Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #137 Jason Flom on Power to the People: A forum on the fight for civil rights and justice in our time

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#137 Jason Flom on Power to the People: A forum on the fight for civil rights and justice in our time · Wrongful Conviction

0:03
Speaker 1: In the wake of the recent protests, I've been flooded
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Speaker 1: with questions from well meaning people who are looking for
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Speaker 1: advice on how to use their time, energy and money
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Speaker 1: to make the biggest impact in the fight for equality
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Speaker 1: and justice in our criminal legal system. So on Thursday,
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Speaker 1: June eleventh, I moderated an online panel that we called
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Speaker 1: Power to the People. Who was a discussion and Q
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Speaker 1: and a session featuring a panel of four of the
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Speaker 1: world's leading criminal legal system experts and civil rights activists,
0:32
Speaker 1: Black Lives Matter co founder Patrese, Marie Cullers, prison industry
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Speaker 1: expert Bianca Tilek, Drug Policy Alliance executive director of Cassandra Frederic,
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Speaker 1: and civil rights lawyer Alec Harkatsanis, all of whom shared
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Speaker 1: their thoughts on how each and every one of us
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Speaker 1: can take action individually and collectively in the most powerful way.
0:55
Speaker 1: This went so well and I learned so much, as
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Speaker 1: did I hope our audience, that we decided to release
1:01
Speaker 1: the conversation here as a podcast as well. I hope
1:05
Speaker 1: you find this discussion as interesting and informative as I did.
1:12
Speaker 1: Welcome to Power to the People. This is a zoom
1:15
Speaker 1: event that we've put together because I think all of
1:19
Speaker 1: us have been getting so many questions from people who
1:22
Speaker 1: want to get involved, or their kids want to get involved,
1:25
Speaker 1: or their grandmother wants to get involved, whatever, and people
1:28
Speaker 1: want to help. And so I thought, if we could
1:31
Speaker 1: put together an event where we have some of the
1:35
Speaker 1: true leaders in the space, civil rights leaders, you know,
1:39
Speaker 1: people who are actually out there on the ground doing
1:40
Speaker 1: the work, and we can figure out how to really
1:45
Speaker 1: harness and direct some of that amazing positive energy that's
1:48
Speaker 1: being generated after these two weeks of really revolutionary protests,
1:53
Speaker 1: then let's do that. And so I came up with
1:56
Speaker 1: a word today. I actually saw it somewhere, but I'm
1:59
Speaker 1: going to I'm gonna steal it, or I'm gonna commandeer it,
2:02
Speaker 1: I'm gonna borrow it. So I'm gonna call this this
2:04
Speaker 1: group not rather than revolutionaries, I'm gonna call you all solutionaries,
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Speaker 1: because these are people who are out there creating, innovating,
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Speaker 1: and putting into practice actual solutions to some of the
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Speaker 1: primary problems of our age and some of the things
2:22
Speaker 1: that I believe are driving people to get in the
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Speaker 1: streets beyond what they see on the videos, the horrific
2:29
Speaker 1: videos that we've all seen over the last weeks and months,
2:34
Speaker 1: culminating of course in the disgusting lynching of George Floyd.
2:39
Speaker 1: That it seems like everyone in the world has seen now,
2:42
Speaker 1: but it's so much more than that. And so I'm
2:46
Speaker 1: going to go ahead now and introduce our group of solutionaries,
2:50
Speaker 1: our amazing panels solutionaries, and I'll do it in alphabetical order.
2:55
Speaker 1: So I'm going to how we're to do this is
2:58
Speaker 1: I'm going to do a quick introduction of everyone, and
3:00
Speaker 1: then I'm ask each of you to give us a
3:02
Speaker 1: couple of minutes on what you're up to right now
3:04
Speaker 1: with your respective organization. So patrese Colors, unless some as
3:09
Speaker 1: anyone's been living in a cave for the last seven years,
3:12
Speaker 1: you probably know that Patrice is the co founder of
3:14
Speaker 1: Black Lives Matter, which came to be in the aftermath
3:18
Speaker 1: of the awful murder of Schrayvon Martin in twenty thirteen,
3:23
Speaker 1: and since then a Black Lives Matter has become a
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Speaker 1: force in culture writ large. So Patrice, thank you for
3:33
Speaker 1: being here. Second, of course, is Cassandra. Frederic Cassandra is
3:39
Speaker 1: the dynamic leader executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance,
3:43
Speaker 1: which I describe and I'm a board member there. I
3:45
Speaker 1: described the Drug Policy Alliance as the epicenter of the
3:48
Speaker 1: war against the War on drugs. And it's so important
3:52
Speaker 1: that you're here because the war on drugs is a
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Speaker 1: real driver of systemic racism in this country. And I'm
4:00
Speaker 1: very excited to hear what you have to say about
4:02
Speaker 1: all of that. Alec Harcasanis is what can I say.
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Speaker 1: I mean, he's become sort of my mentor and personal
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Speaker 1: hero in the space. Alec is the author of usual cruelty.
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Speaker 1: He is also directly responsible for tens of thousands of
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Speaker 1: Americans being free today who otherwise would be in jail.
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Speaker 1: And that's not hyperbole. Alec is leader of Civil Rights
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Speaker 1: Court it. He'll tell us about that in a minute.
4:24
Speaker 1: And Bianca Tyleck, Bianca has become at half my age.
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Speaker 1: She's become my mentor, even though IVE probably been doing
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Speaker 1: criminal justice work as long as you've been alive. But
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Speaker 1: Bianca is a Harvard lawyer who has overcome her own
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Speaker 1: negative interactions with the criminal justice system and police as
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Speaker 1: a young girl to become a real change maker. Trying
4:45
Speaker 1: to sue the profits out of prisons is by the way,
4:47
Speaker 1: I would say that so anyway, so now let me
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Speaker 1: go to each of you. Patrice, can you give us
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Speaker 1: a little overview of what Black Lives Matters is up
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Speaker 1: to right now?
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Speaker 2: Sure, thanks so much for having me, Jason, and thank
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Speaker 2: you everybody for joining one. The co founder is a
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Speaker 2: Black Lives Matter organization and movement and hashtag that started
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Speaker 2: seven years ago. We have focused on really a number
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Speaker 2: of things, but one of the things that's been opening
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Speaker 2: up a new conversation around anti black racism and white
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Speaker 2: supremacy and its relationship to black people. We've focused primarily
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Speaker 2: on police and the issues of policing in this country,
5:22
Speaker 2: and our current movement is focused on defunding the police.
5:26
Speaker 2: Many people have seen that as a controversial slogan, but
5:30
Speaker 2: seven years ago, Black Lives Matter was a controversial slogan
5:32
Speaker 2: and Amazon has it plastered on their screen. So things change,
5:37
Speaker 2: Moments change, and they change with courageous people and courageous action.
5:41
Speaker 2: And that's what we're demanding in this moment. We're demanding
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Speaker 2: a reevaluation of where we've prioritized our dollars, our funding,
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Speaker 2: and our support. If we look at the continuation of incarceration,
5:54
Speaker 2: the first point of contact is usually the police, and
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Speaker 2: so the police are the funnels towards jail cells and
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Speaker 2: prison seals, and we have to have a real conversation
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Speaker 2: around the ways in which our country has created new
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Speaker 2: conditions for the police to be the most powerful governmental
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Speaker 2: agency politically, culturally, and economically. Last thing I'll say is,
6:15
Speaker 2: after thirty three years of being on television, Cops has
6:18
Speaker 2: been canceled. Good job, Pairamount, Paul Patrol is now being canceled.
6:23
Speaker 2: Good job, Paaramount. We need to unlearn the ways in
6:26
Speaker 2: which we have really been ingested propaganda around what the
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Speaker 2: police do and what they are. So I'm grateful to
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Speaker 2: be a part of this movement, and I'm grateful to
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Speaker 2: be a part of this panel, and thank you Teresa.
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Speaker 1: And I want to say there's going to be a
6:38
Speaker 1: Q and A. We're going to talk for about thirty
6:40
Speaker 1: thirty five minutes as a group, and then there's going
6:41
Speaker 1: to be a thirty minute Q and A at the end.
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Speaker 1: So anyone who wants to answer questions, you do it
6:45
Speaker 1: in the comments section and we will get to you
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Speaker 1: as soon as we're done. Okay, Cassandra, Drug Policy Alliance
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Speaker 1: Executive Director.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks, thanks so much.
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Speaker 4: Jason, So Drug Policy Alliance is a national organization working
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Speaker 4: to end the criminalization isssociated with drug use and drug sales.
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Speaker 4: We believe that what our drug problem is is prohibition,
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Speaker 4: and that we actually need to end prohibition so that
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Speaker 4: we could end the violence associated with it and actually
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Speaker 4: redistribute resources to deal with addiction. Some of the things
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Speaker 4: that we are working on right now is defunding the police.
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Speaker 4: So most people, when you are out in the protests
7:22
Speaker 4: and you see people having tanks and the battle regalia,
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Speaker 4: that's drug war money that funds that drug war money
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Speaker 4: is funding the tanks that we see we saw on
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Speaker 4: the streets and ferguson to the helicopters we see in
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Speaker 4: the sky right now in New York City, and all
7:37
Speaker 4: of that equipment is stuff that the.
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Speaker 3: Drug war funds.
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Speaker 4: And so we were excited to elevate and amplify the
7:45
Speaker 4: call that Black Lives Matter put out around defunding the police,
7:48
Speaker 4: because that is the work that we've been working on anyway,
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Speaker 4: to demilitarize police and disrupt the funding that goes in
7:55
Speaker 4: that way. The other thing that's been so interesting about
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Speaker 4: this moment, and later on I'll talk about the intersection
8:00
Speaker 4: between what's happening right now and the drug war is
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Speaker 4: that the da which is the Drug Enforcement Agency, not
8:08
Speaker 4: only enforces the drug war, but it also is being
8:11
Speaker 4: used as a surveillance tool right now for protesters. And
8:14
Speaker 4: so they have now just used the Drug War Agency
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Speaker 4: to now surveil protesters, and folks will know.
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Speaker 3: You know, we're big on history.
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Speaker 4: Part of the reason the drug war was waged in
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Speaker 4: the first place was to go after the anti war left.
8:28
Speaker 4: And so we're seeing this come full circle about the
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Speaker 4: drug war being used as a way to deal with dissent.
8:35
Speaker 4: And then the thing that's really important for us and
8:37
Speaker 4: that we bring to this space is understanding that you know,
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Speaker 4: Breonna Taylor was killed in her bed because they thought
8:45
Speaker 4: she had drugs in her house, right, and so the
8:48
Speaker 4: police showed up because drugs was the thing that brought
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Speaker 4: them there. When George Floyd was being killed by having
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Speaker 4: the police officers knee on his neck, one of the
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Speaker 4: officers said to the crowd, that's why you don't do drugs.
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Speaker 4: And so for us as DPA, we want to remove
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Speaker 4: the idea that drug involvement in any way is an
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Speaker 4: excuse for law enforcement to kill you, because for me,
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Speaker 4: it doesn't matter to me if there were drugs in
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Speaker 4: Breonna Taylor's house or not. There is no reason for
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Speaker 4: someone to be killed by the state and their bed.
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Speaker 4: There is no reason if drugs are there or not.
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Speaker 4: And so for us, we're really elevating and complicating the
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Speaker 4: idea of if drugs serve as a justification for state
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Speaker 4: sanctioned violence, and so really elevating the role that the
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Speaker 4: drug work plays in a multiplier effect to police violence
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Speaker 4: in this country.
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Speaker 1: Thank you, Casandra and Alec, You're up next.
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Speaker 5: The Civil Rights Core is a small nonprofit organization in Washington,
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Speaker 5: DC that works with directly impacted people and community lawyers
9:47
Speaker 5: and organizers and civil rights attorneys and public defenders and
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Speaker 5: others all over the country to try to dismantle the
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Speaker 5: criminal punishment bureaucracy. I think it's really important to understand
9:56
Speaker 5: that work, understand the context in which we're engaging in
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Speaker 5: that where this country cages human beings at a rate
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Speaker 5: five times its own historical average, five to ten times
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Speaker 5: the rate of other comparable countries. We cage black people
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Speaker 5: at a rate six times out of South Africa at
10:13
Speaker 5: the height of apartheid. It's within that context that things
10:17
Speaker 5: like Ferguson happened. When I showed up in Ferguson after
10:20
Speaker 5: Michael Brown's murder in twenty fourteen, the city of Ferguson
10:24
Speaker 5: averaged three point six arrest worants per household. Almost all
10:29
Speaker 5: of those arrest warrants were for black people. Almost all
10:33
Speaker 5: of them were for unpaid debt to the city. We
10:35
Speaker 5: have converted our criminal legal apparatus into one that targets
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Speaker 5: people of color, that targets poor people, that profits off
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Speaker 5: of them, that surveils them, that cages them, that separates
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Speaker 5: them from their families, to the tune of tens of
10:47
Speaker 5: millions of human beings every single year. And it's this
10:50
Speaker 5: systemic brutality that is normalized. That's the systemic brutality that
10:54
Speaker 5: quote unquote good cops engage in every single day. That
10:58
Speaker 5: is what modern contemporary Americ and policing is. It is
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Speaker 5: a system that is designed to preserve distributions of wealth
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Speaker 5: and property and distributions of racial supremacy and to uplift
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Speaker 5: this concept which has really been at the core of
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Speaker 5: the evolution of modern policing and the modern criminal punishment bureaucracy,
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Speaker 5: which is white supremacy and so what we try to
11:17
Speaker 5: do in our own small way through litigation and advocacy
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Speaker 5: and storytelling, is to try to change our culture's understanding
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Speaker 5: of what the police and what this entire metastasized punishment
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Speaker 5: bureaucracy is. Why do we have it, what function is
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Speaker 5: it serving, who does it benefit? How does it decide
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Speaker 5: what it's doing? And in this moment in particular, I
11:38
Speaker 5: want to lift up a patri said, I think the
11:41
Speaker 5: core thing we all need to understand is that we
11:43
Speaker 5: need to draw very clear lines. Now, are we going
11:45
Speaker 5: to propose subtle, small little tweaks to the way we
11:49
Speaker 5: talk about things, so that we're going to put a
11:50
Speaker 5: camera on a cop as they brutalize the same people
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Speaker 5: in the same neighborhoods, Or we're going to have conversations
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Speaker 5: about why do we need cops and why are we
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Speaker 5: investing tens of billions of golf every single year in
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Speaker 5: ages and handcuffs and sirens and taters and bulletproof vests
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Speaker 5: and not in the kinds of things that our communities
12:08
Speaker 5: need to flourish. So this narrative right now, in this
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Speaker 5: moment of divesting from things that cost evial pain and
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Speaker 5: that hurt people, and which there's no evidence of any benefit,
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Speaker 5: and investing in the kinds of things that all of
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Speaker 5: us know our communities need.
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Speaker 1: That's a perfect segue into your work.
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Speaker 6: Yeah, thank you so much.
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Speaker 7: It is hi everyone, the acitylic Eed at Worth Rises.
12:30
Speaker 6: Worth Rises.
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Speaker 7: We're an organization that works to dismantle the prison industry
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Speaker 7: and the exploitation of people touched by it. Those are
12:38
Speaker 7: both people inside as well as family on the outside.
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Speaker 7: We are really striving to build a world in which
12:45
Speaker 7: no entity or individual depends on human caging or.
12:49
Speaker 6: Control for their wealth, operation, or livelihood.
12:53
Speaker 7: That means whether you're a CEO of a fortune five
12:56
Speaker 7: hundred company or a large private prison company earning six
12:59
Speaker 7: million dollars year year, or your corrections officer earning twenty
13:02
Speaker 7: eight thousand dollars a year.
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Speaker 6: We want to ensure that there is nobody.
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Speaker 7: Who is dependent on people being incarcerated in order to
13:09
Speaker 7: exist in this world or build wealth. And so in
13:13
Speaker 7: large part, we're looking at ways to promote people over
13:16
Speaker 7: property and people over profit, which is something that again
13:21
Speaker 7: folks are now starting to mention as we talk about
13:23
Speaker 7: defund police. We have also been working really hard to
13:26
Speaker 7: amplify the calls made on the ground by the Black
13:29
Speaker 7: Lives Matter movement as well as by the movement for
13:31
Speaker 7: Black Lives to Defund Police, and a lot of our
13:34
Speaker 7: work has historically touched on things like this. We work
13:38
Speaker 7: a lot on prison phone justice issues for those who
13:40
Speaker 7: are unfamiliar with the injustice of prison phones. A phone
13:44
Speaker 7: call out of a jail in the US can run
13:47
Speaker 7: as high as twenty five dollars for a fifteen minute
13:50
Speaker 7: phone call. That is in large part because there are
13:52
Speaker 7: some big profit tiers running corporations dedicated simply to exploiting
13:57
Speaker 7: people's ability to communicate with their loved ones.
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Speaker 6: Who are incarcerated.
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Speaker 7: Those corporations, it should be known, are owned by big
14:05
Speaker 7: private equity firms that own some of your favorite teams,
14:09
Speaker 7: the Detroit Pistons are owned by the exact same person
14:13
Speaker 7: who owns the largest prison telecom company in the country,
14:16
Speaker 7: and so working on that, and part of why prison
14:20
Speaker 7: phone calls are so expensive is because a portion of
14:23
Speaker 7: those rates are actually paid back and kickbacks by the
14:26
Speaker 7: corporation two jails and two sheriffs, and so those are
14:31
Speaker 7: being used to further fund the police. And so our
14:34
Speaker 7: work a lot right now in our efforts to amplify
14:37
Speaker 7: the calls in the ground to defund police to look
14:40
Speaker 7: for radical transformational change to the system is to starve
14:44
Speaker 7: all of the different funding streams that police have and
14:48
Speaker 7: making sure that we ensure they're not going anywhere else,
14:51
Speaker 7: particularly looting our black and brown communities, to fill whatever
14:55
Speaker 7: gaps are created elsewhere.
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Speaker 1: Thank you, Patrice. There's a lot of misinformation out there
15:00
Speaker 1: about what defunding the police really means. You get people
15:03
Speaker 1: coming up and saying, well, if I call nine one one,
15:06
Speaker 1: no one's if I'm being robbed or something right, and
15:08
Speaker 1: that very off chance that someone's actually being right. We
15:11
Speaker 1: know that a tiny percentage of nine one one calls
15:13
Speaker 1: are actually for violent crime anyway, much less than five percent.
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Speaker 1: But can you explain what defunding the police really means?
15:19
Speaker 1: And I'm going to ask everyone when you answer this question,
15:21
Speaker 1: if you can also talk about what can people do,
15:24
Speaker 1: whether they have time to give, whether they have money
15:26
Speaker 1: to give, whether they have a network that they can
15:28
Speaker 1: share messages with. So if you could just incorporate that
15:31
Speaker 1: and over to you, Patrice, thank you.
15:33
Speaker 8: Absolutely.
15:34
Speaker 2: First thing I'll say is check out People's Budget, la
15:37
Speaker 2: dot Com as well as the alternatives to incarceration report
15:43
Speaker 2: that came out of La County. Here in Los Angeles,
15:46
Speaker 2: we have been experimenting with the idea of no police
15:49
Speaker 2: and no prisons for quite some time. We've gained a
15:52
Speaker 2: significant amount of traction in the last several years, both
15:55
Speaker 2: at the county level and at the city level. What
15:57
Speaker 2: we're talking about is truly an honestly about a reprioritization
16:02
Speaker 2: of resources. There are five things that the police are
16:05
Speaker 2: in charge of that they shouldn't be in charge of.
16:08
Speaker 2: There's a lot of things, but I start with the
16:09
Speaker 2: first five. Low hanging fruit, drug and alcohol addiction as
16:13
Speaker 2: first responders, homelessness as first responders, mental health crisis as
16:18
Speaker 2: first responders, people not having access to jobs, so people
16:22
Speaker 2: loitering and things like that. They're the first responders. And
16:26
Speaker 2: they're also in K through twelve schools. So we have
16:29
Speaker 2: to have a different conversation right now. We have allowed
16:33
Speaker 2: for the police to essentially be in every single part
16:38
Speaker 2: of our lives. And when I say our, I mean
16:42
Speaker 2: poor black people's lives, because the world that currently exists
16:46
Speaker 2: for white, affluent people is a world without police unless
16:50
Speaker 2: you call them and they show up for you. So
16:52
Speaker 2: they do the job for white, affluent people. They don't
16:55
Speaker 2: do the job for poor, black and brown people. So
16:58
Speaker 2: those five things can be the first things that we
17:01
Speaker 2: look at. If we look at a police budget, we
17:03
Speaker 2: can look at their budget and can say, hey, let's
17:05
Speaker 2: cross these things out. And as we're crossing them out
17:07
Speaker 2: and realizing how much money is being poured into those things,
17:11
Speaker 2: we can then reprioritize and reallocate those dollars to getting
17:16
Speaker 2: access to social workers, case managers, community interventionists. The list
17:20
Speaker 2: goes on. There are so many things in which we
17:23
Speaker 2: have divested from and have not allowed for our communities
17:28
Speaker 2: to thrive because of that divestment. There are so many
17:31
Speaker 2: programs that actually exist and doing a great job, but
17:33
Speaker 2: they cannot scale, They cannot do the things that say
17:37
Speaker 2: police do because they don't have any dollars. A budget
17:40
Speaker 2: is finite. We have to make a decision about what
17:43
Speaker 2: we are going to prioritize when it comes to a budget.
17:46
Speaker 2: And what the country and what our city in particular
17:49
Speaker 2: in Los Angeles has prioritized for the last thirty years
17:52
Speaker 2: is a bloated police budget and a bloated incarceration budget.
17:56
Speaker 2: Now is the time that we defund those and reprioritize.
18:01
Speaker 1: And Cassandra, that's a perfect leading to you, because one
18:04
Speaker 1: of the things that Drug Policy Alliance has been fighting
18:06
Speaker 1: for is putting a stop to the low level drug
18:09
Speaker 1: possession arrest in this country. I think people would be
18:11
Speaker 1: shocked to know how many people are arrested from marijuana possession.
18:15
Speaker 1: It's considered an essential service right stayed open during the pandemic.
18:19
Speaker 1: So can you speak on that for a minute and
18:21
Speaker 1: then also again advise people how they can move forward
18:25
Speaker 1: in solidarity.
18:26
Speaker 3: Thanks Jason and Patrice. That's exactly right.
18:29
Speaker 4: When we think about the way that police have acted
18:32
Speaker 4: as foot soldiers to be first responders for people who
18:34
Speaker 4: struggle with addiction, they are called in for things that
18:37
Speaker 4: they have no business doing. Drug Policy Alliance is very
18:40
Speaker 4: clear that law enforcement should never be the first responder
18:44
Speaker 4: when it comes to drugs, and that's why we are
18:46
Speaker 4: actually working on decriminalizing all drugs, so removing drugs from
18:51
Speaker 4: the criminal legal system altogether.
18:53
Speaker 3: No one should be responding to it.
18:55
Speaker 4: And then having the conversation this point that Jason brings
18:58
Speaker 4: up around marijuana. I'm from New York and Jason's from
19:00
Speaker 4: New York, where New York was the marijuana arrest capital
19:03
Speaker 4: in the country. We were arresting more people for marijuana
19:07
Speaker 4: than could fit in Yankee Stadium every year. And yet
19:11
Speaker 4: in this moment where New York still hasn't legalized marijuana,
19:14
Speaker 4: but we have a medical marijuana.
19:16
Speaker 3: Place, they deemed it an essential service.
19:19
Speaker 4: And in the beginning of COVID, NYPD was still tweeting
19:23
Speaker 4: out pictures of them harassing people in the subway station
19:26
Speaker 4: and being like, we found a bag of weed, and
19:28
Speaker 4: everyone was like, it's literally a pandemic. And so this
19:32
Speaker 4: is about not just redistributing the resources, but redistributing our
19:35
Speaker 4: priorities and recognizing that drugs should not be something that
19:39
Speaker 4: we deal with within the criminal legal system because it
19:42
Speaker 4: actually doesn't give people options, and that recognizing that that
19:46
Speaker 4: low hanging fruit is the excuse for people to engage
19:50
Speaker 4: and surveil and harm people of color and specifically black people,
19:55
Speaker 4: specifically black trans women who are consistently being harass by
20:00
Speaker 4: law enforcement because of their either trading sex or they're
20:04
Speaker 4: trading drugs. And so for us, you know, one of
20:06
Speaker 4: the things that we're saying is that if people want
20:08
Speaker 4: to get involved, they should follow Drug Policy Alliance. We're
20:12
Speaker 4: on Twitter, We're on Instagram, Join our list. We send
20:15
Speaker 4: out action alerts like literally every two days.
20:18
Speaker 3: Right now.
20:19
Speaker 4: We're focused on pushing the congressional bill right now that
20:23
Speaker 4: does not end no knock rades that kill Brionna Taylor,
20:27
Speaker 4: that continues to put money towards law enforcement, putting money
20:30
Speaker 4: towards treatment. And so we're putting out action alerts every
20:34
Speaker 4: day to really push the congressional Democrats to recognize that
20:38
Speaker 4: now is the time that if you're going to put
20:39
Speaker 4: forward congressional action.
20:42
Speaker 3: That it actually has to be about defunding.
20:44
Speaker 4: And if we want to say that we don't want
20:46
Speaker 4: of another Brionna Taylor to happen, then we have to
20:49
Speaker 4: end the militarization of police in our country.
20:51
Speaker 1: And again, another perfect setup because Alec, all of this
20:55
Speaker 1: intersects with the work that you're doing. I mean, this
20:58
Speaker 1: group is obviously sabbatico, but can you just take it
21:01
Speaker 1: right from there.
21:02
Speaker 5: I think it's very important to understand that when we
21:05
Speaker 5: use words like defund the police, that word has a
21:08
Speaker 5: very particular meaning in context, and I think we're likely
21:12
Speaker 5: to see many mainstream politicians and even police officials start
21:16
Speaker 5: to try to co opt what that word means in
21:19
Speaker 5: the same way that now you have people like Mitt
21:20
Speaker 5: Romney saying black lives matter. Well, when Romney says something
21:24
Speaker 5: like black lives matter, I guarantee you he's not thinking
21:26
Speaker 5: about a fundamental shift reparations, shifting the way that we
21:31
Speaker 5: invest in black communities all over the country. That's not
21:33
Speaker 5: how Mitt Rodney conceives as that term. The same is
21:35
Speaker 5: true with something like defunding the police. When Joe Biden
21:39
Speaker 5: talks about defunding the police, he's talking about increasing their
21:43
Speaker 5: funding for training and anti bias measures and more money
21:46
Speaker 5: for body cameras to surveil black communities. And he's talking
21:50
Speaker 5: about slightly reducing the amount of money perhaps on giving
21:53
Speaker 5: police military equipment, but increasing overall the amount of money
21:55
Speaker 5: going to police. We need to be very very clear.
21:58
Speaker 5: So I want to just make one point, crystal clear
22:00
Speaker 5: to the extent i able. When those of us in
22:03
Speaker 5: this movement talk about what needs to be done structurally
22:06
Speaker 5: to challenge the structural racism and inequality at the core
22:09
Speaker 5: of our system of policing, and we use terms like
22:11
Speaker 5: defunding the police, we mean very directly slashing their budgets
22:15
Speaker 5: in the way that Patrice was talking about and taking
22:18
Speaker 5: that money and investing in the flourishing of the communities
22:22
Speaker 5: that have been preyed on by the police for centuries.
22:25
Speaker 5: And anyone who tries to tell you that defunding the
22:27
Speaker 5: police means something different than that, Maybe it means investing
22:31
Speaker 5: in better resources for the cops to be better. Those
22:33
Speaker 5: are people who are trying to get you to buy
22:35
Speaker 5: into a propagandistic notion of good cops and bad apples, right,
22:39
Speaker 5: And all we need to do is help the good cops,
22:42
Speaker 5: give them the resources so that we can find the
22:44
Speaker 5: bad apples and kick them off the force and prosecute them.
22:46
Speaker 8: But let me just say one thing.
22:48
Speaker 5: It's not bad apples who quintupled this country's incarceration rate
22:51
Speaker 5: since nineteen eighty. It's not bad apples who are caging
22:54
Speaker 5: people every single day from marijuana. It's not bad apples
22:57
Speaker 5: who invented the cash bail system that can find four
23:00
Speaker 5: hundred thousand human beings every single day in this country
23:03
Speaker 5: away from their families just because they can't make a
23:05
Speaker 5: monetary payment. It's not bad apples that purchases grenade launchers
23:09
Speaker 5: and tasers and hear gas and tanks for our police forces. Right,
23:15
Speaker 5: These aren't things that bad apples are doing. These are
23:17
Speaker 5: what the good cops are doing with our money every
23:19
Speaker 5: single day. So we need to draw some lines in
23:22
Speaker 5: the sand. And if a politician or a local official
23:25
Speaker 5: or a leader is not talking about directly taking money
23:28
Speaker 5: from bloating police budgets and transferring them to communities, that
23:32
Speaker 5: person is not talking about anything that we should care about.
23:34
Speaker 8: Let me just give you an example.
23:36
Speaker 5: The City of Houston has a nine hundred and thirty
23:39
Speaker 5: million dollar police budget.
23:41
Speaker 8: That is just the city of Houston.
23:43
Speaker 5: It sits in Harris County, and the Harris County Sheriff's
23:45
Speaker 5: Office has another five hundred and sixty one million dollar
23:47
Speaker 5: budget justin Harris County alone. The Houston metro area there
23:51
Speaker 5: are sixty additional police forces six zero. So Harris County, Texas,
23:57
Speaker 5: just that one metro area spending several billion dollars year
24:00
Speaker 5: just on policing. I'm not even talking about prosecutors and
24:03
Speaker 5: prisons and tasers and tanks. I'm just talking about their
24:06
Speaker 5: yearly budgets. What kind of society looks at that and
24:10
Speaker 5: sees the complete divestment from the schools in Houston, from
24:13
Speaker 5: medical care, from safe, affordable housing, and what kind of
24:16
Speaker 5: person looks at that and thinks it's reasonable. We need
24:18
Speaker 5: to fundamentally change when we think about all of this
24:20
Speaker 5: and to do that. And this is where I think
24:22
Speaker 5: gets to your question about what we can all do
24:24
Speaker 5: to get involved. I think there's really two things all
24:27
Speaker 5: of us need to do. The work to learn about
24:30
Speaker 5: the history and the functions of these systems. We need
24:33
Speaker 5: to read people like Angela Davis. Everyone should read Our
24:36
Speaker 5: Prisons Obsolete as a starter, right, check out Critical Resistance,
24:40
Speaker 5: Just google them, start reading some of the materials they've
24:42
Speaker 5: been putting out for several decades, the work of Ruth
24:44
Speaker 5: Wilson Gilmour, take a look at what Mariam Kaba Kaba
24:48
Speaker 5: is writing for the last years on systems of mutual aid.
24:52
Speaker 5: Because it's communities setting up their own systems that respond
24:56
Speaker 5: to these problems that are going to be the alternatives
24:59
Speaker 5: that we turn to when we we don't need police anymore. Right,
25:01
Speaker 5: Systems that help people who don't have a home, Systems
25:04
Speaker 5: that help people confront when someone hurts someone in our society,
25:07
Speaker 5: we don't need to cage the person, right. We need
25:09
Speaker 5: a system of transformative justice that understands accountability, but that
25:13
Speaker 5: also understands the trauma that our racist and unequal system
25:17
Speaker 5: of policing and punishment has been inflicting. So I would
25:19
Speaker 5: encourage you to do that basic learning and reading, and
25:22
Speaker 5: then to look in your area. What are the groups
25:24
Speaker 5: that are doing mutual aid for their communities. Who are
25:27
Speaker 5: the people that are showing up for other people in
25:29
Speaker 5: their community, providing them the things that they need, Providing
25:32
Speaker 5: things for undocumented people in your community, Providing things are
25:35
Speaker 5: people that are houseless, writing things are people that need
25:38
Speaker 5: mental health care and other services, and get involved in
25:41
Speaker 5: those in a really real way, and start building the
25:43
Speaker 5: kinds of connections and relationships that actually are going to
25:46
Speaker 5: be the foundation for a much different, much safer, much
25:50
Speaker 5: more just society and Bianca.
25:53
Speaker 1: I'm going to turn to you as well, And you
25:54
Speaker 1: know I've been calling you because I have so many
25:56
Speaker 1: friends calling me and saying, my sixteen year old, my
26:00
Speaker 1: whatever wants to volunteer. What can they do to help? You? Know?
26:03
Speaker 1: Your work is so important because I think we have to,
26:06
Speaker 1: as you say, strangle the profit system, right because as
26:10
Speaker 1: long as there's money to be made by caging human beings,
26:14
Speaker 1: it's going to continue to happen, and at the moment,
26:17
Speaker 1: I think people will be shocked to find out how
26:19
Speaker 1: big that business really is, at what percentage of our
26:21
Speaker 1: budgets it makes up. And you're, you know, one of
26:24
Speaker 1: the leading experts on that. So I'm going to turn
26:25
Speaker 1: to you, and then we're going to take questions from
26:27
Speaker 1: the audience, which you're starting to really roll in, so Bianca.
26:31
Speaker 7: So prisons are eighty billion dollar industry. Policing is another
26:35
Speaker 7: one hundred billion dollar industry, taxpayer money largely put out
26:39
Speaker 7: in some parts to the private sector and others to
26:42
Speaker 7: resources and staff.
26:44
Speaker 6: And so in this amplification of the demand.
26:48
Speaker 7: To defund police, we've been talking about five particular funding
26:53
Speaker 7: streams that police and prisons have.
26:55
Speaker 6: The first is legislative budgets.
26:57
Speaker 7: That's been the one that's been sort of talked about
26:59
Speaker 7: the most moving money out.
27:00
Speaker 6: Of legislative budgets, which is the biggest.
27:04
Speaker 7: Source of money also and therefore obviously incredibly important.
27:08
Speaker 6: The second is fines and fees.
27:10
Speaker 7: So something often that folks may not be aware of,
27:12
Speaker 7: but you think about this, it'll be really intuitive. Traffic
27:15
Speaker 7: finds realizing there's a reason that you know, there's always
27:18
Speaker 7: a social commentary around quote is at the end of
27:21
Speaker 7: the month. It's because that is money that is used
27:23
Speaker 7: to fund police departments. Fees that goes back to the
27:27
Speaker 7: commissions or the kickbacks that I was mentioning earlier around
27:30
Speaker 7: prison phone calls and things of that sort.
27:33
Speaker 6: Court fees.
27:33
Speaker 7: There are fees for legal representation even if you are indigent.
27:37
Speaker 7: That is a misnomer that you can simply get free
27:40
Speaker 7: representation in most places. Third is civil asset forfeiture, something
27:43
Speaker 7: that far fewer folks are aware of, but.
27:47
Speaker 6: Basically the police can come up in your house and
27:49
Speaker 6: take your stuff.
27:50
Speaker 7: And this really connects deeply to what Cassandra was talking about,
27:53
Speaker 7: which is in most cases it's because of drug crimes.
27:56
Speaker 6: They can literally walk.
27:58
Speaker 7: Into your house and say, oh, there's a sixty inch television.
28:01
Speaker 7: We think you might be selling drugs. We're going to
28:04
Speaker 7: take your television. We don't have to arrest you, charge you,
28:08
Speaker 7: let alone convict you, and we can keep your things
28:11
Speaker 7: and you can hire an attorney because in civil courts
28:14
Speaker 7: you don't get away to an attorney. Nevertheless, that is
28:16
Speaker 7: actually your item that is on trial, and they can
28:20
Speaker 7: either keep your belongings or resell them. And those proceeds
28:23
Speaker 7: are used to fund police departments.
28:25
Speaker 6: In some cases thirty percent fifty percent of.
28:28
Speaker 7: Police departments funded on civil asset forfeiture, and studies have
28:31
Speaker 7: shown the civil asset forfeiture is dependent on more when
28:34
Speaker 7: legislative budgets are cut. So if you don't backstop these
28:38
Speaker 7: multiple different streams of funding, you can create some really
28:43
Speaker 7: off of byproducts, the last two being service contracts. So
28:46
Speaker 7: this is something that Patrice was mentioning contracts with public schools,
28:50
Speaker 7: contracts with corporations. To think about your favorite NBA stadium,
28:54
Speaker 7: the police that are stationed there, and that those stadiums
28:57
Speaker 7: that have contracts with police, the police get paid for
29:00
Speaker 7: those that is part of their funding stream.
29:02
Speaker 6: And then finally, corporate support.
29:04
Speaker 7: A lot of corporations, your favorite corporations, the verizons of
29:07
Speaker 7: the at and TS, targets of the world Amazon are
29:10
Speaker 7: all funding police and they're doing it in one of
29:13
Speaker 7: two fashions. They might be funding National Sheriff's Association or
29:18
Speaker 7: the National Police Organization. They might also be literally just
29:22
Speaker 7: building surveillance in cities and then handing the keys to
29:26
Speaker 7: that surveillance over to police, and that never hits a
29:28
Speaker 7: budget line. So it's really important that we actually look
29:31
Speaker 7: at all of these different parameters as we are working
29:35
Speaker 7: on this defund the police spectrum. And last thing on
29:39
Speaker 7: that is also what is not defunding the police is
29:41
Speaker 7: moving everything to electronic monitoring.
29:44
Speaker 6: Surveillance is part of policing period.
29:48
Speaker 7: So like moving people out of cages and putting them
29:50
Speaker 7: on monitors is not the solution, and don't let anyone
29:53
Speaker 7: tell you that it is. In terms of the things
29:55
Speaker 7: that people can do, I want to echo alex first suggestion,
29:59
Speaker 7: which is edu yourself. There are people in this movement
30:02
Speaker 7: that have been doing this for years, decades, and so
30:06
Speaker 7: you're not gonna learn it overnight. You're not gonna learn
30:08
Speaker 7: it by joining a few webinars. You're not gonna learn
30:11
Speaker 7: it in one book. You're gonna learn it by actually
30:14
Speaker 7: dedicating yourself to a practice of educating yourself, of reading
30:18
Speaker 7: and listening to people. As you're doing that, donate to
30:23
Speaker 7: organizations because you don't have the answers yet, and there's
30:26
Speaker 7: a lot of organizations out there, in large part right now,
30:30
Speaker 7: black led organizations that do have the answers and have
30:34
Speaker 7: the answers for their communities. And you need to be
30:36
Speaker 7: donating to those and so those are grassroots organizations, black
30:39
Speaker 7: led organizations, organizations doing systemic work which lasts far past
30:44
Speaker 7: this moment.
30:45
Speaker 6: Those are organizations like Letterots, BIP one hundred, a movement.
30:48
Speaker 7: For Black Lives, Back Out, collective organizations, here, Worth Rises,
30:53
Speaker 7: and others.
30:54
Speaker 6: Thirdly, uplift their actions.
30:56
Speaker 7: So if people are telling you that defund is the answer,
31:00
Speaker 7: don't argue, go learn, donate, and then say defunct is
31:05
Speaker 7: the answer, and so uplift those actions. If you want
31:08
Speaker 7: to pick up the phone and call your legislators, uplift
31:10
Speaker 7: their actions. Know that you know all of these things
31:13
Speaker 7: that Cassandra's mentioned, Pateresa's mentioning, those are the things that
31:16
Speaker 7: you should be doing. In the next stimulus bill, we
31:18
Speaker 7: have a part of that bill that we are hoping
31:21
Speaker 7: to pass that will dramatically cut the cost of prison
31:24
Speaker 7: phone calls and end commissions to sheriffs and jails and
31:29
Speaker 7: prisons entirely, meaning that phone calls will no longer use
31:33
Speaker 7: to subsidize the police. Support those initiatives, tell your legislators
31:37
Speaker 7: to support them. Fourthly, excuse me, I'm tomorrow, I'll be done.
31:40
Speaker 7: Fourthly is on volunteers again. You don't know the answers.
31:46
Speaker 7: Call your legislators and uplift those demands that are out there.
31:50
Speaker 7: And Secondly, black led organizations and organizations that do direct
31:55
Speaker 7: actions need bodies, and that is the most important thing
31:58
Speaker 7: that you can do as a you know, person of privilege,
32:01
Speaker 7: as like white folks and allies, is be out there.
32:05
Speaker 7: Like when there is a call to put people out there,
32:07
Speaker 7: come out support, be a body and support direct actions.
32:12
Speaker 7: And finally, and most importantly I think in my.
32:16
Speaker 6: View, is do something that's sustainable.
32:19
Speaker 7: And that means it's not right now, it's not this week,
32:22
Speaker 7: it's not just this month, but actually do things and
32:25
Speaker 7: commit to a practice that is supporting the movement in
32:30
Speaker 7: defense of black lives and for criminal justice transformation and
32:34
Speaker 7: the abolition of prisons in jail. So if that's donating
32:38
Speaker 7: on a monthly and recurring basis great. If that's you're
32:41
Speaker 7: going to call your legislators every week, that's it. Whatever
32:44
Speaker 7: you do, make sure that you're doing it for the
32:46
Speaker 7: long haul and you're not here with us just.
32:48
Speaker 6: For this call.
32:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm going to say defund and divest, because
32:52
Speaker 1: divesting from investments that you may have in your portfolios
32:55
Speaker 1: that you may not even know about, or that your
32:57
Speaker 1: parents may have. Speak to them and say, do you
32:59
Speaker 1: have any stocks in companies that make money on the
33:02
Speaker 1: caging of human beings or any other system of oppression
33:06
Speaker 1: of human beings that exists in this country? Divest that's
33:09
Speaker 1: going to make people stand up and pay attention, and
33:12
Speaker 1: maybe we'll be able to create a resource out to
33:14
Speaker 1: that to connect volunteers with volunteering opportunities. Now, I'm going
33:17
Speaker 1: to turn to questions that we've gotten from people who
33:22
Speaker 1: are watching, and anyone who wants to take them can
33:25
Speaker 1: take them. So Autumn is asking, where can one find
33:28
Speaker 1: a comprehensive list of all companies that knowingly benefit from
33:31
Speaker 1: this system?
33:32
Speaker 6: Thank you, Autumn.
33:33
Speaker 7: So Worth Rises actually publishes a report annually. We just
33:38
Speaker 7: published our twenty twenty version of the report last month.
33:42
Speaker 6: It is a report that exposes all of the corporations
33:46
Speaker 6: that are engaged in.
33:48
Speaker 7: The prison industry and the prison industrial complex.
33:51
Speaker 6: It has over four thousand companies on it.
33:54
Speaker 7: You can download the data directly, and the data is
33:56
Speaker 7: really comprehensive. It will tell you not just the name
33:59
Speaker 7: of the corporation, but exactly what they're doing, who they're
34:03
Speaker 7: owned by, if they're not a standalone company, what their
34:06
Speaker 7: revenues might be, and all of the sources. So if
34:09
Speaker 7: you're looking to Jason's point to divest and do those things,
34:12
Speaker 7: look closely.
34:14
Speaker 6: And there's a few big names that I'll like mention.
34:16
Speaker 7: Think about Amazon, Google, Stanley, Black and Decker.
34:20
Speaker 6: You have some screwdrivers in there.
34:21
Speaker 7: They also make detention hardware for solitary cells. Three AM
34:25
Speaker 7: big supportive prison labor Era Mark, which is probably in
34:28
Speaker 7: your schools and stadiums and all those places government buildings.
34:32
Speaker 7: They also serve food and prisons have ensued a million
34:35
Speaker 7: times for maggot field road and field like food. There
34:38
Speaker 7: are many companies in your portfolios, in your parents' portfolios,
34:42
Speaker 7: in your friends' portfolios, in your pensions if that is
34:45
Speaker 7: your in your school endowments, all related to those companies.
34:49
Speaker 1: Okay, and of course we haven't said it yet, but
34:51
Speaker 1: I'm going to say it now. And vote. Don't just
34:52
Speaker 1: vote in the national elections. Vote in local elections. That's
34:55
Speaker 1: so important. Vote in your DA races, vote in your
34:58
Speaker 1: state senate, anything, because those are the people that drive
35:01
Speaker 1: the change upwards. Okay, next question, this is from Victoria,
35:05
Speaker 1: and she asked how can we start to educate the
35:07
Speaker 1: public about how police and prosecutoral immunity go hand in hand? Patrice,
35:12
Speaker 1: do you want to take this one? Sure?
35:14
Speaker 2: I mean, I think you know one way is having conversations,
35:17
Speaker 2: but I also think another way is working with organizations
35:21
Speaker 2: that are having those conversations. Lots of times people forget
35:24
Speaker 2: that the way we create change is by joining something.
35:29
Speaker 2: We can't individually change a system, but we can change
35:33
Speaker 2: the system when we work with organizations like many that
35:37
Speaker 2: are on the panel right now. We can also send
35:39
Speaker 2: you a list of orgs in your own community. Join
35:42
Speaker 2: something right now. I think that's the best thing that
35:44
Speaker 2: people can do and be a part of the efforts
35:46
Speaker 2: that people are making happen. And if you feel like
35:50
Speaker 2: there isn't a group that's actually doing the thing you want,
35:53
Speaker 2: then figure out how to bill it yourself.
35:55
Speaker 1: Like you did. Yeah. And if someone was gonna say, well,
35:57
Speaker 1: I want, Patresea, tell me one organization I should join today?
35:59
Speaker 2: What No, I can't do one? Every organization plays such
36:03
Speaker 2: a powerful role. But if you're talking about like DAS
36:06
Speaker 2: and police and you want to actually challenge that, I
36:08
Speaker 2: think it depends like what side of the work you
36:10
Speaker 2: want to do. Do you want to do work that's
36:12
Speaker 2: just educating people or do you want to do work
36:14
Speaker 2: where you're getting those terrible das out of office and
36:17
Speaker 2: then bringing new people in. I'm not good at the
36:20
Speaker 2: like give me one, because I just think there's such
36:22
Speaker 2: a nuanced approach to it. But there's lots of orgs
36:25
Speaker 2: that are taking on DA's world. Justice Pack is one
36:28
Speaker 2: of them. I work with them. They've taken on multiple
36:30
Speaker 2: das and they've won a lot of races. Here in
36:33
Speaker 2: Los Angeles. If you live here, we have a DA
36:35
Speaker 2: race that's happening. Jackie Lacy must go and George Gascon
36:40
Speaker 2: is running up against her, and we like him and
36:41
Speaker 2: we've endorse him. So just so, it's really important that
36:44
Speaker 2: you know what your local elections are going to be
36:47
Speaker 2: and who's up against each other and researching them.
36:50
Speaker 1: Okay, next question is are there any significant efforts being
36:53
Speaker 1: made regarding legislation of civilian review boards with actual power
36:58
Speaker 1: that oversee police internal affairs division. This comes from someone
37:02
Speaker 1: who's not a neophyte. Okay, how like that sounds like you.
37:06
Speaker 5: I have not heard of anything that I would term significant. Again,
37:10
Speaker 5: that term is very loaded though, I mean I'm not
37:13
Speaker 5: a big fan of that kind of intervention in any way.
37:15
Speaker 5: I'm much more in favor of just dramatically reducing the
37:18
Speaker 5: size of police department. I think it's a really fraught
37:21
Speaker 5: business to say we're going to improve police departments by
37:23
Speaker 5: giving a little more oversight, by investigating, by giving more
37:27
Speaker 5: resources to other police to investigate those police, right. I
37:30
Speaker 5: think if you want to stop police brutality, if you
37:33
Speaker 5: want to invest in communities, you reduce the size, You
37:36
Speaker 5: reduce the number of interactions they're having with people. You decriminalize,
37:40
Speaker 5: you reduce their ability to intervene in the negative way
37:43
Speaker 5: in people's lives. Smaller police forces are going to do
37:46
Speaker 5: a lot less of the things that we don't want
37:48
Speaker 5: police doing, so for me, I think it's interesting that
37:51
Speaker 5: many people in the establishment for years have been focusing
37:55
Speaker 5: on interventions like that, and the police unions have won
37:58
Speaker 5: even those battles. I mean, police unions have prevented even
38:00
Speaker 5: the most basic interventions like civilian review boards with with
38:04
Speaker 5: subpoena power. Police unions have blocked even the most seemingly
38:08
Speaker 5: mild interventions to police accountability. But that doesn't mean that
38:11
Speaker 5: we should still be pushing for those things above other
38:13
Speaker 5: things we should be pushing in this moment. We're much bolder,
38:16
Speaker 5: much more visionary change to the structure of who police
38:20
Speaker 5: are and what they do and why we need them,
38:22
Speaker 5: and we should only be using them to the extent
38:25
Speaker 5: someone is able to tell us a very very good
38:27
Speaker 5: reason why police need to be doing this particular thing,
38:30
Speaker 5: and they don't need to be doing anything else. And
38:32
Speaker 5: so I think in terms of all of the reforms
38:34
Speaker 5: that are being pushed, you know, one of the current
38:37
Speaker 5: reforms that police unions are most upset with is this
38:39
Speaker 5: independent power of civilian review boards to fire officers or
38:43
Speaker 5: subpoena them or to conduct investigations. But that's sort of
38:46
Speaker 5: because police unions haven't yet appreciated the moment that we're in,
38:50
Speaker 5: which is actually, potentially, if we do things right, much
38:53
Speaker 5: more threatening to the very notion that there could be
38:56
Speaker 5: fifty one thousand employees of the New York Police Department.
39:00
Speaker 5: There shouldn't be fifty one thousand NYPD employees, right, And
39:03
Speaker 5: as a first step, let's cut it down to thirty thousand.
39:05
Speaker 5: Then we can start talking about scrutinizing and holding those
39:07
Speaker 5: thirty thousand people account.
39:09
Speaker 1: Cassandra I want to ask you a question because and
39:11
Speaker 1: then I'll get it back to the questions from the audience.
39:13
Speaker 1: But you know, and you talk very eloquently about how
39:16
Speaker 1: much of a role drugs play in police brutality, right,
39:19
Speaker 1: because it's the start of so many interactions, or it's
39:21
Speaker 1: the rationale for so much brutality. And many people say, well,
39:24
Speaker 1: I can understand legalizing pot, but legalizing drugs that's a
39:27
Speaker 1: little too much for me. But we know from what
39:29
Speaker 1: happened in Portugal and other places when they have decriminalized
39:33
Speaker 1: all drugs, there's not a social scientist alive who can
39:36
Speaker 1: point to any deleterious effect. Or am I wrong about that?
39:40
Speaker 3: No, you're not.
39:41
Speaker 4: I mean I think decriminalizing drugs in general removes and
39:44
Speaker 4: excuse or lessons in excuse, right, and so it creates
39:48
Speaker 4: this thing where law enforcement isn't supposed to do this anymore.
39:52
Speaker 4: And then we're able to start understanding like what is
39:56
Speaker 4: your role, right, Like you're not playing this role for drugs,
39:59
Speaker 4: so what do you actually doing? And when we saw
40:02
Speaker 4: Portugal in two thousand and one, violence went down, addiction
40:06
Speaker 4: went down, young people didn't start using drugs. More blood
40:10
Speaker 4: born illnesses also went down, people moving into treatment went up.
40:14
Speaker 4: You know what's actually really interesting about this is like
40:17
Speaker 4: right now in the US, Drug Policy Action is working
40:21
Speaker 4: with groups on the ground in Oregon for Initiative forty four,
40:24
Speaker 4: where we are working to decriminalize all drugs and also
40:29
Speaker 4: building up the health infrastructure, because Oregon is the fiftieth
40:33
Speaker 4: state when it comes to substance use treatment access, so
40:36
Speaker 4: they are the worst when it comes to people getting
40:39
Speaker 4: access to treatment. And what we're saying is because what
40:42
Speaker 4: the nineteen ninety four Crime Bill did was say, we
40:45
Speaker 4: have to criminalize drugs really hard so we can give
40:47
Speaker 4: you access to treatment. And what they did was criminalize
40:51
Speaker 4: is really hard and didn't actually give us treatment. And
40:53
Speaker 4: there's this thing about people who are homeless or mentally
40:57
Speaker 4: ill or who have substance whose problems is like, in
41:01
Speaker 4: order for them to get access to treatment, they have
41:04
Speaker 4: to be involved in the criminal legal system.
41:06
Speaker 3: And so what we're saying is like, being involved with
41:08
Speaker 3: the criminal legal system should.
41:10
Speaker 4: Not be a barrier or an entryway into getting access,
41:14
Speaker 4: and so decriminalizing drugs removes law enforcement from that role.
41:18
Speaker 4: And to the question earlier about civil review boards, I
41:21
Speaker 4: think it's also important to realize that individuals are the
41:24
Speaker 4: civil review board. And so, going back to Patricia's point
41:27
Speaker 4: and to your question about volunteer opportunities, people need to
41:31
Speaker 4: cop watch. People need to join cop watch crews around
41:34
Speaker 4: this country. The reason why Black Lives Matter is so big,
41:38
Speaker 4: and the reason why George Floyd is so big is
41:40
Speaker 4: because we're watching. We have educated ourselves to realize that
41:45
Speaker 4: seeing police officers interact with people is a reason for
41:49
Speaker 4: you to stop and for you to record. Just in
41:52
Speaker 4: the same way that the state is surveilling us, we
41:55
Speaker 4: need to surveil them. And you see how these videos,
41:58
Speaker 4: we see the video that we got for Aubrey, the
42:01
Speaker 4: video that we got for Ramarley Graham, the video we
42:03
Speaker 4: got for George Floyd changed the conversation because police can lie,
42:08
Speaker 4: and they lie often, and it's not illegal for them
42:10
Speaker 4: to lie. And so if you are looking for things
42:13
Speaker 4: to donate to, or you actually want to put your
42:15
Speaker 4: body in this movement, not just in protests or in groups,
42:20
Speaker 4: join a cop watch group. It has changed the way
42:23
Speaker 4: people operate because now we can say, no, that's not
42:27
Speaker 4: what happened, officer.
42:28
Speaker 3: You actually had your.
42:30
Speaker 4: Foot on that man's neck for nine minutes, as opposed
42:33
Speaker 4: to what they usually do when it comes to drugs,
42:35
Speaker 4: where they do an optopsy and if you have weed
42:37
Speaker 4: in your system, or if you have fentanyl or methamphetamine,
42:41
Speaker 4: then they get to say, well, it's drugs that killed them,
42:43
Speaker 4: but it wasn't.
42:44
Speaker 3: It was police interactions.
42:45
Speaker 4: And so cop watching is super important, and it's an
42:48
Speaker 4: amazing way to provide volunteer opportunities, and it really helps
42:52
Speaker 4: people on the ground because they're doing it for you
42:55
Speaker 4: and I and getting more people entering into the cop
42:59
Speaker 4: watch tradition.
43:00
Speaker 3: We'll save all of us.
43:01
Speaker 1: Right. There's even a hashtag AFTP Always Filmed the Police,
43:05
Speaker 1: so you can go to that hashtag. Thousands of people
43:07
Speaker 1: uploading videos every day now on, and so it's changing
43:10
Speaker 1: the entire culture. I just saw a question come in
43:13
Speaker 1: from my own brother, Peter Flom, who's a PhD in
43:16
Speaker 1: psychometric so this should be interesting. He says, given how
43:20
Speaker 1: spread out the police are, with state police, city police,
43:22
Speaker 1: local police, and so on, how can local legislation or
43:26
Speaker 1: other measures apply widely?
43:28
Speaker 5: I mean, I can start, I can just say, I mean,
43:30
Speaker 5: the vast bulk of police officers in this country are
43:33
Speaker 5: are local police department officers. Right, So there are tens
43:37
Speaker 5: of thousands of police officers just in New York City.
43:40
Speaker 5: There are tens of thousands of officers in Chicago, La, Houston, Dallas,
43:45
Speaker 5: you know, all of the big cities have gigantic police
43:48
Speaker 5: departments with enormous budgets, and when we talk about policing,
43:52
Speaker 5: we are by and large talking about those police forces. Now,
43:55
Speaker 5: of course, every single state has various versions, multiple versions
43:59
Speaker 5: in most places.
44:00
Speaker 8: Of state police.
44:01
Speaker 5: All of these people call themselves law enforcement officers, which
44:04
Speaker 5: I think is a term of propaganda, you know, designed
44:06
Speaker 5: to shield the fact that they're only enforcing some laws
44:08
Speaker 5: against some people some of the time. But this entire
44:11
Speaker 5: sort of law enforcement industry, your brother is correct. There's
44:14
Speaker 5: federal police Washington, dcv of dozens of federal police forces,
44:17
Speaker 5: but they all pale in size the local metropolitan police department.
44:21
Speaker 5: And so, make no mistake, local city and county governments
44:25
Speaker 5: have direct budgetary control over their local police forces and
44:29
Speaker 5: local sheriff's departments. And in every single town and county
44:32
Speaker 5: in this country, the people that you elect for those
44:35
Speaker 5: positions can slash the budgets of their police and their
44:38
Speaker 5: sheriff's departments, and give that money to affordable housing, mental
44:41
Speaker 5: health care, treatment, theater, poetry, music, athletic programs for children,
44:46
Speaker 5: all the things that people actually need and want in
44:48
Speaker 5: their communities, and that is something that can happen in
44:50
Speaker 5: every single community.
44:51
Speaker 6: Yeah.
44:52
Speaker 7: I'd also add that there is a big partnership between
44:54
Speaker 7: local police and federal police that needs to be addressed,
44:58
Speaker 7: and that by changing local politics and policies can affect
45:02
Speaker 7: national policing. So a great example of sanctuary cities and
45:07
Speaker 7: cities that are refusing to cooperate with ikes right saying well,
45:12
Speaker 7: we're not going to enforce those things, and therefore the
45:14
Speaker 7: federal reach becomes a lot more limited and enforcement at
45:18
Speaker 7: the federal level becomes a lot harder. Similarly, civil asset
45:21
Speaker 7: forfeiture is actually a very common practice between federal and
45:25
Speaker 7: local police, so to Cassandra's work in point, there's this misnomer, right,
45:30
Speaker 7: the majority of people are in prison for drugs.
45:32
Speaker 6: Not the case, however, is.
45:34
Speaker 7: Or similar to the case in the federal system, and
45:36
Speaker 7: so federal police actually really do rely on local police.
45:40
Speaker 7: In fact, there's a federal program that allows them to
45:43
Speaker 7: take eighty percent of civil asset forfeiture proceeds and it
45:46
Speaker 7: incentivizes local police to work with the federal system when
45:49
Speaker 7: the federal system is looking for someone. So there's a
45:53
Speaker 7: lot of relational aspects between those two. That means by
45:57
Speaker 7: changing local policies you can impact even how federal law
46:01
Speaker 7: enforcement is done.
46:03
Speaker 6: And the last thing I'll started to say on that
46:05
Speaker 6: is just that jails are also local.
46:08
Speaker 7: Their local sheriffs and counties run jails, and some of
46:12
Speaker 7: the most egregious exploitation happens at the jail level, not
46:16
Speaker 7: actually necessarily at the state level. So those phone calls,
46:19
Speaker 7: when we talk about like the price of a phone call,
46:22
Speaker 7: the national average that the jail is over five dollars
46:25
Speaker 7: and seventy five cents. National average across prisons is a
46:29
Speaker 7: dollar forty two. And so actually looking at local policies
46:33
Speaker 7: is really critical and quite frankly, for organizations a lot
46:37
Speaker 7: harder because there's so many and so work that can
46:40
Speaker 7: be done at that level by ordinary citizens without the
46:44
Speaker 7: work of advocacy can.
46:45
Speaker 6: Be really impactful.
46:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's crazy to think, even going back to what
46:49
Speaker 1: Cassandra was saying, that we now know because his own
46:52
Speaker 1: aid admitted this, that Nixon declared the war on drugs,
46:55
Speaker 1: not because he cared about drugs. Nobody cared about drugs
46:58
Speaker 1: back then, but he wanted a war on black people
47:00
Speaker 1: and hippies, and he couldn't call it that, so it
47:02
Speaker 1: was really a marketing thing that he did, and it
47:04
Speaker 1: of course led to this unbelievably disastrous situation, including the
47:08
Speaker 1: fact that we now live in a police state, and
47:10
Speaker 1: we also know that drug arrests are over fifty percent
47:13
Speaker 1: people of color, and then it goes up. The number
47:16
Speaker 1: of prosecutions is close to sixty five percent and the
47:18
Speaker 1: number of convictions is over seventy five percent of people
47:21
Speaker 1: of color.
47:22
Speaker 4: And I think it goes back to one of the
47:23
Speaker 4: things that Patrice said earlier about the low hanging fruit.
47:26
Speaker 4: We have to have a conversation as to why the
47:29
Speaker 4: Cook County Jail is the largest treatment provider in the country.
47:35
Speaker 4: Largest drug treatmental provider in the country comes out of
47:38
Speaker 4: a jail. In New York, Department of Correction was the
47:41
Speaker 4: largest treatment provider. So like our police state, you have
47:45
Speaker 4: contracts not just with aramark, you have contracts with treatment facilities.
47:50
Speaker 4: So the police state, everyone's making money based on marginalized
47:55
Speaker 4: people that are struggling with everyday situations.
47:57
Speaker 3: And so defunding police.
47:59
Speaker 4: It goes back to Bianca is like the funding is
48:02
Speaker 4: also looking at the role that capitalism is playing and
48:04
Speaker 4: the industry that we have built on the suffering of people.
48:08
Speaker 1: And let's not forget in all of this that the
48:10
Speaker 1: people that are paying for all of this are taxpayers, right,
48:13
Speaker 1: It's not like this money falls out of the sky.
48:16
Speaker 1: We are paying one hundred and seventy five thousand dollars
48:19
Speaker 1: to keep someone in Rikers Island. You could actually put
48:21
Speaker 1: somebody in the four Seasons on fifty seventh Street for
48:23
Speaker 1: the same amount of money, and we're paying to keep
48:25
Speaker 1: them in Rikers Island. But it's us paying for all
48:28
Speaker 1: of this, paying for them. When you hear Bionca talk
48:30
Speaker 1: about the police department, numbers not tens of billions, but
48:33
Speaker 1: hundreds of billions of dollars that we are spending, and
48:36
Speaker 1: that could be going to educate kids, to healthcare, to
48:38
Speaker 1: all the things that we actually need. But I also
48:40
Speaker 1: want to make the point that, going back to what
48:41
Speaker 1: we're saying before, not only do we pay to incarcerate
48:44
Speaker 1: people as taxpayers, but we also deprive our own society
48:47
Speaker 1: of the money that they would be paying in taxes
48:49
Speaker 1: if they were free and working, and we deprive them
48:51
Speaker 1: of the ability to make money in the future because
48:53
Speaker 1: we discriminate against those very same people when they come
48:56
Speaker 1: out of prison and they can't get a job, and
48:59
Speaker 1: therefore they can't suppor with their family, they can't pay taxes,
49:01
Speaker 1: and then we wonder why we have recidivism in this
49:03
Speaker 1: country as well. It's a vicious cycle. But we can
49:05
Speaker 1: break it, and we can break it together. So we
49:08
Speaker 1: have one or two more questions. Someone said it has
49:10
Speaker 1: often been said those closest to the problem are closest
49:13
Speaker 1: to the solution, but furthest from the resources and power.
49:16
Speaker 1: No one is closer to the resources and the power
49:19
Speaker 1: of criminal justicism than those in the field of law.
49:22
Speaker 1: Yet paradoxically, no one is more restrained from accessing and
49:26
Speaker 1: entering the field than justice impacted. Is there anything more
49:31
Speaker 1: impactful than empowering and equipping our people? Wow, that's a
49:34
Speaker 1: lofty question. It's more of a statement than a question,
49:38
Speaker 1: So maybe it's okay here, really.
49:40
Speaker 6: Easy to answer.
49:40
Speaker 7: No, there's nothing more powerful like we have to equip
49:43
Speaker 7: our people.
49:44
Speaker 6: It's very clear and true.
49:45
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I think the most powerful thing to
49:48
Speaker 4: me and our work is not just equipping people with resources,
49:51
Speaker 4: but giving them the tools to stand in their own
49:53
Speaker 4: power and agency. I think the most powerful relationships that
49:57
Speaker 4: I have in working at Drug Policy Alliance is working
50:00
Speaker 4: hand in hand with drug User Unions. So people who
50:02
Speaker 4: use drugs in our criminalize every single day, direct our agenda,
50:06
Speaker 4: and we plan and we conspire and we build and move.
50:09
Speaker 3: Together and we get them resources.
50:12
Speaker 4: So you know, organizations like Vocal New York are doing
50:14
Speaker 4: amazing work at multiple intersections, and so folks are thinking
50:19
Speaker 4: about who is closest to the problem.
50:22
Speaker 3: But furthest from the resources.
50:23
Speaker 4: I would look for drug user Unions because they're doing
50:26
Speaker 4: a lot of the works at the intersections.
50:28
Speaker 1: And I'm going to say now as we go to closing,
50:32
Speaker 1: it's one very simple step is to follow Worthrises. It'sworthrises
50:37
Speaker 1: dot org or at Worth Rises on Instagram. Of course,
50:41
Speaker 1: Drug Policy Alliance very simple, very straightforward. The people who
50:45
Speaker 1: are fighting the war against the War on drugs with
50:47
Speaker 1: all of its miserable tentacles and the various goals, follow
50:51
Speaker 1: Drug Policy Alliance on whatever social media you use. Civil
50:55
Speaker 1: Rights Core again, if you just go to even their
50:57
Speaker 1: Instagram or their site, you'll see it's almost a one
51:00
Speaker 1: stop resource for figuring out how you can get involved,
51:04
Speaker 1: how you can make your voice heard, how you can
51:06
Speaker 1: activate your friends and energize, and of course Black Lives Matter.
51:10
Speaker 1: I think Patrice had a six o'clock so she had
51:11
Speaker 1: to jump off. But no one's going to forget those words,
51:14
Speaker 1: and no one has any complication or confusion as to
51:17
Speaker 1: how to go to find resources on I just say on.
51:20
Speaker 6: Patrese's behalf since she's not.
51:21
Speaker 7: Also to follow Dignity and Power Now, which is the
51:25
Speaker 7: organization that Patrese founded after BLM and currently runs and
51:29
Speaker 7: their Twitter and Instagram is Power Dignity, it's actually inverse.
51:34
Speaker 1: And of course Vote Vote Vote. We do have a
51:38
Speaker 1: couple of minutes left and so I'd like to just
51:40
Speaker 1: have a quick closing, if we can do a lightning round.
51:42
Speaker 1: I want to thank everyone for tuning in. I'm Jason Flamm.
51:47
Speaker 1: This has been a presentation of Wrongful Conviction podcasts. Please
51:51
Speaker 1: do follow us as well. It's Wrongful Conviction Podcast on
51:53
Speaker 1: Instagram or if you want to follow me, it's at
51:55
Speaker 1: It's Jason Flamm, but you probably already know that. And
51:58
Speaker 1: thank you all for watching and forgetting, for caring and
52:01
Speaker 1: now I'm going to turn it over to our wonderful
52:04
Speaker 1: group of panelists to just share their closing thoughts and
52:07
Speaker 1: any any action steps that you want to take. Anybody
52:10
Speaker 1: to follow, anybody that don'tate to whatever it is, we'll
52:12
Speaker 1: close out. We'll go this time in reverse orders, so
52:16
Speaker 1: we'll go Bianca, Ale, Cassandra, and finally patrece So Bianca.
52:21
Speaker 3: Great.
52:21
Speaker 7: Well, thank you Jason for obviously pulling this together and
52:25
Speaker 7: for asking us all to join and for uplifting the
52:28
Speaker 7: calls to action that everyone here is uplifting.
52:32
Speaker 6: So I just want to reiterate calls to.
52:33
Speaker 7: Action that are being made by the Movement for Black
52:36
Speaker 7: Lives and black led organizations. Please also follow them, join
52:41
Speaker 7: their actions, and in particular they're organizing around Juneteenth next
52:45
Speaker 7: week and really trying to center that work and focusing
52:50
Speaker 7: that is I think really important. And the last thing
52:52
Speaker 7: I'll say is again just reiterating whatever you do, make
52:55
Speaker 7: sure you do it sustainably, make sure you are committed
52:58
Speaker 7: to this for more than this.
53:00
Speaker 3: It's just one moment, Okay.
53:02
Speaker 5: I think it's really important for people to understand that
53:05
Speaker 5: we are about to be immersed in a full on
53:08
Speaker 5: propaganda war and there's going to be a lot of
53:11
Speaker 5: people who have an interest in shielding the true functions
53:16
Speaker 5: of what the police do, what our entire criminal punishment
53:19
Speaker 5: bureaucracy does, And so I think it's very important that
53:23
Speaker 5: you educate yourself about those systems and keep a few
53:26
Speaker 5: rules of thumb in mind. You know, if someone is
53:28
Speaker 5: proposing something that doesn't reduce the resources we're putting into
53:32
Speaker 5: the police and the punishment bureaucracy more generally, it's not
53:35
Speaker 5: a good reform.
53:36
Speaker 8: Okay, If someone.
53:38
Speaker 5: Is proposing something that retains the power and discretion and
53:41
Speaker 5: control of actors within that system, prosecutors, police, judges, jailers,
53:46
Speaker 5: that's not a good reform. We need to be transferring
53:49
Speaker 5: authority and power into communities that are accountable to themselves,
53:54
Speaker 5: not to this metasticized bureaucracy. And another thing that I
53:57
Speaker 5: think is just absolutely critical for people to keep in
54:00
Speaker 5: mind is that this system is founded on a society
54:05
Speaker 5: of racial injustice. And it's just not possible to have
54:09
Speaker 5: any of these conversations without talking about how we're going
54:12
Speaker 5: to repair those decades and centuries of injustice. The policing system,
54:16
Speaker 5: the punishment bureocracy, it all exists on a structure of
54:20
Speaker 5: a very unequal society. And unless people are having that
54:24
Speaker 5: kind of deep conversation, they're not actually meaningfully.
54:28
Speaker 8: Engaging in these issues and they won't be able to
54:29
Speaker 8: solve them.
54:30
Speaker 5: No amount of discussion about bias, training and body cameras
54:35
Speaker 5: and community policing, all of these propaganistic words that you're
54:39
Speaker 5: probably hearing a little bit of in the media. A
54:41
Speaker 5: lot of people are promoting, for example, that police rewrite
54:44
Speaker 5: their use of force policies right or that they warn
54:47
Speaker 5: people before they shoot them.
54:49
Speaker 8: These are some of the demands that are being made.
54:50
Speaker 5: These are some of the things that the Democrats are
54:51
Speaker 5: now including in their Justice and Policing Bill, which by
54:55
Speaker 5: the way, is nonsense. We need to be focusing on
54:58
Speaker 5: structural change, on changing the priorities. Like Patrice mentioned the
55:02
Speaker 5: People's budget in La Take a look at that document.
55:05
Speaker 5: See what a truly visionary budget document for a local
55:08
Speaker 5: government looks like, and see how much money is being
55:10
Speaker 5: devoted to things like policing versus things like medical treatment,
55:13
Speaker 5: housing and education.
55:14
Speaker 8: Let's get ourselves to a society like that.
55:16
Speaker 1: Thank you, and don't forget to pick up Alex's book
55:19
Speaker 1: Usual Cruelty. I've bought hundreds of copies which I give
55:22
Speaker 1: out like candy, so usual. Cruelty is the book, and Cassandra,
55:27
Speaker 1: we're going to leave it to you to close out
55:28
Speaker 1: our power to the people for them, and thank you
55:31
Speaker 1: all again for being here.
55:32
Speaker 3: Thanks Jason.
55:34
Speaker 4: The thing that I will ask folks to do is
55:36
Speaker 4: to close their eyes quickly and to really think about
55:40
Speaker 4: the last time you felt safe. What do you see,
55:45
Speaker 4: who's around you, what does it sound like. Most of
55:52
Speaker 4: the time, when organizers, you can open your eyes. Most
55:54
Speaker 4: of the time, when organizers do this, we listen to
55:58
Speaker 4: people and no point does anyone ever say a police
56:03
Speaker 4: was there, there were sirens, there were protests. Most of
56:06
Speaker 4: the times people smell cookies. They're there with their loved ones,
56:09
Speaker 4: they're there with their family. When people ask us why
56:12
Speaker 4: we're calling to defund the police, when people are calling
56:15
Speaker 4: for us to say, why say black Lives matter? Is
56:18
Speaker 4: because we believe that everyone should feel that feeling of safety,
56:22
Speaker 4: that they should be surrounded by loved ones, and that
56:25
Speaker 4: they should have that feeling of comfort and security, and
56:28
Speaker 4: that too many people right now don't have that feeling.
56:32
Speaker 4: And that is what we're trying to get to And
56:35
Speaker 4: so you know, simple actions that folks can take right now,
56:39
Speaker 4: Going back to Bianca's point is text defend in all
56:43
Speaker 4: caps to nine oh nine seventy five, and then you'll
56:47
Speaker 4: be on the text bread for the Movement for Black Lives,
56:49
Speaker 4: which is calling to defund police in defense of black lives.
56:54
Speaker 4: And then to Alex's point, if you want to imagine
56:57
Speaker 4: this idea of what we can do with a runken
57:00
Speaker 4: police force, go to eight two Abolition eight, the number
57:04
Speaker 4: eight to abolition dot com. There are eight principles that
57:08
Speaker 4: they've laid out there, and you'll see that this conversation
57:11
Speaker 4: is about, you know, defunding police, demilitarizing our communities, decriminalizing
57:16
Speaker 4: crimes associated with survival. All these things are things that
57:19
Speaker 4: are possible that we can get to if we are
57:22
Speaker 4: willing to have the conversation about what we want to
57:25
Speaker 4: get to, which is safety and security.
57:27
Speaker 3: And love for everyone. This movement can't alone run on rage.
57:32
Speaker 4: It has to run on this idea that we can
57:34
Speaker 4: love each other and be our bestselves together.
57:37
Speaker 1: So, Patrice, before you start, I have a question that
57:40
Speaker 1: just came in and it struck me, so I wanted
57:41
Speaker 1: to ask you. It's a question from Danielle. She asks,
57:44
Speaker 1: you have done so much work to even get people
57:47
Speaker 1: to say the words black lives matter. How are you
57:50
Speaker 1: feeling from Danielle, You got a smile.
57:56
Speaker 2: Very kind of you. You know, there's two things I'm feeling.
58:00
Speaker 6: I'm a deep.
58:03
Speaker 2: Grief that it's taken this long for the country and
58:08
Speaker 2: the world to recognize the humanity of black people, and
58:13
Speaker 2: I think there's still a lot more work we have
58:15
Speaker 2: to do to bring that into practice. But also I
58:19
Speaker 2: think a lot of gratitude for this moment. I think
58:22
Speaker 2: we're an amazing opening to have new kinds of conversations.
58:26
Speaker 2: But also, I think number three, the role that many
58:29
Speaker 2: of us in this movement play, we are going to
58:33
Speaker 2: be attacked and people need to understand that when we
58:36
Speaker 2: start to win as a movement, the right attacks us.
58:39
Speaker 2: We're already started being attacked in the last twenty four
58:42
Speaker 2: hours by Candice Owens, a right wing operative of Donald Trump.
58:46
Speaker 2: She's a black woman, so it confuses people. But politics
58:50
Speaker 2: are politics, and I think that as this starts to happen,
58:55
Speaker 2: right so it's like everybody's saying black lives matter, and
58:57
Speaker 2: including major corporations, we have to be willing to stand
59:01
Speaker 2: up for black leaders and black leadership, and so I'm
59:05
Speaker 2: grateful good say black lives matter, and will you defend
59:08
Speaker 2: me when the right starts to attack me? Or will
59:11
Speaker 2: you allow them to sow seeds of uncertainty? And I
59:15
Speaker 2: think that's you know, seven years ago, I didn't realize
59:18
Speaker 2: that I was going to have right wing people attack me,
59:19
Speaker 2: and didn't realize they were going to call me a terrorist.
59:21
Speaker 2: I didn't realize there was going to be a full
59:23
Speaker 2: on scale attack against BLM, and there was. And seven
59:27
Speaker 2: years later, we're in a very similar position. And so
59:29
Speaker 2: I think it's powerful to hear BLM out of the
59:32
Speaker 2: people's mouths, but I think it'll be more powerful to
59:34
Speaker 2: make sure that people support us and defend us.
59:37
Speaker 1: Okay, thank you Cassandra, Bianca, Alec and Patrice for being here.
59:43
Speaker 1: Thank you everyone for listening. This has been a presentation
59:45
Speaker 1: of Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and thank you for that wonderful closing,
59:50
Speaker 1: and we'll see you all in the movement. Don't forget
59:57
Speaker 1: to give us a fantastic review. Wherever you get your
59:59
Speaker 1: pos it really helps. And I'm a proud donor to
1:00:03
Speaker 1: the Innocence Project, and I really hope you'll join me
1:00:06
Speaker 1: in supporting this very important cause and helping to prevent
1:00:10
Speaker 1: future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocenceproject dot org to learn
1:00:13
Speaker 1: how to donate and get involved. I'd like to thank
1:00:16
Speaker 1: our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music
1:00:20
Speaker 1: in the show is by three time OSCAR nominated composer
1:00:22
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