Speaker 1: Up next, out WOUD with Joanno called part of the
Speaker 1: gig which switch Actually Derek Chauvin has found guilty in
Speaker 1: the death of George Floyd. A police officer shoots a
Speaker 1: black teenager who was trying to stab another black teenager,
Speaker 1: and supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement continue to
Speaker 1: say America is systematically racist today and we discussed all
Speaker 1: these topics and more with the Black Lives Matter activists
Speaker 1: and the former police chief. This is Outlied with Gianna
Speaker 1: called Welcome back to Outlive with Gianno called Brow I've
Speaker 1: got an important and timely show for you guys this week.
Speaker 1: My guests are Zelli Amani and Clarence Cox the third.
Speaker 1: Zelli is a community organizer and Black Lives Matter activists
Speaker 1: who founded the Black Lives Matter Liberation Collective, a group
Speaker 1: of black students dedicated to transforming higher education. Clarence as
Speaker 1: the former president of the National Organization of Black Law
Speaker 1: Enforcement Executives. A veteran of law enforcement for more than
Speaker 1: thirty years, he served as the chief of police for
Speaker 1: Clayton County Public Schools in Georgia. On today's show, Zeali
Speaker 1: and Clarence and I discussed race and policing in America.
Speaker 1: Let's go. We know what just happened this past week
Speaker 1: with verdict Derek Chauvin, and I wanted to get the
Speaker 1: reaction from both of you guys. The jury found the
Speaker 1: former Indianapolis police officer Derek show And guilty on all
Speaker 1: counts and the death of George Floyd. What was your
Speaker 1: reaction to that? Wow? For myself, UM, when I heard
Speaker 1: the reaction, I lit out like a deep sigh and
Speaker 1: I didn't even know that I was holding my breath,
Speaker 1: you know, during the whole or deal. So I think
Speaker 1: for me it was something that took me by surprise,
Speaker 1: but also at the same time didn't give me the
Speaker 1: same since assess actually not thought it would have. Well,
Speaker 1: I kind of got the Zelie saying as far as
Speaker 1: far as the satisfaction piece. But for me, I wasn't
Speaker 1: surprised because I watched the prosecutor UM really dive down
Speaker 1: and do a really good job meticulously to lay out
Speaker 1: that evidence. And uh, you know, I remarked to one
Speaker 1: of my friends, I said, you know, Ray Charles can
Speaker 1: see this because it's so obvious and he's blind and dead.
Speaker 1: So at these jurors don't get it. We've got a
Speaker 1: major problem here in our country. But you know, as
Speaker 1: Zelie just said, I don't know if I was as
Speaker 1: satisfied as I wanted to be, because that's just the
Speaker 1: beginning of a continuation of work to be done. I
Speaker 1: think that, you know, while Keith Ellison and his group
Speaker 1: did a great job on that, it's a broader problem.
Speaker 1: And you know, if we can't identify these kinds of
Speaker 1: offices earlier on, we got you know, a lot of
Speaker 1: work to do and and and we identify his problems
Speaker 1: and his his I guess demeanor in his his culture
Speaker 1: earlier George Floyd wouldn't have been murdered and he'd still
Speaker 1: be here and we'd be living happily ever after. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you for that reaction, and I truly agree. I
Speaker 1: do think that there's reformed this absolutely necessities, and you
Speaker 1: have to continue to push the ball forward so we
Speaker 1: can identify the bad officers. But understanding that we know
Speaker 1: the overwhelming majority of officers are honorable people who serve
Speaker 1: on a day to day basis basis to protect us all. Now,
Speaker 1: there's been some conversation in the pressed um just areas
Speaker 1: of the press who have said that they believe that
Speaker 1: drewors made a particular decision because they were concerned about
Speaker 1: threats of rioting and looting if they didn't make a
Speaker 1: particular decision. I reject that personally, because juries have convicted mobsters, terrorists,
Speaker 1: gang members, all kinds of folks who would literally target
Speaker 1: their families for making a decision against them. Did you
Speaker 1: all think that any of those threats of rioting had
Speaker 1: any impact on the jury's deliberation and conviction? Personally, I didn't.
Speaker 1: I think that during the Voordir process of selection, you
Speaker 1: could listen to the response from some of those jurors
Speaker 1: and you can tell that they were very intelligent people
Speaker 1: or people that got it. But also you if you
Speaker 1: look back to what I just said about the way
Speaker 1: the prosecution laid it out, I think the most compelling
Speaker 1: I guess uh testimony came from one the chief of
Speaker 1: police and several um officers from that department. But then
Speaker 1: the doctor who you know, laid out the exam piece
Speaker 1: and showed that there was no other cause for the
Speaker 1: death other than the affhixiation where this guy was on
Speaker 1: his stomach with a knee on his neck. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: it was no way in the world that they could
Speaker 1: have come with another thing. And in this, in my mind,
Speaker 1: is an applaud to a breakdown of the thin blue
Speaker 1: wall that people refer too. Oftentimes when the police chief
Speaker 1: of the department and several members of the department can
Speaker 1: talk about what they had been trained and and and
Speaker 1: there have been trained the same way, and they talked
Speaker 1: about the failure of him to do his job. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, what else do you need? We agree, especially
Speaker 1: with your sentiment where there's been historical incidences where jurors
Speaker 1: are actually threatened with their lives and still make the
Speaker 1: right decision UM. And we're also seen where and other
Speaker 1: incidences in other towns where UM officers were indicted and
Speaker 1: charged and there was still threats of rebellions or uprisings
Speaker 1: in Ferguson or Baltimore, those jurors still chose to you know,
Speaker 1: find them and the officer UM not guilty, or in
Speaker 1: some cases where it comes to like a grand jury
Speaker 1: that to choose not to indict the officers. So there's
Speaker 1: been many, many different cases, right and when you look
Speaker 1: at it, only seven officers since two thousand and five
Speaker 1: have ever been convicted for a lot of these police
Speaker 1: involved UM shootings. So it's a very very very very
Speaker 1: very small number of officers who have been charged or
Speaker 1: even indicted and convicted for incidences, and jurors always in
Speaker 1: those cases tend to, you know, find the officers guilty
Speaker 1: or innocent. Rather, Zelie, I want to ask you this
Speaker 1: question because there's been a lot of conversation about the
Speaker 1: Derek Shechlvin and George Floyd um Chauvin trial. Of course,
Speaker 1: he killed George Floyd, but people have said that this
Speaker 1: conviction isn't simply about Derek Shelvin. It's a conviction of
Speaker 1: America as a racist system. And I know there's been
Speaker 1: members of the Black Lives Matter movement who who have
Speaker 1: echoed those sentiments. Do you believe that the system of
Speaker 1: policing is a racist system? Yeah? Um, personally, I do
Speaker 1: believe that the system of policing is racist system from
Speaker 1: its origins, and you know, all throughout American history, UM,
Speaker 1: it has been proven to be a racist institution. Now,
Speaker 1: does this necessarily mean that every single person that's employed
Speaker 1: by the police department is someone that is racist? I
Speaker 1: don't necessarily believe that, right what, they are all working
Speaker 1: in a racist institution. Right, and the same thing goes
Speaker 1: for our public education system. I'm an educator. I know
Speaker 1: the anti blackness that happens in our education system. Am
Speaker 1: I going to say that every single teacher in the
Speaker 1: education system is racist? No, but I know that they
Speaker 1: are in the system and unfortunately are perpetuating the anti
Speaker 1: blackness and the mask incarceration of our youth. So when
Speaker 1: I say that something is you know, racist, it doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that those individuals are out there, you know, saying
Speaker 1: the in word or have a clue Klux Klan outfit
Speaker 1: in their in their closet. But uh, we're saying that
Speaker 1: they are perpetuating something that is um m harming Black
Speaker 1: communities instead of helping them. Now, Chief Cox, you've been
Speaker 1: in law enforcement for many, many years. You ran one
Speaker 1: of the largest police organizations with the executive leaderships, and
Speaker 1: we're talking police chiefs in Chicago, New York and many
Speaker 1: other places. Do you believe that you've been a part
Speaker 1: of a racist system of policing? Well, what I would say,
Speaker 1: I would go even further than that, Uh, Giano, I
Speaker 1: think the criminal justice system has systemic racism components throughout
Speaker 1: and much like what Zelli saying that does not mean
Speaker 1: that we're saying every police officer is a racist or
Speaker 1: has racist practices. I think there's a culture that I
Speaker 1: guess fosters that racism. UH. In dealing with UH communities
Speaker 1: of code, I think that we police, and unfortunately, I've
Speaker 1: seen some of my African American brothers police our own
Speaker 1: communities differently than we should, um you know. And a
Speaker 1: lot of that is not a police matter. A lot
Speaker 1: of it's uh because of our socio economic situations. UM
Speaker 1: you know. You find a lot of poverty in our neighborhoods,
Speaker 1: you find a lot of lack of health care and
Speaker 1: other things. And I think until this country gets really
Speaker 1: serious about addressing those needs, we're gonna have this continuation. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: because when people find that they are somewhat a minority
Speaker 1: in all aspects of life, they get you know, less
Speaker 1: than UH favorable healthcare, less than favorable attention unless there's
Speaker 1: you know, uh an effect on the other side of
Speaker 1: the tracks, I like to call it. So, there's been
Speaker 1: a drug problem in this country for many, many years,
Speaker 1: and being that a good bit of my career was
Speaker 1: in drug law enforcement. I saw in the early eighties
Speaker 1: with the crack epidemic and we just fondled it in
Speaker 1: and we called it the War on drugs. So now
Speaker 1: that there is a opioid problem and prescription drugs are
Speaker 1: being abused, it's now a health crisis, and it's being
Speaker 1: police totally different. And when you have these types of
Speaker 1: things over and over again, and brown and black people
Speaker 1: are the I guess the guinea pigs of that, then
Speaker 1: you have these type of issues. So I would say, yeah,
Speaker 1: there has been systemic racism throughout. I mean, you look
Speaker 1: at the minimum mandatory sentences that put a lot of
Speaker 1: people in jail in the eighties with the crack epidemic,
Speaker 1: and you know, you look at Barney made Off and
Speaker 1: others who have destroyed you know, rich or affluent families
Speaker 1: and then got less than than those type sentences. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, we could go on and on about the
Speaker 1: racism examples in the criminal justice system. Now, of course
Speaker 1: there's been instances of racism, We've seen that, but you
Speaker 1: believe it to be systematic in the way that just
Speaker 1: about every police department is touched, you know, talking to you, uh,
Speaker 1: President Cox, every just about every police department that has
Speaker 1: been touched has has some areas that they need to
Speaker 1: improve around race. It's not just one bad police department
Speaker 1: or maybe three police officers in a particular department, which
Speaker 1: we've seen. Um. You look at Ferguson, you look at
Speaker 1: even Minneapolis, they've had a number of complaint stylesands of complaints,
Speaker 1: and there's not been much of anything done into recently
Speaker 1: when they after George Floyd. So you're thinking that this
Speaker 1: is across the board I do, and with eighteen thousand
Speaker 1: police ages is around the country. There is an immediate
Speaker 1: need for some standards that would be applicable in every
Speaker 1: every agency because you don't know what you're gonna get
Speaker 1: from New York to South Georgia when it comes to
Speaker 1: law enforcement, because they're all made up with different policies,
Speaker 1: different standards, different cultures. Um. You know, for an example,
Speaker 1: when you talk about racial profiling. You know, just this
Speaker 1: past week, we had a young rapper in Atlanta who
Speaker 1: accused the Atlanta Police Department of racial profiling him while
Speaker 1: traveling through the harsh Phield Jackson Airport. UM. And it
Speaker 1: turned out not to be the Atlanta Police Department but
Speaker 1: the Clayton County Police Department. So what I'm saying to
Speaker 1: you is as long as money is associated with policing,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be those kinds of problems as well, because
Speaker 1: a lot of agencies can't don't have the budgets of
Speaker 1: a New York or l A p D. But they
Speaker 1: make their money by doing other things, you know, drug interdiction,
Speaker 1: traffic stops, um, those kinds of things. And you get
Speaker 1: to think when a lot of these enforcement efforts are conducted,
Speaker 1: they're actually in the black and brown communities, and they
Speaker 1: get a different set of policing versus you know, on
Speaker 1: the other side of the tracks, where you know, Mrs
Speaker 1: Mrs Jones runs a light, we stop and tell her, Okay,
Speaker 1: Mrs Jones, next time, you gotta be very careful. But
Speaker 1: Bobo comes through the light on the other side of
Speaker 1: the tracks. He's playing his music loud. He asked the
Speaker 1: officer why did he stop him? And before you know it,
Speaker 1: he's got a citation and he's off on his way.
Speaker 1: That's so what I'm saying, Yes, there is a very
Speaker 1: very different approach and and and and you know President
Speaker 1: Obama tried to address it in the twenty one Century
Speaker 1: Policing Document when he said that, you know, agencies should
Speaker 1: have the hiring makeup that reflect the demographics of their community.
Speaker 1: If you bring a guy into a poverty struck in
Speaker 1: black community who has never seen an African American, he's
Speaker 1: probably not gonna know how to deal with that person
Speaker 1: and know our cultural habits, and therefore it's gonna be
Speaker 1: a miscommunication at some point. Okay. So we've also seen
Speaker 1: other elements of black law enforcement officers who might have
Speaker 1: grown up in the same community, that's u Chicago as
Speaker 1: an example, in Inglewood as an example, and they know
Speaker 1: the cultural habits of the individuals and someone still dies
Speaker 1: at the hand of the police. Does that make it
Speaker 1: a racist incident? Does that make it? I mean, obviously
Speaker 1: it depends on the what actually happened, But you still
Speaker 1: kind of see the same approaches no matter if the
Speaker 1: cop is black or white. So is it a matter
Speaker 1: of um people talking to officers different showing a particular
Speaker 1: set of respect for officers. As I was talking when
Speaker 1: I was growing up, you gotta respect police officers, yes
Speaker 1: or no, sir. What's what's the what's the distinction here?
Speaker 1: That's no longer applicable with today's culture. And I think
Speaker 1: again that's the culture of the agency and the what's
Speaker 1: what's allowed. Okay, so you know, every chief, if he's honest,
Speaker 1: will tell you he knows has a good idea. Who's
Speaker 1: these problem kids, problem problem officers are. But at two
Speaker 1: o'clock in the morning, when guys are standing on the corner,
Speaker 1: Mrs Jones is blowing the chief's phone up or writing emails.
Speaker 1: I want to say, I want this corner clear to
Speaker 1: they're breaking in cars. The Chief's gonna send that message
Speaker 1: back down stream and tell you know, his subordinates. I
Speaker 1: want something done about it. He didn't at that point
Speaker 1: care how it's done. He just wants it cleaned up,
Speaker 1: and he's gonna send that message. And how they interpret
Speaker 1: it could be something totally different. I'm not saying that
Speaker 1: there are chiefs who are out here instructing these officers
Speaker 1: to go do rogue things by no means. But I'm
Speaker 1: saying that if you are worth your assault as an administrator,
Speaker 1: you kind of know who's on your team and what's
Speaker 1: going on. If you don't, you know, if you you
Speaker 1: turn your head and have a blind eye to it,
Speaker 1: that's your fault and you should be liable some kind
Speaker 1: of civil cifically uh civilly um. If you don't do
Speaker 1: something thing about it, because we should be asking our
Speaker 1: community what do they expect from policing, and we should
Speaker 1: be able to give it to him in the right way.
Speaker 1: You don't walk in the walmart and they tell you
Speaker 1: what you want to buy today. You go in there
Speaker 1: and you buy what you want or what you need.
Speaker 1: And that's how policing should be in my mind, in
Speaker 1: our communities, because you can't police every community is saying,
Speaker 1: but you can have policies that would be applicable to
Speaker 1: protect the sanctity of the community. And I think that's
Speaker 1: where we gotta go. Okay, I want to direct my
Speaker 1: next question is Zelie and if you would Chief Cox
Speaker 1: to to follow up after that. By now, I'm sure
Speaker 1: you've both seen the video of the white police officer
Speaker 1: at Columbus, Ohio who responded to the call about someone
Speaker 1: armed with a knife. The officer arrived at the scene
Speaker 1: and shot a black female teenager who was trying to
Speaker 1: stab another black female teenager. Do you think the police
Speaker 1: officer acted correctly and save the life or do you
Speaker 1: think he should have tried something else to deescalate the situation? Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: so I think that's um a great question. And it's
Speaker 1: one that a lot of people are having right now,
Speaker 1: this whole bit conflict about you know, police violence, if
Speaker 1: that was an incident of police violence, and I personally
Speaker 1: would say, like, yes, it was an incident of police violence.
Speaker 1: And the way the reason why I say that is
Speaker 1: I'm an educator, all right. I teach in the classroom. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: I have to break up fights sometimes sometimes those kids
Speaker 1: have weapons. Sometimes those kids have you know, things that
Speaker 1: can seriously injure someone. And if I say, for example,
Speaker 1: if I lived in a town or or a state
Speaker 1: that allowed teachers to carry guns, and if I pull
Speaker 1: out a gun to like shoot down a student, everyone
Speaker 1: would look at me like like I did something something wrong.
Speaker 1: And teachers all across America are pretty much expected to
Speaker 1: you know, protect their students even if a student has
Speaker 1: um a weapon, and in many instances people teachers are
Speaker 1: able to disarm those individuals. And I think that instead
Speaker 1: of us thinking in a way that you know, the
Speaker 1: officer was correct and what they did and that he
Speaker 1: saved their life, at this same time, he took a life,
Speaker 1: So it was a life really saved in any of
Speaker 1: those equations, and we need to think about what what
Speaker 1: ways if there was possible that that could have ended differently,
Speaker 1: And think about how can we change the thinking of
Speaker 1: police officers where instead of thinking that, you know, um,
Speaker 1: firing a lethal weapon is the way to disfuse that
Speaker 1: situation in that moment, what other ways could that have
Speaker 1: been handled? All right? And I think when we start
Speaker 1: having those conversations, we can start to say to ourselves, like,
Speaker 1: maybe that situation could have been uh de escalated in
Speaker 1: a much faster way, and both of those lives may
Speaker 1: have been saved. Even if the young woman was stabbed,
Speaker 1: she could have been stabbed and saved. But I think
Speaker 1: that the shooting just us just ultimately took someone's life
Speaker 1: that didn't need to be taken. So let me ask
Speaker 1: you this question as a follow up, Zli. So, if
Speaker 1: this was your daughter, your sister, and I'm referring to
Speaker 1: the young lady who was not behind the knife, but
Speaker 1: the one who almost became a victim to to the knife,
Speaker 1: and if she would have successfully cut that young lady's
Speaker 1: throat and killed her, and it was a police officer
Speaker 1: on the scene who could have stopped the situation, would
Speaker 1: you have rather your sister or your daughter had died
Speaker 1: just to prevent a shooting in that situation, you know,
Speaker 1: like thankfully, uh, you know, I would say that the
Speaker 1: officer had decent aim, right, because he could have shot
Speaker 1: the people next to him, right the girl next to her,
Speaker 1: So we don't know what would have happened, right, So
Speaker 1: how would I would have felt if I was in
Speaker 1: that situation and he ended up shooting not just the
Speaker 1: girl but also an innocent bystandard? What if the bullet
Speaker 1: went through someplace else and shot somebody else? Um, So
Speaker 1: we have to think about like the whole community there
Speaker 1: that's literally been traumatized from that incident. And I think
Speaker 1: about the girl that was even um saved. If we
Speaker 1: interviewed her, like what she think to herself right now,
Speaker 1: that she would what would she rather have? What she
Speaker 1: had rather have that girl alive? I think that she
Speaker 1: would rather have that girl alive, you know, and if
Speaker 1: there was any other option, she would have hoped that
Speaker 1: officer would have been able to take that one. Do
Speaker 1: you think that was a racist cop killing someone in
Speaker 1: that situation because people have been on on social media
Speaker 1: saying that there was another instance of a racist police
Speaker 1: officer murdering a young black person. Do you agree with
Speaker 1: that assessment, I wouldn't necessarily say that they're racist, because
Speaker 1: I don't know what's in their hearts and minds, right,
Speaker 1: But when we look at so many different instances of
Speaker 1: individuals who were armed and who were white, and who
Speaker 1: were able to leave with their lives, I think that
Speaker 1: sometimes when we think about racism, it's not necessarily about
Speaker 1: if that cop ever call someone inward. It's about does
Speaker 1: he value that humans that that other person's life. And
Speaker 1: I don't think that he valued her life to the
Speaker 1: point where he was willing to do anything, you know,
Speaker 1: in order to save her life. Chief, did this officer
Speaker 1: performed correctly in your view? So thank you? And I respectfully,
Speaker 1: um uh, you know, entertain Zelie's comments, but I disagree. Um.
Speaker 1: And then the thing about this is, as I viewed
Speaker 1: this over and over and and I've listened to various commentaries,
Speaker 1: and I've even gone to the Chicago website of Accountability
Speaker 1: for Policing and they have a couple of different versions
Speaker 1: of the video. I'm sorry I'm mixing too. I'm sorry
Speaker 1: I've looked at so many shootings lately. I'm sorry I'm
Speaker 1: confusing to Chicago with the Columbus but on the Columbus shooting,
Speaker 1: I think that was a justified shooting, and that when
Speaker 1: he also got out of the vehicle, he was already
Speaker 1: giving commands and that's part of the use of force
Speaker 1: continued and nobody was following the commands as this young
Speaker 1: man was given. And in this situation, I've heard many
Speaker 1: folks say, well, why didn't he deploy a taser? I
Speaker 1: think America is expecting tasers to be the magic one
Speaker 1: in a lot of these instances right now. Tases embody
Speaker 1: cameras that are most wanted things from our citizens. Ury
Speaker 1: and every agency, first of all, don't have tasers. Every
Speaker 1: agency don't have bloody cameras, unfortunately. But this young lady
Speaker 1: failed to follow any of the commands, and this officer
Speaker 1: had nothing else in my mind, that he could have
Speaker 1: done in that short length of time that he had.
Speaker 1: This was a split second decision. And actually I claused
Speaker 1: that officers response because had he not, um, you know,
Speaker 1: protected the life of the young lady who was about
Speaker 1: to be a victim, um, then he would have been
Speaker 1: criticized for not doing his job and he would have
Speaker 1: violated his oath of office. One the other piece to it,
Speaker 1: is just like you know, ZELI just referred this guy
Speaker 1: had some extreme marchmanship capabilities because I know in my
Speaker 1: mind as I watched him go down range with those rounds,
Speaker 1: I'm like, Wow, this guy is is pretty proficient with
Speaker 1: his firearm. And that's a good professional officer in my mind,
Speaker 1: because that's what we're taught in the academy. We're taught.
Speaker 1: You know, so many people have said, you know, why
Speaker 1: did he shooting in the chest? Why didn't the shooter
Speaker 1: in their leg? What did he we as a police officer,
Speaker 1: if you don't shoot in the chest during your qualifications
Speaker 1: period in training, you're not allowed to care a firearm.
Speaker 1: There's no other acceptable points of injury, so to speak,
Speaker 1: with a firearm other than center mass we call it,
Speaker 1: and that's right in the middle of the chest, because
Speaker 1: that's uh most likely going to put you down. Um So,
Speaker 1: in my mind and based on what I've seen so far,
Speaker 1: this is a justified shooting. And I don't appreciate um
Speaker 1: O our country putting all these in one bag. And
Speaker 1: and and I think a lot of people because of
Speaker 1: the tension that's going on with other shootings, and there's
Speaker 1: some bad ones out there, and I'll be first to
Speaker 1: tell you we cannot put this Columbus shooting in the
Speaker 1: same bag as we can put this is not like
Speaker 1: a little Kwan McDonald type shooting in Chicago. And I'm
Speaker 1: still looking at the one in North Carolina. I'm not
Speaker 1: really sure on that one. It's as well. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: but you know, it's unfortunate that we keep having these.
Speaker 1: We're talking to Zeali Amani and Claren Scott's the third
Speaker 1: of Black Lives Matter activists and a former police chief.
Speaker 1: We've gotten much more with them after a quick way
Speaker 1: in terms of putting all the shootings in one bag.
Speaker 1: And we've seen time and time again and there's a
Speaker 1: right officer involved, and there was a shooting w black person,
Speaker 1: no matter that they're young, old man, woman, whatever, there
Speaker 1: is deemed racist in my concern, especially being someone who
Speaker 1: comes from a very dangerous area on the South side
Speaker 1: of Chicago, and having just three years ago Memorial Day weekend,
Speaker 1: my younger brother in the car with two of his friends,
Speaker 1: and two men walked up shot the car twenty five times.
Speaker 1: He lived, but his best friend died in his arms.
Speaker 1: So considering the environment that we're in now, when it
Speaker 1: comes to police again America. If every police involved shooting
Speaker 1: with the African American is deemed racest, what if it
Speaker 1: happened tomorrow where my little brother, that situation that happened
Speaker 1: three years ago, and a white officer was around the corner,
Speaker 1: heard the call, and he found out that the suspects
Speaker 1: were black, and there's a shooting going on that he
Speaker 1: can possibly save a life. But hell, i don't want
Speaker 1: to be called a racist, so I'm not gonna get involved.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna way to the bullets fly and they get away,
Speaker 1: and then maybe I'll get around to get the ambulance.
Speaker 1: When is it that we begin to have a really
Speaker 1: honest dialogue about policing in America. We're doing that right now,
Speaker 1: but we've seen it become so politicized. We've seen with
Speaker 1: Black Lives Matter, Democrats have gotten in alved and they've
Speaker 1: made it more about their appeal to the black community
Speaker 1: versus real, real policy changes. We saw what Tim Scott
Speaker 1: did last year when he was trying to pass the
Speaker 1: police reform bill, and he offered Democrats an opportunity, a
Speaker 1: manager's amendment, to put whatever they wanted in the build,
Speaker 1: and they walked away from the table because they wanted
Speaker 1: it to be about politics. They wanted to win elections
Speaker 1: off of it. And it's been my saying black lives
Speaker 1: don't matter the Democrats black boats do. So with that
Speaker 1: consideration in mind, especially, use that lead because you're you're
Speaker 1: a part of the movement, you're an organizer, you run
Speaker 1: a chapter. What is it we can do to take
Speaker 1: politics out of these discussions and talk more about policy? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't think that you can um separate the two, right. Um.
Speaker 1: I think what Clarence was saying earlier in the broadcast
Speaker 1: was really really phenomenal because when we talk about the
Speaker 1: issues of why we have policing or why our areas
Speaker 1: are heavily policed in the first place. When you think
Speaker 1: about the safest communities in your state, the safest community,
Speaker 1: um that you know off the most safest communities don't
Speaker 1: have more police officers, right, they usually have less police officers.
Speaker 1: Was made a community safer is they have access to
Speaker 1: more resources. They don't have more cops, they have more
Speaker 1: they have better jobs, better healthcare, better better educational system,
Speaker 1: have better quality food, better recreation services. Those are the
Speaker 1: things that make communities safer and stronger. So when the
Speaker 1: urban communities want to be safe, Why instead of giving
Speaker 1: us jobs and better quality education, you give us more
Speaker 1: police officers, right, And that that's the disconnect that's going
Speaker 1: on right there when we say that in order to
Speaker 1: fight crime, um, it's not by hiring more police officers.
Speaker 1: You fight crime by fighting poverty, and we're not doing that,
Speaker 1: We're not doing at all. And instead, by putting more
Speaker 1: police officers, you're actually increasing the proximity to police officers
Speaker 1: and uh the black community which is already strained, and
Speaker 1: creating these in these interactions which can be volent or
Speaker 1: whereas Clarence point out, can be predatory, where these officers
Speaker 1: are now just on certain communities over for various um infractions.
Speaker 1: And to really really really get into these conversations is
Speaker 1: really important because we really need to understand the role
Speaker 1: of policing in this country and really think about how
Speaker 1: can we re reimagine public safety? How can we reimagine
Speaker 1: public safety? So we hear the cries of defunding the police,
Speaker 1: it's not about like getting rid of public safety, It's
Speaker 1: about how can we reimagine public safety? Because domestic violence
Speaker 1: is happening in our neighborhoods, child abuse, and sexual saul
Speaker 1: is happening in our neighborhoods. You can hire seven hundred cops,
Speaker 1: eight hundred cops. Domestic violence is still happening. People are
Speaker 1: still not safe. So how then can we use the
Speaker 1: little mental money that we do have to allocate it
Speaker 1: in other areas that can actually make people safer. And
Speaker 1: these are the conversations that we really do have to
Speaker 1: start having, Like our police always effective doing every single job,
Speaker 1: because police do so many different roles that they may
Speaker 1: not be necessarily be you know, necessary in that if
Speaker 1: I got into a minor car accident, do I really
Speaker 1: need an armed police officer there at that moment just
Speaker 1: to take a report? The officer could be doing something
Speaker 1: much more you know serious. He could be out you know,
Speaker 1: uh responding to a robbery or shooting, but right now
Speaker 1: he's you know, taking notes or buying a report. Or
Speaker 1: if I uh come into my house and it's already
Speaker 1: got broken into, I don't really need an armed police
Speaker 1: officer there. I just need someone to take the report,
Speaker 1: and that doesn't necessarily have to be an officer. So
Speaker 1: how can we reimagine the roles and the duties of
Speaker 1: police officers and kind of like break it down and
Speaker 1: see like where do we need them and where do
Speaker 1: we not need them, and how do we minimize the
Speaker 1: interactions with individuals? And that is why we need to
Speaker 1: have these conversations about politics and policy. To Zeli's point,
Speaker 1: I agree, Uh, And it's funny you you talk about that.
Speaker 1: I just co chaired a task force called Reimagining Public
Speaker 1: Safety along with my colleague, doctor sed Alexander, were both
Speaker 1: past presidents of Noble National Organization Black Law Enforcement and
Speaker 1: and and you're right, we've got the first defined public safety.
Speaker 1: That's the first piece. Because public safety could also be
Speaker 1: you know, lead in water, in in in Michigan, because
Speaker 1: that's a safety issue. Public safety is a lot of things.
Speaker 1: And I think what has happened is over a period
Speaker 1: of time we've segued from just being the police to
Speaker 1: being as you say, uh, you know, the counselors and
Speaker 1: mental health coordinators and all of these things. And we
Speaker 1: we we don't have the toolbox of the capacity to
Speaker 1: band with to perform all these things. But you know,
Speaker 1: in every community across this country, if you have an emergency,
Speaker 1: whatever the emergency it is, you din nine one one.
Speaker 1: And when you down nine one one you expect some response.
Speaker 1: The majority of the time that's a law enforcement officer
Speaker 1: police officer. So we've got the first in public safety.
Speaker 1: What is public safety? And when we talk about defunding,
Speaker 1: I don't agree with the defunding mechanism, but I do
Speaker 1: agree that if we have agencies that cannot comply to
Speaker 1: a certain set of standards, a certain than a certain
Speaker 1: set of of goals and commissions, then they should not
Speaker 1: be able to receive money from the federal government for funding.
Speaker 1: They should not be able to participate in the asset
Speaker 1: forfeit your program where if an officer stops a drug
Speaker 1: dealing with a car full of money, they can no
Speaker 1: longer see that money and sees that car and put
Speaker 1: it into an operational budget. It should go into maybe
Speaker 1: a federal budget or a state budget, because then that
Speaker 1: gives them an incentive to do right. So if we're
Speaker 1: going to get this thing right, and you talk Giano
Speaker 1: about the politics and the policing, it's going to be
Speaker 1: there as long as people continue to have some sort
Speaker 1: of money at the at the bottom of everything, almost
Speaker 1: as money. And I think as long as these folks
Speaker 1: don't feel the pinch from the money and it's popular.
Speaker 1: You know, everybody's out now with a sound bite saying,
Speaker 1: you know, we need to do this, We need to
Speaker 1: do that. There's more practitioners in law enforcement there and
Speaker 1: then there is in any other profession. If you think
Speaker 1: about it, if a doctor botches a surgery, he pays
Speaker 1: the insurance, go plays golf until they pay it off,
Speaker 1: and these back on the operating room tomorrow. If we
Speaker 1: were to put those same type of standards in law enforcement,
Speaker 1: you have to have a certain certification. If you screw up,
Speaker 1: you get put on a list, and then you are
Speaker 1: not able to go from one agency to another. We
Speaker 1: can stop this, but this is a growing cancer across
Speaker 1: the country because if I screw up at this agency
Speaker 1: and it doesn't make the news, and sometimes even if
Speaker 1: it makes the news, I'm able to go get a
Speaker 1: job somewhere else until somebody figure it out. You know.
Speaker 1: So I think we've we've got a long way to go.
Speaker 1: But these kinds of conversations are the healthy conversations, because
Speaker 1: we're sitting here of an adult conversation on how to
Speaker 1: work this out. The people that UH really empower to
Speaker 1: do these things are not doing them because nobody wants
Speaker 1: to lose. It's not about winning and losing. It's about
Speaker 1: what's best for the American public. These people in our
Speaker 1: communities demand more, and until we can build trust and
Speaker 1: legitimacy in our law enforcement agencies, we're not going to
Speaker 1: get the respect that we used to get. You know,
Speaker 1: I heard one of you guys said minute ago, when
Speaker 1: you were growing up, everybody respected police and all that.
Speaker 1: You know, my first call, I knocked on the door
Speaker 1: and lady says, who is it? I said, police? Lady said,
Speaker 1: police poets paid at least thought about. I will never
Speaker 1: forget that because what she said it stays in my head.
Speaker 1: Most officers don't make the money that they want to
Speaker 1: make or should make for the job that they do,
Speaker 1: and nobody respects us, and a lot of that is
Speaker 1: our fault because of some things like what deare chevling
Speaker 1: just did? You know? So it's it's not all. Everybody
Speaker 1: has skin in this game, and I think until everybody
Speaker 1: takes a role, in active role in trying to correct
Speaker 1: this and not playing the blame game, pointing fingers, Oh,
Speaker 1: it's no, it's you. It's as you as you, we're
Speaker 1: not going to solve this. We can have conversations all
Speaker 1: day long, was Zalie. I wanted to follow up on
Speaker 1: something you mentioned in terms of defunding the police. Now
Speaker 1: I've seen on your Twitter you've mentioned defunding the police
Speaker 1: on a number of occasions is something you clearly believe in.
Speaker 1: And to be honest, there's been a number of police
Speaker 1: organizations that have been defunded across the country, to the
Speaker 1: tune of almost nine hundred million dollars in police funding
Speaker 1: in some of the most major jurisdictions across the country.
Speaker 1: Not with that being the case, we saw a thirty
Speaker 1: three percent increase in homicide last year UM for sixty
Speaker 1: two or sixty six of the largest police jurisdiction saw
Speaker 1: increases and at least one category of violent crime in
Speaker 1: and we continue to see crime go up in a
Speaker 1: number of these areas. Police officers are leaving their positions
Speaker 1: at alarming rates for a number of police departments. Police
Speaker 1: departments are being defunded. But who is it Who is
Speaker 1: it hurting more? Is it? Is it hurting the officers
Speaker 1: who decided to just give up the career. Maybe you
Speaker 1: get a bad officer off the street, Maybe you get
Speaker 1: a good officer off the street. But isn't that making
Speaker 1: our our communities more vulnerable to violence and crime? Not necessarily,
Speaker 1: I think that we shouldn't be always conflating about the
Speaker 1: rise and violent crimes at the same time. Where we
Speaker 1: see a rise in COVID nineteen cases, right, we see
Speaker 1: a rise of unemployment in a lot of the same
Speaker 1: urban areas. So a lot of these urban areas, um
Speaker 1: some people haven't been to work since the pandemics has started.
Speaker 1: So we see increase in a lot of these violent
Speaker 1: crimes and a lot of these situations. So I wouldn't
Speaker 1: necessarily say that the rise of violent crime has anything
Speaker 1: to do with defunding the police departments or uh police
Speaker 1: department apathy. I think is there zat exact opposite. Going
Speaker 1: back to defunding the police, right, A lot of people
Speaker 1: are scared when they hear the term defunding police again
Speaker 1: because they think of it as what is going to happen,
Speaker 1: Who's going to keep us safe? Where Again, where Clarence
Speaker 1: was saying, it's not about defunding or getting rid of
Speaker 1: public safety, is about reimagining public safety. And what we
Speaker 1: see right now is happening where many of these towns
Speaker 1: are defunding the police, they're actually funding other initiatives like
Speaker 1: anti violence initiatives. We see that anti violence initiatives like
Speaker 1: violence interrupters have UM significant um um improvements in Chicago
Speaker 1: and the Bronx where they're able to use their violence
Speaker 1: interrupters to reduce retaliations and UM do ceasefires and really
Speaker 1: work with these at risk communities to prevent gun violence.
Speaker 1: These are the types of things that we need to
Speaker 1: be UM focusing on. One of the things UM I
Speaker 1: talk all the time. To give an example, when we
Speaker 1: knock on doors to talk to many community members and
Speaker 1: ask them with some of the wrong things that the
Speaker 1: city needs improvement. They always mentioned recreation, right, They always mentioned,
Speaker 1: our kids have nothing to do out here in the streets.
Speaker 1: There's no football programs, no more, there's no basketball programs,
Speaker 1: there's no recreation centers. And I tell them that the
Speaker 1: city's budget is two hundred million dollars and forty million
Speaker 1: dollars goes to the police department salaries. That's almost a
Speaker 1: quarter million, quarter percent, but only two million dollars goes
Speaker 1: to the recreation department. Only two million dollars to fund
Speaker 1: the activities for the use. And then when people hear
Speaker 1: that they're saying, you know, like you know, maybe we
Speaker 1: can like you know, shift or allocate some money from
Speaker 1: the police department, which has the largest budget, and put
Speaker 1: it someplace else into the kids. And again, we look
Speaker 1: at the demographies of our police department. Majority of our
Speaker 1: police do not even live in our communities. So you
Speaker 1: think about that's forty million dollars that's not going into
Speaker 1: our urban areas. That's forty million dollars going into the
Speaker 1: suburbs and surrounding towns. So what happens if we actually
Speaker 1: invest ten million dollars or five million dollars, even forty
Speaker 1: million dollars into people who actually live here, who actually
Speaker 1: need the money. And I think with those types of thinking,
Speaker 1: it's how we are able to drastically improve our neighborhoods
Speaker 1: when we think about money and who we are investing into. Now,
Speaker 1: you mentioned the COVID nineteen, the rise in the COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen cases, and I'm assuming that you're saying that because
Speaker 1: of COVID nineteen, a lot of people were laid off
Speaker 1: their jobs. Is that right? Most Definitely a lot of
Speaker 1: people were laid off that wasn't able to to work.
Speaker 1: And then we also see people um, you know, suffering
Speaker 1: from depression and turn into drugs. So there's a lot
Speaker 1: of reasons for um this COVID nineteen uh rise with
Speaker 1: violence as well, and it's very sad to see. But
Speaker 1: I think it's not impossible to be and it has
Speaker 1: to be not through more policing, but how can we
Speaker 1: invest in other alternatives that keep people safe. But if
Speaker 1: we take into account the fact that when COVID nineteen happened,
Speaker 1: the unemployment rate did go up, of course, but there
Speaker 1: was a lot of government programs in which people were
Speaker 1: in the bottom rung actually ended up making more money
Speaker 1: from unemployment programs than they did in their normal day
Speaker 1: to day jobs. So could that really be the reason
Speaker 1: for the rise and violent crime or right after we
Speaker 1: saw like when you think about the rioting and a
Speaker 1: looting under behind George Floyd, that wasn't because of COVID nineteen,
Speaker 1: people were rioting and looting. People in the Black Lives
Speaker 1: Niner movement in Chicago specifically said that it was reparations
Speaker 1: for black people going into black neighborhoods, uh, smashing those
Speaker 1: stories and stealing things out of that. Is that really
Speaker 1: the reason COVID nineteen is really the reason why a
Speaker 1: lot of these crimes took place. I think that COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen was a reason why a lot of crimes in general.
Speaker 1: When I say COVID nineteen, I don't mean like COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen the exact virus is the reason why. But the
Speaker 1: conditions and the hardships that COVID nineteen um calls for
Speaker 1: a lot of our communities can be contributed to a
Speaker 1: lot of the rising crimes. Chief so most a major
Speaker 1: cities right now. Gianno, as you said, spike in a
Speaker 1: take of crime. But I think to kind of address
Speaker 1: with Elie saying about the defunding and putting money into recreation,
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily agree with the way you're talking about it,
Speaker 1: but I do agree that there instead of defunding, I
Speaker 1: would like to see reallocations some some kind of way
Speaker 1: of some of the funding in that rather than trying
Speaker 1: to put a civilian in the police officers capacity um
Speaker 1: to put them in harm's way. You know, I'd like
Speaker 1: to maybe see UH funding for some mental health counselors
Speaker 1: that are sworn so they can carry a dual road.
Speaker 1: You know, you have a police officer that's specifically trained
Speaker 1: in mental health that could respond to some of these calls.
Speaker 1: I speak with sheriffs from across the country on a
Speaker 1: regular basis who share with me that the majority of
Speaker 1: their population are mental health patients and doing a Reagan administration,
Speaker 1: and Jean, I know you may remember that most of
Speaker 1: those major health mental health facilities were shut down and
Speaker 1: so now there's no real place to put them so
Speaker 1: to speak, to seek any treatment, and now they're being
Speaker 1: wide were housed in UH jails across this country. So
Speaker 1: I don't want to see any money taken away, but
Speaker 1: I'd like to see money maybe added or reallocate it. Okay, So,
Speaker 1: as we talked about the recreation issues with the young folks, UM,
Speaker 1: a lot of major cities have police athletic leagues where
Speaker 1: young kids are able to participate in organize in amurial
Speaker 1: sports and it's kind of led by that police agency.
Speaker 1: I think that's a plus plus because a lot of kids,
Speaker 1: the images that they have law enforcement is a negative
Speaker 1: image and most of it comes from TV and the
Speaker 1: other comes from the crazy things that they see UH
Speaker 1: officers do. But you know, I know, when I ran
Speaker 1: a school resource program, some of the greatest UH interactions
Speaker 1: with the young people came came from my school resource
Speaker 1: officers because they were in the schools having those interactions
Speaker 1: with those young folks, and they were providing counseling, so
Speaker 1: to speak, not formal counseling, but the relationships and the
Speaker 1: dialogues that they created also created something that carried on.
Speaker 1: I can remember several occasions where I had an interaction
Speaker 1: with a young person and later on it meant something
Speaker 1: to them. And to this day, I have young folks
Speaker 1: to come up to me all the time, Hey, Chief,
Speaker 1: I'm doing this, I'm doing it, you know, proud that
Speaker 1: they've got a job, or proud that they got in
Speaker 1: some college. You know that they didn't think they could
Speaker 1: get into UM. So I think we could do both.
Speaker 1: I think we can UM reallocate some funding and put
Speaker 1: it in the right place. And and the only way
Speaker 1: we're gonna do this again is we've got to have
Speaker 1: a commission. And and the only mission or possibility of
Speaker 1: a commission on law enforcement of public safety right now
Speaker 1: that's being offered is this George Floord UH law that
Speaker 1: they're trying to pass UH right now that nobody is
Speaker 1: really moving on. And I think guys is that we
Speaker 1: talk about removing funding most caught, uh, I mean most
Speaker 1: agencies or so screwstrap right now. They don't have the
Speaker 1: funding to form the duties that they are prescribed to
Speaker 1: do right now. So until we you know, this country
Speaker 1: has way too many police departments as it is, but
Speaker 1: until we can get it all under one umbrella, so
Speaker 1: to speak, and get the same standards across the board,
Speaker 1: same type policies, those kind of things, I'll keep preaching that, Uh,
Speaker 1: we're gonna have these issues. So consistency and uniformity is
Speaker 1: what you're saying across the board nationally, is what's necessities
Speaker 1: in order to improve policing in the country. Before we
Speaker 1: move on, let's take a quick break back in the
Speaker 1: second Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation received about ninety
Speaker 1: million dollars in corporate donations last year from various corporations.
Speaker 1: After the death of George Floyd, there's been a number
Speaker 1: of chapters. Michael Brown Senior, for example, requested twenty million
Speaker 1: dollars from the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, which
Speaker 1: I don't believe they've received. There's been people like Samir Rights,
Speaker 1: Tamer Rights's mother who, of course her son died I
Speaker 1: think he was ten or eleven years old. He was
Speaker 1: shot by a police officer. He had a toy gun
Speaker 1: on a playground and they just pulled up and shot him.
Speaker 1: There's been a number of other people who have criticized
Speaker 1: people like to Tamika Maori um and others for using
Speaker 1: black deaths to advance uh their profit structure, if you will.
Speaker 1: And these are things that are people have stated in
Speaker 1: reporting and on social media. There's been a lot of
Speaker 1: folks who who said that the organization, the head of
Speaker 1: the organization, has disenfranchised a lot of the local chapters.
Speaker 1: You run a local chapter, have you seen any money
Speaker 1: from the from the foundation, from the head of your
Speaker 1: your group, right, Um, so I'm part of the Black
Speaker 1: Lives Better on Patterson and UM, I would say maybe
Speaker 1: a couple of months ago, UM, a group of Black
Speaker 1: Lives Matter chapters called Black Lives Matter ten had released
Speaker 1: a statement UM initially talking about some of these issues.
Speaker 1: Once they found out that uh, like ninety million dollars
Speaker 1: was nine I forgot how much money it was. It
Speaker 1: was nine email a lot of months and it cost
Speaker 1: a lot of problems because ever since the George Floyd,
Speaker 1: even before George Floyd. Many chapters were trying to get
Speaker 1: more transparency and accountability UM from Black Lives Matter Global,
Speaker 1: right UM, And there's a lot of issues around that
Speaker 1: and all a lot of the chapters really wanted with
Speaker 1: some type of accountability and some type of support that
Speaker 1: a lot of chapters we're doing fantastic sick work in
Speaker 1: their communities, but they knew that they could do even
Speaker 1: more if they had financial support from Black Lives Matter Global.
Speaker 1: So a lot of people were very upset that UM
Speaker 1: the Global Network was sitting on this much money and
Speaker 1: wasn't distributing it to UM the chapters so that they
Speaker 1: can support the communities. UM I personally stand in solidarity
Speaker 1: with Tamar and mother's Rice and Mike Brown Senior and
Speaker 1: all the other families that UM I feel slided by
Speaker 1: UM black Lives Matter Global. I really do think that
Speaker 1: Black Lives Matter Global Network needs to really address these concerns.
Speaker 1: It really needs to address these grievances to really support
Speaker 1: these families, families that they say they are supporting, Because
Speaker 1: when you're saying you're fighting for Black Lives Matter, it's
Speaker 1: just not about fighting for the people whom were killed
Speaker 1: by police. But it's also about fighting for the Black
Speaker 1: lives that are still here. Need to be able to
Speaker 1: be supporting UM these black families that are still grieving.
Speaker 1: You need to be also supporting to the best billy
Speaker 1: Black communities nationwide and supporting your your local chapters. So
Speaker 1: I hope that with all this criticism that the Black
Speaker 1: Lives Matter Global will turn a new leaf and you know,
Speaker 1: UM change some of their processes or support UM these
Speaker 1: families that have been asking for monetary support. Now we
Speaker 1: know some of the Black Lives Matter co founders have
Speaker 1: described themselves as trained Marxists. As the Black Lives Matter
Speaker 1: movement of trained, is it a Marxist movement? I want
Speaker 1: to say that the Black Lives Matter movement is um
Speaker 1: a Marxist movement at all. I would definitely say that
Speaker 1: there's many people within Black Lives Matter UM the movement
Speaker 1: who are potentially Marxist. And it's also people who are
Speaker 1: you know, just just have no label for themselves. They
Speaker 1: just want to see, you know, a change in America. UM.
Speaker 1: I personally don't think that you know, Marxism is necessarily
Speaker 1: like a negative word. It's just UM, a person who
Speaker 1: had a strong critique of capitalism and really made a
Speaker 1: lot of people understand what capitalism was, and that is
Speaker 1: a hierarchy. It's it's like an upside down try and go.
Speaker 1: There's people on the top, and many of us are
Speaker 1: going to be on the bottom. And for many of us,
Speaker 1: being on the bottom is mostly black and brown people.
Speaker 1: So for a lot of Marxists it means that we
Speaker 1: don't want to live in a society where, um, there's
Speaker 1: only one option or two options, either stay in the
Speaker 1: bottom or go to the top, and meaning that there's
Speaker 1: not allow of room on the top in the first place,
Speaker 1: and there'll never be a lot of room at the top.
Speaker 1: Just like as you as you're a kid, you all
Speaker 1: we all had our dreams of being in the NBA
Speaker 1: or NFL, and our teachers had to tell us, like, yo,
Speaker 1: there's not a chance you're gonna be in the NFL
Speaker 1: and the NBA, no matter how good you are. There's
Speaker 1: only a certain amount of people who are ever making
Speaker 1: into the NBA. And that's unfortunately how it is when
Speaker 1: it comes to being rich or wealthy. We all like
Speaker 1: to think that we could all have the chance to
Speaker 1: be billionaires and millionaires, but the actuality it's not and
Speaker 1: we need to be able to change that system so
Speaker 1: that everyone has access to the same resorts and has
Speaker 1: the ability to live for fruitful life. So talking about Marxism,
Speaker 1: the Black Lives Matter organization deleted to pay saying disrupting
Speaker 1: the Western prescribed nuclear family structure is one of its
Speaker 1: core principles. Now we're talking about Black Lives Matter here.
Speaker 1: We know that about seventy percent of Black babies are
Speaker 1: born out of wedlock, and the collapse of the black
Speaker 1: family has this devested our community. So how is destroying
Speaker 1: the black family is supposed to have black help black people.
Speaker 1: I think it's mostly about when we talk about white supremacy,
Speaker 1: it's the whole idea that the nuclear family is the
Speaker 1: type of household that should be m adhere to and
Speaker 1: anything else is like demonized, right, And that is something
Speaker 1: that you know, I don't necessarily agree with, you know.
Speaker 1: And when I say that is when we look back
Speaker 1: in our own history, whether it's pre you know, child slavery,
Speaker 1: we live in mostly extended families. It was nothing wrong
Speaker 1: with having an extended family, but now for some reason
Speaker 1: it's like frowned upon. And I think that we talk
Speaker 1: about that is about um not always saying that having
Speaker 1: a nuclear family is the goal, but being able to say, like,
Speaker 1: all right, we welcome all types of families. You know,
Speaker 1: as long as a strong family and a strong, healthy family,
Speaker 1: then it shouldn't be to not we need to be
Speaker 1: able to have strong families. If it is a new
Speaker 1: great you know, if it's extended family, live with grandma live,
Speaker 1: you know, great grandma. Great. That's not the stated purpose
Speaker 1: of Marxism though, like that, I feel as though the
Speaker 1: Black Lives Matter movement is uh, there's a difference between
Speaker 1: the movement and the organization certainly, And we see what's
Speaker 1: going on in the organization. You just mentioned it yourself.
Speaker 1: How they're collecting all these millions of dollars, they're not
Speaker 1: necessarily distributing to the trapters, which you all are saying
Speaker 1: that you do really good work. It should be conversations
Speaker 1: with law enforcement daily, talking about policy initiatives, et cetera.
Speaker 1: We're not necessarily seeing that they're keeping the money seemingly
Speaker 1: for themselves and maybe selectively poor it into different organizations.
Speaker 1: So this is something that obviously needs to change with
Speaker 1: you guys, And how could you be associated with global
Speaker 1: organization like that, It's not necessarily caring about black lives,
Speaker 1: if you will, because they're not pouring in the money
Speaker 1: that they're they've collectively received from corporations to enhance the
Speaker 1: lives of black people. Black folks aren't seeing that money.
Speaker 1: I agree, like black people aren't seeing those those funds.
Speaker 1: Chapters aren't seeing those funds. But it's going to be
Speaker 1: up to myself and other leaders of various chapters to
Speaker 1: hold on the leadership account to make sure that from
Speaker 1: now on, individuals and communities need to be supported with
Speaker 1: any money that is being distributed to global network. And
Speaker 1: that's part of the fight. And unfortunately sometimes you have
Speaker 1: to fight internally as well, and that doesn't necessarily have
Speaker 1: to always be a negative thing. Okay, And my my
Speaker 1: last question to you on this front, do you believe
Speaker 1: the members of the Democratic Party and white liberals specifically
Speaker 1: are trying to co opt your movement for their own
Speaker 1: purposes political and otherwise. Oh, of course I definitely do
Speaker 1: agree that. You know, um, there's always been instances where democratics,
Speaker 1: you know, Democratic Party or Democratic leadership wants to co opt,
Speaker 1: you know, the Black Lives Matter movement because it is
Speaker 1: a popular movement and it has a base of black people.
Speaker 1: So to align themselves they think that they can, you know,
Speaker 1: allign themselves with black voters as well. Um, And I
Speaker 1: frowned upon that, and I don't agree with that. I
Speaker 1: don't think that we should align ourselves with the Democratic
Speaker 1: Party at all. That we should be independent, that we
Speaker 1: should you know, fight for what we fight for. If
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party agrees with what we're doing, then great.
Speaker 1: The Republican Party agrees with some of the things that
Speaker 1: we're doing, great, whoever agrees with what we're doing and
Speaker 1: work wants to work for our same goals, that's good.
Speaker 1: But we shouldn't allign ourselves with the Democratic Party or
Speaker 1: any party um to take advantage of us or just
Speaker 1: use us for for votes and not give us things
Speaker 1: that we need. So, in other words, black lives no
Speaker 1: matter the Democrats, black votes do definitely all right. So
Speaker 1: if I can get you just your final thoughts, will
Speaker 1: race relations get worse and better over the next few years?
Speaker 1: Chief Cox? What are your what are your thoughts? Well,
Speaker 1: I'm prayerful and hopeful that they will get better in
Speaker 1: the next uh several years. And it's all kind of
Speaker 1: depending on the way President Biden leaves this country. Um,
Speaker 1: we lost a lot of ground in my mind with
Speaker 1: the last administration and a lot of the rhetoric that
Speaker 1: came out of the White House. And I think that
Speaker 1: now is an opportunity in the next four years, hopefully
Speaker 1: and actually the next two years, because we know we
Speaker 1: don't have no idea what's gonna happen in the midterm elections. Um,
Speaker 1: that we're leading the right way and people learn to
Speaker 1: love each other again. I mean, it's it's simple for me.
Speaker 1: I think right now our biggest issue is we don't
Speaker 1: communicate effectively and we're relying on guns to do our
Speaker 1: communicating for us, and there's no real push to you know,
Speaker 1: I guess do something about the guns on the streets.
Speaker 1: So you know, we've got a long road ahead of us.
Speaker 1: And I'm certainly for a gun ownership. I'm just for
Speaker 1: a responsible gun own the ship. And right now I'm
Speaker 1: seeing way too many homicides and way too many black
Speaker 1: on black killings and communities across this country. And uh,
Speaker 1: until we can kind of rope that up wrote that
Speaker 1: in Um, I just I'm just prayerful every day and
Speaker 1: every night that we learned to love each other again
Speaker 1: and respect each other again, because there's a lot of
Speaker 1: lack of respect. And over the past four years, I
Speaker 1: think I've encountered some conversations with my brother's on of
Speaker 1: another race that I probably wouldn't have done before because
Speaker 1: I thinks sometimes people have become more emboldened and decided
Speaker 1: that they would, you know, make challenges that they would
Speaker 1: not have normally made. You know. So, yes, all right, Zelie, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I definitely agree with um Clarence. UM. I do think
Speaker 1: that we may have some rough spots for a while
Speaker 1: before we get to like a broader tomorrow. UM. I
Speaker 1: do have hope, especially with the youth. UM. They've been watching,
Speaker 1: they've been learning, they've seen what was wrong, and they
Speaker 1: have ideas of how to make things going forward. I'm
Speaker 1: also hopeful because with this conversation with Clarence kind of
Speaker 1: shows like maybe like five or ten years ago, UM,
Speaker 1: a lot of police departments wouldn't have been open to
Speaker 1: the idea of you know, allocating money tours, um um,
Speaker 1: other initiatives to keep communities safe. But now it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, there's other initiatives to keep community safe, then
Speaker 1: it's a no brainer now for us to fund so
Speaker 1: by continue to have these conversations and continue to have
Speaker 1: these rough conversations you need if you disagree, is key
Speaker 1: to moving forward. And I'm hopeful because all of us
Speaker 1: want to be loved, all of us wants to be accepted,
Speaker 1: all of us want to um live free. It's all
Speaker 1: a matter of how do we come together and create
Speaker 1: the system, create this world where that could be possible.
Speaker 1: I want to thank Zeliamani and Clarence Cox the Third
Speaker 1: again for a great interview. If you're enjoying the show,
Speaker 1: please leave us a review. Will you rate us with
Speaker 1: five stars on Apple Podcast. If you have any questions
Speaker 1: for me, please email me at out lout the Ginglish
Speaker 1: Street sixty and I'll try to answer them in our
Speaker 1: future episodes. And please sign up for my monthly newsletter
Speaker 1: at Ginglige three sixt dot com slash out Loud. You
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Speaker 1: at Giano called Blow. If you're interested in learning more
Speaker 1: about my story, please pick up a copy of my
Speaker 1: bestselling book title Taken for Granted, How Conservatism Can Win
Speaker 1: Back the American City Liberalism Failed. Special Thanks to our
Speaker 1: producer John Cassio, We says You're Aaron Klingman and executive
Speaker 1: producers Debbie Myers and speaker New Gingridge, all part of
Speaker 1: the Ginglish to the sixty network