WEBVTT - Shrouded in Blue 0:00:11.880 --> 0:00:14.760 Good morning, peeps, and welcome to Wika f Daily with 0:00:15.040 --> 0:00:20.440 me your girl, Danielle Moody. This week we are reflecting 0:00:20.640 --> 0:00:24.040 on the year of hate, and as a part of 0:00:24.079 --> 0:00:28.360 that reflection, we are going back through our treasure trove 0:00:28.440 --> 0:00:32.400 of interviews that we've had throughout the year, and one 0:00:32.479 --> 0:00:37.080 of them stood out to me in many many ways. 0:00:37.920 --> 0:00:44.720 You know, after the murder of George Floyd, we've begun 0:00:45.200 --> 0:00:50.559 as a nation to have a real mainstreamed conversation about 0:00:50.680 --> 0:00:56.720 police reform, that how could it be that with the 0:00:56.840 --> 0:01:02.760 eighteen hundred police departments around this country, that we could 0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:06.280 continue to refer to those that take the lies of 0:01:06.480 --> 0:01:12.479 unarmed black people as bad apples, that we could continue 0:01:12.520 --> 0:01:17.440 to shrug off the number of people that are murdered 0:01:18.240 --> 0:01:24.400 each and every day at the hands of people who 0:01:24.440 --> 0:01:28.080 took an oath and wear a badge that says to 0:01:28.200 --> 0:01:35.520 protect and serve. The question collectively, finally, that we were 0:01:35.600 --> 0:01:40.680 having after the murder of George Floyd was who are 0:01:40.680 --> 0:01:47.040 the police there to protect? Who are they there to serve? Now, 0:01:47.319 --> 0:01:52.400 in the black community, we have known all too well. 0:01:52.520 --> 0:01:55.440 It was the reason why the klu Klux Klan wore 0:01:55.520 --> 0:02:00.640 hoods because many of those same people that were attached 0:02:00.680 --> 0:02:08.880 to the quote unquote justice system were the very clansmen 0:02:08.919 --> 0:02:12.040 that were participating in the lynching, the beatings, and the 0:02:12.120 --> 0:02:17.760 hangings of innocent black people, but would serve as the 0:02:17.840 --> 0:02:25.320 police chiefs and the judges. We have a legacy in 0:02:25.400 --> 0:02:30.560 this country that has allowed white supremacy and violence to 0:02:30.600 --> 0:02:37.239 be shrouded in blue. We have created policies and systems 0:02:37.280 --> 0:02:41.360 that allow them to do harm without fear of any 0:02:41.480 --> 0:02:49.920 persecution at all. When a police officer is actually convicted, 0:02:50.680 --> 0:02:56.520 we all exhale because we have been holding our brats 0:02:56.600 --> 0:03:01.080 throughout the entirety of the Chauvin case. Because even with 0:03:03.320 --> 0:03:08.920 the videos, the angles, the witnesses who broke down on 0:03:09.040 --> 0:03:17.959 the stand, who refuse to turn away because somebody needed 0:03:18.000 --> 0:03:22.480 to see what was being done, we didn't believe that 0:03:22.520 --> 0:03:29.960 the justice system would do the right thing, because it 0:03:30.040 --> 0:03:35.240 rarely ever does not when the victims are black or brown, 0:03:37.160 --> 0:03:46.480 or poor for that matter. In her book Becoming Abolitionists 0:03:47.400 --> 0:03:53.920 Police Protests in the Pursuit of Freedom, Dereka Purnell unpacks 0:03:54.000 --> 0:04:01.040 her own journey to abolition to the belief that police 0:04:01.760 --> 0:04:08.279 and policing and police forces are nothing more than a polacebo. 0:04:11.640 --> 0:04:17.200 She writes, calling them felt like something, and something feels 0:04:17.279 --> 0:04:23.919 like everything when the other option seems like nothing. But 0:04:24.000 --> 0:04:30.000 there have been too many times when we have heard 0:04:30.240 --> 0:04:37.839 stories of people calling the police and death following that 0:04:37.960 --> 0:04:43.520 phone call. Whether family members are calling the police because 0:04:43.560 --> 0:04:48.839 a loved one is in mental distress, because we have 0:04:48.880 --> 0:04:52.440 no other system, no other place to call. Yet we know, 0:04:52.600 --> 0:04:55.000 good God damn well that the police aren't trained to 0:04:55.040 --> 0:05:00.840 do a fucking thing, not as it pertains to the escalation. 0:05:01.279 --> 0:05:04.760 They can only seem to de escalate so long as 0:05:04.800 --> 0:05:09.320 the person is wielding a weapon and is white. Because 0:05:09.320 --> 0:05:11.719 if God forbid, they have a book or a cell 0:05:11.760 --> 0:05:15.200 phone and happen to be black or brown, Well, you 0:05:15.320 --> 0:05:20.760 have just cemented certain death with the phone call to police. 0:05:20.960 --> 0:05:26.040 We have watched right in the videos of the many 0:05:26.240 --> 0:05:34.000 parents Amy Cooper, who knew just how to inflect her 0:05:34.120 --> 0:05:40.880 voice and dramatize her fear of a very dangerous bird 0:05:40.920 --> 0:05:49.080 watching black man in Central Park. We continue to hear 0:05:49.200 --> 0:05:58.680 stories of police officers using, time and time again the 0:05:58.839 --> 0:06:05.760 good old rope. They seemed dangerous, I couldn't see, I'm 0:06:05.880 --> 0:06:11.520 under pressure, and I feared from my life. Well, what 0:06:11.560 --> 0:06:15.200 the fuck is your training for You're the one with 0:06:15.279 --> 0:06:27.919 the gun. Kim Potter right took out her taser or 0:06:28.000 --> 0:06:31.320 thought she did, Oh oops, it was my nine millimeter. 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:43.200 There are so many names, so many names, and so 0:06:43.240 --> 0:06:49.560 many names that we will not know of those whose 0:06:49.680 --> 0:06:57.080 lives were stone len by police. We just learned not 0:06:57.320 --> 0:07:03.920 too recently, right about the United States government dropping a 0:07:04.000 --> 0:07:13.120 bomb in nineteen eighty six folks in Philadelphia to take 0:07:13.160 --> 0:07:19.880 out black activists. Right, We just learned about that that 0:07:20.000 --> 0:07:26.320 it wasn't just the mobs of armed white supremacists that 0:07:26.440 --> 0:07:30.720 would destroy and murder hundreds of black people in Tulsa, Oklahoma. 0:07:30.800 --> 0:07:34.840 That just recently was referred to as a massacre for 0:07:34.920 --> 0:07:40.880 the first time by a sitting fucking president. But somebody 0:07:41.000 --> 0:07:47.720 authorized the bombs that were dropping from overhead. Somebody authorized 0:07:47.800 --> 0:07:51.600 police not to give a fuck, right because they were participating. 0:07:54.600 --> 0:08:00.559 And that has been true through history. This is part 0:08:00.640 --> 0:08:09.360 of what Dereka Purnell states in becoming abolitionist. For more 0:08:09.400 --> 0:08:12.600 than a century, activists in the United States have tried 0:08:12.640 --> 0:08:18.920 to reform the police, from community policing initiatives to increasing diversity. 0:08:19.440 --> 0:08:23.720 None of it has stopped the police from killing about 0:08:23.960 --> 0:08:31.560 three people a day. Think about that, Folks, in what position, 0:08:31.920 --> 0:08:37.280 in what industry, in what career could you have those 0:08:37.320 --> 0:08:42.199 type of incidents and there not be a significant fucking 0:08:42.440 --> 0:08:48.440 policy change and overhaul. But for the police, I don't 0:08:48.440 --> 0:08:55.199 know one. She goes on, Millions of people continued to 0:08:55.240 --> 0:09:01.240 protest police violence because these quote solutions do not match 0:09:01.280 --> 0:09:11.120 the problem. The police cannot be reformed. In becoming abolitionists, 0:09:11.960 --> 0:09:16.000 Dereka Purnell draws from her experiences as a lawyer, writer, 0:09:16.120 --> 0:09:25.200 and organizer. Initially skeptical about police abolition, she details in 0:09:25.280 --> 0:09:29.400 this multiracial social movement rooted in rebellion, risk taking, and 0:09:29.520 --> 0:09:34.200 revolutionary love, how it pushed her and a generation of 0:09:34.280 --> 0:09:43.240 activists towards abolition. Now, if you remember, on the ballot 0:09:46.559 --> 0:09:55.240 this year was police abolition in Minneapolis, and it failed. 0:10:00.200 --> 0:10:08.679 Activists who were for abolition will say that this failure 0:10:09.240 --> 0:10:14.640 right was indeed progress because it would be the first time, 0:10:15.559 --> 0:10:17.920 the first time, in all of the years and all 0:10:17.960 --> 0:10:22.680 of the decades fighting for police reform, that even the 0:10:22.880 --> 0:10:28.679 idea of abolition, which had finally penetrated the consciousness of 0:10:28.720 --> 0:10:35.800 the country, would even be considered as an option. But 0:10:36.040 --> 0:10:38.440 much in the same way that Fox News and the 0:10:38.480 --> 0:10:48.200 Republicans ride on fear. We do the same thing with policing. 0:10:48.320 --> 0:10:50.360 Oh my god, if we get rid of the police, 0:10:50.800 --> 0:10:53.400 then rape will be up and murder will be up. 0:10:53.440 --> 0:10:58.120 And I'm like, we've had police since the beginning of time. 0:10:58.200 --> 0:11:01.160 You see, they were the slave troll They were the 0:11:01.200 --> 0:11:03.760 ones that made sure that those that were trying to 0:11:03.920 --> 0:11:10.440 escape to freedom never made it. And since we have 0:11:10.520 --> 0:11:16.080 had police, there's been a rise in all sorts of 0:11:16.160 --> 0:11:19.560 crime and murder and rape and persecute, all of these things. 0:11:21.040 --> 0:11:24.400 And the response has always been, oh, we need more police. 0:11:25.120 --> 0:11:28.400 When have you ever heard of police stopping actual fucking 0:11:28.480 --> 0:11:34.880 crime as opposed to showing up after the fact. We 0:11:35.000 --> 0:11:40.000 have more incidents of people with special needs and disabilities 0:11:40.320 --> 0:11:46.280 being murdered by police when called because oh, they don't 0:11:46.280 --> 0:11:49.200 know what to do. But we have never created or 0:11:49.240 --> 0:11:55.200 put resources into any other initiatives or entities so that 0:11:55.240 --> 0:12:02.000 we take that task that clearly they cannot do away 0:12:02.040 --> 0:12:16.720 from armed officers. You know, it is a tangled web. 0:12:19.480 --> 0:12:30.000 Our injustice system, our legal system, our police system just 0:12:30.200 --> 0:12:39.679 continuing to feed the beast. People in this country are 0:12:39.679 --> 0:12:43.520 addicted to the police because you have been lied to 0:12:44.400 --> 0:12:50.679 in thinking that their presence means your safety, when in fact, 0:12:50.720 --> 0:12:54.120 when we continue to look at the wealthiest places in 0:12:54.160 --> 0:12:59.679 this country, when we look at tree lined neighborhoods in 0:12:59.720 --> 0:13:05.760 the suburbs, you never see the police, you never hear 0:13:05.800 --> 0:13:11.880 a siren, and yet those are the safest areas. And 0:13:12.080 --> 0:13:17.720 why is that? Oh, because their property taxes provide for 0:13:17.760 --> 0:13:21.760 them the better schools and the community centers and the 0:13:21.880 --> 0:13:29.440 country clubs and the sidewalks and everything that we know 0:13:29.640 --> 0:13:35.040 to be true create safe communities. But what do we 0:13:35.160 --> 0:13:38.120 continue to do in low income communities and black and 0:13:38.160 --> 0:13:43.360 brown communities. We flood them with police, but we don't 0:13:43.400 --> 0:13:47.760 provide supermarkets, we don't provide actual banks, we don't provide jobs, 0:13:47.920 --> 0:13:51.479 we don't provide schools that don't look like fucking prisons. 0:13:53.040 --> 0:13:56.240 And then we wonder why there is crime, why there 0:13:56.360 --> 0:14:00.720 is distrust of the police, Because for the moment that 0:14:00.760 --> 0:14:03.200 you're able to get to school on your own, you're 0:14:03.240 --> 0:14:10.960 being thrown up against a police car and harassed. So 0:14:11.120 --> 0:14:20.840 Dereka Parnell's journey in becoming abolitionists is about looking across, 0:14:23.080 --> 0:14:28.840 as she would say, geography and time, looking at places 0:14:28.880 --> 0:14:35.200 from Ferguson to South Africa from reconstruction, as she writes 0:14:36.000 --> 0:14:43.320 to the contemporary police protests and shootings and say, what 0:14:43.440 --> 0:14:48.520 does it really mean to be free? To get free? 0:14:50.960 --> 0:14:59.560 But we are so addicted to violence in this country 0:14:59.600 --> 0:15:05.000 that can't reform policing because we don't have the ability 0:15:05.080 --> 0:15:15.480 to imagine something better, something different. I can tell you 0:15:15.520 --> 0:15:22.000 that in all my years riding public transportation, whether it 0:15:22.040 --> 0:15:24.640 be the Metro in DC, or the subway in New York, 0:15:24.880 --> 0:15:27.840 or in whatever place that I am, anytime that I 0:15:27.880 --> 0:15:31.320 see a group of police officers either get on to 0:15:31.680 --> 0:15:35.040 a train car or b at a subway station, I 0:15:35.160 --> 0:15:42.160 avoid them like the fucking plague. Nowhere have I ever 0:15:42.200 --> 0:15:46.200 seen a group of police officers gathered and thought to myself, oh, 0:15:46.320 --> 0:15:53.160 I feel safe. Any time that I've ever seen flashing 0:15:53.240 --> 0:15:58.320 lights behind me or go by me, my heart rate 0:15:58.400 --> 0:16:04.440 speeds up and breath leaves my body. That should not 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:09.840 be the consistent feeling that black and brown people have 0:16:10.080 --> 0:16:13.720 in this country when they come face to face with police. 0:16:13.920 --> 0:16:17.880 You shouldn't have one community have to tell their child 0:16:18.040 --> 0:16:22.000 a story about how to stay alive and think that 0:16:22.080 --> 0:16:26.800 you live in a system that is safe and for 0:16:26.840 --> 0:16:39.440 all people. We have believed the lie and what this 0:16:39.520 --> 0:16:47.320 conversation with Dereka Parnell offers is a way out. But 0:16:47.440 --> 0:16:53.760 will we ever be bold enough to get there? Will 0:16:53.800 --> 0:16:59.440 we ever actually vote for our own liberation from policing 0:16:59.520 --> 0:17:07.399 and violence without accountability? Folks? I am so excited to 0:17:07.680 --> 0:17:14.000 welcome to wokaf Daily for the first time author Dereka Purnell, 0:17:14.040 --> 0:17:16.840 who is the author of a book whose title I 0:17:16.960 --> 0:17:24.159 just love, Becoming Abolitionists. Dereka, we have talked about abolition 0:17:24.320 --> 0:17:28.639 on woke a f in so many different forms, in 0:17:28.680 --> 0:17:32.600 so many different ways, about what it means to abolish something, 0:17:32.640 --> 0:17:36.320 what it means to purge it, right, And I think 0:17:36.359 --> 0:17:40.000 that in order to purge something you have to recognize it. 0:17:40.080 --> 0:17:44.359 You have to recognize its ills, the troubles, the trauma, 0:17:44.440 --> 0:17:47.119 the grief that it is bringing. When we talked about 0:17:47.480 --> 0:17:52.240 abolitionists during slavery, we were, you know, abolishing a system 0:17:52.359 --> 0:17:58.120 of depravity, of cruelty, of horrifics treatment of human beings. 0:17:58.920 --> 0:18:02.719 When you wrote this book and you're and the title 0:18:02.800 --> 0:18:07.640 becoming Abolitionists, what does that mean to you? Oh? Wow? 0:18:07.680 --> 0:18:09.960 I love this question. I love the foreground and so 0:18:10.080 --> 0:18:12.080 the one. Thank you so much for having me I'm 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:16.200 very excited about this conversation. I went back and forth 0:18:16.240 --> 0:18:18.720 on titles. It was very hard trying to figure out 0:18:18.720 --> 0:18:21.840 which title made the most sense for this book. And 0:18:21.880 --> 0:18:25.719 the reason why I ultimately landed on becoming abolitionists with 0:18:25.760 --> 0:18:30.080 this plural sue is because to be an abolitionist, I believe, 0:18:30.320 --> 0:18:33.160 is to always be in the process of the journey 0:18:33.200 --> 0:18:36.720 and reevaluating what makes the most sense for the future 0:18:36.840 --> 0:18:40.199 that we want to build. Right and so like the 0:18:40.320 --> 0:18:42.840 reasons why I was an abolitionist when I first started 0:18:42.840 --> 0:18:45.680 writing the book are very different than some of the 0:18:45.760 --> 0:18:48.840 things that I have right now. And it's just allowing 0:18:48.880 --> 0:18:51.879 yourself to be curious enough to ask questions, to be 0:18:52.000 --> 0:18:55.000 in a conversation with people, to be wrong sometime, to 0:18:55.119 --> 0:18:58.080 reflect to say, oh wow, I used to think this 0:18:58.240 --> 0:19:00.840 about myself. I used to think it's about the world. 0:19:00.920 --> 0:19:03.680 I used to think this about police and prisons, And 0:19:03.760 --> 0:19:07.720 now with more information, I have new better reasons to 0:19:07.800 --> 0:19:09.439 not want the police to be here, or I have 0:19:09.560 --> 0:19:12.240 new better reasons why, well, I don't think that we 0:19:12.280 --> 0:19:15.520 should have prisons in this society. And so in the book, 0:19:15.560 --> 0:19:18.359 I try to show that journey for me, but also 0:19:18.440 --> 0:19:22.800 for other people right ten twelve years ago, I guess 0:19:22.880 --> 0:19:25.520 ten years ago, Oh my gosh, ten years ago, about 0:19:25.520 --> 0:19:28.760 ten years ago when George Immerman killed Treymon and Martin. 0:19:29.160 --> 0:19:34.280 There are so many of us who were fighting, spending hours, sacrificing, 0:19:34.480 --> 0:19:38.440 you know, our work, our families, our school to make 0:19:38.480 --> 0:19:41.960 sure that someone was arrested. That is what we put 0:19:42.000 --> 0:19:44.280 that energy in. And there are so many of those 0:19:44.320 --> 0:19:47.160 people who were at the forefront of those movements who 0:19:47.200 --> 0:19:50.000 now don't even believe in arrests, don't even believe in prisons, 0:19:50.000 --> 0:19:52.720 don't even believe in police. And I wanted to talk 0:19:52.720 --> 0:19:57.280 about that because when people critique abolitionists, they'll say something like, well, 0:19:57.720 --> 0:20:00.920 you know, this isn't realistic. When we tried realistic thing. 0:20:01.640 --> 0:20:05.280 We have spent our lives learning about the realistic way 0:20:05.359 --> 0:20:08.399 you're supposed to hold someone accountabile, accountable. And now that 0:20:08.480 --> 0:20:11.760 we know that those systems were never intended to actually 0:20:11.800 --> 0:20:16.240 offer true justice, true accountability, and so we're constantly becoming 0:20:16.400 --> 0:20:19.879 examining what kinds of systems that we want to abolish 0:20:19.920 --> 0:20:23.040 and then what we also want to build. You know, 0:20:23.240 --> 0:20:27.200 I love that one because I think that the journey 0:20:27.480 --> 0:20:31.399 that your book lays out is the journey that many 0:20:31.440 --> 0:20:35.760 of us are on right, where we wanted to believe 0:20:36.119 --> 0:20:40.320 in a criminal justice system, in a judicial system that 0:20:40.440 --> 0:20:43.960 was going to see our full humanity, that was going 0:20:44.000 --> 0:20:49.760 to actually uphold the creed that justice is in fact blind. Right. 0:20:50.880 --> 0:20:54.080 I think that from two thousand and what was it, 0:20:54.160 --> 0:20:59.480 two thousand and fourteen until now, right, the amount of hashtags, 0:20:59.520 --> 0:21:02.600 the amount out of unarmed black people that have been murdered, 0:21:02.880 --> 0:21:07.439 the video of nine minutes of George Floyd losing his 0:21:07.760 --> 0:21:11.240 losing having the life squeezed out of him, not losing 0:21:11.280 --> 0:21:15.200 his life, having his life stolen from him. You know, 0:21:15.600 --> 0:21:18.160 I wanted to believe in the beginning when we saw 0:21:18.240 --> 0:21:22.200 Trey Von Martin to your point that there's no doubt 0:21:22.400 --> 0:21:25.360 this is a child, right, this was an adult, and 0:21:25.440 --> 0:21:28.880 so we know that he will be convicted because how 0:21:29.280 --> 0:21:32.920 could he not. And it was in that moment for 0:21:33.040 --> 0:21:36.520 me that I just I the faith that I had 0:21:37.080 --> 0:21:43.119 in our politics, in our government, in our systems began 0:21:43.240 --> 0:21:46.720 to wane. And I want to talk to you about 0:21:47.280 --> 0:21:51.920 these different pinpointed moments because you also lay out very 0:21:52.000 --> 0:21:56.320 clearly where you grew up right, the neighborhoods and how 0:21:56.760 --> 0:22:01.399 they were filled with various forms of violence, whether you're 0:22:01.440 --> 0:22:06.160 talking about environmental injustice factors or you're talking about actual 0:22:06.280 --> 0:22:09.760 crime or the lack of jobs, and you know, good 0:22:09.800 --> 0:22:14.480 schools and hopefulness. What are those kind of pinpoint moments 0:22:14.560 --> 0:22:18.040 that stand out for you over this timeline of moving 0:22:18.160 --> 0:22:25.080 from believing in the probability that a policing system could 0:22:25.119 --> 0:22:28.399 work for black people and then understanding that it was 0:22:28.440 --> 0:22:32.879 never meant to yes. Yes. So I would say that 0:22:33.240 --> 0:22:37.960 early on rather than saying that I like believe that 0:22:38.000 --> 0:22:41.520 this system weren't for us. I think now, having readen 0:22:41.520 --> 0:22:43.880 the Bug and read it like a thousand times while 0:22:43.920 --> 0:22:46.440 all the edits, I think it was probably the most 0:22:46.480 --> 0:22:48.920 accurate thing for me to say is that I had 0:22:49.119 --> 0:22:55.120 really unexamined ideas about policing. Right, I had unexamined ideas 0:22:55.119 --> 0:22:58.439 about my own commitments to policing. I just assume that 0:22:58.480 --> 0:23:01.000 they were here. I didn't ask they came from. I 0:23:01.040 --> 0:23:04.160 didn't ask if we needed them. It was just like, oh, 0:23:04.240 --> 0:23:07.120 police kind of exist, like male people exists, like fire 0:23:07.160 --> 0:23:09.320 five or six, like teacher. They're just they're just a 0:23:09.320 --> 0:23:12.879 part of society. I didn't even have wherewithal I knew 0:23:12.960 --> 0:23:16.840 that there were problematic police. I knew that there were 0:23:16.880 --> 0:23:20.400 police with my mom's friends, right, there was a range 0:23:20.640 --> 0:23:24.040 of and there sometimes there was an overlap, and that 0:23:24.119 --> 0:23:26.480 has been diagram But you know, I just took for 0:23:26.640 --> 0:23:31.520 granted their existence. I really had unexamined commitments to these institutions, 0:23:31.960 --> 0:23:37.199 and so over time, especially when Michael Brown was killed, 0:23:37.640 --> 0:23:40.159 that was one of the first times I started being 0:23:40.200 --> 0:23:43.439 pushed to acts okay, like what is this thing about? 0:23:43.520 --> 0:23:47.440 Like why why is this? Why can't cops just kill 0:23:47.560 --> 0:23:50.800 someone and kind of like go home. It was very 0:23:50.880 --> 0:23:53.639 It was a very huge political awakening for me and 0:23:53.680 --> 0:23:56.840 lots of other people. And what I also realized I 0:23:56.880 --> 0:23:59.960 was doing at that time long alongside lots of other people, 0:24:01.080 --> 0:24:05.880 I was using what white people get, or at least 0:24:05.880 --> 0:24:09.480 what I perceived white people to receive as justice, as 0:24:09.480 --> 0:24:12.440 a metric for what I thought we deserved too. So 0:24:12.640 --> 0:24:15.040 I would say something this happened to a white boy, 0:24:15.160 --> 0:24:17.600 like we already know this black hot would be in jail, 0:24:17.640 --> 0:24:20.480 and we don't even have to guess because Mohammed nor 0:24:20.560 --> 0:24:23.240 in Minnesota end up killing I think Justine Diamond, the 0:24:23.280 --> 0:24:26.119 white woman from Australia, he's in prison, right so we 0:24:26.160 --> 0:24:27.840 would say, you know, if this was a white person, 0:24:27.920 --> 0:24:29.879 this is what would happened. This is a white person, 0:24:29.920 --> 0:24:33.440 this is what would happen. And at some point, by 0:24:33.480 --> 0:24:36.800 being in conversation with other organizers doing more study and 0:24:36.880 --> 0:24:39.960 doing more research learning about the origins of police, I 0:24:40.040 --> 0:24:43.760 have to be like, Wade, what if this system that 0:24:43.920 --> 0:24:46.240 we know is racially unjust? What if it's also not 0:24:46.320 --> 0:24:49.000 working for white people? And we're fighting to get what 0:24:49.040 --> 0:24:52.720 white people will have. We're fighting that white people think, 0:24:53.520 --> 0:24:55.760 And it's just like, what if what if we get 0:24:55.840 --> 0:24:59.480 what white people get? Will that then mean that few 0:24:59.480 --> 0:25:02.840 of black people would die? And I don't think that's 0:25:02.880 --> 0:25:05.320 true because white people kill our police all the time, 0:25:05.560 --> 0:25:07.600 and I just don't want cops to go to prison 0:25:07.640 --> 0:25:09.879 after they kill us. I want the killings to stop. 0:25:09.920 --> 0:25:12.720 I wanted the violence to stop. And so it just 0:25:12.800 --> 0:25:17.760 completely disrupted my noses of justice and fairness and equity 0:25:18.080 --> 0:25:20.199 and I had to let go of that metric. I 0:25:20.200 --> 0:25:23.560 had to ask, is it unfair that we don't have it? Yes? 0:25:23.760 --> 0:25:26.280 But does it mean that it's real justice if we 0:25:26.359 --> 0:25:28.439 get it? And that answer was not clear to me. 0:25:29.560 --> 0:25:32.760 You know that is so illuminating because I think that 0:25:32.760 --> 0:25:37.960 we spend a lot of times comparing comparing ourselves, right, 0:25:38.040 --> 0:25:41.719 comparing what it is that black people don't have versus 0:25:41.760 --> 0:25:44.520 what it is that white people have. The fact is 0:25:44.520 --> 0:25:48.280 is that because we have qualified immunity in this country, 0:25:48.440 --> 0:25:51.080 because you can just be a cop and you can 0:25:51.119 --> 0:25:54.399 fear for your life regardless of who is in front 0:25:54.400 --> 0:25:57.600 of you, kill them and then go home, is in 0:25:57.640 --> 0:26:01.040 fact the problem right and right now. Now, you know, 0:26:01.280 --> 0:26:06.600 just last week we had, after eight months of supposed 0:26:06.720 --> 0:26:10.520 deliberation and back and forth between you know, a Senator 0:26:10.560 --> 0:26:13.359 Corey Booker and Senator Tim Scott, they want to come 0:26:13.400 --> 0:26:15.600 out and be like, Nope, the gap is too large 0:26:15.640 --> 0:26:18.480 for us to do anything about policing reform. So this 0:26:18.640 --> 0:26:22.480 moment of George Floyd having his life squeeze out of 0:26:22.560 --> 0:26:26.400 him for nine minutes that we all watched together, they 0:26:26.440 --> 0:26:29.760 want to tell us after eight months, well, we just 0:26:29.800 --> 0:26:33.560 can't do anything, so we stay with the status quo 0:26:33.760 --> 0:26:36.640 or devolve even worse into the place that we are. 0:26:37.000 --> 0:26:40.680 What does that feel like? How did that feel to you? 0:26:41.200 --> 0:26:44.040 Do you know what I'm saying? Like? After we all 0:26:44.080 --> 0:26:48.760 witnessed this collectively in the midst of quarantine, where we 0:26:48.800 --> 0:26:51.919 are all glued to our devices, glued to our television 0:26:52.359 --> 0:26:56.280 and witnessed this collective horror together. And now eight months 0:26:56.359 --> 0:26:59.160 later they tell us that what we thought was the 0:26:59.240 --> 0:27:02.240 spark of some thing new is now it's just too 0:27:02.240 --> 0:27:05.040 big to do. Yeah. So I felt I think two 0:27:05.080 --> 0:27:09.200 immediate things. The first thing that I felt was immediately 0:27:09.240 --> 0:27:13.920 sympathy for George Floyd's family, because, you know, Joe Biden 0:27:14.040 --> 0:27:18.560 had promised them I'm gonna champion police reform. I intend 0:27:18.640 --> 0:27:21.280 to keep that promise. I got you, We're gonna name 0:27:21.359 --> 0:27:24.479 this after George Floyd. We're gonna, you know, put you 0:27:24.560 --> 0:27:27.480 on front stage at the Democratic National Convention. We're gonna 0:27:27.560 --> 0:27:30.800 rally him. He was doing all of this while also 0:27:31.119 --> 0:27:33.920 still promising to give more money to police, but he 0:27:34.240 --> 0:27:37.399 you ultimately did. So he's walking this fide. You know, 0:27:37.640 --> 0:27:41.119 we're gonna achieve real justice and policing that everyone can enjoy, 0:27:41.520 --> 0:27:43.639 and I'm gonna give more money to the police. Okay. 0:27:43.680 --> 0:27:47.439 So I felt horrible for George Floyd's family to have 0:27:47.560 --> 0:27:51.160 that hope. To think that someone you're campaigning for, your 0:27:51.640 --> 0:27:53.720 trying to get them in office, you're on college trying 0:27:53.760 --> 0:27:57.439 to get policy passed. It hurts to think what that 0:27:57.520 --> 0:28:02.040 family is going going through right now. The second the 0:28:02.080 --> 0:28:06.640 second thing that I felt, how can I just what's 0:28:06.200 --> 0:28:10.640 the most honest way to say this. It's not that 0:28:10.680 --> 0:28:14.639 I was not surprised, It's not that I felt let down. 0:28:15.080 --> 0:28:18.439 Because when the George Floyd Act was initially introduced, I 0:28:18.480 --> 0:28:22.719 wrote in my column and I completely just I just 0:28:22.840 --> 0:28:26.040 completely disagree with everything about that bill. So here we 0:28:26.119 --> 0:28:29.000 have a policing bill that I argue wouldn't have even 0:28:29.040 --> 0:28:34.480 saved George Floyd's life, right you know, Derek Chauvin was called. 0:28:34.520 --> 0:28:37.199 Police were called because over an alleged use of a 0:28:37.200 --> 0:28:40.320 counterfeit twenty dollars bill, which is illegal, and if he 0:28:40.560 --> 0:28:43.520 used it, it is illegal, and cops have a constitutional 0:28:43.560 --> 0:28:46.920 power to stop people who's using counterfeit money. You can 0:28:46.960 --> 0:28:50.600 go to jail right now, people watch that is just 0:28:50.640 --> 0:28:54.400 like man over twenty dollars, over twenty dollars. Counterfeit twenty 0:28:54.400 --> 0:28:57.560 dollars bills are an important currency for people who are 0:28:57.600 --> 0:29:01.960 economically and exploited. And we're in a session job crises, 0:29:02.200 --> 0:29:06.600 eviction crises. What could have actually helped people like George Floyd, 0:29:06.640 --> 0:29:10.120 people like my mom, people in our communities was resources, 0:29:10.280 --> 0:29:14.360 more stimulus, actual money. And so if the couple would 0:29:14.360 --> 0:29:17.320 have just came and arrested George Floyd took in the jail, 0:29:17.320 --> 0:29:20.360 there would have been no uprisings, no protests, they would 0:29:20.360 --> 0:29:24.720 have been no like And that's what happens every single day. 0:29:24.800 --> 0:29:26.680 So when I read this bill, I was just like 0:29:26.800 --> 0:29:29.920 the way, at the end of the day, what the 0:29:30.120 --> 0:29:33.440 actual problem was was, you know, people working class people, 0:29:33.480 --> 0:29:39.200 black people living on twenty dollars, counterfeit exchanges. Being police 0:29:39.600 --> 0:29:43.360 now has become a way to give police more money, 0:29:43.360 --> 0:29:46.680 to do more training, to restrict chokeholds. Well, what about 0:29:46.680 --> 0:29:48.480 the poor? Why don't we give them more money to people? 0:29:48.520 --> 0:29:50.480 Why don't we give them more money to police? And 0:29:50.520 --> 0:29:53.080 at the end of the day, I called it in 0:29:53.160 --> 0:29:54.800 that piece and I called it in this piece around 0:29:54.800 --> 0:29:58.880 a couple of days ago. Whenever these reforms get you know, 0:29:59.440 --> 0:30:03.480 they go on tour. What ultimately happens, police get more 0:30:03.600 --> 0:30:06.560 money until the next viral police killing and all the 0:30:06.640 --> 0:30:09.720 reforms that don't even work get put off to the side, 0:30:10.080 --> 0:30:13.360 and three people are still killed every day by police. 0:30:13.720 --> 0:30:16.680 And so it's frustrating that people have to be like, man, 0:30:16.720 --> 0:30:18.320 I really have hope in this bill. I really have 0:30:18.400 --> 0:30:20.400 hope in this policy, and I didn't have any hope 0:30:20.400 --> 0:30:23.440 and it was quite bad, actually, right, it was pretty bad. 0:30:23.680 --> 0:30:26.200 And then it's just like, well, now what now? What 0:30:26.280 --> 0:30:29.680 do you do? So reform isn't a realistic option, like 0:30:29.880 --> 0:30:33.320 and now he's abolist is not realistic? Reform is not realistic. 0:30:33.560 --> 0:30:36.720 You know, it's funny because I have been moving myself 0:30:36.800 --> 0:30:39.480 towards a place where I'm like, I don't even want 0:30:39.520 --> 0:30:43.800 to use the terms reform or reimagine, because you're reimagining 0:30:43.920 --> 0:30:47.000 something that is broken, right, Like you how do you 0:30:47.080 --> 0:30:50.600 reform something? How do you reform a leg that's been amputated? 0:30:50.880 --> 0:30:54.200 You don't, right, Like, you need to create something different. 0:30:54.240 --> 0:30:58.200 And I think for me that's why abolition in and 0:30:58.320 --> 0:31:01.840 of itself feels right, because it is the most honest 0:31:01.920 --> 0:31:05.320