MSNBC Guest: ‘States Rights’ Means Controlling ‘Black and Brown Bodies’

HARRIS-PERRY: "So let me dig in on that. You said there’s a legitimate set of arguments. Maybe not in this, but around this tension between state authority and federal authority. And there are Republican officeholders and candidates for the Republican nomination for the presidency saying that we ought to have a constitutional convention to basically undue some of what the Civil War did in the sense of actually rebalancing the balance of powers back towards the states." 
WARREN: "Yes, can I just tell you how much that really needs not to happen at all?" 
HARRIS-PERRY: "Yes, thank you." 
WARREN: "Really should not happen. Just getting to the question of the tension. There is a legitimate governing tension between whether this is really a federal discussion or whether this is a conglomeration of independent and sovereign states. Those are good tensions to raise. I agree, you protest, that is the way you move these pieces forward. The constitutional convention is a disaster because really what we’re talking about here is that the states rights argument that’s picked up by the right wing, that’s picked up by these militias which are neither well Norfolk, nor focusing on the federal government. But the idea that overall that these communities that we’re — that the state rights argument is a shill for going back to the way that it was, where black bodies and brown bodies and women were controlled. It was much better and easier that way. Even if the rest of the country doesn’t want to do it, that’s how we do it here at home. The only way to get there is through states rights."