Killer Mike returned to The Late Show with Stephen Colbert Tuesday night (Jan. 5), but rather than performing with El-P as Run the Jewels as he had previously, the Atlanta rapper spoke of bridging the racial understanding gap in the United States and why he believes Bernie Sanders should be elected president.

Dressed in what he called his "PTA meeting outfit," Mike explained how he received his stage name and whether the awareness white citizens have of racial injustices has changed anything within our national dialogue. He encourages all viewers to look up Jane Elliott's Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes experiment, but noted that newfound awareness is not a sign of progress.

"If white people are just now discovering that it’s bad for black or working class people in America, they’re a lot more blind than I thought," he said. "The same problems that we're discussing today, we discussed in 1990, 1980, 1970, and 1960. And until we call a spade a spade and we say that the problem is coming from conditions that we're creating or allowing to happen as a white group of people who hold a certain amount of power…"

Here, Colbert interjected, asking if there is a systemic attempt in the United States to isolate poor and minorities within communities that can be controlled and Mike assured the late night host that it's much more than that. "It’s not an attempt at all. It’s successful," he said. "If you look at Daley and the highways in Chicago, he built the highways to segregate people. There’s no round about way to do it."

Colbert than asked what can be done to bridge the gap between the communities of color, and Mike shared the message he gives to white college campuses. "The message that I preach to white kids... is get outside of the college environment, find a child who is marginal or doing exceptional in school who’s a minority who doesn’t look like you, not of the same religion not of the same background, help that child matriculate into college. Help them by being a big brother, big sister, help them by mentoring them. Don’t give them gifts, don’t make yourself feel good like 'Hey I gave them a new pair of sneakers.' Teach them the path you were taught to help them become a successful human being. What you’re going to get out of that experience is another human being that's taking full advantage of an educational system that can help them within their community but more than that, it grows you as a human being to have empathy not apathy for someone who doesn’t look like you and is culturally not from your background."

In closing, Killer Mike reinforced his support of Bernie Sanders, whom he introduced at an Atlanta rally and spoke to in an Atlanta barbershop last month.

"Dr. King in his last two years of life talked about a poor people’s campaign, organizing unions on behalf of poor workers, organizing against the war machine that was perpetuating violence in Vietnam," Mike said. "Bernie Sanders is the only politician who has consistently, for 50 years, taken that social justice platform into politics. And right now, we have the opportunity to elect someone who is directly out of the philosophy of Kingian non-violence. We can directly elect someone that cares about poor people, cares about women, gay, black rights, cares about lives that don’t look like his. This opportunity in history is not going to come in another 20 years, not going to come in another two years. If we do not take this opportunity right now we're going to be sitting around a camp fire mad cause they’ve nuke the world to hell, I’m afraid."

Mike and El-P are currently producing their third album as a group, which is expected to drop sometime this year.

See Best Rap Performance Nominees & Winners at the Grammys Over the Years

More From XXL