'Meet the Press' transcript for April 6, 2008

MR. RUSSERT:  And Obama, Clinton, McCain have all embraced this idea of someone in the White House dealing specifically on the issue of poverty.

MR. BROKAW:  But we ought not to have any illusions about how tough that is. It is complex, it's going to take a long time, it's going to take good will on the part of everyone.  It's not just transfer payments.  It's about education and training, and it has to grow from the ground up as well as from the top down.  It has to grow within those communities.

DR. DYSON:  Right.

MR. RUSSERT:  Also, also amongst African-Americans, Michael Eric Dyson, you write this in your book about blackness on page 229.  "Blackness has never really been about genetics anyway.  ...  What disturbs or assures us about race has very little to do with blood or biology.  ...  Race is about how you use language, understand your heritage, interpret your history, identify with your kin, figure out what your meaning and worth to a society that places values on you beyond your control.  And it's also about what people see you as - or take you to be."

DR. DYSON:  Absolutely.  And as Tom Brokaw was saying and Ambassador Young have said, this racial reality that we're dealing with is not simply about how we're born and what we know when we're born.  It's about the cues we get from a society that tells us, "This is good, this is bad.  This is productive, this is not productive.  This is healthy, this is not healthy." And I think ultimately what Barack Obama is showing America is that if we have the will to move beyond the narrow precincts of our prejudice, we can get to a grander, more glorious vision of us as Americans.  Not by denying that racial past, but by going through it.  And the issue of poverty, as Ambassador Young has said and as Mr. Brokaw has said, is extremely important.  But Dr. King also spoke against black bourgeois capitulation to the dominant cultures' withering assault upon poor black people.  What we're seeing now is not simply white vs. black, as both of our distinguished guests have also said, but it's also about the internal mechanism of assault upon black people.

Martin Luther King Jr. had more reason than anybody else to throw off on the poor people and beat them down, and instead he lifted a hand--he lifted them up by reaching his hand over and across the aisle, so to speak, of class.  And that's what black America must do now, get rid of the class prejudice, join with other Americans of all good conscience to make sure that we can speak to the structural forces that prevent the flourishing of poor black and brown and red and yellow people in this country.  That's what Martin Luther King Jr. died for.  Against every bit of advice from all of his, his advisers, he went to Memphis.  That was a stand against common sense and status quo, and yet that has transformed our understanding of poverty and Dr. King's legacy in America.

MR. RUSSERT:  Ambassador Young, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gave an interview the other day where she talked about Europeans came here by choice, Africans came here in chains and used the word birth defect to describe some of the difficulties still in the minds of African-Americans.  How deeply rooted is that and how difficult...

AMB. YOUNG:  Well, I don't...

MR. RUSSERT:  Go ahead, please.

AMB. YOUNG:  Let, let me--I, I, I love Condoleezza Rice, I think she's doing a great job.  But there--four and a half million people came here during the slave trade.  There are five million Africans who have come here voluntarily since 1970, and they are the second most educated group of American immigrants.  One of the hopes of the world I see is that those Africans who came here by choice with education who have made money are beginning to go back in Nigeria and Rwanda and Ghana.  They're transferring billions of dollars back in remittances.  In fact, the involvement of African-Americans on the global economy, by their own choice, is one of the phenomena in the world that I think is going to help us deal with both globalization and poverty at home.

But I don't want to get away from this race issue, because it's not just a black issue.  The single mothers in America, whether they be white or black, are experiencing an economic crisis, and it was on before the subprime mortgage.  But we're bailing out Bear Stearn at some $30 billion.  President Bush and this economy--this administration should not wait until November. We've got to start dealing with poverty now.

MR. RUSSERT:  Right.

AMB. YOUNG:  And he's named a financial literacy commission with Chuck Schwab and John Bryant.

MR. RUSSERT:  Yes.

AMB. YOUNG:  So we're talking about a bipartisan...

MR. RUSSERT:  We got to go.

AMB. YOUNG:  ...international concern.

MR. RUSSERT:  Ambassador Young, we thank you.  We got to go.  I'm sorry. Time is up.

But, Tom Brokaw, tonight, 8 PM...

MR. BROKAW:  On the History Channel.

MR. RUSSERT:  On the History Channel.  "King" is the name of your documentary, there it is on our screen.

Ambassador, good luck with GoodWorks International.

Michael Eric Dyson, "April 4th, 1968:  Martin Luther King Jr.'s Death and How it Changed America." Thank you all.

DR. DYSON:  Thank you so much.

MR. BROKAW:  Thanks, Tim.

MR. RUSSERT:  We remember 40 years later.

On our MEET THE PRESS Web site this afternoon, a special Take Two Web extra, a look back at the highlights from Martin Luther King Jr.'s five historic appearances here on MEET THE PRESS from 1960 until 1967.  A very young man. That's this afternoon, our Web site, mtp.msnbc.com.

And we'll be right back.

(Announcements)

MR. RUSSERT:  Happy birthday to the National Press Club here in D.C., 100 years of service to the journalism community.

That's all for today.  We'll be back next week.  If it's Sunday, it's MEET THE PRESS.

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