Speaker 1: Welcome to woke f with Me Danielle Moody. This week
Speaker 1: America breathed the heavy sigh of relief as three consecutive
Speaker 1: guilty verdicts came down in the murder trial of Derek Chauvin.
Speaker 1: We shouldn't have to feel surprised, we shouldn't have to
Speaker 1: feel relieved. But the reality is that cops murdering black
Speaker 1: people in broad daylight and getting away with it is
Speaker 1: the norm in American policing. This week on woke f Daily,
Speaker 1: I was joined by my friend fill up Atiba Goff,
Speaker 1: CEO of the Center for Policing Equity. We talked for
Speaker 1: half an hour about what can be done to radically
Speaker 1: transform policing, including his thoughts on calls to defund the police,
Speaker 1: which you will hear coming up in a few minutes.
Speaker 1: If the ten minutes I share with you today in
Speaker 1: form and inspire you, do consider supporting woke f Daily
Speaker 1: on Patreon to hear the full interview and so much more.
Speaker 1: You can become a patron right now at patreon dot
Speaker 1: com slash woke Yeah. But for now, let's pick up
Speaker 1: on me asking Philip to share his thoughts on ending
Speaker 1: qualified immunity for police officers. Where are we with qualified immunity? Right?
Speaker 1: Where where are we with being able to at least
Speaker 1: get to some type of level playing ground where you
Speaker 1: don't have this get out of jail free card. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so unqualified immunity. There are states that are making changes.
Speaker 1: They're saying they're abolishing it. That's not quite right. What
Speaker 1: they're doing is they're changing the standard for it, which
Speaker 1: should be useful on state cases and can be useful
Speaker 1: on local cases. But we're not close from any of
Speaker 1: the states. As examples, the Justice for Justice and Police
Speaker 1: saying George Floyd Act would end in this current iteration,
Speaker 1: would end qualified immunity, and I think that has a
Speaker 1: shot of making it through the Senate. So in that case,
Speaker 1: we would be in fact revealing the precedent and saying, no,
Speaker 1: you cannot use it this way. But qualified immunity might
Speaker 1: might make a difference in about a quarter of the
Speaker 1: cases that come forward where they're charging. So even those
Speaker 1: things that are that are sort of easy villains in
Speaker 1: this fight, the real villain here is the way we
Speaker 1: use police. So if most cities ninety six percent of
Speaker 1: what police do has nothing to do with violence, do
Speaker 1: you think we could figure out a way to spend
Speaker 1: less and get less armed response for that ninety six
Speaker 1: percent of behavior. So I'd be happy toly qualified immunity
Speaker 1: in place if police had ninety six percent less contact
Speaker 1: with folks, Right, Like, if all I'm trying to do
Speaker 1: is reduce the number of bodies going to the morgu
Speaker 1: as a result of contact with the state, that seems
Speaker 1: like the bigger lever to pull is to pull police
Speaker 1: out of the places where, by the way, for the
Speaker 1: last quarter century they've been saying, we can't do this.
Speaker 1: You give us too much. We can't do mental health
Speaker 1: and substance abuse and homelessness and child welfare. Why do
Speaker 1: you give all that to us? Right, So they want
Speaker 1: to get out of the business. They just want to
Speaker 1: do it without losing their budgets. Right, I'm happy to
Speaker 1: law enforcement to get them out of the places they
Speaker 1: always wanted to get out of. And in many cities,
Speaker 1: by the way, we should be standing up those systems
Speaker 1: before we're disinvesting, so we can invest before we divest
Speaker 1: in some places. But it's got to be push pull,
Speaker 1: because we have fed this beast so much that if
Speaker 1: they were the military, US law enforcement would be the
Speaker 1: third largest military in the world after our military and
Speaker 1: then China's military. That's too much, which is obscene when
Speaker 1: you look at the lack of money we put into
Speaker 1: let's say education, right, like you judge a country by
Speaker 1: where they put the most of their resources, and like
Speaker 1: you said at the beginning, America is addicted right to
Speaker 1: locking people up. And it's no wonder to me. I mean,
Speaker 1: we would rather in America send children to school with
Speaker 1: bulletproof backpacks, armed teachers, then do something substantive on gun reform.
Speaker 1: We'd rather have a Dante right a week or a day,
Speaker 1: then admit to the fact that our policing system is
Speaker 1: absolutely atrocious and if it didn't have a badge, would
Speaker 1: be considered the KKK in terms of the number of
Speaker 1: black people that they murder on a regular basis. I
Speaker 1: just you know, what expectations do you have of this
Speaker 1: current administration to be able to move the ball forward
Speaker 1: with this systemic problem that we have. It will really
Speaker 1: depend to me on who they get through Senate confirmation.
Speaker 1: The Senate confirmed nominees right now are of fantastic slate
Speaker 1: of folks that are way bolder in terms of their
Speaker 1: vision for what can be done than this president campaigned on.
Speaker 1: So we get Kristin Clark, and we get Venita Gupta,
Speaker 1: and we get Anne Milgram has had a DA that's
Speaker 1: good for the set of things I care about. Vinita
Speaker 1: Gupta was the best thing that had happened to the
Speaker 1: Civil Rights Division in at least a generation. And for
Speaker 1: her to come up and then have Kristin Clark take
Speaker 1: that over, I send it confirmed. I mean, it's not
Speaker 1: just history setting. It sets a table for removal qualified immunity,
Speaker 1: for really ramping up what investigations look like a civil
Speaker 1: rights for expanding how civil rights investigations of law enforcement
Speaker 1: actually go into the full municipality. Right because before the
Speaker 1: Ferguson report, no one was talking about how cities generate revenue.
Speaker 1: So how much more can of folks who are really
Speaker 1: credential to have some experience? How much more could they do?
Speaker 1: And also I want us to be thinking about what
Speaker 1: are we gonna make them do? Because under Obama, what
Speaker 1: we did was we said, there's a black dude there
Speaker 1: right plays basketball. We like his march madness, his wife
Speaker 1: is wonderful, his kids are wonderful. Let's not embarrass him.
Speaker 1: Let's not put him in bad spots, and so we
Speaker 1: didn't push. I'm not saying that's what I thought. I'm
Speaker 1: not saying this what everybody thought. No, no, no, But
Speaker 1: I mean, but that's right. But that's right. There's no
Speaker 1: reason not to push Uncle Joe. There's just not. And
Speaker 1: so I want to say, what are we going to
Speaker 1: insist on? And I hope we insist on the recognition
Speaker 1: nationwide that we have a system that punishes people for
Speaker 1: the choices they make in a context where we have
Speaker 1: given them only terrible options. So we should be giving
Speaker 1: them better options before we even talk about how we
Speaker 1: want to ratch it up punishment. Last question for you,
Speaker 1: fill Up is this, do you feel like we need
Speaker 1: to change our messaging around defund the lease, around abolish
Speaker 1: the police. Do you think that the messaging is off
Speaker 1: or do you think that it's right where it needs
Speaker 1: to be. So this conversation around messaging, I actually think
Speaker 1: it is super duper important because there's a lot of
Speaker 1: assumptions that have gone into it when we've had it
Speaker 1: in public. So members of what i'll call a democratic
Speaker 1: establishment have said, well, we can't be making this defund demand.
Speaker 1: That's ridiculous it's killing us electorally, be like, you were
Speaker 1: not the one's making it. It wasn't for you. It
Speaker 1: was activating folks who were outraged and felt like what
Speaker 1: on earth can I do? Like you and I were
Speaker 1: saying and feeling at the very beginning of this conversation,
Speaker 1: and those folks are like, you know what, Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: not up for reform, I'm up for just getting rid
Speaker 1: of this because it's actually killing us. Yeah. So if
Speaker 1: folks want to have different messaging, feel free to develop some.
Speaker 1: That's how I feel about. It's like, so we all
Speaker 1: of us were not messaging the same thing. So I
Speaker 1: have a listeners talking about I want to talk about refund,
Speaker 1: not defund, refund to the community. I hear abolition is
Speaker 1: saying that, oh right, that feels good to me. But
Speaker 1: you know what, defund is still working in places. And
Speaker 1: I also, I know you said last question. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: try not to be too profound, come on now, but
Speaker 1: my deal is we think of abolition right now like
Speaker 1: it's it's something brand new, okay. And then some folks
Speaker 1: are like, oh, Miriam Cobb has been around for a
Speaker 1: little while, Yes she has, she's been doing it and
Speaker 1: then some people are like, well, Angela Davis been around
Speaker 1: for a little while. Okay, okay, okay. But Angela Davis,
Speaker 1: when she is summarizing a great portion of her life's
Speaker 1: work in two thousand and five, writes a book called
Speaker 1: Abolition Democracy. She is quoting from W. E. B. Du
Speaker 1: Bois writing in nineteen thirty five about black reconstruction. This
Speaker 1: thing goes back to the point of emancipation, when we
Speaker 1: have black geniuses talking about not just the destruction of
Speaker 1: the systems that kill us, but the proactive, affirmative construction
Speaker 1: of systems that will keep us safe and the will
Speaker 1: rip body politic of the toxins of historical legacies of racism.
Speaker 1: Abolition is not just about getting rid of something. It's
Speaker 1: about standing up something that's better than what we've had.
Speaker 1: And when we have a more historically literate appreciation for
Speaker 1: what that word means, I think it stops being so
Speaker 1: scary and starts being a bit inevitable. You know, you're
Speaker 1: so right on so many things. What makes me discourage, though,
Speaker 1: is that we're a nation that is illiterate about our
Speaker 1: own history, about our own lives, about the lives of
Speaker 1: our neighbors. We are purposefully ignorant. And so for every
Speaker 1: issue that we have, there is a re education that
Speaker 1: needs to happen, because the way that we have been
Speaker 1: educated is through the lie. I keep saying that the
Speaker 1: big lie wasn't just about election fraud. The big lie
Speaker 1: has been what we've been teaching in public school since
Speaker 1: the beginning of time, right, And so it's just like,
Speaker 1: you know, you make sense if you were to take
Speaker 1: things into historical contests and actually understand the context of
Speaker 1: the words that we are using. But my fear for
Speaker 1: America is that we continually show our ass and our
Speaker 1: celebratory around just how ignorant we are. And so if
Speaker 1: that be the case, Philip, it's like, do we ever
Speaker 1: see the needle move? Right? If we're in a constant
Speaker 1: state of having to go back and re educate folks
Speaker 1: and bring them up to where they should be, are
Speaker 1: we ever moving forward? If I got to keep looking back? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I understand the frustration. And so let's say there's two options.
Speaker 1: There's a yes and there's a no. If the answer
Speaker 1: is no, then what we're doing just give up? Right?
Speaker 1: I should I should become a black person who says
Speaker 1: that black people just need to pull the pants up,
Speaker 1: and that will get all the shots are because there's
Speaker 1: money in that, for sure. Oh, I find your percent.
Speaker 1: You could be rich on Fox News go ahead if
Speaker 1: you didn't care about a conscience or yeah, like if
Speaker 1: I didn't have a soul, I could just do that.
Speaker 1: And so I answer yes both because I see change
Speaker 1: happening and I watch the genius of communities coming together
Speaker 1: and saying we will demand better, we will insist on more,
Speaker 1: and because that is the only option that makes living
Speaker 1: the way that I'm trying to live makes sense, living
Speaker 1: with any kind of hope, looking at babies and saying
Speaker 1: not just I'm sorry for what we're giving you, but
Speaker 1: I think you can make this place better, literally looking
Speaker 1: at my god kids and saying that that it's required
Speaker 1: for me to believe it can be and to work
Speaker 1: so that that's true. Yeah. Now, I believe that optimism
Speaker 1: in the face of reality is a revolutionary act, and
Speaker 1: I try and be a little bit of a revolutionary
Speaker 1: every day. Right, So I'm not trying to sugarcoat stuff.
Speaker 1: But if we're talking about is it possible, Slavery wasn't
Speaker 1: ended till it was right, Voting rights weren't secured until
Speaker 1: they were. Now they're not. We're gonna do it again, right,
Speaker 1: all the things that weren't possible. You think about it.
Speaker 1: The moon was just something up in the sky for
Speaker 1: a long time throughout all of human history, and then
Speaker 1: a small group of folks got a bunch of resources
Speaker 1: and the will of the people to say, let's go.
Speaker 1: And now that's a thing that probably in the next
Speaker 1: twenty years you can buy a ticket to. You can
Speaker 1: buy a ticket to the moon. This thing that doesn't
Speaker 1: have oxygen doesn't exist within our earth. The things that
Speaker 1: humanity can do when we decide it is required are amazing.
Speaker 1: We dream about technology, and we dream about power, But
Speaker 1: when do we dream about a better society? What does
Speaker 1: democracy look like twenty thirty forty one hundred, five hundred
Speaker 1: years from now? How have we set ourselves up to
Speaker 1: be better? When we start dreaming about freedom not just
Speaker 1: for ourselves, but as the the root construct of what
Speaker 1: we're going to gift to the next generation. I imagine
Speaker 1: that we can take ourselves to the Moon, to Mars,
Speaker 1: to solar systems we can't even see with the naked eye.
Speaker 1: In terms of how we keep ourselves safe, I know
Speaker 1: that's possible, because humanity does the impossible all the goddamn time.
Speaker 1: It's just we've done it for the wrong reasons and
Speaker 1: for the wrong set of people. Optimism in the face
Speaker 1: of reality is a revolutionary act. Every week on Woke
Speaker 1: a f daily, I strive to leave my listeners with
Speaker 1: the message of hope and positivity so that we aren't
Speaker 1: defeated by the fight in front of us. I hope
Speaker 1: you can let Phillips the words carry you forward, as
Speaker 1: the mere act of remaining optimistic in the face of
Speaker 1: our grim, oppressive reality is itself a sign of strength.
Speaker 1: But I also wanted to leave you this week with
Speaker 1: my own thoughts on the schaubun verdict and what this
Speaker 1: case says about the state of policing in America. Do
Speaker 1: we need to defend? Do we need to abolish? Keep listening, friends,
Speaker 1: and hear my two cents, I thought to myself yesterday,
Speaker 1: as I know many people have, which is about Darnella Frasier.
Speaker 1: If not for Darnella Frasier's video, the seventeen year old
Speaker 1: now eighteen year old young woman who recorded George Floyd's
Speaker 1: death murder and uploaded it to social media, if it
Speaker 1: had not been for her her bravery, her courage, her
Speaker 1: quick thinking, recognizing that there wasn't much that she could do,
Speaker 1: but she's sure as hell could record it. Listening to
Speaker 1: her break down on the stand about the apologies that
Speaker 1: she sends up in prayer to George Floyd that she
Speaker 1: didn't do enough. Yesterday, she did the most because for
Speaker 1: the first time in the history of that city, the
Speaker 1: history of that state, a white police officer was held
Speaker 1: accountable from murdering a black person in cold blood. Darnella
Speaker 1: Frasier's action did that. But what's worse, folks, is that
Speaker 1: it shouldn't have had to. In too many instances, it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter whether or not we have cameras and have
Speaker 1: recorded because accountability is always elusive when it comes to
Speaker 1: black lives. Too many times we've been told that the
Speaker 1: homicides that we've seen or read about have been justifiable
Speaker 1: because they are at the hands of police officers. But
Speaker 1: what we know to be true, and what we need
Speaker 1: to remind ourselves of, is that Derek Chauvin is not
Speaker 1: a bad apple. Derek Chauvin is the product of a
Speaker 1: poisoned orchard that spans the entirety of the United States.
Speaker 1: To dismiss the systemic violence that is prevalent in police
Speaker 1: departments across this country is to ignore the true problem
Speaker 1: in pursuit of a quick fix, which is to make
Speaker 1: Derek Chauvin an anomaly as opposed to a shift and
Speaker 1: necessary shift in policing. Now, I am of the mindset
Speaker 1: that policing in this country is too far broken for
Speaker 1: it to be quote unquote reformed. I believe that it
Speaker 1: needs to be abolished. I believe that police need to
Speaker 1: be defunded the way that we have been defunding public education,
Speaker 1: our healthcare system, and social services across this country for decades,
Speaker 1: which is why police have become the catch all for
Speaker 1: things that society refuses to deal with that they have
Speaker 1: fucking caused. What I continue to say is that this country,
Speaker 1: everything that we are seeing unfold is purposeful. We're the
Speaker 1: eleventh wealthiest nation in the world. We are also the
Speaker 1: leaders in incarceration, police killings, death by gun, and every
Speaker 1: other thing fucking wrong. Where are we exceptional, I guess
Speaker 1: for in our love of guns and our love of violence,
Speaker 1: in our love of trauma. Folks, I hope that you
Speaker 1: can find some solace in the outcome of this case.
Speaker 1: But do remember that it took an international uprising activists
Speaker 1: in the streets, the courage and dedication of the Floyd family,
Speaker 1: the bravery of a seventeen year old black girl named
Speaker 1: Darnella Frasier, the bravery of the witnesses that took the
Speaker 1: stand to tell the truth about what they saw and
Speaker 1: who they were. Not an angry mob, as the defense
Speaker 1: would have had us believe, but a group of concerned
Speaker 1: citizens watching the life being squeezed out of one of
Speaker 1: the their own. Take a deep sigh of relief that
Speaker 1: we as a collective can create the change that is necessary.
Speaker 1: But the amount of work that lies ahead of us
Speaker 1: to rid ourselves of the poisonous way policing exists in
Speaker 1: this country will take all of us. The most important
Speaker 1: thing I can say, and it's something I tell my
Speaker 1: listeners on almost a daily basis, is to take care
Speaker 1: of yourself. You don't have to watch every video or
Speaker 1: follow every hashtag. We know what's going on in this
Speaker 1: country and we know what's going to take a lot
Speaker 1: of work to change things for the better. Do not
Speaker 1: give up, but that includes not giving up on yourself.
Speaker 1: As I always say, make sure you take breaks so
Speaker 1: that you don't have a breakdown. I hope this message
Speaker 1: carries you through until the next time you hear me,
Speaker 1: and as always, I do hope to see you over
Speaker 1: on Patreon at patreon dot com slash woke AF. I'm
Speaker 1: working on even more ways to stay connected with the
Speaker 1: WOKEA family, and I would love, love love for you
Speaker 1: to join us on that journey. Power to the people
Speaker 1: and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay
Speaker 1: woke as fuck.