Latest / The Breakfast Club / Alec Karakatsanis & Olayemi Olurin Talk Copaganda, Wage Theft, Republican Party Gone Fascist & More

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Alec Karakatsanis & Olayemi Olurin Talk Copaganda, Wage Theft, Republican Party Gone Fascist & More · The Breakfast Club

0:01
Speaker 1: In the morning Breakfast Club. Yeah, it's the world most
0:06
Speaker 1: dangerous morning show to Breakfast Club Charlomagne and God Angela.
0:09
Speaker 1: Ye Envy is not with us today, but we have
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Speaker 1: some special guests who we got, ye, Alec, I don't
0:14
Speaker 1: want to see a name learn character. I've seen it
0:17
Speaker 1: so many times and I saw you on trepre Noah,
0:19
Speaker 1: and I still can't do it. Hold on, that's why
0:21
Speaker 1: cats sign. That's perfect cats sign. Yeah, that's great. Is
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Speaker 1: that really right? Though? Yeah? That's great? Okay the second
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Speaker 1: the second name ain't no easier? A liar me A
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Speaker 1: Lauren say, yes, I know you heard that for ever
0:36
Speaker 1: growing Yes like Yemi is what everybody in the Muhammas
0:42
Speaker 1: and my family says. But I don't identify as Yemmi.
0:45
Speaker 1: You could say it. I'll let you. I'll let you
0:47
Speaker 1: get it off now. Alec is the co found of
0:50
Speaker 1: the Civil Rights Corps. Let me oh ye laying me
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Speaker 1: A liar A liar me is a lawyer for the
0:58
Speaker 1: Legal Age Society. Good morning, How are y'all good? Great?
1:02
Speaker 1: Thanks for having us. Now spell it? Okay, and I
1:05
Speaker 1: know I look ridiculous for this halloweena Now, Alex, I
1:12
Speaker 1: did I told you. I did see you Entreprenoah, and
1:14
Speaker 1: so I'm aware of the work that you're doing. But
1:16
Speaker 1: I want to talk about that. And I know today
1:18
Speaker 1: we're talking about capaganda, So can you tell us what
1:21
Speaker 1: that is? Yeah, Capaganda is the way that the police
1:24
Speaker 1: and a lot of the companies that profit off of
1:27
Speaker 1: the criminal punishment system in this country convince us to
1:30
Speaker 1: support policies that make us less safe. They make us scared,
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Speaker 1: they make us afraid, and they use that to boost
1:35
Speaker 1: their own budgets, in their own profits. And so capaganda
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Speaker 1: is how the media is constantly getting us to focus
1:40
Speaker 1: on low level things that poor people do and have
1:43
Speaker 1: us ignore a lot of the things that are really
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Speaker 1: dangerous that people in power and wealthy people do, things
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Speaker 1: like wage theft that cost fifty billion dollars a year.
1:51
Speaker 1: It's five times all property crime combined. Now, what is
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Speaker 1: wage theft? For people who are listening and like, I
1:55
Speaker 1: don't know what that is. Wage stuff is when your boss,
1:58
Speaker 1: your company doesn't pay you what they're supposed to pay you.
2:01
Speaker 1: They're supposed to pay you a certain rate, and they
2:02
Speaker 1: dock some of your hours, they don't let you take
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Speaker 1: the right required breaks, They don't pay you for getting
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Speaker 1: ready for work. They give you a paycheck that doesn't
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Speaker 1: have all your hours on it, and that costs poor
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Speaker 1: people in this country about fifty billion dollars a year
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Speaker 1: a white collar crime, right, let's be called white collar crime.
2:19
Speaker 1: And you don't see that on the nightly news every night.
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Speaker 1: You don't see all the illegal evictions. You don't see
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Speaker 1: the building code violations and the safety code violations, the
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Speaker 1: workplace safety violations. You don't see the water violations. People
2:29
Speaker 1: are tracking lead poisoning that kills children all over the country.
2:32
Speaker 1: There's there's government agencies that track that, but not like
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Speaker 1: the police. They don't issue public press releases, they don't
2:39
Speaker 1: have news conferences where they tell you which companies are
2:42
Speaker 1: poisoning your kids water. And so as a result, a
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Speaker 1: lot of people treat shoplifting from Walgreens more seriously than
2:48
Speaker 1: more urgently than they treat the things that are killing us,
2:51
Speaker 1: like air pollution kills one hundred thousand people a year
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Speaker 1: in this country, five times more than all homicides combined.
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Speaker 1: Do you think it's because those things you can't really see,
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Speaker 1: you feel them, and you know the impact. But a murder,
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Speaker 1: a robbery, now rape, a child abduction, like you can
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Speaker 1: see those things. No, it's just a deliberate way in
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Speaker 1: which we sensationalized crime, right because eighty percent of everything
3:10
Speaker 1: in our criminal system, all of our criminal cases are
3:12
Speaker 1: misdemean those traffic offenses are non violent crime. But you
3:15
Speaker 1: would have no idea if you look at what the
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Speaker 1: media plays up as crime. You would see, oh, robberies, murder, homicide,
3:21
Speaker 1: and the actuality. If you're a public defender like me,
3:23
Speaker 1: I've represented over a thousand people in New York City,
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Speaker 1: you're not getting those cases. They're not a bunch of
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Speaker 1: robbers and murderers and spicy cases, just as crimes of poverty.
3:31
Speaker 1: And that's the vast majority who's in our criminal system.
3:34
Speaker 1: But if you watch TV, if you watch all these shows,
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Speaker 1: these sensationalize it. You see a system that looks like
3:39
Speaker 1: it's everybody there. You watch the shows, you watch the
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Speaker 1: flash Dan jail. I got a bunch of white people
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Speaker 1: in jail. You see they have all these different kinds
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Speaker 1: of crimes, and you think, oh, I have a system
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Speaker 1: that reflects that. Then you get in any criminal courtroom
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Speaker 1: and it's just me and you just all over the
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Speaker 1: court and then the only people that look like the
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Speaker 1: white people they show you in law and Order and
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Speaker 1: all these other different kinds of people that are prosecuted.
3:57
Speaker 1: They're there just as the police, as the judges, as
3:59
Speaker 1: the lawyers. So I love to term you use. You
4:02
Speaker 1: said crimes of poverty, because I feel like most criminal
4:06
Speaker 1: things you see in the hood are crimes of poverty.
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Speaker 1: Everything from drug dealing to robbery, everything is a crime
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Speaker 1: of problem exactly. Like, That's the thing all my clients
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Speaker 1: have in common is that they're all poor, And I
4:15
Speaker 1: think something people need to recognize. They know a public
4:17
Speaker 1: defender is for poor people, but they don't realize how
4:20
Speaker 1: poor and the fact that that's everybody there. Like, to
4:22
Speaker 1: qualify for my services, you have to have little to
4:25
Speaker 1: no income at all. Over sixty percent of people that
4:27
Speaker 1: are incarcerated now in this country made prior to arrestmate
4:31
Speaker 1: annually less than twelve thousand dollars. So that's the kind
4:34
Speaker 1: of poverty you're dealing with. Like I up until recently
4:36
Speaker 1: identifying myself as the broke, and I would not have
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Speaker 1: qualified from my services. They would tell me I need
4:41
Speaker 1: to hire an attorney, and I wouldn't be able to
4:42
Speaker 1: afford one. So you have to recognize that you live
4:44
Speaker 1: in a system. If we're in New York City, you take,
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Speaker 1: for example, there are almost ten million people in this city.
4:48
Speaker 1: We have Rikers. Rikers is built a whole three thousand
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Speaker 1: people with five thousand people here, and they're all represented
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Speaker 1: by public defenders. Right, So underneath the poverty line. Why
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Speaker 1: in a city where forty two son of the people
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Speaker 1: are fully white, over ninety percent of the people at
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Speaker 1: Rikers are black or brown and poor. Wow. Now I
5:05
Speaker 1: want to talk about Bill reform, right, because that's a
5:08
Speaker 1: high issue with elections coming up, and I feel like
5:11
Speaker 1: we're getting a lot of misinformation. We talk about the
5:14
Speaker 1: TV and what the media sensatializes, and so you've been
5:18
Speaker 1: ALEC instrumental in making sure that Bill reform is not monetary.
5:23
Speaker 1: Right when you talk about people getting out on bail,
5:25
Speaker 1: Like we've just been talking about people who don't have
5:27
Speaker 1: the money to be able to afford that. You could
5:28
Speaker 1: be sitting in jail because you got a ticket that
5:30
Speaker 1: you didn't pay, And now I'm in jail because I
5:33
Speaker 1: don't have enough money to bond out. So can you
5:36
Speaker 1: talk about that? Because I see so many people saying,
5:38
Speaker 1: this person got out on bail and then they went
5:40
Speaker 1: and committed this crime. And that's why Bill reform is bad.
5:43
Speaker 1: You're letting these criminals get right back out to do
5:45
Speaker 1: the same crimes over and over again. The first thing
5:48
Speaker 1: you have to understand is all of those attacks are
5:51
Speaker 1: basically paid for by Republicans. They're racist, they're unscientific. Let's
5:56
Speaker 1: start from what we know. Why do we do Bill reform?
5:58
Speaker 1: We did Bill reform. You know when I started working
6:00
Speaker 1: on this issue after Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson.
6:03
Speaker 1: When I got to Ferguson, Ferguson had three point six
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Speaker 1: arrests for warrants per household, almost all of them for
6:09
Speaker 1: unpaid debt, almost all of them for a black family. Right.
6:12
Speaker 1: And when people were jailed, they were jailed because they
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Speaker 1: couldn't pay cash bail one hundred dollars, two hundred dollars,
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Speaker 1: three hundred dollars. When I started working on these cases
6:20
Speaker 1: in Ferguson, in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and California and Chicago,
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Speaker 1: there were five hundred thousand human beings in a jail
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Speaker 1: cell in this country every single night, just because they
6:30
Speaker 1: couldn't pay, not because they were found to be dangerous
6:33
Speaker 1: or threat to anyone, but because their families were poor.
6:36
Speaker 1: And what we know from the scientific evidence is that
6:39
Speaker 1: jails cause more crime because jails take people away from
6:43
Speaker 1: their homes, their schools, their churches, their jobs, and they
6:47
Speaker 1: take people away from their mental health treatment, they're getting,
6:49
Speaker 1: their medical care that they're getting. And what happens when
6:51
Speaker 1: you destabilize someone's life like that, even two, three, four
6:54
Speaker 1: days in jail after their arrest, you actually scientifically you
6:58
Speaker 1: make them more likely to commit crime the future. So
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Speaker 1: when we started doing bailer, from these last six or
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Speaker 1: seven years, we've gotten a lot of people out of jail.
7:05
Speaker 1: We saved a lot of people from convictions, we put
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Speaker 1: a lot of families back together, children with their parents,
7:09
Speaker 1: and when we studied this, like professors across the country
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Speaker 1: have been studying this, and what they've found is that
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Speaker 1: it actually reduces crime. So all these talking points you're
7:18
Speaker 1: getting if you're mongering, it's kind of like really Horton style,
7:21
Speaker 1: like they're picking one case here, one case there, But
7:24
Speaker 1: when you actually look at all the evidence, it's actually
7:27
Speaker 1: like climate science denial to say that bail reform is
7:30
Speaker 1: causing more crime. Why do you think that they don't
7:32
Speaker 1: make prisons actual correctional facilities because I can never say that.
7:36
Speaker 1: I know abolitionists don't necessarily believe in prisons. I can
7:39
Speaker 1: never say we shouldn't have prisons, But why don't they
7:41
Speaker 1: make them actual correctional facilities? Like when they go there,
7:44
Speaker 1: they can get learn some type of trade, they can
7:46
Speaker 1: get proper mental health services. You know, they can get
7:49
Speaker 1: actual tools. Because there's a prophet system. That's that's that's
7:52
Speaker 1: the reality. Right when when you say mass incarceration and slavery,
7:56
Speaker 1: people think that you're just trying to make a moral
7:57
Speaker 1: appeal or you're trying to condemn something, but no one
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Speaker 1: actual if slavery is a system by which we deprive
8:02
Speaker 1: people of their freedom and their personal liberty and we
8:04
Speaker 1: force them to work for another's gain. Right. We have
8:06
Speaker 1: over two million people that are incarcerated in America. Four
8:08
Speaker 1: hundred thousand of those people are being held free trial.
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Speaker 1: Those people in private and public prisons produce over eleven
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Speaker 1: point six billion dollars in goods for the country their families,
8:17
Speaker 1: and fines and fees associated with the convictions and costs
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Speaker 1: are in over twenty seven billion dollars of debt. That's why,
8:23
Speaker 1: because they're there, they're there to provide a service. They're
8:27
Speaker 1: not there if we're funneling. When you think about it, right,
8:29
Speaker 1: we're funneling the exact same underresource communities through the prison system.
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Speaker 1: This whole idea that the police there to protect and server,
8:36
Speaker 1: that myris incarceration is there for our benefit. We spend
8:39
Speaker 1: over two hundred and seventy seven billion dollars on prisons
8:42
Speaker 1: and policing every year, and another eighty billion dollars just
8:45
Speaker 1: on prison and yet we say every year this is
8:47
Speaker 1: not any safer, We're not safe for the places more dangery.
8:50
Speaker 1: But it's the same, it's the same communities. How come
8:52
Speaker 1: the most safe communities are not the most police communities.
8:55
Speaker 1: Why are they in the most underresourced communities repeatedly? And
8:58
Speaker 1: it's for what Alec was talking about. If it's not
9:00
Speaker 1: just the fact that prison takes you away into destabilizing you,
9:03
Speaker 1: but it also ware houses you. Amongst the worst social
9:06
Speaker 1: ills we all know, suicide is the most is the
9:08
Speaker 1: leading cause of death in prisons. Thousands of people commit suicide,
9:12
Speaker 1: and over seventy six percent of the people that commit suicide.
9:15
Speaker 1: In prisons and local jails, they are held for less
9:17
Speaker 1: than a week. So this is this like Hans Hayne's
9:21
Speaker 1: obvious terrible system, and we know this and we recognize it,
9:26
Speaker 1: but yet we continue to put all the money there
9:27
Speaker 1: and not into people because it's not there about rehabilitating them.
9:31
Speaker 1: We know that because if you were house them, they
9:33
Speaker 1: go back into their communities. But all of the same
9:35
Speaker 1: terrible things that they've learned, all the violence, all of
9:38
Speaker 1: the things you claim to be endemning. All it does
9:40
Speaker 1: is guarantee if I have fines, fees and everything associated,
9:43
Speaker 1: I'm ready the most impoverished community, and now I'm in
9:45
Speaker 1: further debt. What happens, What happens. That's why it's like
9:49
Speaker 1: Chris Rock says, the money's not in the cure, the
9:51
Speaker 1: money's in the treat exactly, and take it. Take the
9:54
Speaker 1: bail system right because people are talking about bail right
9:56
Speaker 1: now all over the country. The bail system is a
9:59
Speaker 1: four off it multibillion dollar industry in this country. And
10:03
Speaker 1: did you know that the for profit bail system only
10:06
Speaker 1: exists in the US and the Philippines. Every other country
10:10
Speaker 1: in the world doesn't let for profit companies decide who
10:13
Speaker 1: is at home with their children and who is in
10:15
Speaker 1: a jail cell. Now are we doing that? Have we
10:18
Speaker 1: figured out something that every other country in the world
10:21
Speaker 1: hasn't figured out? We figured out that it's our country
10:23
Speaker 1: is safer when people are in jail because they can't
10:25
Speaker 1: make monetary payments. Of course not. We're doing it because
10:28
Speaker 1: it benefits some people, right, yeah, And we're doing it
10:31
Speaker 1: because of what is the racial demographic makeup of our
10:33
Speaker 1: community and where we do it, because there are certain
10:35
Speaker 1: things like bail reform when you try to do in
10:37
Speaker 1: a place like New York City or doing in Chicago,
10:39
Speaker 1: when they're you know, dog whistling about race, then because
10:42
Speaker 1: that's what they're saying to you, all these black people
10:43
Speaker 1: are gonna be running the street, We're going to be
10:45
Speaker 1: in dangered, that's what they're doing. But a place like
10:47
Speaker 1: New Jersey can completely abolish cash bail in two thousand
10:50
Speaker 1: and fourteen. You don't hear a peep, right, completely successful,
10:53
Speaker 1: totally find happen under Republican Governor Christie No complaints. All
10:56
Speaker 1: of places where they have a majority white population and
10:59
Speaker 1: they have their criminals, they don't have them. They don't
11:01
Speaker 1: mask and cars rate the way we do. But in
11:02
Speaker 1: a place like New York City, despite that we're like
11:05
Speaker 1: this progressive blue utophia, they try to pay us as
11:08
Speaker 1: I'll come our jails predominantly only in cars, rate black
11:10
Speaker 1: around people, and that it's the same thing you get
11:12
Speaker 1: in a place like Cook County and you get like
11:14
Speaker 1: in LA And that's why those bail reform efforts get
11:16
Speaker 1: those kinds of attack and focusing in on them in
11:19
Speaker 1: the media that you don't see in other places with
11:21
Speaker 1: different demographics. What would you say to I was gonna
11:25
Speaker 1: say the people who feel like the bail reform makes
11:29
Speaker 1: criminals just be back in the street doing a lot
11:31
Speaker 1: of the same crimes, because you know, I've had people
11:34
Speaker 1: have things happen to them and when they find out
11:35
Speaker 1: who the person was, it is like when this person
11:36
Speaker 1: just got out last week for the same thing. Yeah,
11:38
Speaker 1: so there's a let's talk about what the actual bail
11:42
Speaker 1: is in New York City. Let me since I have
11:44
Speaker 1: specific knowledge on that. First of all, it's the fiction
11:48
Speaker 1: on what bail is for and what bail does, the
11:50
Speaker 1: legal purpose, the actual legal standard of bail is. But
11:54
Speaker 1: then this person is going to return to court. That
11:56
Speaker 1: is the purpose. We don't engage in a public safety analysis.
11:59
Speaker 1: That is something they pain to us in the media, like, oh,
12:01
Speaker 1: this person's in or this has nothing to do that.
12:03
Speaker 1: That's not what happens in court. It's everything to do
12:06
Speaker 1: with whether or not this person is going to return
12:07
Speaker 1: to court. DoD they have a failure to a pair history,
12:09
Speaker 1: they have a bench war in history, do they have
12:10
Speaker 1: outside ties or something. But how bail is instituted is
12:14
Speaker 1: just we're gonna put money on you, and poor people
12:16
Speaker 1: can't pay it, and those who have the money can't
12:18
Speaker 1: pay it. And then if you look in a place
12:20
Speaker 1: like New York City, we instituted Lamark bail reform in
12:22
Speaker 1: twenty twenty. The purpose of bail reform is to make
12:25
Speaker 1: sure people return the court. Right prior to bail reform fifteen,
12:28
Speaker 1: about fifteen percent of people didn't return to court after
12:31
Speaker 1: bail reform. It's nine percent they've studied over so bail
12:34
Speaker 1: reform has been successful in that regard. And then in
12:36
Speaker 1: terms of rearrest, let's talk about felonies and stuff in general.
12:40
Speaker 1: Over eighty three percent of anything charges a felony in
12:42
Speaker 1: New York State New York State period is not resolved
12:46
Speaker 1: as a criminal conviction at all, and then in New
12:48
Speaker 1: York City that's ninety six, so it goes up. So
12:51
Speaker 1: most things in our system are just not that. They're
12:54
Speaker 1: just not felonies, they're not violent crime. That's not what
12:56
Speaker 1: any of that is. But importantly, we retain the cash
12:58
Speaker 1: bail system. Cash can and absolutely will be set on
13:02
Speaker 1: you in New York City if you're accused of murder
13:05
Speaker 1: or any of these things. They sensationalized you. So that's
13:08
Speaker 1: first and foremost. But when it comes to why we
13:10
Speaker 1: got bill reform, as we know, Rikers is a human
13:14
Speaker 1: rights crisis. It's been declared that last year sixteen people
13:17
Speaker 1: died in Rikers, and once that happened, that was the
13:19
Speaker 1: largest staff tool since twenty and thirteen, they declared the
13:22
Speaker 1: human rights crisis. This year seventeen people have already died,
13:25
Speaker 1: so the situation was worse than ever before. Originally, the
13:28
Speaker 1: campaign to closed Rikers, who launched after Clif Browder, received
13:31
Speaker 1: so much a nationally like what happened to that ris
13:34
Speaker 1: was closed and I'm gonna tell you so, the plan
13:36
Speaker 1: was that Rikers is supposed to close by twenty twenty six.
13:38
Speaker 1: Then they said there were delays that pushed the Backsin's
13:40
Speaker 1: twenty twenty seven now originally Everyone's Eric Adams. Eric Adams
13:46
Speaker 1: said when he was running, he said he supported the
13:48
Speaker 1: plan to closed Rikers and he would get on board
13:50
Speaker 1: with that. Riker's need systemach change X Y Z. Once
13:53
Speaker 1: he actually comes into office, he completely opposes bail reform.
13:56
Speaker 1: He poses bill reform. He wants more money place in
13:58
Speaker 1: the Rikers, more money place in, which he did. He
14:00
Speaker 1: gave them ninety million extra dollars to their ten point
14:03
Speaker 1: for billion dollars budget and spending. So he started immediately
14:07
Speaker 1: pushing a gangst bail reform. So the plan for bail
14:10
Speaker 1: reform was to decarceerrate Rikers. Rikers is only built a
14:13
Speaker 1: whole three thousand people, but it has five thousand people there,
14:16
Speaker 1: so we need to decarceer rate Wrikers in order to
14:18
Speaker 1: move towards the step to closing it. Eric Adams has
14:21
Speaker 1: resisted bail reforms, So now that the numbers and Rikers
14:24
Speaker 1: are going up, he says, well, wherever we're going to
14:25
Speaker 1: put those people? We can't close Rikers because I just
14:28
Speaker 1: don't see where he put those two thousand extra people.
14:31
Speaker 1: If we don't close Rikers, So now he's opposing that.
14:34
Speaker 1: In addition to the fact that rikers will we want
14:36
Speaker 1: an advocates want is a receivership for rikers right now
14:39
Speaker 1: to slow the depths. So a receivership is basically them
14:42
Speaker 1: saying Rikers has been on the federal monitor for the
14:44
Speaker 1: last six years. There's a judge. They periodically do updates.
14:47
Speaker 1: She issues mandates as do this, do that, so that
14:50
Speaker 1: we could get rikers in compliance. Rikers, they have failed
14:53
Speaker 1: at every single step. Earlier this year, in April, they
14:55
Speaker 1: determined that over twelve thousand medical appointments were missed by
14:59
Speaker 1: people in our rated rikers because the corrections officers don't
15:02
Speaker 1: take them. So the neglect is at an all time
15:04
Speaker 1: high and there's gonna be a herring next month for receiverships.
15:06
Speaker 1: But Eric Adams is pushing against statutes and nail. He says,
15:09
Speaker 1: why listen, listens, But he does have a background working
15:16
Speaker 1: with the NYPD. He's a cop. He's a cop. He
15:18
Speaker 1: is a cop. Eric Adams is a cop. That's just
15:20
Speaker 1: the truth of the matter. And he was a transit cop,
15:22
Speaker 1: which is exactly why when he first came into office.
15:25
Speaker 1: The first thing he did was rail against the subways
15:27
Speaker 1: twenty four to seven and hire a thousand new officers
15:29
Speaker 1: there because that is his bag and that's where he
15:31
Speaker 1: was at. So now you would think though he had promised, oh,
15:35
Speaker 1: he acknowledged Rikers need systemic change. Rikers is out of control.
15:38
Speaker 1: Of Rikers was out of control when thirteen people died.
15:40
Speaker 1: If Rikers was out of control when sixteen people died,
15:42
Speaker 1: Rikers not out of control when seventeen people think. The
15:44
Speaker 1: problem is as mayor right now, in our city, there's
15:47
Speaker 1: been set an uptick in crime that the band aid on.
15:50
Speaker 1: The problem is always less hire more cops, right, But
15:53
Speaker 1: the problem with that is is this right, what is
15:56
Speaker 1: the magical number that you think automatically solves solve his crime?
16:00
Speaker 1: New York City. This is the funny thing. They highlight
16:02
Speaker 1: us as this like lawless place, despite the fact that
16:04
Speaker 1: Republican and all these rule areas have way more crime
16:07
Speaker 1: per capita. Right, But they highlight us like we're a
16:09
Speaker 1: Gotham city all the time. But we put me have
16:12
Speaker 1: thirty over thirty five thousand officers in NYPD, despite the
16:15
Speaker 1: fact that the media will tell you that Rikers is understaffed,
16:18
Speaker 1: and that's that's also not true. There are five thousand
16:20
Speaker 1: people in cross rated to rikers, but over seven thousand
16:22
Speaker 1: corrections officers, there are two thousand more corrections off I know,
16:25
Speaker 1: it's insane out like there's two thousand more corrections officers
16:28
Speaker 1: and rikers, but you wouldn't know that based on that,
16:30
Speaker 1: And it's all these different things that keep happening. They
16:33
Speaker 1: have ten point four billion dollars they give to NYPD,
16:36
Speaker 1: but they don't acknowledge the fact that while you're giving
16:38
Speaker 1: more money to NYPD this year, he cut money on education,
16:41
Speaker 1: cut money on health, cut money on everything else. And
16:44
Speaker 1: then you act like in some mistake, it's not a
16:46
Speaker 1: coincidence that post a pandemic. When New York City was
16:49
Speaker 1: one of the places locked down for the majority of
16:51
Speaker 1: the time, we had an eviction moratorium that was just
16:53
Speaker 1: up and lifted rents, People lost their jobs, businesses closed down.
16:57
Speaker 1: Rents has skyrocketed to what the average about four thousand dollars.
17:00
Speaker 1: The reason why New York City has crimes because New
17:02
Speaker 1: York City is astronomically expensive to live in, and instead
17:04
Speaker 1: of putting the money towards that, we put the money
17:06
Speaker 1: into policing these exact same communities that don't have anything.
17:09
Speaker 1: And I want to say, again, you can't give people
17:12
Speaker 1: nothing and then police them and punish them and condemn
17:14
Speaker 1: them for having nothing. So how do you message that
17:16
Speaker 1: without saying to fund the police if that's literally what
17:18
Speaker 1: the fund the police initiative is. Yes, I think the
17:22
Speaker 1: most important thing to understand is if more police prosecutions
17:26
Speaker 1: and prisons made us safer, the US would be the
17:28
Speaker 1: safest country in the world. It's not. We're not a
17:31
Speaker 1: safe country. And the reason is that Again, all of
17:34
Speaker 1: the evidence shows that the root causes of crime, the
17:37
Speaker 1: things that are actually causing crime, are things that are
17:41
Speaker 1: structural about our society. It's like not having places to live,
17:44
Speaker 1: it's not having the support and care in your life.
17:46
Speaker 1: It's not it's early childhood education, it's it's it's the
17:49
Speaker 1: defunding of those systems, the welfare systems that that support
17:53
Speaker 1: people and their families and their communities. After school programs,
17:56
Speaker 1: the music, the theater, the athletic programs for kids. These
18:00
Speaker 1: are the things that actually reduce crime in the long term. Also,
18:03
Speaker 1: things like lead poisoning right that's associated with criminal activity
18:07
Speaker 1: for years in the future. If children are exposed to
18:09
Speaker 1: lead and so these are like basic things that everyone
18:11
Speaker 1: who actually studies this knows. And unfortunately, we've got a
18:15
Speaker 1: political system and in a very profitable prison system that
18:19
Speaker 1: is hell bent on convincing us that the only solution
18:23
Speaker 1: to any of these problems ever is more cops. And
18:25
Speaker 1: the sad thing is more police prosecutors in prisons actually
18:28
Speaker 1: make us less safe in the long term. Everybody knows
18:30
Speaker 1: money and resources or what make things about it. They
18:33
Speaker 1: know that that's why they have a for profit jail system,
18:35
Speaker 1: if they're making money to feed their family and they're
18:37
Speaker 1: never asked to reconcile. My thing about the fair thing
18:40
Speaker 1: is the people that are constantly fairmongering to you about
18:42
Speaker 1: how dangerous is that, how we need more police are
18:45
Speaker 1: never always telling you that when they talk about black
18:47
Speaker 1: and black crime, according to them, all the violence, all
18:49
Speaker 1: the crime is happening to us in our own community.
18:51
Speaker 1: So if you're own, if we're the sole perpetrators and
18:54
Speaker 1: victims of violence and victims of crimes, shouldn't our opinion matters?
18:58
Speaker 1: Shouldn't it be relevant? Like why do you need if
19:00
Speaker 1: you're afraid? You're afraid, so you need more police place
19:03
Speaker 1: than my community? Make that make sense, right, and why
19:05
Speaker 1: aren't we consider the experts on this. It's it's not
19:08
Speaker 1: lost upon me that the people that push for criminal
19:10
Speaker 1: justice reform, the people that you see pushed from from
19:12
Speaker 1: Bill reform, the people that you see being the advocates
19:14
Speaker 1: for this are the people most experienced with this. Those
19:17
Speaker 1: are the people living those communities. Those are solutions. Exactly.
19:20
Speaker 1: Can I ask um, Aliami and Alec what made you
19:23
Speaker 1: guys decide to do this work? In particular as attorneys me? So,
19:30
Speaker 1: I came to America because I wanted to be a lawyer.
19:32
Speaker 1: So I knew that when I came to America. But
19:34
Speaker 1: in college, I was I thought I might be a
19:36
Speaker 1: divorce attorney because I was like, ooh, drama, that might
19:38
Speaker 1: be spicy. But I was writing my thesis called Colored
19:42
Speaker 1: Bodies Matter, the relationship between our bodies and power, And
19:44
Speaker 1: I think the Ferguson protests were happening at the time,
19:47
Speaker 1: and my thesis advisors is white Lady dofor Kathleen and Sullivan,
19:50
Speaker 1: who I love. She said it affectionately to me. She
19:53
Speaker 1: called me a gap scholar, which is someone in academics
19:55
Speaker 1: an academy who points out a problem, but they don't
19:57
Speaker 1: necessarily have a solution or they're doing anything towards that,
19:59
Speaker 1: which is a necessary role. But I remember saying, you know,
20:02
Speaker 1: in a criminal system where black people are disproportionately represented
20:05
Speaker 1: and incarcerated, I feel like it's insufficient for me to
20:07
Speaker 1: go be an attorney and not do something that directly
20:10
Speaker 1: benefits my community. And I just think we are You're
20:13
Speaker 1: not just a fact affected by whether or not you're incarcerated,
20:16
Speaker 1: Like the criminal system doesn't just hurt you if you
20:18
Speaker 1: getting up with a criminal conviction or you're incarcerated, but
20:20
Speaker 1: just being criminalized going through that process, all the collateral
20:23
Speaker 1: consequences and the psychological effects of internalizing that, and I
20:27
Speaker 1: think that is better impacted if you're represented by somebody
20:29
Speaker 1: who looks like you, and it's going to humanize you,
20:31
Speaker 1: and just basically the only black person in the courtroom
20:33
Speaker 1: shouldn't be the defended. For me. I started my career
20:37
Speaker 1: as a public defender in Alabama, and the things I
20:41
Speaker 1: saw there really shook me to the core. I the
20:44
Speaker 1: case after case after case was it was exclusively poor people.
20:49
Speaker 1: It's almost exclusively people of color, and they were being
20:53
Speaker 1: punished in ways that made no one safer, and I
20:56
Speaker 1: got into this work because I really care about safety,
20:59
Speaker 1: and so I started doing civil rights work. A few
21:01
Speaker 1: years later, and my first civil rights case, you know,
21:04
Speaker 1: I got a grant to start at my own nonprofit
21:07
Speaker 1: and I went down back to Alabama and I went
21:09
Speaker 1: into a courtroom, and I just think it's important for
21:11
Speaker 1: people to understand what's actually happening in these courtrooms. And
21:14
Speaker 1: this is why I do this work. I saw sixty
21:16
Speaker 1: seven people in that courtroom in Alabama that morning. All
21:19
Speaker 1: of them were black. You were all chained together in
21:21
Speaker 1: the front of the room. Not a single one of
21:23
Speaker 1: them was charged with a crime. You know why they're
21:25
Speaker 1: all there. They're all there because they owed debt to
21:28
Speaker 1: the city of Montgomery, Alabama. And one by one I
21:30
Speaker 1: watched them begged to the judge. You know, Judge, I
21:32
Speaker 1: have four children at home. One of them my children
21:34
Speaker 1: is disabled. Judge, I've been addicted to drugs. I can't
21:37
Speaker 1: pay these tickets. Judge, I'm a homeless veteran. Please don't
21:40
Speaker 1: make me. And one by one, the judge ordered them
21:42
Speaker 1: into jail. And I went up into the jail that
21:45
Speaker 1: day and I started interviewing people, and I met this woman.
21:48
Speaker 1: She showed me her court document. Her court document said
21:51
Speaker 1: pay US twenty eight hundred and seven dollars or sit
21:55
Speaker 1: fifty nine days in jail. She explained to me that
21:57
Speaker 1: in Montgomery, you got fifty dollars for every day you
21:59
Speaker 1: spent in jail. And she turned over her court document
22:02
Speaker 1: and in pencil she was writing numbers fifty fifty, fifty,
22:05
Speaker 1: seventy five, seventy five, and she was acting them all upping,
22:08
Speaker 1: and she explained to me that if you agreed to
22:10
Speaker 1: clean the feces and the blood and the urine and
22:12
Speaker 1: the mold from the floors that all the women were
22:14
Speaker 1: sleeping on top, you got an extra twenty five dollars
22:17
Speaker 1: a day toward your debt. And she was counting the
22:19
Speaker 1: days and subtracting the money because when the police raided
22:22
Speaker 1: her home, she had her one year old in her
22:23
Speaker 1: lap and her four year old next to her, and
22:25
Speaker 1: they took her away from her kids because she owed
22:26
Speaker 1: traffic tickets and she hadn't seen her kids in weeks.
22:29
Speaker 1: And that was my first client as a civil rights lawyer.
22:31
Speaker 1: And that's why I still do this work, because there
22:34
Speaker 1: are hundreds of thousands of people jailed because they can't
22:37
Speaker 1: pay tickets and debt. In this country, there are hundreds
22:39
Speaker 1: of thousands of people jailed pre trial and bailed just
22:41
Speaker 1: because they can't make a payment, and our society is
22:44
Speaker 1: still unsafe. And so people like Ola and I do
22:47
Speaker 1: this work because we're trying to tell people that the
22:50
Speaker 1: story you're told in the media, not just Law and Order,
22:53
Speaker 1: but also the New York Times, not just the New
22:55
Speaker 1: York Post, but also NBC, the story you're told in
22:58
Speaker 1: the media is not what's actually happening to people who
23:01
Speaker 1: are vulnerable in our society every single day in our courts.
23:04
Speaker 1: What happened today, young lady, we filed it was actually
23:07
Speaker 1: my first case. I really had no idea what I
23:09
Speaker 1: was doing, and we filed a federal civil rights case
23:11
Speaker 1: and they released her almost immediately, and you got back
23:17
Speaker 1: with their kids, and they released everybody from the jail actually,
23:20
Speaker 1: and so then we started bringing those cases all over
23:22
Speaker 1: the country. We in the first ten months of twenty fifteen,
23:26
Speaker 1: we brought twelve these same class action lawsuits challenging people
23:30
Speaker 1: being jailed just because they couldn't pay, in twelve different
23:32
Speaker 1: cities across the country. We started doing it. We've filed
23:35
Speaker 1: dozens and dozens of them over the years at Civil
23:37
Speaker 1: Rights Corp. We're still doing it because as many of
23:40
Speaker 1: these cases as we went. We won a big case
23:42
Speaker 1: in Houston, for example, Harris County, Texas, and about nineteen
23:46
Speaker 1: thousand people a year getting out of jail in misdemeanor
23:49
Speaker 1: cases alone, just because we stopped the practice of jail
23:52
Speaker 1: people because they couldn't pay a couple hundred dollars. And
23:54
Speaker 1: we're saving about twenty four thousand convictions in Harris County alone.
23:58
Speaker 1: But you know what, almost every other count in Texas
24:00
Speaker 1: is still doing that let alone, let alone California and
24:03
Speaker 1: Oregon in Arizona. I mean, these problems are our nationwide,
24:07
Speaker 1: and a lot of people want to think it's a
24:09
Speaker 1: it's a problem in the South, or it's a problem
24:11
Speaker 1: in New York City, but it's a problem everywhere because
24:15
Speaker 1: the legal system is very similar across the country, or
24:17
Speaker 1: they only want to be outraged by the particular one case.
24:20
Speaker 1: They right, And that's what I feel like is missing, right,
24:22
Speaker 1: is the proper messaging and the information for people to
24:25
Speaker 1: see that because, like I said, but the elections, this
24:28
Speaker 1: is such a hot topic right now, but the narrative
24:30
Speaker 1: that's being put out there, I think, more loudly than
24:33
Speaker 1: anything else, is that it's a bad thing because repeat
24:36
Speaker 1: criminals are going to get right back out and do
24:37
Speaker 1: the same thing again. I think I Illinois did a
24:39
Speaker 1: phenomenal job of messaging that to the GOP, and Illinois
24:43
Speaker 1: did a phenomenal job of messaging that to their people.
24:46
Speaker 1: But the whole purge thing, you know, because if you
24:48
Speaker 1: read define prints, like you said earlier, it's not like
24:50
Speaker 1: they're letting out murderers. Yeah, it's not that at all.
24:53
Speaker 1: The pre draw Fairness Act is not that at all.
24:55
Speaker 1: And also I want to say law enforcement was very
24:57
Speaker 1: involved in the making of the law and was a
24:59
Speaker 1: four year process of scrutiny of victims, of victims, survivors, advocates,
25:05
Speaker 1: law enforcement, legal professional and personnel being involved in hearing
25:09
Speaker 1: scrutinizing that for four four year process. So they call
25:12
Speaker 1: it the purge, right, that's what they've been marketing it as.
25:14
Speaker 1: But what's fascinating is that the law doesn't go nearly
25:17
Speaker 1: far enough because it's Illinois. It's it's it's actually judges
25:22
Speaker 1: can detain you without moneymail if if there's evidence that
25:25
Speaker 1: you're dangerous. They can detain you. Yeah, and so it's
25:28
Speaker 1: it's it's not only is it misinformation, but it's it's
25:31
Speaker 1: targeted misinformation paid for by Republicans and a lot of
25:36
Speaker 1: unfortunately a lot of the media, the mainstream media just
25:38
Speaker 1: picked it up. They loved saying the purge right, and
25:40
Speaker 1: it made a lot of ordinary people across Illinois totally
25:43
Speaker 1: misunderstand that law. And that law is going to save
25:46
Speaker 1: lives because that law is going to get people back
25:48
Speaker 1: to their medical care, to their children, to their schools,
25:52
Speaker 1: to their churches and their communities, and it's going to
25:54
Speaker 1: prevent them from destabilizing their lives in ways that that
25:57
Speaker 1: actually increase crime in the future. And so that law
26:01
Speaker 1: needs to go further. Doesn't go further enough. That's why
26:03
Speaker 1: Democrats need to hire whoever does Nike's marketing. Honestly, it's honestly,
26:09
Speaker 1: you know what it is. Though, I think it's too
26:11
Speaker 1: much um defensiveness instead of clarifying, like the immediate fair
26:15
Speaker 1: when they get natural pushback. And I feel like I
26:17
Speaker 1: have this conversation a lot in the professional spaces I
26:19
Speaker 1: work in. We're supposed to expect pushback that shouldn't alarm us.
26:22
Speaker 1: It shouldn't send us into a like an anxious rush.
26:24
Speaker 1: And I think what happens is Democrats instead of coming
26:27
Speaker 1: out like Hotel should have done in this race, like
26:29
Speaker 1: there shouldn't be this race between her and zeld and
26:31
Speaker 1: shouldn't be as close as it. And you know why,
26:34
Speaker 1: because she could have come out and have effectively they
26:36
Speaker 1: could have there been and she should and she should
26:40
Speaker 1: because you know what, and and listen and not for nothing.
26:44
Speaker 1: Like I said, these Republicans are quick to put their
26:45
Speaker 1: money behind Let me put it on ball alert, let
26:47
Speaker 1: me put it there, let me they know who they
26:49
Speaker 1: need to get to, because it's about how you get
26:50
Speaker 1: people talking about something casually within the streets. That's where
26:53
Speaker 1: support comes from. And what she should have done. There
26:56
Speaker 1: have been studies all kind of support for the fact
26:59
Speaker 1: that bail were form is not linked to a rise
27:01
Speaker 1: in crime. She could have come out, she could have
27:02
Speaker 1: highlighted this information. She could have talked about in fact,
27:04
Speaker 1: all of the things that they already do. But instead
27:06
Speaker 1: they decided to ignore it for the until the ninth hour.
27:09
Speaker 1: And instead of coming out and saying, hey, Republicans are
27:12
Speaker 1: lying to you, they are fairmongering to you. Here is
27:13
Speaker 1: the actual result. They're like, I swear, we're gonna do
27:16
Speaker 1: it as good as out. We're gonna be his inten system,
27:18
Speaker 1: rather than just acknowledging actually what you did in presenting
27:20
Speaker 1: the information to people, because the reality is the average
27:23
Speaker 1: person does not have time to be, you know, in
27:25
Speaker 1: every aspect of politics and reading anybody's law and stuff
27:28
Speaker 1: they rely on. They're gonna consume, you know what I mean,
27:30
Speaker 1: They're relying you to tell them. And if all you're
27:32
Speaker 1: doing a sensationalizing and fairmongering to them about crime every day,
27:35
Speaker 1: that's all they see in the Post, that's all they
27:36
Speaker 1: see in the Times. And then they had this Republican
27:37
Speaker 1: putting all these things, and instead of you actually responding
27:40
Speaker 1: to that, clarifying and giving them the actual information, you go,
27:44
Speaker 1: I swear I feel just as strongly as the Republican
27:46
Speaker 1: like that doesn't help, because now now you're just piggyback
27:49
Speaker 1: in on their their message. And that's the problem I
27:51
Speaker 1: think democrats have in general. We too often respond and
27:54
Speaker 1: if you let people control the narrative rather than talk
27:57
Speaker 1: for us, get our story out. They could have been
27:58
Speaker 1: explained and they could and they have every reason to
28:01
Speaker 1: be in a better position to do it. We have
28:02
Speaker 1: Democrats in every office in New York City and every
28:04
Speaker 1: DA's office, and every council and every This is nothing
28:07
Speaker 1: but democrats. You had every opportunity to put the message out,
28:10
Speaker 1: but instead because you're scared, because you panic, you you know,
28:14
Speaker 1: you wait, you ignore, you deflect it. Now you're a
28:16
Speaker 1: stuck and we're all just in a bad a fairmongering
28:18
Speaker 1: that it's not going to help anybody and ultimately is
28:20
Speaker 1: going to end up harm in black and brown New
28:21
Speaker 1: Yorkers who don't have the time, But they don't have
28:24
Speaker 1: the time of the structural advantage of the privilege to
28:26
Speaker 1: be worrying about all of this until they are one
28:28
Speaker 1: suffering for it in a criminal court and they're looking
28:30
Speaker 1: at rikers and all kind of nonsense because you weren't
28:32
Speaker 1: being proactive. What about President Biden say for America Plan,
28:36
Speaker 1: we don't think of that plan is a disaster. I agree, yea,
28:39
Speaker 1: the plan is a disaster. It's not a serious plan.
28:41
Speaker 1: I mean it's attempting to add one hundred thousand new cops. Look,
28:46
Speaker 1: as I said earlier, this country spends more money on cops,
28:51
Speaker 1: prosecutors in prisons than any society in the record of
28:53
Speaker 1: history of the modern world. Did you know that the
28:56
Speaker 1: US has five times the prison population that we are
28:59
Speaker 1: our own society had fifty years ago. We now cage
29:03
Speaker 1: black people at six times the rate of South Africa
29:05
Speaker 1: at the height of apartheid. Yes, the solution is not
29:08
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand more cops. And Biden knows this. Biden
29:11
Speaker 1: knows what the scientific evidence shows. He knows the early
29:15
Speaker 1: childhood education and healthcare right and giving people resources in
29:19
Speaker 1: their community. He's not. He's not like he's made this
29:22
Speaker 1: mistake before. And they know that, and they and you
29:25
Speaker 1: know what, they know it because when they come at
29:26
Speaker 1: the end of the day, there's so much gas, lightning,
29:28
Speaker 1: pandering and wasting our breath. They make us do because
29:30
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, when it's their children,
29:32
Speaker 1: when it's their family members, whenever you see it's a
29:33
Speaker 1: scandal involving somebody, their husband, their kid, I'm not they
29:37
Speaker 1: don't want crime. That's not even on the table. They
29:40
Speaker 1: are not interested. You don't hear nobody jumping up talking
29:42
Speaker 1: about e really thing prison would help, that really help
29:44
Speaker 1: under you know what I mean. They're not saying that.
29:47
Speaker 1: They know that, they're so much empathy for his own son,
29:50
Speaker 1: and his son fought his addiction exactly exactly now. But
29:54
Speaker 1: the elections coming up, like we've been discussing, right, if
29:57
Speaker 1: Republicans get control of Congress, how do you think that's
30:00
Speaker 1: going to affect everything. We're a very dangerous moment with
30:04
Speaker 1: the Republican Party. It's incredibly Remember I remember when I
30:09
Speaker 1: used to use the word fashion. If it's like, oh,
30:10
Speaker 1: you're overreacting. Yeah, fashion, we're not getting going there in America. Yes,
30:14
Speaker 1: I've had people come on this show and telling me
30:16
Speaker 1: that when I would we're fast approaching fashion. Yes, people
30:18
Speaker 1: with people to the state, people get mad when I
30:20
Speaker 1: say no, it is less stop engaging and legitimizing and
30:23
Speaker 1: pretending they are a white supremacists. They're galvanized around that.
30:26
Speaker 1: It's so interesting. The problem with living in a country
30:28
Speaker 1: that treats everything else as other and white as the
30:30
Speaker 1: default is all the rest of us. When we're actually
30:32
Speaker 1: rallying around our interests, So what we actually need to
30:34
Speaker 1: do to survive? Then it's identity politics. But it's conveniently
30:38
Speaker 1: ignored that we have an entire party that is galvanized
30:41
Speaker 1: around nothing but whiteness and white supremacy loud in our face.
30:44
Speaker 1: We know what it is. The most clear, transparent it
30:47
Speaker 1: is gone from from rhetoric. You have to parse out
30:49
Speaker 1: our statistics. You have to go get a magnifying glass
30:52
Speaker 1: to insurrections and all kinds of foolishness. We know it
30:55
Speaker 1: as clear as day. So dangerous is an understatement. They
30:58
Speaker 1: are quite literally right now. There are two there are
31:01
Speaker 1: two cases today in front of in front of the
31:03
Speaker 1: Supreme Court challenging the Formative Action. And we all already
31:06
Speaker 1: know with this mickey mouse court we have we saw,
31:08
Speaker 1: we already know what's gonna go. We already know what's
31:11
Speaker 1: going to go. And the only the only benefit I
31:13
Speaker 1: could see is it's important for people to start seeing
31:15
Speaker 1: that people are the champion of their own civil liberties
31:18
Speaker 1: and not the government and not the court, because the
31:19
Speaker 1: Court in these finals places have been very instrumental throughout
31:22
Speaker 1: all of America's history and legitimizing all kinds of discrimination
31:27
Speaker 1: and preda just prejudice. Is it now, is there anything
31:31
Speaker 1: we can do? Because you know you mentioned the court,
31:33
Speaker 1: It's like the courts are already stacked, like from the
31:36
Speaker 1: Supreme Court through the Federal Court, Like what do you
31:38
Speaker 1: do well. The federal courts are really stacked, and of
31:40
Speaker 1: course that's a long, multi year strategies a lot of
31:43
Speaker 1: us are working on. But the Republicans, that's right. And
31:48
Speaker 1: a lot of people didn't see this, but the architect
31:51
Speaker 1: when the main architect of that, the Federal Society, they
31:53
Speaker 1: just got a one point six billion dollar donation. A
31:56
Speaker 1: lot of people aren't talking about this. That's more money
31:59
Speaker 1: than basically the entire criminal justice reform field has spent
32:02
Speaker 1: in the last decade. Yeah, and one donation from one
32:05
Speaker 1: person to the federals that they imagine what they did
32:06
Speaker 1: without that one point six billion dollars. So I think
32:09
Speaker 1: what we need to do is understand that it's not
32:11
Speaker 1: just federal courts. There are the court systems across the
32:15
Speaker 1: country are full of elected and appointed judges all over
32:18
Speaker 1: the country, in every city, there's thousands and thousands of judges.
32:21
Speaker 1: There's thousands and thousands of opportunities to get involved in
32:25
Speaker 1: your own community, court watching, bail funds, mutual aid. There
32:29
Speaker 1: are ways to get involved in your own community right
32:31
Speaker 1: where you are and watch what judges are doing. You
32:33
Speaker 1: can work efforts to change how your local legal system
32:37
Speaker 1: is operating. It's actually kind of an exciting time in
32:39
Speaker 1: some respects because across the country people are coming together
32:42
Speaker 1: and realizing that something has to be done. How can
32:44
Speaker 1: you find information on what y'all to do? I would
32:47
Speaker 1: say Justice not Fair dot org is an incredible website
32:51
Speaker 1: and resource that's been following and actually debunking and giving
32:54
Speaker 1: you the actual fact statistics and everything coming out for
32:57
Speaker 1: bail reform in New York City bill reform and county
32:59
Speaker 1: bill from all these different places. Though, Justice not Fair
33:02
Speaker 1: at oorg is an incredible resource. And for you guys,
33:04
Speaker 1: your organization, My organization is called Civil Rights Core. You
33:08
Speaker 1: can find us on social media at civ Rights Core.
33:10
Speaker 1: I write a newsletter about copaganda and all this stuff
33:13
Speaker 1: in the media we were talking about, called Alex Copaganda Newsletter.
33:16
Speaker 1: You can find me at a Quality alec on Twitter.
33:18
Speaker 1: And you know, we both of us, we work on
33:21
Speaker 1: these issues because they're incredibly important and we're an incredibly
33:25
Speaker 1: important time and so it's not just enough to read
33:28
Speaker 1: about them and to look at social media find out
33:30
Speaker 1: who in your community is organizing against expanding the jails,
33:34
Speaker 1: and who in your community is building mutual aid, and
33:38
Speaker 1: who is watching court and who's running a local bail fund?
33:41
Speaker 1: And get involved in your own community. There's so many
33:43
Speaker 1: amazing organizers across the country every city, I mean, and
33:48
Speaker 1: reach out to us. If you can't find them in
33:49
Speaker 1: your neighborhood, reach out to me on Twitter dm me
33:51
Speaker 1: and I'll connect you with someone in your local community. Yes,
33:53
Speaker 1: oh yeah, my sub stack is Olurinati. It's my baby.
33:56
Speaker 1: I release an essay every month and the Muhamas would
34:00
Speaker 1: really us owe me if I didn't mention that's from
34:01
Speaker 1: the Bombas while I'm on hand, so I hear to
34:04
Speaker 1: act because you sound like you're from Charleston. But oh
34:06
Speaker 1: my god, I noticed the Bama is he saying they
34:09
Speaker 1: would be upset the Bomba. The only person from that
34:11
Speaker 1: I had shout out the Bahamas like that is Duvall. Listen, listen,
34:15
Speaker 1: he loved here. You know what. I'm not even saying
34:17
Speaker 1: that little love. He loved the Bahamas. He beat there.
34:20
Speaker 1: Yeah you know, I know, but himas we know, and
34:22
Speaker 1: him is let me know like we claim, we have decided,
34:24
Speaker 1: we claim BA. So yes, and make sure you guys
34:30
Speaker 1: voting before you vote, make sure you know who you're
34:31
Speaker 1: voting for, because like you just said, it is very
34:33
Speaker 1: important that you hold people accountable in these local elections
34:37
Speaker 1: where you can actually make some changes. Now, it is
34:40
Speaker 1: an exciting time, but we're nervous. Thank y'all for joining
34:44
Speaker 1: us Man thanks to Breakfast Club. Would would