on there.
Because that's really what we're saying.
Our lives matter, too.
And I don't think anybody can argue with that.
It's amazing.
Because we live in two different countries.
The person sitting next to you in the cubicle, or on the bus,
or on the airplane, if they have skin that looks like mine,
we are literally in a different movie.
And it's so hard to believe that.
But you don't get to the point where a police officer could
literally kill a man in broad daylight, and in his own mind,
think he was doing something good, if you hadn't had
a whole bunch of other disrespects, and disrespects,
and contempt for black life, and contempt for black life, that
was never checked along the way, so that even other police
officers are standing there, and they don't intervene either.
Even though people are screaming, he's dying,
he's dying, he's calling for his mother,
he's urinating on himself, you don't see him as human.
You say, well, that's terrible, that one terrible officer.
But think about the ways that we all
are complicit in systems that choke off black life, that
choke off black possibility.
At your workplace, how many African-Americans
are in your workplace?
How many African-Americans have you
hired, or your accountants, your dentists, your lawyer?
How many African-Americans are in your internship program?
The society is choking off black life, and black opportunity,
and black dignity all the time, in boardrooms,
and in bank branches.
And so it's invisible.
And then suddenly, on one day, the whole world can see it.
And that's the horrific tragedy of it,
is that it takes something like this
to make visible in the most brutal form
a reality that exists in other forms all of the time.
And I think that's why it's important for us
as white people to have to do the work.
The black people have done the work,
which shouldn't be incumbent upon you and tragedies
in your community to somehow educate us.
Because you have done the work.
You've built this country.
You've built this entire country.
And we're reaping from it.
And now, it's time for us to do the work.
And we can't depend on you.
We need to finally say, you guys have done the work.
We're doing the work now.
Yeah, now it's time for us to build this country
in a different way.
Now it's time for us to do our part.
And give back.
Yeah.
Yeah, and that's what we're going to do.
We have to take a break.
And these are all good conversations that
will continue every single day.
It can't just be a show.
We'll be right back.