Latest / The Real News Podcast / DSA leads the blue wave — will it bend to the thin blue line?

Transcript

DSA leads the blue wave — will it bend to the thin blue line? · The Real News Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Rattlin' Bars, I'm your host, Manson Musa. Today,
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: I'm joined by Lawrence Grandpre, political commentator with Leaders of
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: a Beautiful Struggle, to discuss his recent article for Baltimore Times,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: The Dangers of Law and Order Leftism Towards a Black
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Power of Public Safety. Thank you for joining me, Lawrence.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: All right, so let's start like this here, okay? At
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: one point we had in 2020 where you had a
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: push for the abolishment of prisons and to dismantle the
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: police system as we see it during that period. But
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: immediately you had a pushback and the pushback came in
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: the form of saying that this was woke. Now we
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: look at the United States and mass incarceration on policing
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: and You juxtapose that with the lack of funds for
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: health care, lack of funds for education, and lack of
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: funds for housing. And the fact that the criminal justice
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: system is in itself painful when it comes to poor
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: and oppressed people, mainly people of color. Let's start with
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: your article.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: So this article stems out of a protest I went to.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: Because sometimes people say if you talk about police reform
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: or defunding police, you don't care about victims. And this
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: protest was the opposite. This was a Black elder, a
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: former member of the Baltimore Black Panther Party, who was
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: assaulted by many teenagers and was caught on film. So,
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: of course, Fox News, our local Fox News, is showing
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: this over and over again, saying, lock them up. You know,
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: what's wrong with these kids? And these were community advocates,
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: many of them women, you know, Queen Mother Victorious, who
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: lost her son to gun violence. Mama Gwen, who was
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: formerly incarcerated, coming together with community and saying, when these
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: young people, what they did was a problem, not because
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: it just violated the law, because it violated our community
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: respect for elders. And we don't want to just throw
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: the cops at these kids and throw away the book.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: But if people know who these young people are, turn
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: them into us, the Black community.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: So we can make sure that they are held accountable,
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: but not railroaded by the criminal legal system.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: And I thought the sophistication and intelligence of that response,
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: and even Baba Odeh, the elder who was hurt, saying,
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: you know, the Black Panthers' argument was that capitalism and
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: racism breed criminality in the community. And it's up for
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: us as the vanguard to educate ourselves and use political
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: consciousness to eliminate criminality, not just from a material standpoint,
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: but from a psycho-spiritual standpoint. And it was really interesting
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: because this was a few days after AOC went on
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: the news and said, nobody's talking about defund anymore. Woke
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: one point that was crazy. So it was really interesting
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: that the people who were supposed to be talking about
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: social justice, Alejandro Ocavio-Cortez, some of these other so-called leftists.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: Even they were saying, you know, defund, that was just
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: people on Twitter trying to look woke. Nobody really talks
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: about defund in real life.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: And these Black elders, Black people in West Baltimore, were
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: saying things like, we have a $ 700 million police budget
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: in Baltimore. How are we going to have that and
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: schools and investments in the Black youth?
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: So these Black people, who the left is telling us
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: are conservative, are actually saying, more progressive than the DSA.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: And I thought that was very telling that in this moment,
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: going into the midterms, there are these leftist democratic socialists
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: who are trying to get elected. And because they want
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: to get elected, they want to push away from radical
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: rhetoric because they think it's turning off voters. And I
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: think that that goes to show you that when it
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: comes to Black people, we need to have our own
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: vision of public safety because what's being offered by even
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: the left, the democratic socialist, is willing to Push our
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: issues aside.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: Because they have a misunderstanding of our issues. They think
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: it's just a bunch of radicals on Twitter. As opposed
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: to black folks been talking about defund since the 50s.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: And our visions of defund are very different than what
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: you saw on Twitter in 2020. But these folks wouldn't
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: know that.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: So how do you see the DSA in terms of like.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: with how they look at the budget, just police budget.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: And the fact that it's undercutting the services of the
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: very people they're supposed to be representing.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: It's interesting. Because I think if you are a democratic socialist,
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: it's obvious you believe police are a tool to protect capitalism.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: So a world where if you're a socialist, the idea
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: that you wouldn't talk about To protect capitalism, getting more
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: money is a problem for them. It's weird. But these
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: folks are by a particular brand of socialist. Many of
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: them were very much pro-Bernie Sanders. So when Hillary Clinton
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: and Kamala Harris used conversations about identity to attack Bernie...
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: Now a lot of these folks see all conversations about
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: race as just distraction from class issues. Right. So even
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: when Black people talk about police, they say, well, it's
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: not serious. No one really talks about defund. So you're
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: really just trying to attack the socialist candidates. And it's like, no,
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: Black folks have been the community control of the police platform.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: It wasn't just invented by the Black Panther Party. It
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: was talked about by Black activists in the 40s and 50s,
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: in part because of the understanding that if the police
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: were seen as the solution to all social problems, it's
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: not just police, it's police-ism. The idea that policing is
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: the only solution to the problems facing all poor people,
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: but especially Black poor people, that's going to push money away.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: from all the other programs we need in the Black community.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: So Black folks have been thinking that really since the
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: Northern migration. So when we talk about community control of
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: the police, part of that is having community control boards
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: control the police themselves, hold them accountable. And we've worked
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: on that as LBS, but it's also community control of
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: the institutions that produce public safety beyond police. So housing, addiction, education.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: I mean, I love to point out that Bobby Seale,
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: he was in AmeriCorps before he was a Panther.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: So he would be like shooting dice with the Black kids,
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: trying to school them during on AmeriCorps time. And part
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: of his frustration is like, these nonprofits don't let us
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: actually do the training we need to do with these youth.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: But we got to get the money from the nonprofit
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: because that's the only job we got. So even the
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: Black Panthers program was a push for Black control of
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: resources to socialize our youth, specifically around things like violence prevention.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: And again, the idea that All of that is just
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: under this large framework of woke. And again, the right
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: wing hates woke. We know that. But even some of
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: the Bernie folks, they really hate woke because they're associated
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: with the attacks on Bernie. And they see all conversations
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: about police as woke.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: This unpacks more about DSA because we see an upheaval
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: of DSA-type activity. And we see, like, in terms of
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: midterm elections, you know, some of the candidates that ran
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: on DSA platform have made it through the primary. And so,
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: at the same token, what does they appeal? Because they
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: vacillate when it comes to social issues.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: The federal government, in theory, can print money. So there's
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: this belief that if we just spent more money, things
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: will get better. And the Democrats have been afraid to
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: spend money. I think that in the DSA, it's like,
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: let's really focus on, you know, in theory, cut the
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: military budget, invest in communities through things like Medicare for all. Now,
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: if you don't have the integrity to stand up for
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: defunding the police, why do you think we would believe
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: that you have the integrity to stand up to cut
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: the military budget? If you don't see the connections between
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: the violence of policing and the violence of militarism, Why
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: would we expect you to be able to push the
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: military budget to community? You know, these are intelligent, college-educated
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: voters who feel like, you know, the government needs to
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: spend more money in part because it's a job program
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: for people like them.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: So they have an interest in fighting the austerity of
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: the Democratic Party in part because they want to see
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: conditions improved for them in the community, but also in
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: part because It's a business model for the voters of DSA.
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: And that's a big concern for us because even with
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: Medicare for all, there's no world in which healthcare should
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: be a for-profit enterprise. But it's not just that doctors
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: are racist. When you look at things like Black women
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: get more cesarean sections than other women. So literally they're
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: getting cut open in these dangerous surgeries. Black women, if
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: you have a child in the hospital, you are going
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: to get a drug test. And even if you pop
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: for that drug test from the epidural, the drugs they
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: give you for the pain of childbirth, they might take
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: your kid away. So engagements with the medical system are
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: not just imperfect for Black people. They are places of
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: surveillance and violence. So we as Black people need systems
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: like a birthing center, like nutrition, upstream investments that are
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: different than what the DSA crowd cares about. So the
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: idea that we should just accept not talking about defund
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: to get Medicare for all ignores the fact that Black people,
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: we don't just need health care to not give us
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: a bill. We need to change the vision of health
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: care so we control it. And the DSA is not
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: interested in that. They don't really think that way. And
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: they honestly believe the only way anything will get passed
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: is if it goes to everybody. Universal programs prevent racial backlash.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: Because we know any spending in America is seen as
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: giving money to welfare queens. So we just got to
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: give the same thing to everybody. And that will deal
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: with racial backlash. And what we know is anything you
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: do that gives out any tax money will deal with
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: racial backlash. But it will also do things that don't
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: give Black people the power we need to build for ourselves.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: It will just put us in systems that really are
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: built by other people that, even if it's good for them,
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: can often be violent for us. But I think that, again,
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: when you have a class-based vision of the world that
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: has become in some ways hostile to thinking about race
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: because you had negative experiences in with people weaponizing race
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: against people like Bernie Sanders, you're not thinking about what
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: a political agenda would look like when you actually invest in,
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: because we should do both. We should have a class-based
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: redistribution of wealth, but that redistribution should also be invested
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: in community institutions that reflect the culture and history of
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: specific communities. Not just Medicare for All, but clinics that
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: use the history and culture of the community to provide
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: that health care. nutrition that reflects the culture and the
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: way communities like to be fed so that they can
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: have upstream nutrition so they don't need to go to
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: the doctor in the first place. These things should go
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: hand in hand. And I think it's concerning that it
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: feels like because DSA is becoming electorally viable in some
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: spaces that like only talk about affordability issues, only talk
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: about Medicare for all, only talk about ending the war
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: in Iran without really thinking intelligently about a platform. That
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: would meet people's needs for community control and public safety.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: Right, right.
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: Broadly defined. So not just policing, but again, youth programming, schooling,
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: getting nutrition. Like, you know, our kids are literally hungry.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: Like they're fed junk food, but they're undernourished.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: So we actually do have serious nutritional needs as we
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: have obesity in the inner city. So what does it
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: look like to build a food sovereignty ecosystem? Whether it's,
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: you know, Black Yield, Black Church Food Security Network that
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: can actually feed ourselves as opposed to just the DSA.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: It's like, well, just make sure they get food stamps. Right.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: And food stamps are cool, but food stamps cannot, are
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: not the vision of food liberation for us.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: But talk about, because, you know, when we look at
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: DSA and it's a misnomer even to use the name
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: socialist because when you look at, we got examples in
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: Cuba and When they first took over, the literacy rate
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: in the countryside was 90%. 90% of the people could
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: not read or write. They organized, it's a book out
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: called Vincent Ramos, We Were Triumphed, that's the name of it.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: And they organized all the college kids, all the intelligence,
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: and made them go in the countryside and stay to
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: educate the people, to get them to read and write.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: They didn't say, Oh, we're going to create a system
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: where they can come out of the country, live in
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: a project-style housing dwelling, and get them public schools that's
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: not going to teach them nothing. They actually educated the people,
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: and a lot of that education led to what we
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: see today in Cuba. got best medical, despite all the
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: things going on. So when we talk about DSA, and
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: I think this is a danger, and maybe you want
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: to weigh in on it, I think this is a
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: danger that confronts that notion that this is a socialist party,
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: and because the right wing is going to put them
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: right in the category of communists. And they can resurrect
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: that notion.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: Socialism, to me, the key word is social. You either
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: have the market making decisions about planning for the world
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: or you have people doing it socially. It's clearly better
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: to do it socially. But there are divisions within that
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: larger social body. And my concern is that even among
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: some of the people in the DSA crowd, the leftist,
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: some of the visions of what they would socially plan
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: may like and lean on policing. Partially because they are
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: afraid of being looked at as communist. So they might,
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: for example, like even in very, very progressive Bernie-crat DSA
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: San Francisco, there's this push to like, well, we got
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: people homeless. They have mental illness. So they as individuals
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: may not be rational. So we are going to use
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: policing to bring them into drug treatment. Right. And again,
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: this is like even Bernie people sometimes say this. Right, right.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: So there are elements of even like the less progressive
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: mindset that are like, we as a society can't let
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: you be out here down bad. We have to help
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: you lift yourself up. If that means we have to
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: involuntarily commit you to treatment, and if we have to
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: use police to do that, then we'll do that. While
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: one thing that we talk about here in Baltimore, and
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: Baltimore's been a heroin town, you know, since the 60s
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: and 70s. And it's been really hard for us. But
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: we've also had systems of informal community care that have
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: been designed to address some of the worst exigencies of
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: drug abuse.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: Nika Nnamdi from a program called Fight Blight says that
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: grandma's basement was the first halfway house.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: We had systems where elders, you know, you would be
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: able to stay with family and you would be able
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: to get certain stabilizing influences through your social network so
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: you wouldn't be out on the streets. So in that worldview,
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: we look at something like making sure these abandoned homes
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: get rehabbed and given to Black people in community, that's
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: partially an anti-homelessness effort.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: That's an anti-addiction effort. That's a crime-fighting effort.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: Right. Right?
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: So it's not just social housing. It's not just public housing.
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: It's also making sure that Black people in communities can
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: pass down their family homes. Right. And they have a
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: way to make sure that they're affordable so they can
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: stay housed. Because that produces capacities for people who do
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: suffer from addiction to not be on the streets committing crime.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: And again, the DSA vision is so limited to what
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: they see and what they know. They sometimes end up
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: using police where it's like, if we just had networks
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: of people in the community that could care for each other,
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: we wouldn't need police for that. But I also do
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: think folks are afraid. I know academics are very afraid.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: And some folks are afraid of looking too radical. Looking like,
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: you know, the rhetoric of 2020 was, you know, burn
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: down the police station.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: Right, right.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: And I think that's also part of what they want
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: to distance from. when they talk about we're not doing
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: defund no more. Part of it is like the direct
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: antagonism with the state, the cost of that has increased
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: for them. What we know is that the cost is
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: high for us, whether we're openly antagonistic or not. We
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: are politically antagonistic by making demands upon the state to
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: recognize our humanity. So we've always had to deal with
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: that potential backlash. And I think now for some folks
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: that are saying, oh, I can't use that. We're not
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: trying to do that radical rhetoric no more because people
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: are losing jobs. People are potentially getting deported. So let's just,
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: let's just, it's like the seventies, like marginally away from
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: the rhetoric of the sixties, um, and leaving, you know,
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: the black radicals out to dry. Like after the draft ended,
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: the white radicals, you know, moved away from radicalism. Right.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: And that was seeing a similar dynamic.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: And, okay. But like, we know that this is the
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: 60th year of the anniversary of the black Panther party. I, and, and, uh,
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: I was talking to somebody about just like, we're not anti-police,
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: like the party wasn't anti-police. One of the first things they,
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: one of the things they did, one initiative they took was,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: and this is revolutionary suicide by Huey Newton, where they
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: had this particular intersection that didn't have no stoplight. And
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: it was in the black community and kids was getting hit.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: So somebody came and said like, man, you know, they not,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: doing nothing about this. We've been complaining. So they went
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: down there and became traffic guards, the members of the
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: Black Panther Party. They held up the traffic, let the
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: kids walk by. You know what I'm saying? And this
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: is what they did. And they had guns with them
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: because they had one part of their program was police
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: and the police.
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: The police, in.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: Turn, came and told them they stopped. Now you got
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: to stop this. They said, well, we'll stop this when
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: y'all put a traffic light up there or y'all stop
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: directing traffic. We don't care which one you're going to do,
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: but you do or we're going to continue to do it.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: They wind up putting a traffic light up there. So
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: in terms of that particular example, right, what are the
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: core aspects of the Black Power of Public Safety?
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: I like your example because the party was a little
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: bit different in different cities, but I... I think one
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: thing that stands out to me is that they had
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: questions about police, but the Black Panthers in some ways
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: were law and order. Like, there was law and order
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: within the party. You could not show up high. It's
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: very much about discipline. Law and order in the community. Like,
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: if you're selling drugs, if you're a parasite in our community,
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: we're going to deal with you.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: And I think that's a perception because this is something
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: that happened in 2020 that, you know, there were white
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: leftists being like, let's just run wild and be anarchist
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: and burn stuff down. It's always been black people that's
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: been like, we're not doing that. So the idea that
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: somehow like that is tied to black issues, it's like, no,
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: we've always been extremely serious about our liberation. So when
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: the Black Panther Party talks about doing like a plebiscite
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: in order to get like black sovereignty, like I think
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: that's an example of why we need to think about
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: community control of the police in terms of like, we
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: have in Maryland, Substantial police reform is nowhere near enough,
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: but we need to have the ability for the community
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: to have investigative power to be able to investigate police.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: You know, we need to have community resources to be
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: able to flow to community institutions so the community decides
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: who's doing public safety in that community. So when we
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: talk about who's funded to do violence prevention work, it
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: shouldn't just be the people who are tied into the police.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: or the people that are tied into the nonprofit world.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: We got tons of people in community that have been
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: doing work that have not been funded. And the fact
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: that they are getting a little bit of money now,
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: I think is part of why we're seeing these unprecedented
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: declines in violent crime. So Black Power Public Safety isn't
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: just people getting grants. It is the community having the
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: power to determine what the grant-making criteria are. If the
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: community being able to tax institutions in their community that
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: they see as producing crime. And by that, I mean
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: John Hopkins.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: Because John Hopkins gentrified the whole area of the city.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: The big colonial king in Baltimore.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: And when you gentrify a whole part of the city,
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: you're moving people to different hoods. And that creates a
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: lot of possibility for conflict. You know, my father was
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: a cop for 20 years. So he talked about North
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: East Baltimore used to be called the country club. Because
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: it was so quiet up there. But when Hopkins gentrified
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: all those people out of the Middle East, Baltimore, a
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: lot of them moved to Northeast, which produced a ton
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: of conflict. Pretty much increased the murder rate in that
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: part of the city. Hopkins should have to pay for that.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: They got a $ 13 billion endowment. So Black Power Public
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: Safety is about us not tying in our future to gentrification,
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: which is what the police really are a tool for.
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: They're a tool to produce gentrification. That's good for that
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: business model because gentrification needs policing. We should be able
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: to put a tax on the gentrifiers so we can
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: secure our communities so they can't gentrify them, own our
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: own property, stabilize our communities, but then invest in the
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: capacity to take care of our youth, to do violence prevention,
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: to take care of our house, all the things they
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: stripped from us, they should have to pay us to
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: be able to do for ourselves. In that world, I
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: think we would have Black Power Public Safety.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: Right. And that basically was like the Black Panther Party
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: was doing. Because they had the survival program.
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: And the concept was survival, pen and revolution. The survival
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: program wasn't like us being in a basement, taking guns
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: apart in the dark with blindfolds. then putting them back together,
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: you know, making bombs, like reading them, you know, Antarctica's cookbook. No.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: Survival programs was the free breakfast program, free medical, sickle
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: cell anemia, taking prisoners, families to prison to visit them,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: alternative education. This was a survival program, survival, pen and revolution.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: And what the goal was, going back to your point,
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: the goal was to stabilize the community for self to
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: be able to be self-determined. So if I'm, if, If
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: I'm self-determined, I got self-determination. A great example for Baltimore
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: would be the Clean Block. Because when they had Clean,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: and I always, I remember I was locked up and
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: I used to read the AFL. AFL had a big
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: thing about Clean. The sense of community that came out
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: of that.
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: Clean Block.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: When they was able to say, like, we recognizing this
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: neighborhood for clean block. But more importantly, that neighborhood not
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: only had a clean block, but that neighborhood had policing.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: That neighborhood had a sense of identity that if I
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: seen you, I know you Merle's son or Merle's daughter.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: I know you Tommy's son or Tommy's daughter. You know me,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: and you know that if I see you doing something
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: that you ain't supposed to be doing, Then I'm going
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: to tell your parents, when the minute you see me,
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: you're going to alter your behavior because that became the
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: sense of community. But once you, like you say, once
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: Hopkins got in the equation, and not only Hopkins, I
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: remember when Schaefer started with the, when he did the
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: Inner Harbor and he started pushing people out of certain
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: areas in order for them to get to Inner Harbor.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: And they pushed people into, like he pushed them out
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: into the county. Or they pushed them into the interior
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: of Baltimore in neighborhoods they weren't familiar with or neighborhoods
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: they was familiar with and had issues with and would
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: automatically create a conflict. But talk about how do you see,
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: because what you just outlined is in fact a model
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: that is one, inexpensive because it becomes self-contained. So the
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: monies that you're putting towards astronomical police budget can go
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: towards stabilizing some of the projects that deal with housing,
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: deal with substance, the people that's actually doing the work. Like,
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: you know, you got, like you said, you got people
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: that actually going around taking people and putting them in
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: a place and letting them dry out, you know? So
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: we talk about how you see DSA and the gains
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: that they're getting and the models they're using. How can we, how,
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: how do they fit into this narrative? Are they rewriting
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: the script and say like, they're going to invest in
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: this type of thinking or are they, their model is,
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: like you said earlier, you know, we're creating a cadre
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: of intelligent people that can grant rights and that's going
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: to become our funding source and not only our funding source,
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: but create an infrastructure for like doing case studies and
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: then marketing these case studies.
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: You know, the new Jim Crow, Yeah.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: I think it's to be determined. We're going to see
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: a huge increase in DSA affiliated leftist people in Congress. Now,
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: was it that going to be able to write bills?
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: Was it just going to vote on stuff that comes
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: from the Republicans? We're going to see. I think the
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: real test is going to be 2028 when it's possible
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: the Democrats will take the White House Senate and the Congress.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: So it's really going to be important for us these
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: next two years for people that believe in the possibility
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: of these folks doing good to push them. Like, what
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: is your actual proposal on how you can use the
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: power of the federal government to enhance the ability of
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: people on the ground locally to have more ownership and
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: power and control over the institutions that impact their lives?
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: Because policing is a state and local issue. Feds actually
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: have relatively little control over it, except given a few
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: grants here or there. So really it is, do you
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: have a vision for whether it's through food sovereignty policy,
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: whether it's through manufacturing policy? The metric for us, at least, is, again,
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: local self-determination and the ability for local people on the
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: ground to own the institutions that are doing this work.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: I think part of even going back to the New Deal,
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: the frustration that with these progressives is that sometimes they
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: do these top-down technocratic reimaginings of what solutions look like
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: that don't involve community. Mamdani, people have called him a
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: technocratic socialist.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: And I think that's not on some right-wing stuff, but
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: that's scary from a Black power perspective. Right, right, right.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: Because technocracy oftentimes views Black people as widgets and inputs
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: in someone else's equation for power. progress and liberation. And
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: I think part of the value of the Black Panther
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: Party is, you know, they called themselves socialist, but in
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: many places, in many ways, they were also pan-Africanist and
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: Black nationalist. And they were combining them all. They said, yes,
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: we will fight capitalism, but we will not just make
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: the people this abstract proletariat to fit within a Eurocentric
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: version of what a class-centric revolution would look like. We
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: are going to lead our people on our vision of
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: what we think fighting capitalism looks like. And again, I
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: think it's going to be our job to force the
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: DSA to not see that as woke, but actually recognize
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: that that is just what Black people demand. And that's
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: the cost of us being a political coalition if you're
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: respecting our self-determination.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: And I agree it's to be determined because, one, you
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: gain electoral office through coalition building. That's really where it
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: comes out of. And You were able to get a
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: common identity out of the coalition. Common identity being what
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: we want changed, the change that we want to see.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: Earl Washington in Chicago, he was successful at building a coalition.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: And to his credit, he tried to maintain the standard.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: But they fought him tooth and nail at the state government.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: So he wasn't able to get a lot of things done.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: But the fact of the matter, what we're asking or
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: we're talking about is not really hypothetical because we see
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: this in Europe. And we see examples where police don't
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: even have guns. They call in if it's a violent.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: situation where a gun is fired, they got a unit
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: that comes in to deal with that. But outright, the
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: police walk around with no weapons because the lack of
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: fear towards the society.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: You mentioned New Zealand, I think, in that as well.
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: But in New Zealand as well, the aboriginal communities actually
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: have really pushed a model for youth justice that places
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: tribal elders and tribal institutions at the heart of restorative
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: justice programming for youth who are engaged in acts of criminality.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: And so that's been a big fight for aboriginals in
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: New Zealand and Australia to really demand tribal sovereignty over
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: their youth as opposed to putting them into the juvenile
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: justice system. Again, given the legacy of the private schools
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: where they beat the Indian out of you and stuff
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: like that. And again, I think it's jarring for white
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: people to think that we as black people are asking
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: for something similar here in America. Because the joke is
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: white people are so settled in America, they don't see
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: themselves as settler colonists no more.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right, right.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: And I think, unfortunately, that's part of what's happening with
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: the DSA. It's like the idea of Black sovereignty is
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: just jarring to them in a way that, you know,
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: you're an Australian, you know you took over Australia and
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: there are people here that are really dark-skinned, you're not.
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: But I think in America, that basic concept of having
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: to negotiate with people who have their own sovereign agendas.
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: It's not something that they're used to conceiving as anything
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: other than a tool for the centrist to undermine the
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: Bernese of the world. And I just think the reality
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: is if DSA is going to get Black support, it's
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: going to really have to reckon with the visions of
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: the world that come from Black people, including our visions
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: of public safety.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: Right. And before we close, you got any closing remarks?
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: I really appreciate this. Please check out our podcast, In
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: Search of Black Power, and Political Commentary Corner. So those
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: are on YouTube. Check us out at lbsbaltimore.com. We have
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: all of our email updates about the work we're doing
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: in Annapolis to push criminal justice policy, reparations policy, which
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: I've never seen DSA has been skeptical on, but we're
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: very adamant about its practical utility as a framework to
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: invest in Black sovereignty here in Maryland. And, you know,
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: you can find me on any social media at Neonubian, N-E,
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: the number zero, Nubian, N-U-B-I-A-N.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: Right. And we ask our audience to really take deep
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: thought on this particular subject matter. You know, it's not like,
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: say it loud, I'm black and I'm proud. It's not,
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: you know, when Stokely Carmichael in the 60s, they coined
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: black power, Jane Brown, so on and so on. This
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: is not, we're not in that state. We're not, trying
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: to go back into that state of mind, that conditions
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: created that state of mind. We're talking about an analysis
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: of having black political power as it relates to our safety.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: We're talking about because we're the ones that's unsafe, we're
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: the ones that this astronomical budget is being doled out to,
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: to make us feel unsafe, to lock us up, then
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: we believe as the brother was talking about, Lawrence, that
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: we believe that we have a right to define what
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: is safe for us and what is not safe for us.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: And in making that definition or defining that, we see
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: the necessity to make an analysis and implement it. And
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: in this case, this is an analysis that, you know,
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: we wanted, I think the Gullah Geechee in South Carolina
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: got a thing where They do, like, restorative justice. And
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: so the fact that you're infringing on the community, that
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: they might not put you out of the community, but
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: they're going to put you in such a shameful state
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: of mind and the fear of what you're going to
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: lose will make you get the person to come back
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: or people to come back and lie in accordance with
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: the social system that they set up. We ask that
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: you continue to support The Real News and Rattling Ball
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: because guess what? We're actually The Real News.
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: Thank you.