1
00:00:11,720 --> 00:00:15,920
Speaker 1: Folks, I am so happy to welcome back to WOKF

2
00:00:16,160 --> 00:00:21,720
Speaker 1: Daily filmmaker and activist Matthew Solomon, who we spoke to

3
00:00:22,440 --> 00:00:28,360
Speaker 1: last year about your documentary, Matthew Reimagining Safety all around

4
00:00:28,520 --> 00:00:32,960
Speaker 1: kind of policing and police reform. Give our audience a

5
00:00:33,000 --> 00:00:37,839
Speaker 1: refresher around the importance and significance of your documentary, which

6
00:00:37,960 --> 00:00:41,639
Speaker 1: was just recently being shown at a film festival in

7
00:00:41,680 --> 00:00:47,159
Speaker 1: New Jersey. Because while we have just acknowledged the recent

8
00:00:47,200 --> 00:00:52,000
Speaker 1: anniversary of the murder of George Floyd, what we know

9
00:00:52,240 --> 00:00:55,840
Speaker 1: is that unfortunately, at least in my opinion and I'd

10
00:00:55,920 --> 00:00:59,560
Speaker 1: like yours, that not a lot has changed. Police killings

11
00:00:59,600 --> 00:01:03,280
Speaker 1: continue you to be at an all time high. So

12
00:01:03,400 --> 00:01:07,080
Speaker 1: please talk to us about your film and why it's

13
00:01:07,200 --> 00:01:10,680
Speaker 1: particularly significant still in this moment that we're in.

14
00:01:14,720 --> 00:01:17,240
Speaker 2: Sure. Yeah, thank you, Danielle, and thank you for having

15
00:01:17,240 --> 00:01:20,520
Speaker 2: me back on. I'm glad to be back so Reimagining

16
00:01:20,600 --> 00:01:25,000
Speaker 2: Safety I have been you know, I'm a filmmaker. I

17
00:01:25,040 --> 00:01:29,520
Speaker 2: also work in conflict resolution, and prior to the pandemic

18
00:01:29,560 --> 00:01:31,920
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty, I was traveling and doing a lot

19
00:01:31,959 --> 00:01:36,040
Speaker 2: of facilitation for a conflict resolution and when the pandemic

20
00:01:36,080 --> 00:01:38,560
Speaker 2: started and we couldn't go anywhere. I decided to go

21
00:01:38,640 --> 00:01:41,040
Speaker 2: back to school, and so I wanted to a master's

22
00:01:41,040 --> 00:01:44,520
Speaker 2: program in public administration, hoping to be able to use

23
00:01:44,600 --> 00:01:47,040
Speaker 2: my privilege and access as a white male to be

24
00:01:47,080 --> 00:01:51,000
Speaker 2: able to help support social change. And this is you know,

25
00:01:51,360 --> 00:01:54,920
Speaker 2: COVID the murder of George Floyd, as you mentioned after

26
00:01:56,000 --> 00:01:58,320
Speaker 2: you know, at that point almost a decade of Black

27
00:01:58,360 --> 00:02:02,720
Speaker 2: Lives Matter and that movement, after treyvon Martin was murdered.

28
00:02:02,960 --> 00:02:06,920
Speaker 2: It's also we just passed the tenure anniversary of Mike

29
00:02:06,960 --> 00:02:10,320
Speaker 2: Brown being murdered. And so you know, I grew up

30
00:02:10,360 --> 00:02:13,480
Speaker 2: in Los Angeles and I was in college at USC

31
00:02:13,600 --> 00:02:16,440
Speaker 2: when the LA riots happened. So you know, I've had

32
00:02:16,480 --> 00:02:20,320
Speaker 2: decades where you know, it's like, wow, we're still doing this.

33
00:02:20,840 --> 00:02:23,640
Speaker 2: It's not getting better, it's getting worse. And you know,

34
00:02:23,760 --> 00:02:29,240
Speaker 2: even last year was the deadliest year for police murdering people.

35
00:02:29,680 --> 00:02:32,200
Speaker 2: Over thirteen hundred people were killed by police in twenty

36
00:02:32,240 --> 00:02:34,839
Speaker 2: twenty three, and so you know, all of this has

37
00:02:35,320 --> 00:02:39,120
Speaker 2: continued to happen despite calls for like, quote reform and

38
00:02:39,160 --> 00:02:41,040
Speaker 2: that sort of thing. And so you know, I'm in

39
00:02:41,120 --> 00:02:47,160
Speaker 2: my master's program and I'm applying all of the coursework

40
00:02:47,760 --> 00:02:53,520
Speaker 2: around sustainability and community and transformative leadership and funding and

41
00:02:53,560 --> 00:02:57,080
Speaker 2: all of those things to the issues with policing and incarceration,

42
00:02:57,800 --> 00:03:01,440
Speaker 2: and I got really interested in, well, what are the alternatives? Right?

43
00:03:01,480 --> 00:03:04,120
Speaker 2: And that took me into you know, Angela Davis and

44
00:03:04,160 --> 00:03:07,079
Speaker 2: Mariamcaba and all of that. And so when it came

45
00:03:07,160 --> 00:03:09,920
Speaker 2: time to do my final thesis, one of my academic

46
00:03:09,919 --> 00:03:12,440
Speaker 2: advisors knew I was a filmmaker and was like, we

47
00:03:12,480 --> 00:03:14,960
Speaker 2: know you know how to write a paper, but we

48
00:03:15,040 --> 00:03:17,760
Speaker 2: know you're a filmmaker, and why don't you do something

49
00:03:17,800 --> 00:03:20,760
Speaker 2: creative and do a documentary? And I and I leughed

50
00:03:20,800 --> 00:03:22,720
Speaker 2: because I was like, that's a lot of work, right,

51
00:03:23,000 --> 00:03:26,079
Speaker 2: you know, yeah, I write a paper in like a day.

52
00:03:26,240 --> 00:03:29,120
Speaker 2: But you know, but she dared me, and you know,

53
00:03:29,160 --> 00:03:34,800
Speaker 2: I tend to accept dares. And so because it was academic,

54
00:03:35,280 --> 00:03:40,400
Speaker 2: I wanted a variety of perspectives. So it wasn't just activists, right.

55
00:03:40,560 --> 00:03:43,080
Speaker 2: So it's the District Attorney of La County is in

56
00:03:43,120 --> 00:03:47,360
Speaker 2: the film. There's usc law professors, so there's several sociologists,

57
00:03:47,400 --> 00:03:52,520
Speaker 2: mental health professionals, a former LAPD detective, a cop watcher,

58
00:03:53,200 --> 00:03:55,960
Speaker 2: you know who like film's police all the time, and

59
00:03:56,040 --> 00:04:01,440
Speaker 2: so the result was a very well rounded representative picture

60
00:04:01,760 --> 00:04:05,600
Speaker 2: of these are the harms caused by police and prisons.

61
00:04:06,120 --> 00:04:08,360
Speaker 2: This is why it persists. And you know, a lot

62
00:04:08,400 --> 00:04:12,160
Speaker 2: of it is we're socialized into thinking that they are

63
00:04:12,160 --> 00:04:15,440
Speaker 2: the solutions for our problems, despite the fact that we

64
00:04:15,560 --> 00:04:19,640
Speaker 2: have data upon data that proves otherwise that you know,

65
00:04:19,680 --> 00:04:22,240
Speaker 2: police don't keep us safe, prisons don't keep us safe.

66
00:04:22,600 --> 00:04:25,960
Speaker 2: And then here are the alternatives, you know, most of

67
00:04:26,000 --> 00:04:29,640
Speaker 2: which are already working. When people, when communities have resources,

68
00:04:29,680 --> 00:04:33,039
Speaker 2: crime naturally comes down. When we have people who show

69
00:04:33,120 --> 00:04:36,760
Speaker 2: up to mental health calls that aren't armed and uniformed,

70
00:04:37,240 --> 00:04:39,960
Speaker 2: people don't get killed, you know, when people get the

71
00:04:40,000 --> 00:04:43,000
Speaker 2: services they need. And so I finished the film in

72
00:04:43,040 --> 00:04:47,839
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two. In August September did a small screening

73
00:04:47,880 --> 00:04:50,919
Speaker 2: for friends and family and for members of the USC

74
00:04:51,040 --> 00:04:55,159
Speaker 2: Criminology Department, and across the board people were like, people

75
00:04:55,200 --> 00:04:58,000
Speaker 2: need to see this. This is really really good. It's

76
00:04:58,040 --> 00:05:01,440
Speaker 2: really thorough, it's an educational and so, you know, I

77
00:05:01,480 --> 00:05:04,840
Speaker 2: followed what they did with the movie Thirteenth was I

78
00:05:04,920 --> 00:05:08,240
Speaker 2: started reaching out to different communities across the US to

79
00:05:08,320 --> 00:05:11,680
Speaker 2: do community screenings where we would show the film and

80
00:05:11,680 --> 00:05:16,400
Speaker 2: then have a panel of local leaders and organizers and

81
00:05:16,440 --> 00:05:18,640
Speaker 2: so the community members when you know, because they get

82
00:05:18,680 --> 00:05:19,919
Speaker 2: to the point where it's like Okay, well what do

83
00:05:20,000 --> 00:05:22,359
Speaker 2: we do, It's like, well, here's the folks. And so

84
00:05:23,040 --> 00:05:28,680
Speaker 2: this last Saturday was the sixty first screening of Reimagining

85
00:05:28,720 --> 00:05:34,320
Speaker 2: Safety amazing and the festival was the Newark Reimagining Safety Festival,

86
00:05:34,400 --> 00:05:38,560
Speaker 2: which organizers there created a festival around the film. So

87
00:05:38,640 --> 00:05:41,440
Speaker 2: there was the film, the panel, there was art and

88
00:05:41,520 --> 00:05:44,640
Speaker 2: music exhibitions and art and music is a big part

89
00:05:44,760 --> 00:05:49,240
Speaker 2: of abolition and community and that sort of thing. And

90
00:05:49,240 --> 00:05:52,719
Speaker 2: then we had info tables from local organizations that are

91
00:05:52,839 --> 00:05:55,480
Speaker 2: out doing the work. And so yeah, we've had the

92
00:05:55,600 --> 00:06:00,640
Speaker 2: sixty one screenings. The film is streaming on Amazon, YouTube, Google,

93
00:06:00,680 --> 00:06:03,760
Speaker 2: Plan to me, and we have a bunch more coming up.

94
00:06:04,000 --> 00:06:08,000
Speaker 2: We'll be in Dallas on August thirtieth as part of

95
00:06:08,040 --> 00:06:10,560
Speaker 2: their end of Black August, all the things that they've

96
00:06:10,560 --> 00:06:12,760
Speaker 2: been doing for Black August, so on August thirtieth, and

97
00:06:12,880 --> 00:06:15,719
Speaker 2: I'll be in Detroit with General Strike US and the

98
00:06:15,720 --> 00:06:19,320
Speaker 2: Black Panther Party of Detroit in September. So that's what's

99
00:06:19,640 --> 00:06:20,520
Speaker 2: going on with that.

100
00:06:21,040 --> 00:06:24,400
Speaker 1: I commend you. I congratulate you on the work on

101
00:06:24,480 --> 00:06:27,760
Speaker 1: how you've been getting out the word and really engaging

102
00:06:27,800 --> 00:06:30,560
Speaker 1: with community around your film, because I do think that

103
00:06:30,720 --> 00:06:34,240
Speaker 1: it's extraordinarily important. And I want to tap into something

104
00:06:34,279 --> 00:06:37,359
Speaker 1: that you said which I feel like is consistently lost

105
00:06:38,040 --> 00:06:42,279
Speaker 1: when we are talking about policing, right that I live

106
00:06:42,400 --> 00:06:44,520
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn in New York, and I will tell you

107
00:06:44,600 --> 00:06:51,560
Speaker 1: that in the quote unquote highly resourced areas and neighborhoods

108
00:06:51,600 --> 00:06:55,599
Speaker 1: of Brooklyn. Do you know what, I never see cops? Right,

109
00:06:55,760 --> 00:07:00,680
Speaker 1: I never see cops. I see clean sidewalks, I see

110
00:07:00,960 --> 00:07:06,440
Speaker 1: community resources, I see you know, shopping and schools and

111
00:07:06,480 --> 00:07:09,080
Speaker 1: all of these things. I never see cops. In the

112
00:07:09,440 --> 00:07:15,000
Speaker 1: lower resourced areas of Brooklyn. There are cops on every corner.

113
00:07:15,040 --> 00:07:17,720
Speaker 1: There are those big, you know lights that are shown

114
00:07:17,880 --> 00:07:21,160
Speaker 1: over the subway system. And what you said is just

115
00:07:21,280 --> 00:07:26,280
Speaker 1: like what we know is that crime goes down and

116
00:07:26,400 --> 00:07:30,160
Speaker 1: safety goes up when those communities are resourced and not

117
00:07:30,280 --> 00:07:35,080
Speaker 1: resourced with police officers. And so why is it, Matthew,

118
00:07:35,120 --> 00:07:38,800
Speaker 1: that we still live in a place even given all

119
00:07:38,840 --> 00:07:43,520
Speaker 1: of the data that tells us that what communities that

120
00:07:43,600 --> 00:07:48,200
Speaker 1: are plagued with crime need are resources for that community.

121
00:07:48,480 --> 00:07:51,239
Speaker 1: Why is that something that is missed and we still

122
00:07:51,280 --> 00:07:54,360
Speaker 1: continue to see, particularly in New York City, where we

123
00:07:54,480 --> 00:07:57,200
Speaker 1: have a mayor who's a former cop that is giving

124
00:07:57,320 --> 00:08:00,600
Speaker 1: hundreds of millions of dollars to the police depart wall

125
00:08:00,640 --> 00:08:03,560
Speaker 1: cutting libraries. I mean, he just gave money back to

126
00:08:03,600 --> 00:08:06,200
Speaker 1: the library so that they can open again on Sundays.

127
00:08:06,400 --> 00:08:09,880
Speaker 1: But the logic with them is like, oh, no, we

128
00:08:10,080 --> 00:08:12,640
Speaker 1: just need more cops and that equal safety, when the

129
00:08:12,720 --> 00:08:14,400
Speaker 1: data tells us the opposite.

130
00:08:14,760 --> 00:08:18,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, on the one hand, you know, it's sort of fascinating.

131
00:08:18,080 --> 00:08:21,560
Speaker 2: On the other hand, it's incredibly frustrating and angering because

132
00:08:22,200 --> 00:08:25,280
Speaker 2: the answer, well, there's a couple answers to that. First

133
00:08:25,320 --> 00:08:30,440
Speaker 2: of all, we're bombarded with copaganda a large part, like

134
00:08:30,600 --> 00:08:34,160
Speaker 2: half of the fictional shows. This has talked about in

135
00:08:34,200 --> 00:08:37,880
Speaker 2: the documentary Doctor l. Jones from Halifax Nova, Scotch. She

136
00:08:37,920 --> 00:08:42,320
Speaker 2: talks about fifty percent of our fictional programming is cop based,

137
00:08:42,320 --> 00:08:46,680
Speaker 2: like crime shows, law shows, things like that. Thirty percent

138
00:08:47,120 --> 00:08:50,080
Speaker 2: of what we consume overall is cop based. So like

139
00:08:50,640 --> 00:08:53,240
Speaker 2: watching the show Cops or like all the variations of

140
00:08:53,240 --> 00:08:56,000
Speaker 2: that law, law and order. I mean, I grew up

141
00:08:56,040 --> 00:09:01,000
Speaker 2: watching Chips and you know in SWAT, so we're bombarded

142
00:09:01,080 --> 00:09:04,720
Speaker 2: with there's a bad guy around every corner, evil is

143
00:09:04,760 --> 00:09:07,760
Speaker 2: out there, and the only thing that can protect us

144
00:09:07,800 --> 00:09:10,240
Speaker 2: are the cops. And in those shows, a lot of

145
00:09:10,240 --> 00:09:13,520
Speaker 2: times it's the cops who don't follow the law of themselves, right,

146
00:09:13,640 --> 00:09:18,120
Speaker 2: so they have free reign to break the roles because

147
00:09:18,120 --> 00:09:20,640
Speaker 2: they have to because the evil people are so evil.

148
00:09:21,040 --> 00:09:23,840
Speaker 2: So there's that part that we were bombarded with even

149
00:09:24,200 --> 00:09:27,280
Speaker 2: and even our news media, right. And actually, I really

150
00:09:27,480 --> 00:09:29,920
Speaker 2: I have to say I listened to there was an

151
00:09:29,920 --> 00:09:32,760
Speaker 2: episode of Yours I heard a few days got I

152
00:09:32,800 --> 00:09:34,520
Speaker 2: don't remember, I don't know when you recorded it, but

153
00:09:34,679 --> 00:09:38,600
Speaker 2: you were talking about how the news media by and

154
00:09:38,720 --> 00:09:42,320
Speaker 2: large is complicit in pushing these false narratives and everything.

155
00:09:42,400 --> 00:09:44,880
Speaker 2: I was just like, yes, yes, yes, because I've seen

156
00:09:44,920 --> 00:09:48,840
Speaker 2: it where like Cops City in Atlanta that's being built,

157
00:09:49,520 --> 00:09:52,960
Speaker 2: and last year there were arrests made, there was a

158
00:09:53,000 --> 00:09:58,360
Speaker 2: festival happening with forest protectors, and even on you know MSNBC,

159
00:09:58,480 --> 00:10:01,840
Speaker 2: which is supposed to be quote the left, progress or whatever,

160
00:10:02,400 --> 00:10:05,440
Speaker 2: you know, Jose Bolart when he was reading the thing

161
00:10:05,640 --> 00:10:10,199
Speaker 2: about there being a festival, scoffed at it as if

162
00:10:10,200 --> 00:10:14,320
Speaker 2: it were people breaking the law that were arrested, but

163
00:10:14,400 --> 00:10:17,400
Speaker 2: they know they were actually having a festival. And I

164
00:10:17,480 --> 00:10:19,839
Speaker 2: mean I could go on and on, you know, especially

165
00:10:20,640 --> 00:10:24,400
Speaker 2: in the wake of the campus protests protesting genocide and

166
00:10:24,400 --> 00:10:28,120
Speaker 2: how that's being portrayed. So the news media, local and

167
00:10:28,480 --> 00:10:31,960
Speaker 2: national plays a big part in pushing the police narratives

168
00:10:32,160 --> 00:10:37,800
Speaker 2: and not really checking them on it. There's also, you know,

169
00:10:37,840 --> 00:10:41,000
Speaker 2: and this has been you know, as somebody who's really

170
00:10:41,000 --> 00:10:44,200
Speaker 2: believed in people and believes in the good in people,

171
00:10:44,679 --> 00:10:47,360
Speaker 2: and that if we can appeal to people's compassion and empathy,

172
00:10:47,400 --> 00:10:52,880
Speaker 2: that we can make big changes. Another unfortunate reality is

173
00:10:53,200 --> 00:10:56,520
Speaker 2: the communities you're talking about, as you know, are mostly

174
00:10:56,559 --> 00:11:00,440
Speaker 2: black and brown communities, and so they're not seeing as

175
00:11:00,920 --> 00:11:03,560
Speaker 2: members of the community. And if it's like, well, the

176
00:11:03,600 --> 00:11:06,520
Speaker 2: cops are there, but at least I feel safe over

177
00:11:06,559 --> 00:11:09,640
Speaker 2: here in my mansion in Beverly Hills, which by the way,

178
00:11:09,720 --> 00:11:12,680
Speaker 2: has it like a perimeter, you know, of cops and

179
00:11:12,760 --> 00:11:15,760
Speaker 2: drones and all of that. And there's a multimillion dollar

180
00:11:15,840 --> 00:11:20,800
Speaker 2: lawsuit with was it eleven hundred black people were pulled

181
00:11:20,800 --> 00:11:23,640
Speaker 2: over by the police in the last two years and

182
00:11:23,679 --> 00:11:27,520
Speaker 2: only two convictions, you know, so there's a multimillion dollar

183
00:11:27,640 --> 00:11:30,959
Speaker 2: lawsuit there happening. So it's the media, it's how we've

184
00:11:31,000 --> 00:11:35,839
Speaker 2: been socialized, and it's the othering and the dehumanization as well.

185
00:11:35,880 --> 00:11:38,360
Speaker 2: Like I think all of that, and you know, police

186
00:11:38,440 --> 00:11:42,360
Speaker 2: unions and the people that benefit from I mean, it's

187
00:11:42,600 --> 00:11:47,000
Speaker 2: like budgets, right, police budgets. Despite all the rhetoric about

188
00:11:47,040 --> 00:11:51,560
Speaker 2: defund the police, police budgets have continued to increase. Crime

189
00:11:51,640 --> 00:11:54,080
Speaker 2: goes up and down regardless of that. And there was

190
00:11:54,160 --> 00:11:57,120
Speaker 2: just a report in the state of California where they

191
00:11:57,160 --> 00:12:01,760
Speaker 2: audited police response and actually police are doing less work

192
00:12:01,960 --> 00:12:05,240
Speaker 2: than they ever have according to that report, but.

193
00:12:05,280 --> 00:12:06,040
Speaker 1: They have more money.

194
00:12:06,120 --> 00:12:06,960
Speaker 2: They have more money.

195
00:12:07,080 --> 00:12:11,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I went into the wrong field.

196
00:12:10,440 --> 00:12:15,600
Speaker 2: Ye. Yeah.

197
00:12:15,600 --> 00:12:17,560
Speaker 1: One of the things that I also want to talk

198
00:12:17,600 --> 00:12:19,400
Speaker 1: to you about and this just you know, you want

199
00:12:19,440 --> 00:12:24,160
Speaker 1: to talk about propaganda, copaganda. Donald Trump's campaign this week

200
00:12:24,400 --> 00:12:28,840
Speaker 1: released a photo and it was an image of two

201
00:12:28,920 --> 00:12:33,600
Speaker 1: neighborhoods and one it said, this is what your neighborhood

202
00:12:33,600 --> 00:12:36,320
Speaker 1: will look like under Trump and it's this pristine, you know,

203
00:12:36,880 --> 00:12:41,960
Speaker 1: quintessential suburb. And this is what your neighborhood will look

204
00:12:42,000 --> 00:12:45,199
Speaker 1: like under Kamala and walls. And it was a picture

205
00:12:45,440 --> 00:12:48,560
Speaker 1: of I am certainly taken out of context, but a

206
00:12:48,600 --> 00:12:52,840
Speaker 1: bunch of black refugees and saying that if you welcome

207
00:12:52,880 --> 00:12:56,000
Speaker 1: in the third world, you become the third world. And

208
00:12:56,080 --> 00:12:59,760
Speaker 1: there is this, I mean, the insidious nature of racism

209
00:13:00,080 --> 00:13:03,680
Speaker 1: that is present there, but then this idea that to

210
00:13:04,000 --> 00:13:08,920
Speaker 1: have a country that welcomes in asylum seekers, that then

211
00:13:08,960 --> 00:13:12,200
Speaker 1: you're welcoming in crime. I want to get your thoughts

212
00:13:12,280 --> 00:13:17,040
Speaker 1: on the way in which MAGA and trump Ism has

213
00:13:17,280 --> 00:13:22,319
Speaker 1: weaponized law and order quote unquote, and what their plan

214
00:13:22,480 --> 00:13:25,400
Speaker 1: is in Project twenty twenty five, which I've talked about

215
00:13:25,520 --> 00:13:28,720
Speaker 1: at nauseum on this show, what their plan is for

216
00:13:28,840 --> 00:13:30,760
Speaker 1: police quote unquote reform. Right.

217
00:13:30,880 --> 00:13:34,199
Speaker 2: Yeah, I had to laugh for a second because, right,

218
00:13:34,280 --> 00:13:37,040
Speaker 2: the law and Order party and then you know, mister,

219
00:13:37,240 --> 00:13:41,560
Speaker 2: you know, thirty four convictions on everything else, and yeah,

220
00:13:41,600 --> 00:13:43,960
Speaker 2: and like I heard, you know, there was somebody the

221
00:13:44,040 --> 00:13:46,640
Speaker 2: other day who was talking about, oh, the millions of

222
00:13:47,200 --> 00:13:51,120
Speaker 2: immigrants who were flooding into New York, right, But they're

223
00:13:51,120 --> 00:13:54,559
Speaker 2: flooding into New flooding in quotes into New York because

224
00:13:54,840 --> 00:13:59,200
Speaker 2: the the racist governors in Florida and Texas are putting

225
00:13:59,200 --> 00:14:02,920
Speaker 2: people on buses, you know, and shipping them and you know,

226
00:14:03,040 --> 00:14:07,040
Speaker 2: for a nation of immigrants, it's very clear which immigrants

227
00:14:07,040 --> 00:14:12,200
Speaker 2: are being singled out as quote criminal, right, which feeds

228
00:14:12,200 --> 00:14:16,439
Speaker 2: into the communities and what we're just talking about. And

229
00:14:17,480 --> 00:14:21,000
Speaker 2: again when you look at at the data, the immigrants

230
00:14:21,040 --> 00:14:24,600
Speaker 2: coming in are the least likely to be committic, like

231
00:14:24,600 --> 00:14:28,960
Speaker 2: they commit they don't commit crime. You know, they're not

232
00:14:29,000 --> 00:14:31,960
Speaker 2: the criminals that are being portrayed, right. And then you

233
00:14:32,000 --> 00:14:34,480
Speaker 2: know they use that same like they bring up Chicago

234
00:14:34,680 --> 00:14:37,120
Speaker 2: all the time. In Chicago's not even in the top ten,

235
00:14:38,000 --> 00:14:41,160
Speaker 2: you know, most criminal cities. And so yeah, it's all

236
00:14:41,560 --> 00:14:45,400
Speaker 2: the narrative. It's the other, right, the demonizing of the other,

237
00:14:45,520 --> 00:14:48,480
Speaker 2: the fear of the other. Those people are the ones

238
00:14:48,520 --> 00:14:52,200
Speaker 2: that are putting us at risk. And yeah, it's just

239
00:14:52,280 --> 00:14:57,240
Speaker 2: all that that racist narrative that this country has been

240
00:14:58,000 --> 00:15:00,960
Speaker 2: you know, subjected to for how many hundreds of years?

241
00:15:01,040 --> 00:15:03,120
Speaker 2: Right at this point, do.

242
00:15:03,120 --> 00:15:07,760
Speaker 1: You think that we will get to a place where

243
00:15:08,680 --> 00:15:14,600
Speaker 1: we have policing that actually works, Like in my mind,

244
00:15:14,840 --> 00:15:18,880
Speaker 1: and I truly don't mean to denigrate officers like as

245
00:15:18,960 --> 00:15:23,640
Speaker 1: a whole, but policing was never really set up to

246
00:15:23,680 --> 00:15:27,320
Speaker 1: stop crime. They don't stop crime. It wasn't set up

247
00:15:27,440 --> 00:15:31,200
Speaker 1: in a way that police are seen as community actors,

248
00:15:31,640 --> 00:15:34,280
Speaker 1: right like, as part of the community again with the

249
00:15:34,360 --> 00:15:37,640
Speaker 1: other ring. And so you know, when we talk about

250
00:15:37,840 --> 00:15:44,040
Speaker 1: police reform, what in your mind would reform look like?

251
00:15:44,160 --> 00:15:48,520
Speaker 1: And do you foresee this ever actually coming to pass?

252
00:15:48,760 --> 00:15:51,760
Speaker 1: Right Like after the murder of George Floyd, which we

253
00:15:51,880 --> 00:15:55,200
Speaker 1: all witnessed in the middle of the pandemic, because everyone

254
00:15:55,800 --> 00:15:58,520
Speaker 1: was at home, well those that were privileged, in order

255
00:15:58,560 --> 00:16:02,320
Speaker 1: to be home and work remote work, they put together

256
00:16:02,720 --> 00:16:06,960
Speaker 1: quote unquote bipartisan legislation, the George Floyd Policing Act, and

257
00:16:07,000 --> 00:16:10,840
Speaker 1: after eight months it fell apart. So do you foresee

258
00:16:11,920 --> 00:16:14,800
Speaker 1: a time and a space where we actually get the

259
00:16:14,920 --> 00:16:16,360
Speaker 1: kind of police reform we need?

260
00:16:17,600 --> 00:16:21,800
Speaker 2: No, And I'll tell you why. In my conflict resolution work,

261
00:16:22,000 --> 00:16:24,960
Speaker 2: I often say that you can tell what an organization

262
00:16:25,200 --> 00:16:29,000
Speaker 2: is committed to by the results they are producing. So

263
00:16:29,720 --> 00:16:32,520
Speaker 2: we've been and actually Jody Armor talks about this in

264
00:16:32,560 --> 00:16:34,400
Speaker 2: the film, and there's a section in the film where

265
00:16:34,440 --> 00:16:39,240
Speaker 2: he chronicles the reforms in quotes of the last ten

266
00:16:39,320 --> 00:16:43,080
Speaker 2: or fifteen years, right, body cameras, anti bias training, de

267
00:16:43,200 --> 00:16:46,760
Speaker 2: escalation training, all of that, and by the way, on

268
00:16:46,880 --> 00:16:51,240
Speaker 2: the average in police academies across the country. They spend

269
00:16:51,320 --> 00:16:55,760
Speaker 2: sixty hours on firearms training, sixty hours on fighting and

270
00:16:56,000 --> 00:16:58,840
Speaker 2: hand to hand submission holds and that sort of thing,

271
00:16:59,360 --> 00:17:04,200
Speaker 2: and only eight hours on de escalation, which usually is

272
00:17:04,600 --> 00:17:07,119
Speaker 2: wrapped into at the very end of the academy they

273
00:17:07,160 --> 00:17:13,400
Speaker 2: do role playing exercises. Right. So, policing, as Alex Batali

274
00:17:13,480 --> 00:17:16,200
Speaker 2: in the film says, is police are violence workers. They're

275
00:17:16,240 --> 00:17:20,480
Speaker 2: there to suppress protests, they're there to inflict violence. They're

276
00:17:20,480 --> 00:17:24,880
Speaker 2: there to uphold the interests of the state and the wealthy,

277
00:17:25,520 --> 00:17:28,639
Speaker 2: and like, people get uncomfortable hearing that, But when you

278
00:17:28,680 --> 00:17:31,520
Speaker 2: look at it, like it couldn't be more clear. With

279
00:17:31,640 --> 00:17:35,600
Speaker 2: the campus protests and encampments right back in May and June, right,

280
00:17:35,840 --> 00:17:38,919
Speaker 2: college kids, And I've been to the encampments, right, and

281
00:17:38,960 --> 00:17:40,280
Speaker 2: all the narratives.

282
00:17:40,000 --> 00:17:42,280
Speaker 1: Unarmed, unarmed on college.

283
00:17:42,000 --> 00:17:47,480
Speaker 2: Kids hanging out eating pizza with banners saying stop the genocide, right,

284
00:17:47,520 --> 00:17:51,520
Speaker 2: stop killing people. And what happens when the powers of

285
00:17:51,600 --> 00:17:54,359
Speaker 2: best say it's time to clear them out. The cops

286
00:17:54,359 --> 00:17:57,000
Speaker 2: in their riot gear with their pepper spray and their

287
00:17:57,400 --> 00:17:59,960
Speaker 2: rubber bullets that are supposed to be less than lethal,

288
00:18:00,040 --> 00:18:03,720
Speaker 2: but people get messed up with those rubber bullets, come

289
00:18:03,760 --> 00:18:06,960
Speaker 2: in and clear them out. And then you have the

290
00:18:07,000 --> 00:18:11,400
Speaker 2: pro Israel protesters who were given free reign and not stopped,

291
00:18:11,680 --> 00:18:15,199
Speaker 2: who especially like a UCLA, were inflicting violence and the

292
00:18:15,200 --> 00:18:16,960
Speaker 2: cops are nowhere to be found. And then once they

293
00:18:16,960 --> 00:18:19,640
Speaker 2: pull back, the cops come in and you know, wipe

294
00:18:19,640 --> 00:18:23,240
Speaker 2: out the protesters. So in the four years since George

295
00:18:23,240 --> 00:18:26,800
Speaker 2: Floyd was murdered, and by the way, Minneapolis had all

296
00:18:26,880 --> 00:18:29,800
Speaker 2: of the reforms leading up to George Floyd, in the

297
00:18:29,840 --> 00:18:33,360
Speaker 2: four years since then, we've had more police killings, which

298
00:18:33,400 --> 00:18:37,800
Speaker 2: have increased each year, police killing people, Budgets have increased,

299
00:18:38,280 --> 00:18:41,960
Speaker 2: and sixty nine cops cities have been built or are

300
00:18:41,960 --> 00:18:44,879
Speaker 2: in the process of being built across the country and

301
00:18:44,920 --> 00:18:47,879
Speaker 2: people are like, oh, but those are training facilities. It's like,

302
00:18:47,880 --> 00:18:50,440
Speaker 2: all right, post twenty twenty, what are they training for

303
00:18:51,400 --> 00:18:55,760
Speaker 2: to suppress protests? And you know, people standing up for

304
00:18:55,800 --> 00:18:59,200
Speaker 2: their rights and to end genocide and to have their

305
00:18:59,280 --> 00:19:02,760
Speaker 2: needs met, bodily autonomy like all of that. And so

306
00:19:03,800 --> 00:19:07,120
Speaker 2: policing as an institution like we talk about, and this

307
00:19:07,200 --> 00:19:09,120
Speaker 2: goes into the other ring part which I was thinking

308
00:19:09,119 --> 00:19:12,120
Speaker 2: about earlier, Like we talked about police were born out

309
00:19:12,160 --> 00:19:13,080
Speaker 2: of slave catchers.

310
00:19:13,160 --> 00:19:13,280
Speaker 1: Right.

311
00:19:13,320 --> 00:19:16,399
Speaker 2: There were the slave patrols, yep. And it's easy to

312
00:19:16,440 --> 00:19:19,639
Speaker 2: be like, oh, well, those were slaves and whatever. But

313
00:19:19,920 --> 00:19:25,119
Speaker 2: in the north police were suppressing protests, suppressing the labor

314
00:19:25,200 --> 00:19:29,399
Speaker 2: movement and union busting, union busting, suppressing labor unions. And

315
00:19:29,440 --> 00:19:31,640
Speaker 2: then in the west, out here in the West, they

316
00:19:31,680 --> 00:19:36,000
Speaker 2: were vigilantes to keep those folks in quotes off of

317
00:19:36,359 --> 00:19:41,000
Speaker 2: in quotes our land. Right. So the whole institution is

318
00:19:41,119 --> 00:19:43,840
Speaker 2: rooted in that. And then you take their training in

319
00:19:43,880 --> 00:19:48,880
Speaker 2: the academy, which is overwhelmingly focused on violence and command

320
00:19:48,920 --> 00:19:51,720
Speaker 2: and control of populations, and then they get out on

321
00:19:51,760 --> 00:19:54,800
Speaker 2: the street and the way that they prove themselves to

322
00:19:54,840 --> 00:19:58,560
Speaker 2: their fellow officers is getting in fights, making arrest, writing tickets.

323
00:19:58,800 --> 00:19:58,960
Speaker 1: Right.

324
00:19:59,240 --> 00:20:02,119
Speaker 2: There are no metri for how safe is a community?

325
00:20:02,160 --> 00:20:04,080
Speaker 2: What did you do today to keep people safe?

326
00:20:04,359 --> 00:20:06,680
Speaker 1: Right? And just to that point, what we learned during

327
00:20:06,760 --> 00:20:10,360
Speaker 1: Ferguson in particular, were the ways in which they had

328
00:20:10,480 --> 00:20:15,320
Speaker 1: set quotas in that city. In order to arrest a certainty,

329
00:20:15,320 --> 00:20:17,359
Speaker 1: you needed to arrest a certain a number of people,

330
00:20:17,560 --> 00:20:20,119
Speaker 1: You needed to ticket a certain number of people. So

331
00:20:20,200 --> 00:20:24,679
Speaker 1: the incentive is not in the suppression of crime, it

332
00:20:24,760 --> 00:20:27,840
Speaker 1: is in how many people can you catch? Yes, right,

333
00:20:28,119 --> 00:20:32,040
Speaker 1: So that mentality is reinforced by the quota systems that

334
00:20:32,080 --> 00:20:33,920
Speaker 1: are set up in these places.

335
00:20:34,240 --> 00:20:37,199
Speaker 2: And there's I don't remember if you interviewed him or not.

336
00:20:37,240 --> 00:20:40,880
Speaker 2: There's a book called An Inconvenient Cop, which is a

337
00:20:40,960 --> 00:20:45,000
Speaker 2: former black NYPD officer who talks about those quotas and

338
00:20:45,680 --> 00:20:47,720
Speaker 2: he literally joined the force because he was, like you

339
00:20:47,800 --> 00:20:50,639
Speaker 2: wanted to find out why he had the experience as

340
00:20:50,640 --> 00:20:53,879
Speaker 2: a black man, you know, in relation to NYPD. So

341
00:20:54,359 --> 00:20:58,200
Speaker 2: all of that is out there, and so policing I've

342
00:20:58,240 --> 00:21:00,960
Speaker 2: been saying it's not for the people and will never

343
00:21:01,040 --> 00:21:04,159
Speaker 2: be for the people. What we can do and what

344
00:21:04,359 --> 00:21:07,480
Speaker 2: is being done, and it just needs more awareness and

345
00:21:07,520 --> 00:21:09,920
Speaker 2: support and funding and all of that. Are the community

346
00:21:10,000 --> 00:21:14,240
Speaker 2: response teams, you know, violence prevention workers, which are being

347
00:21:14,359 --> 00:21:17,840
Speaker 2: utilized in Newark for example, right, they took five percent

348
00:21:18,440 --> 00:21:21,520
Speaker 2: of the Newark police budget put it into the Office

349
00:21:21,520 --> 00:21:25,320
Speaker 2: of Violence Prevention, and they have all of these street

350
00:21:25,359 --> 00:21:30,000
Speaker 2: teams like One Hood, Equal Justice. There's there's some other organizations,

351
00:21:30,440 --> 00:21:32,840
Speaker 2: and those are the teams that respond to mental health

352
00:21:32,880 --> 00:21:35,760
Speaker 2: calls and people needing wellness checks and things like that.

353
00:21:36,000 --> 00:21:38,320
Speaker 2: And crime is it an all time low? Like a

354
00:21:38,359 --> 00:21:42,520
Speaker 2: sixty year low in the city of Newark. And that's

355
00:21:42,600 --> 00:21:44,520
Speaker 2: just you know, with the small budget. And there are

356
00:21:44,600 --> 00:21:48,159
Speaker 2: teams like when I was doing the film, everybody was

357
00:21:48,240 --> 00:21:51,800
Speaker 2: really focused on the Cahoots program in Eugene, Oregon, and

358
00:21:51,840 --> 00:21:54,520
Speaker 2: the Star program in Denver, Colorado, and those are like

359
00:21:55,040 --> 00:21:59,359
Speaker 2: the ogs that everybody refers to. And having done these

360
00:21:59,400 --> 00:22:02,840
Speaker 2: sixty one screenings across the country and been in Sacramento,

361
00:22:03,040 --> 00:22:07,159
Speaker 2: in San Antonio and Atlanta and Newark and you know

362
00:22:07,280 --> 00:22:10,919
Speaker 2: all these other places, there are these violence prevention workers

363
00:22:10,960 --> 00:22:15,280
Speaker 2: community responders, yeah, that are working. Is just they're not funded.

364
00:22:15,560 --> 00:22:18,440
Speaker 2: A lot of them are volunteer. Some of them are

365
00:22:18,640 --> 00:22:21,560
Speaker 2: connected to the police in some way because the police

366
00:22:21,600 --> 00:22:25,000
Speaker 2: department wants to oversee. But when these groups go out,

367
00:22:25,040 --> 00:22:28,080
Speaker 2: people aren't getting killed and not getting arrested either, and

368
00:22:28,119 --> 00:22:31,159
Speaker 2: they're not calling for backup, you know, which increases the

369
00:22:31,240 --> 00:22:32,200
Speaker 2: likelihood of violence.

370
00:22:35,359 --> 00:22:37,800
Speaker 1: Matthew, we will leave it there today, but I just

371
00:22:37,880 --> 00:22:40,560
Speaker 1: want to again thank you for the work, thank you

372
00:22:40,640 --> 00:22:43,879
Speaker 1: for your film, and please just remind people where it

373
00:22:43,960 --> 00:22:46,760
Speaker 1: is streaming now so that they can take a look.

374
00:22:46,840 --> 00:22:50,359
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you. So. Reimagining safetymovie dot Com is the

375
00:22:50,400 --> 00:22:55,159
Speaker 2: website and it's streaming on Amazon to Be, YouTube and

376
00:22:55,240 --> 00:22:56,560
Speaker 2: Google Play.

377
00:22:58,840 --> 00:23:01,040
Speaker 1: That is it for me today. Hey dear friends on

378
00:23:01,440 --> 00:23:05,320
Speaker 1: Woke af As always, Power to the people and to

379
00:23:05,640 --> 00:23:09,880
Speaker 1: all the people power, Get woke and stay woke as fuck.

380
00:23:12,880 --> 00:23:12,920
Speaker 1: H