WEBVTT - Abolish Means Abolish 0:00:11.840 --> 0:00:14.640 Good morning, peeps, and welcome to okay f Daily with 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:18.759 Meet your Girl Danielle Moody, recording live in our pot 0:00:18.840 --> 0:00:21.959 Stream studios here in Times Square. You know, folks, we 0:00:22.079 --> 0:00:24.639 have finally made it to the end of this god 0:00:24.720 --> 0:00:29.000 awful fucking week. If you've been following my Instagram at all, 0:00:29.160 --> 0:00:32.480 you know that I have been going through it. There 0:00:32.479 --> 0:00:37.239 are some weeks where the weight of our political and 0:00:37.360 --> 0:00:41.440 cultural discourse can kind of roll off my back right 0:00:41.720 --> 0:00:46.159 that I moved through and really don't let things affect me. 0:00:46.240 --> 0:00:52.040 But this week of all weeks has really been trying 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:56.360 my spirit and my soul. So on this fuck It Friday, 0:00:56.400 --> 0:01:01.840 I'm pretty much saying fuck it to every single goddamn thing. 0:01:02.560 --> 0:01:04.600 Coming up next, dear friends, is going to be my 0:01:04.760 --> 0:01:11.080 conversation with the author of the book Becoming Abolitionist, Dereka Purnell. 0:01:11.520 --> 0:01:14.400 I enjoyed this conversation so much, and I hope all 0:01:14.440 --> 0:01:18.840 of you do too, Folks. I am so excited to 0:01:19.120 --> 0:01:22.680 welcome to wokaf Daily for it the first time author 0:01:24.240 --> 0:01:27.560 Dereka Purnell, who is the author of a book whose 0:01:27.600 --> 0:01:34.600 title I just love, Becoming Abolitionists. Dereka, we have talked 0:01:34.640 --> 0:01:39.400 about abolition on Woke a f in so many different forms, 0:01:39.920 --> 0:01:42.720 in so many different ways, about what it means to 0:01:42.959 --> 0:01:47.320 abolish something, what it means to purge it, right, And 0:01:47.360 --> 0:01:50.440 I think that in order to purge something, you have 0:01:50.480 --> 0:01:55.240 to recognize it. You have to recognize it's ills, the troubles, 0:01:55.240 --> 0:01:57.920 the trauma, the grief that it is bringing. When we 0:01:57.960 --> 0:02:02.960 talked about abolitionists or slavery, we were, you know, abolishing 0:02:03.000 --> 0:02:08.360 a system of depravity, of cruelty, of horrifics treatment of 0:02:08.639 --> 0:02:13.519 human beings. When you wrote this book and you're in 0:02:13.600 --> 0:02:19.040 the title becoming Abolitionists, what does that mean to you? Oh? Wow, 0:02:19.080 --> 0:02:21.320 I love this question. I love the foreground and so 0:02:21.480 --> 0:02:23.480 the one. Thank you so much for having me. I'm 0:02:23.600 --> 0:02:27.640 very excited about this conversation. I went back and forth 0:02:27.639 --> 0:02:30.359 on titles. It's very hard trying to figure out which 0:02:30.400 --> 0:02:33.400 title made the most sense for this book. And the 0:02:33.480 --> 0:02:37.200 reason why I ultimately landed on Becoming Abolitionists with this 0:02:37.400 --> 0:02:41.520 plurals it is because to be an abolitionist, I believe 0:02:41.600 --> 0:02:44.560 it's to always be in the process of the journey 0:02:44.600 --> 0:02:48.120 and reevaluating what makes the most sense for the future 0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:51.600 that we want to build, right and so like the 0:02:51.760 --> 0:02:54.239 reasons why I was an abolitionist when I first started 0:02:54.240 --> 0:02:57.160 writing the book are very different than some of the 0:02:57.160 --> 0:02:59.799 things that I have right now. And it's just a 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:03.160 allowing yourself to be curious enough to ask questions, to 0:03:03.240 --> 0:03:06.200 be in a conversation with people, to be wrong sometime, 0:03:06.360 --> 0:03:09.320 to reflect to say, oh wow, I used to think 0:03:09.400 --> 0:03:12.320 this about myself. I used to think this about the world. 0:03:12.360 --> 0:03:15.079 I used to think this about police and prisons. And 0:03:15.200 --> 0:03:19.120 now with more information, I have new better reasons to 0:03:19.240 --> 0:03:20.880 not want the police to be here, or I have 0:03:21.000 --> 0:03:23.639 new better reasons why well, I don't think that we 0:03:23.680 --> 0:03:26.919 should have prisons in this society. And so in the book, 0:03:26.960 --> 0:03:29.760 I try to show that journey for me, but also 0:03:29.840 --> 0:03:34.280 for other people. Right ten twelve years ago, I guess 0:03:34.280 --> 0:03:36.880 ten years ago, oh my gosh, ten years ago, about 0:03:36.920 --> 0:03:40.160 ten years ago when George's Immerman killed Treymon and Martin. 0:03:40.560 --> 0:03:45.680 There are so many of us who were fighting, spending hours, sacrificing, 0:03:45.880 --> 0:03:49.839 you know, our work, our families, our school to make 0:03:49.880 --> 0:03:53.400 sure that someone was arrested. That is what we put 0:03:53.400 --> 0:03:55.680 that energy in. And there are so many of those 0:03:55.760 --> 0:03:58.560 people who were at the forefront of those movements who 0:03:58.640 --> 0:04:01.400 now don't even believe in a don't even believe in prisons, 0:04:01.440 --> 0:04:04.120 don't even believe in police. And I wanted to talk 0:04:04.160 --> 0:04:08.720 about that because with people critique abolitionists, they'll say something like, well, 0:04:09.160 --> 0:04:12.320 you know, this isn't realistic. When we tried the realistic thing. 0:04:13.040 --> 0:04:16.720 We have spent our lives learning about the realistic way 0:04:16.760 --> 0:04:19.839 you're supposed to hold someone accountabile, accountable. And now that 0:04:19.880 --> 0:04:23.160 we know that those systems were never intended to actually 0:04:23.200 --> 0:04:27.640 offer true justice, true accountability, and so we're constantly becoming 0:04:27.640 --> 0:04:30.719 and examining what kinds of systems that we want to 0:04:30.760 --> 0:04:34.440 abolish and then what we also want to build. You know, 0:04:34.640 --> 0:04:38.600 I love that one because I think that the journey 0:04:38.880 --> 0:04:42.799 that your book lays out is the journey that many 0:04:42.880 --> 0:04:47.160 of us are on. Right. Where we wanted to believe 0:04:47.520 --> 0:04:51.720 in a criminal justice system, in a judicial system that 0:04:51.880 --> 0:04:55.359 was going to see our full humanity, that was going 0:04:55.400 --> 0:05:01.120 to actually uphold the creed that justice isn't act blind. Right. 0:05:02.279 --> 0:05:05.479 I think that from two thousand and what was it, 0:05:05.560 --> 0:05:10.839 two thousand and fourteen until now, right, the amount of hashtags, 0:05:10.960 --> 0:05:14.000 the amount of unarmed black people that have been murdered, 0:05:14.279 --> 0:05:19.520 the video of nine minutes of George Floyd losing his losing, 0:05:19.600 --> 0:05:23.120 having the life squeezed out of him, not losing his life, 0:05:23.279 --> 0:05:27.560 having his life stolen from him. You know, I wanted 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:30.080 to believe in the beginning when we saw Trey von 0:05:30.160 --> 0:05:34.120 Martin to your point that there's no doubt this is 0:05:34.160 --> 0:05:37.440 a child, right, this was an adult, and so we 0:05:37.880 --> 0:05:41.240 know that he will be convicted because how could he not. 0:05:42.000 --> 0:05:45.640 And it was in that moment for me that I 0:05:45.760 --> 0:05:50.440 just I the faith that I had in our politics, 0:05:50.440 --> 0:05:55.800 in our government, in our systems began to wane. And 0:05:56.320 --> 0:06:00.000 I want to talk to you about these different pinpoint 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:04.599 pointed moments because you also lay out very clearly where 0:06:04.680 --> 0:06:08.720 you grew up right the neighborhoods and how they were 0:06:09.880 --> 0:06:13.480 filled with various forms of violence, whether you're talking about 0:06:13.640 --> 0:06:18.640 environmental injustice factors or you're talking about actual crime or 0:06:18.680 --> 0:06:22.520 the lack of jobs and you know, good schools and hopefulness. 0:06:23.000 --> 0:06:26.840 What are those kind of pinpoint moments that stand out 0:06:26.880 --> 0:06:32.320 for you over this timeline of moving from believing in 0:06:34.000 --> 0:06:37.200 the probability that a policing system could work for black 0:06:37.240 --> 0:06:42.240 people and then understanding that it was never meant to. Yes. Yes, 0:06:42.440 --> 0:06:46.920 So I would say that early on, rather than saying 0:06:47.000 --> 0:06:50.560 that I like believe that this system weren't for us. 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:53.680 I think now, having read in the book and read 0:06:53.720 --> 0:06:56.440 it like a thousand times for all the edits, I 0:06:56.480 --> 0:06:58.719 think it was probably the most accurate thing for me 0:06:58.800 --> 0:07:04.719 to say is that I had really unexamined ideas about policing. Right, 0:07:04.800 --> 0:07:09.000 I had unexamined ideas about my own commitments to policing. 0:07:09.080 --> 0:07:11.320 I just assumed that they were here. I didn't ask 0:07:11.320 --> 0:07:13.960 where they came from. I didn't ask if we needed them. 0:07:14.000 --> 0:07:16.920 It was just like, oh, police kind of exist, like 0:07:17.040 --> 0:07:19.600 male people exist, like fire five or six, like teacher. 0:07:19.680 --> 0:07:22.600 They're just they're just a part of society. I didn't 0:07:22.600 --> 0:07:27.320 even have wherewithal I knew that there were problematic police. 0:07:27.520 --> 0:07:29.920 I knew that there were police with my mom's friends. Right, 0:07:30.760 --> 0:07:33.840 there was a range of and there sometimes there was 0:07:33.880 --> 0:07:37.200 an OVERWEP and that a diagram. But you know, I 0:07:37.240 --> 0:07:40.400 just took for granted their existence. I really had unexamined 0:07:40.840 --> 0:07:47.200 commitments to these institutions. And so over time, especially when 0:07:47.280 --> 0:07:50.000 Michael Brown was killed, that was one of the first 0:07:50.000 --> 0:07:53.880 times I started being pushed to acts. Okay, like what 0:07:54.000 --> 0:07:56.560 is this thing about like why, why, why is this? 0:07:57.120 --> 0:08:00.880 Why can't cops just kill someone and kind of go home. 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:04.680 It was very It was a very huge political awakening 0:08:04.760 --> 0:08:07.040 for me and lots of other people. And what I 0:08:07.200 --> 0:08:10.880 also realized I was doing at that time alongside lots 0:08:10.880 --> 0:08:16.680 of other people, I was using what white people get, 0:08:16.840 --> 0:08:19.480 or at least what I perceived white people to receive 0:08:19.680 --> 0:08:22.240 as justice, as a metric for what I thought we 0:08:22.360 --> 0:08:26.440 deserved too. So I would say, something happenuntil a white boy, 0:08:26.600 --> 0:08:28.640 like we already know this black hot would be in 0:08:28.760 --> 0:08:31.640 jail and we don't even have to guess because Mohammed 0:08:31.720 --> 0:08:34.560 nor in Minnesota end up killing I think Justine Diamond, 0:08:34.600 --> 0:08:37.280 the white woman from Australia, he's in prison, right, So 0:08:37.440 --> 0:08:39.240 we would say, you know, if this was a white person, 0:08:39.320 --> 0:08:41.280 this is what would happened. This is a white person, 0:08:41.320 --> 0:08:44.839 this is what would happened. And at some point, by 0:08:44.880 --> 0:08:48.080 being in a a conversation with other organizers doing more study 0:08:48.120 --> 0:08:50.840 and doing more research learning about the origins of police 0:08:51.320 --> 0:08:54.520 I had to be like, Waite, what if this system 0:08:55.120 --> 0:08:57.520 that we know is racially unjust, what if it's also 0:08:57.600 --> 0:09:00.120 not working for white people and we're in fighting to 0:09:00.160 --> 0:09:03.520 get what white people will have. We're fighting that white 0:09:03.520 --> 0:09:06.160 people think we get, and it's just like what if 0:09:06.280 --> 0:09:09.240 what if we get what white people get? Well, that 0:09:09.600 --> 0:09:11.959 then mean that a few of black people would die, 0:09:13.320 --> 0:09:15.600 And I don't think that's true because white people kill 0:09:15.679 --> 0:09:17.800 our police all the time. And I just don't want 0:09:17.840 --> 0:09:20.000 cops to go to prison after they kill us. I 0:09:20.000 --> 0:09:22.320 don't want the killings to stop. I wanted the violence 0:09:22.320 --> 0:09:26.840 to stop. And so it just completely disrupted my noses 0:09:26.880 --> 0:09:30.080 of justice and fairness and equity, and I had to 0:09:30.160 --> 0:09:32.960 let go of that metric. I had to ask, is 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:35.520 it unfair that we don't have it? Yes? But does 0:09:35.559 --> 0:09:38.120 it mean that it's real justice if we get it? 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:41.200 And that answer was not clear to me. You know 0:09:41.400 --> 0:09:44.720 that is so illuminating because I think that we spend 0:09:44.760 --> 0:09:50.680 a lot of times comparing comparing ourselves, right, comparing what 0:09:50.720 --> 0:09:53.440 it is that black people don't have versus what it 0:09:53.520 --> 0:09:56.280 is that white people have. The fact is is that 0:09:56.520 --> 0:10:00.760 because we have qualified immunity in this country, because you 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:02.880 can just be a cop and you can fear for 0:10:02.960 --> 0:10:06.120 your life regardless of who is in front of you, 0:10:06.640 --> 0:10:09.440 kill them and then go home, is in fact the 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:13.319 problem right and right now, just you know, just last 0:10:13.320 --> 0:10:19.000 week we had, after eight months of supposed deliberation and 0:10:19.120 --> 0:10:22.680 back and forth between you know, a Senator Corey Booker 0:10:22.720 --> 0:10:25.080 and Senator Tim Scott, they want to come out and 0:10:25.120 --> 0:10:27.360 be like, Nope, the gap is too large for us 0:10:27.360 --> 0:10:30.960 to do anything about policing reform. So this moment of 0:10:31.040 --> 0:10:34.640 George Floyd having his life squeeze out of him for 0:10:34.800 --> 0:10:38.120 nine minutes that we all watch together, they want to 0:10:38.120 --> 0:10:42.200 tell us after eight months, well, we just can't do anything, 0:10:42.760 --> 0:10:46.160 so we stay with the status quo or devolve even 0:10:46.240 --> 0:10:49.079 worse into the place that we are. What does that 0:10:49.520 --> 0:10:52.800 feel like? How did that feel to you? Do you 0:10:52.840 --> 0:10:56.080 know what I'm saying like, after we all witnessed this 0:10:56.200 --> 0:11:00.600 collectively in the midst of quarantine where we are all 0:11:00.679 --> 0:11:04.440 glued to our devices, glued to our television, and witnessed 0:11:04.520 --> 0:11:08.240 this collective horror together, and now eight months later they 0:11:08.280 --> 0:11:11.120 tell us that what we thought was the spark of 0:11:11.240 --> 0:11:14.960 something new is now it's just too big to do. Yeah. 0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:18.360 So I felt, I think two immediate things. The first 0:11:18.400 --> 0:11:22.480 thing that I felt was immediately sympathy for George Floyd's family, 0:11:23.160 --> 0:11:27.080 because you know, Joe Biden had promised them I'm gonna 0:11:27.280 --> 0:11:31.520 champion police reform. I intend to keep that promise. I 0:11:31.600 --> 0:11:35.040 got you. We're gonna name this after George Floyd. We're gonna, 0:11:35.120 --> 0:11:37.599 you know, put you on front stage at the Democratic 0:11:37.679 --> 0:11:41.080 National Convention. We're gonna rally down. He was doing all 0:11:41.120 --> 0:11:44.640 of this while also still promising to give more money 0:11:44.640 --> 0:11:48.480 to police, but he ultimately did. So he's walking this wide. 0:11:48.600 --> 0:11:51.439 You know, we're gonna achieve real justice and policing that 0:11:51.520 --> 0:11:54.280 everyone can enjoy, and I'm gonna give more money to 0:11:54.360 --> 0:11:57.920 the police. Okay. So I felt horrible for George Floyd's 0:11:57.920 --> 0:12:01.120 family to have that hope. To think that someone you're 0:12:01.480 --> 0:12:04.400 campaigning for, your trying to get them in office, you're 0:12:04.400 --> 0:12:08.360 on calls, trying to get policy passed. It hurts to 0:12:08.400 --> 0:12:10.920 think what that family is going going through right now. 0:12:12.520 --> 0:12:16.719 The second, the second thing that I felt, how how 0:12:16.760 --> 0:12:19.440 can I just what's the most honest way to say this. 0:12:21.400 --> 0:12:24.640 It's not that I was not surprised, It's not that 0:12:24.760 --> 0:12:28.440 I felt let down, because when the George Floyd Act 0:12:28.600 --> 0:12:31.760 was initially introduced, I wrote in my column and I 0:12:31.800 --> 0:12:36.080 completely just I could just completely disagree with everything about 0:12:36.120 --> 0:12:39.000 that bill. So here we have a policing bill that 0:12:39.160 --> 0:12:42.679 I argue wouldn't have even saved George Floyd's life, right, 0:12:42.880 --> 0:12:47.120 you know, Derek Children was called. Police were called because 0:12:47.200 --> 0:12:50.040 over an alleged use of a counterfeit twenty dollars bill, 0:12:50.200 --> 0:12:53.320 which is illegal, and if he used it, it is illegal, 0:12:53.360 --> 0:12:56.720 and cops have a constitutional power to stop people who's 0:12:56.840 --> 0:13:00.720 using counterfeit money. You can go to jail. Right now, 0:13:00.880 --> 0:13:03.200 people watch that its just like man over twenty dollars, 0:13:03.240 --> 0:13:07.280 over twenty dollars. Counterfeit twenty dollars bills are an important 0:13:07.280 --> 0:13:11.120 currency for people who are economically and exploited. And we're 0:13:11.160 --> 0:13:15.839 in a recession, job crises, eviction crises. What could have 0:13:16.000 --> 0:13:18.800 actually helped people like George Floyd, people like my mom, 0:13:18.920 --> 0:13:23.760 people in our communities was resources, more stimulus, actual money. 0:13:24.160 --> 0:13:27.600 And so if the couple have just came and arrested 0:13:27.640 --> 0:13:29.160 George Floyd took in the jail, there would have been 0:13:29.200 --> 0:13:33.280 no uprisings, no protests, they would have been no like 0:13:33.640 --> 0:13:36.640 and that's what happens every single day. So when I 0:13:36.679 --> 0:13:39.360 read this bill, I was just like the way, at 0:13:39.400 --> 0:13:42.960 the end of the day, what the actual problem was was, 0:13:43.160 --> 0:13:46.800 you know, people working class people, black people living on 0:13:46.960 --> 0:13:53.040 twenty dollars counterfeit exchanges. Being police now has become a 0:13:53.160 --> 0:13:55.840 way to give police more money, to do more training, 0:13:55.880 --> 0:13:58.760 to restrict chokeholds. Well, what about the poor? Why don't 0:13:58.760 --> 0:14:00.280 we give them more money to people? Why do we 0:14:00.320 --> 0:14:02.440 give them more money to police? And at the end 0:14:02.440 --> 0:14:05.080 of the day, I called it in that piece and 0:14:05.120 --> 0:14:06.520 I called it in this piece around a couple of 0:14:06.600 --> 0:14:11.240 days ago. Whenever these reforms get you know, they go 0:14:11.280 --> 0:14:15.760 on tour. What ultimately happens, Police get more money until 0:14:15.760 --> 0:14:18.839 the next viral police killing and all the reforms that 0:14:18.880 --> 0:14:21.640 don't even work get put off to the side, and 0:14:21.800 --> 0:14:25.240 three people are still killed every day by police. And 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:28.080 so it's frustrating that people have to be like, man, 0:14:28.120 --> 0:14:29.720 I really have hope in this bill. I really have 0:14:29.800 --> 0:14:31.880 hoping this policy when I didn't have any hope, and 0:14:31.920 --> 0:14:34.840 it was quite bad, actually right, it was pretty bad. 0:14:35.080 --> 0:14:37.640 And then it's just like, well, now what now, what 0:14:37.720 --> 0:14:41.080 do you do? So reform isn't a realistic option, like 0:14:41.280 --> 0:14:44.080 and now he's saying polyst is not realistic. Reform is 0:14:44.080 --> 0:14:47.160 not realistic. You know. It's funny because I have been 0:14:47.160 --> 0:14:50.280 moving myself towards a place where I'm like I don't 0:14:50.320 --> 0:14:54.320 even want to use the terms reform or reimagine, because 0:14:54.320 --> 0:14:58.280 you're reimagining something that is broken, right, Like, how do 0:14:58.320 --> 0:15:01.080 you reform something? How do you reform a leg that's 0:15:01.080 --> 0:15:04.800 been amputated? You don't, right, Like, you need to create 0:15:04.880 --> 0:15:08.680 something different. And I think for me that's why abolition 0:15:09.360 --> 0:15:12.480 in it of itself feels right because it is the 0:15:12.520 --> 0:15:16.160 most honest thing because if you want to if you 0:15:16.280 --> 0:15:19.600 want to create a new system, you don't do so 0:15:20.000 --> 0:15:24.040 off of what is broken, right. You have to abolish 0:15:24.560 --> 0:15:28.480 is what is present in order to create something new. 0:15:28.680 --> 0:15:32.080 And I feel like that's that's where the energy needs 0:15:32.080 --> 0:15:34.720 to be placed, which is that it's not enough to 0:15:34.840 --> 0:15:37.560 just say, oh, we're gonna reform, we're gonna reimagine, we're 0:15:37.600 --> 0:15:40.160 going to reassess, and we're gonna do all of these things, 0:15:40.160 --> 0:15:43.360 which is pretty much playing three card Monte with people's lives. 0:15:43.360 --> 0:15:45.800 You're just moving the cards around the table and you're 0:15:45.840 --> 0:15:50.000 not actually doing anything. It's a bullshit magic trick, right, 0:15:50.240 --> 0:15:55.640 that doesn't produce That doesn't produce anything. When you hear 0:15:56.360 --> 0:16:02.040 the pushback when people talked about defund the police, right, 0:16:02.480 --> 0:16:05.320 and folks had said, you know, we should we shouldn't 0:16:05.320 --> 0:16:08.880 say defund, And to your point, at various points in 0:16:08.920 --> 0:16:13.560 the book, you're like, you know, if we're not, if 0:16:13.560 --> 0:16:17.640 we're if we're if we're talking about reallocation of funds, 0:16:18.040 --> 0:16:21.160 Like then that's the conversation that that's what I have said, 0:16:21.160 --> 0:16:23.920 if we're if defund the police is really talking about 0:16:23.920 --> 0:16:27.360 a reallocation of funds to stop having where I sit 0:16:27.400 --> 0:16:29.960 in New York City a police department that has a 0:16:30.000 --> 0:16:33.800 budget of six billion dollars, Like when when you know 0:16:33.800 --> 0:16:38.080 what I'm saying. So it's like, it is that language. 0:16:38.160 --> 0:16:42.320 Should it be reallocation, should it be defund? Doesn't matter 0:16:42.800 --> 0:16:46.080 if if we're still again playing three card Monty with 0:16:46.120 --> 0:16:49.880 our criminal justice and policing systems. Yeah, well I like 0:16:50.080 --> 0:16:52.960 defund the police for lots of reasons. One reason is 0:16:53.000 --> 0:16:56.920 because in twenty fourteen, when Black Lives Matter took off 0:16:56.960 --> 0:17:00.880 as a hashtag, people said black lives matter was divisive, 0:17:01.240 --> 0:17:05.160 like it's polarizing, all lives matter. I mean a lot 0:17:05.200 --> 0:17:07.879 of people didn't set that not in good faith. It's like, what, 0:17:08.400 --> 0:17:10.960 I will be on board with police not killing black people, 0:17:11.080 --> 0:17:13.320 but you said black lives matter, So I can't. I 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:15.800 can't even get it's like, come on, like seriously, So 0:17:16.119 --> 0:17:20.320 if something's black lives matter, it's polarizing that they just matter, 0:17:20.600 --> 0:17:24.800 like it's like the floor the bar is so low, 0:17:24.920 --> 0:17:28.680 like it's so solo. Right. The second thing I noticed 0:17:28.720 --> 0:17:32.440 around Black Lives Matter is that anyone, once it became 0:17:32.560 --> 0:17:35.840 more palatable, anyone could kind of say black lives matter 0:17:35.880 --> 0:17:38.720 and it not really mean anything that much anymore. You 0:17:38.760 --> 0:17:41.159 could say black lives matter to defund the police. You 0:17:41.160 --> 0:17:43.320 can say black lives matter to give more funding to 0:17:43.359 --> 0:17:46.120 the police, and say black communities want this. Sacks Fifth 0:17:46.200 --> 0:17:49.520 Avenue was saying black lives matter. Everyone was just sort 0:17:49.560 --> 0:17:52.280 of saying black lives matter. But guess what, Black lives 0:17:52.320 --> 0:17:56.800 kept dying, right, black people being killed. What's interesting about 0:17:56.840 --> 0:17:59.959 defund the police is that it's a specific policy demand. 0:18:00.119 --> 0:18:03.440 It's like, take money away from the police. It's much 0:18:03.560 --> 0:18:06.359 harder to then just co op something like that. Right. 0:18:06.400 --> 0:18:08.200 I'm not saying it can't be done, because I've seen 0:18:08.240 --> 0:18:11.880 it attempt to be done, but it's much difference. It's 0:18:11.960 --> 0:18:14.439 not as soft as black lives matter, for lack of 0:18:14.440 --> 0:18:18.280 a better phrase right now, And so that's another thing. 0:18:18.280 --> 0:18:21.120 The third thing I would say is that any fight 0:18:21.240 --> 0:18:25.880 towards freedom and justice has always used unpopular language at 0:18:25.880 --> 0:18:29.200 the time of the fight, and then thirty forty fifty 0:18:29.240 --> 0:18:31.600 years from now, what do we do? We say, man, 0:18:31.640 --> 0:18:34.520 I'm so happy that they march for civil rights. Do 0:18:34.600 --> 0:18:36.280 you know what it was like to say that you 0:18:36.320 --> 0:18:40.480 were marching for civil rights in nineteen fifties? Civil rights? Oh, 0:18:40.560 --> 0:18:42.919 you must be a criminal, you're a troublemaker, as if 0:18:42.920 --> 0:18:45.480 they call MLK. You know, it's to say that you 0:18:45.560 --> 0:18:49.639 wanted women to be able to vote. It's imagine a 0:18:49.760 --> 0:18:52.800 man in the early nineteen hundred saying whoa, whoa, whoa. 0:18:53.119 --> 0:18:55.240 I would be on board with women voting, but I 0:18:55.280 --> 0:18:59.320 don't like the words suffrage. Like this actually what we're 0:18:59.359 --> 0:19:03.960 doing when you say if the phrase, it's seriously the barrier. 0:19:04.960 --> 0:19:08.600 So let's figure out how to explain what the phrase means. 0:19:08.920 --> 0:19:11.679 But I imagine I would have guessed that the people 0:19:11.880 --> 0:19:14.520 who actually don't like the phrase most of them, not 0:19:14.600 --> 0:19:16.560 all of them. I've met a couple of people have 0:19:16.640 --> 0:19:20.160 really interesting critical arguments and defund the police and abolition right, 0:19:20.440 --> 0:19:23.440 and they are coming from a socialist analysis. They saying, 0:19:23.480 --> 0:19:26.399 how do we build a broad basis? People who probably 0:19:26.400 --> 0:19:29.200 agree with what you're saying, but don't understand what it means. 0:19:29.440 --> 0:19:32.520 But they are committed to explaining what it means, right, 0:19:32.600 --> 0:19:35.080 which is different than I would get on board, but 0:19:35.200 --> 0:19:37.439 I don't like the language. So you gotta let police 0:19:37.480 --> 0:19:39.639 continue to kill three people a day because of a 0:19:39.760 --> 0:19:44.040 marketing campaign, Well, help us think about, you know, creative 0:19:44.119 --> 0:19:47.320 language and creative ways to explain what abolition is. And 0:19:47.320 --> 0:19:50.280 so part of that is on abolitionists when we say abolition. 0:19:50.280 --> 0:19:54.680 When I say abolition, I mean we need to dismantle, eradicate, 0:19:55.000 --> 0:19:57.639 reduce the reasons why people need police, and we need 0:19:57.680 --> 0:20:00.840 to eradicate the institution of policing, and we need to 0:20:00.880 --> 0:20:04.159 eradicate the violence in society that make people feel that 0:20:04.280 --> 0:20:07.119 they need police. It's both at the same time, and 0:20:07.160 --> 0:20:10.080 it's overtime, right, So that's on us to do that 0:20:10.600 --> 0:20:13.600 on society what people who don't know what that means. 0:20:13.720 --> 0:20:16.480 It's also on them to ask questions, to be curious, 0:20:16.480 --> 0:20:20.399 to critically engage their faith, to read to you know, 0:20:20.520 --> 0:20:24.639 to ask its. It requires both of that. But if 0:20:24.640 --> 0:20:27.480 you are not even open to having a conversation because 0:20:27.480 --> 0:20:30.360 of a term you don't understand, I think that's quite unfortunate, 0:20:30.600 --> 0:20:32.320 and I think there are a lot of resources out 0:20:32.320 --> 0:20:35.800 here to learn more about what that means. I appreciate 0:20:35.920 --> 0:20:39.040 that so very much because I think you know too. 0:20:39.200 --> 0:20:42.320 One of the lies that we continue to tell in 0:20:42.320 --> 0:20:45.800 our society with regard to policing is that more police 0:20:45.840 --> 0:20:48.439 equals more safety. Oh yeah. And the thing that I 0:20:48.600 --> 0:20:52.440 have been saying on woke f you know, interviews with 0:20:52.600 --> 0:20:59.320 former police chiefs, interviews with abolitionists, activists like yourself, is 0:20:59.520 --> 0:21:03.680 the fact that any I grew up in a very 0:21:03.760 --> 0:21:07.479 white suburb of New York on Long Island, and I 0:21:07.480 --> 0:21:13.959 will tell you that I never saw police officers ever, right, Like, 0:21:14.040 --> 0:21:16.240 that was not a part of my data to if 0:21:16.240 --> 0:21:19.919 I did, maybe they were, you know, driving past on 0:21:20.200 --> 0:21:22.720 you know, on the main strip. What I did see 0:21:22.880 --> 0:21:30.840 were clean sidewalks, tree line streets, gated communities, country clubs, 0:21:30.920 --> 0:21:34.520 and resource centers and libraries and all of these things. 0:21:35.080 --> 0:21:38.080 And so, you know, one of the questions that another 0:21:38.160 --> 0:21:40.920 question that I have for you is how do we 0:21:41.640 --> 0:21:46.400 break that lie that gasolight about the fact that when 0:21:46.400 --> 0:21:50.720 we're talking about defund the police, that there's this association well, oh, 0:21:50.840 --> 0:21:53.400 you don't want to be safe, And I'm like some 0:21:53.480 --> 0:21:58.520 of the safest neighborhoods have no police presence. What are 0:21:58.600 --> 0:22:02.320 you talking about? What they do have a resources and access? 0:22:02.480 --> 0:22:06.240 Absolutely yes, So that's and the inverse is also true. 0:22:06.359 --> 0:22:08.000 Right if you look at where I grew up in 0:22:08.040 --> 0:22:10.000 Saint Louis, I did not grow up in the community 0:22:10.040 --> 0:22:12.760 the tree line streets. It was very much, very very 0:22:12.800 --> 0:22:15.199 much the hood still is the hood. We haven't had 0:22:15.240 --> 0:22:18.800 a grocery store since two thousand, the year two thousand. 0:22:19.240 --> 0:22:21.879 Not a grocery store, not a fruit market, not a 0:22:21.960 --> 0:22:26.600 community garden in sight, no health clinics, no jobs because 0:22:26.600 --> 0:22:31.439 the Highway ripped apart the most prosperous place where black 0:22:31.480 --> 0:22:34.880 people were employed by black businesses, ripped all those homes, 0:22:34.920 --> 0:22:38.120 community businesses gone, so people could commute from the suburbs 0:22:38.119 --> 0:22:40.800 to downtown Saint Louis to work, right, And so you 0:22:40.840 --> 0:22:43.440 look at a community like that, we look at Chicago, 0:22:43.680 --> 0:22:45.920 you look at DC where I'm sitting right now, in 0:22:46.040 --> 0:22:52.359 Northwest super high rates of like violent crime, also among 0:22:52.440 --> 0:22:56.120 the highest per capital rates of police And so the 0:22:56.160 --> 0:23:00.280 police presence also doesn't reduce the violence that people fear. 0:23:01.000 --> 0:23:03.720 It's just not And every time, like right now, we're 0:23:03.800 --> 0:23:07.639 experience a murder hike, probably because we're in the pandemic. 0:23:07.960 --> 0:23:10.679 People are stressed out, there are fewer jobs, there's an 0:23:10.680 --> 0:23:14.840 eviction crisis that's happening. There's so much precarity that leads 0:23:14.880 --> 0:23:18.480 people to more vulnerable situations. And when there's a procarity 0:23:18.480 --> 0:23:21.760 and vulnerability and a pandemic, there's violence. Like we know, 0:23:22.160 --> 0:23:25.639 the researchers know this, scientists know this. But then you 0:23:25.720 --> 0:23:28.280 read the New York Times, you read mainstream outlets, and 0:23:28.280 --> 0:23:30.720 it's like, y'all want to defund the police while there's 0:23:30.720 --> 0:23:33.840 a murder spike right now, Well, tell me why with 0:23:34.000 --> 0:23:38.840 a million cops in those places, especially in Chicago, Saint Louis, Detroit, DC, 0:23:39.080 --> 0:23:43.199 these neighborhoods, there's more police than anywhere else, you have 0:23:43.240 --> 0:23:47.200 to murder rate is still climbing. It's yeah, so more 0:23:47.240 --> 0:23:50.919 police doesn't even equate to more safety. What it feels like, 0:23:51.000 --> 0:23:54.679 it feels like, okay, at least somebody's here to do something, 0:23:54.920 --> 0:23:57.240 But it's not uns If cops are standing outside of 0:23:57.359 --> 0:24:00.919 people's homes every night, guarding and stopping violence, that's not 0:24:00.960 --> 0:24:04.680