1 00:00:00,080 --> 00:00:02,960 Speaker 1: Hashtag Matter is a production of Shonda Land Audio in 2 00:00:03,040 --> 00:00:06,160 Speaker 1: partnership with I Heart Radio and an association with Wolf 3 00:00:06,240 --> 00:00:12,000 Speaker 1: at the Door. This episode was brought to you in 4 00:00:12,080 --> 00:00:15,400 Speaker 1: collaboration with One Up, a social justice coalition working to 5 00:00:15,560 --> 00:00:19,280 Speaker 1: end police brutality, and there's two part documentary follow up 6 00:00:19,320 --> 00:00:23,120 Speaker 1: to Hashtag Matter will trace modern policing down to its roots, 7 00:00:23,920 --> 00:00:26,920 Speaker 1: and we'll consider unexamined repercussions, joined by some of the 8 00:00:27,000 --> 00:00:33,600 Speaker 1: nation's leading activists, historians, and thinkers. Maybe by contextualizing our past, 9 00:00:34,280 --> 00:00:37,519 Speaker 1: we can better define our future, a future that includes 10 00:00:37,520 --> 00:00:40,720 Speaker 1: an exciting new normal where we invest in resources that 11 00:00:40,760 --> 00:00:45,080 Speaker 1: build safe communities and healthy kids. Listen up, your boy, 12 00:00:45,120 --> 00:00:48,000 Speaker 1: Pooch Hall in the building, and this is context matters. 13 00:00:50,560 --> 00:00:57,160 Speaker 1: We should all agree. The answer is not to defund 14 00:00:57,160 --> 00:01:07,360 Speaker 1: the police, is to fund the police. PARMA from How 15 00:01:07,400 --> 00:01:13,080 Speaker 1: Did We Get Here? Part one, the Police Origin Story. 16 00:01:13,760 --> 00:01:17,119 Speaker 1: Conversations that we think are about policing are often about 17 00:01:17,200 --> 00:01:20,200 Speaker 1: much more policing, and particularly in the US, here is 18 00:01:20,480 --> 00:01:24,319 Speaker 1: sociologist Nikki Jones. One thing that I think is is 19 00:01:24,480 --> 00:01:30,440 Speaker 1: necessary is an understanding of the institution of policing that 20 00:01:30,480 --> 00:01:33,880 Speaker 1: we have right now in this moment, and how it 21 00:01:34,240 --> 00:01:39,640 Speaker 1: is reflective of a fifty year investment in training and 22 00:01:39,760 --> 00:01:45,120 Speaker 1: reform and professionalization. So today we have the most well armed, 23 00:01:45,760 --> 00:01:51,600 Speaker 1: well trained, and in fact well funded police departments in 24 00:01:51,920 --> 00:01:55,920 Speaker 1: big cities in this country than we've had in our 25 00:01:56,440 --> 00:02:01,440 Speaker 1: nation's history, and yet we still have the problems that 26 00:02:01,480 --> 00:02:08,079 Speaker 1: we have in part because of the ways that systemic 27 00:02:08,360 --> 00:02:14,880 Speaker 1: racism is embedded in the routine practices of policing. Author, thinker, 28 00:02:15,639 --> 00:02:19,680 Speaker 1: and speaker on issues of identity and race in America 29 00:02:21,600 --> 00:02:27,639 Speaker 1: for the entirety of American history, of US history, UM, 30 00:02:27,680 --> 00:02:32,280 Speaker 1: from the moment that you know, white Colinears, colonizers landed 31 00:02:32,960 --> 00:02:39,080 Speaker 1: um in this country, that fear of populations of color, 32 00:02:39,200 --> 00:02:43,720 Speaker 1: of Native and black populations has been stoked. That fear 33 00:02:43,760 --> 00:02:46,400 Speaker 1: has been nurtured, and the idea that you have to 34 00:02:46,480 --> 00:02:48,880 Speaker 1: have an armed response of the ready for it is 35 00:02:48,919 --> 00:02:52,120 Speaker 1: something that has been written into law. Even before we 36 00:02:52,160 --> 00:02:55,040 Speaker 1: had a country, there were colonies here in the United 37 00:02:55,080 --> 00:02:58,240 Speaker 1: States where you could not leave your home without a gun. 38 00:02:58,440 --> 00:03:00,960 Speaker 1: And this was all part of this fear of Native 39 00:03:01,040 --> 00:03:05,320 Speaker 1: people's that we're working out there to get you right. 40 00:03:05,880 --> 00:03:09,960 Speaker 1: Here's Elizabeth Hinton, Professor of History, African American Studies in 41 00:03:10,040 --> 00:03:14,640 Speaker 1: Law at Yale University. In the Antebellum South, the kind 42 00:03:14,680 --> 00:03:19,400 Speaker 1: of predecessor to modern police departments as we know them 43 00:03:19,520 --> 00:03:25,560 Speaker 1: are slave patrols, which basically empowered any white person to 44 00:03:26,160 --> 00:03:30,880 Speaker 1: arrest and detain any person of African descent. And the 45 00:03:31,480 --> 00:03:36,080 Speaker 1: slave patrols had three primary duties. They were supposed to 46 00:03:36,120 --> 00:03:42,160 Speaker 1: remove contraband from enslaved people, contraband being books or guns. 47 00:03:42,640 --> 00:03:47,160 Speaker 1: They were charged with raiding slave dwellings and slave homes, 48 00:03:47,600 --> 00:03:51,480 Speaker 1: and also kind of policing and maintaining social control and 49 00:03:51,520 --> 00:03:56,040 Speaker 1: surveillance around the area of the plantation. Slave patrols a 50 00:03:56,240 --> 00:04:02,360 Speaker 1: part of this big sort of legal oppressive system. Historian 51 00:04:02,560 --> 00:04:07,960 Speaker 1: Manacious Sinha Basically, many of the slave codes and the 52 00:04:08,000 --> 00:04:12,119 Speaker 1: fugitive slave laws did what we call today the criminalization 53 00:04:12,160 --> 00:04:15,400 Speaker 1: of blackness. So when the police force grows in America, 54 00:04:15,480 --> 00:04:20,440 Speaker 1: it grows in tandem with very imperilous ideas about nine 55 00:04:20,520 --> 00:04:24,320 Speaker 1: non white people and policing non white people. Black people 56 00:04:24,360 --> 00:04:27,800 Speaker 1: were treated in law in the South as property. It's 57 00:04:27,880 --> 00:04:32,080 Speaker 1: human property. When you had emancipation in many slave societies, 58 00:04:32,360 --> 00:04:36,440 Speaker 1: slaveholders were losing their human property, leave alone talking about 59 00:04:36,520 --> 00:04:40,880 Speaker 1: compensating enslaved people for generations of unpaid labor. But it 60 00:04:40,960 --> 00:04:48,040 Speaker 1: was an economic system. We've always viewed things in terms 61 00:04:48,040 --> 00:04:50,680 Speaker 1: of property, and we're hyper capitalist nation that you know, 62 00:04:51,120 --> 00:04:53,880 Speaker 1: broke off from another from like the O G hyper 63 00:04:53,880 --> 00:04:59,200 Speaker 1: capitalist station right where you had landowners that literally owned everyone. 64 00:04:59,480 --> 00:05:03,480 Speaker 1: The truth is that the actual function of police and 65 00:05:03,520 --> 00:05:07,039 Speaker 1: policing is around property, and the people who know that 66 00:05:07,160 --> 00:05:09,920 Speaker 1: most are often the people who love the most property. Right. 67 00:05:09,960 --> 00:05:11,600 Speaker 1: But what we've had to do in order to get 68 00:05:11,640 --> 00:05:14,440 Speaker 1: people to participate in capitalist systems is we've had to 69 00:05:15,320 --> 00:05:19,400 Speaker 1: romanticize the idea of property. We've had to turn that 70 00:05:19,440 --> 00:05:24,200 Speaker 1: into love. You love your children, they're your children, and 71 00:05:24,640 --> 00:05:27,520 Speaker 1: you keep them safe, and you get pride and what 72 00:05:27,600 --> 00:05:30,440 Speaker 1: they accomplish and how much wealth they will bring in 73 00:05:30,520 --> 00:05:34,120 Speaker 1: one day. Right, your home is your American dream, is 74 00:05:34,200 --> 00:05:36,560 Speaker 1: piece of land that you own, and we say that 75 00:05:36,560 --> 00:05:40,880 Speaker 1: that's love. But the truth is is that the ways 76 00:05:40,880 --> 00:05:44,320 Speaker 1: in which we've weaponized police to protect a violent capitalism 77 00:05:44,720 --> 00:05:46,960 Speaker 1: build the story that the property is love, that the 78 00:05:47,000 --> 00:05:50,039 Speaker 1: property is sacred, that that's the goal and the dream. 79 00:05:50,120 --> 00:05:52,400 Speaker 1: So that then we can say, these are the people 80 00:05:53,120 --> 00:05:56,520 Speaker 1: who threaten that, and they threaten not just your home, 81 00:05:57,360 --> 00:06:01,160 Speaker 1: they threaten your love, They threaten you know everything that 82 00:06:01,200 --> 00:06:04,200 Speaker 1: you are, that you have. So I think people feel 83 00:06:04,400 --> 00:06:07,640 Speaker 1: as if we are tackling these problems for the first time, 84 00:06:08,400 --> 00:06:13,680 Speaker 1: but in fact, activists, abolitionists and of course African Americans 85 00:06:13,720 --> 00:06:17,920 Speaker 1: themselves have fought against this for the longest time ever 86 00:06:18,000 --> 00:06:22,480 Speaker 1: since slavery was instituted in this country. Here's militia again 87 00:06:22,680 --> 00:06:25,720 Speaker 1: now in areas like in the District of Columbia, Washington, 88 00:06:25,800 --> 00:06:29,880 Speaker 1: d C. When emancipation comes. During the Civil War, slaveholders 89 00:06:29,880 --> 00:06:33,120 Speaker 1: were given around three hundred dollars each as compensation for 90 00:06:33,200 --> 00:06:36,560 Speaker 1: loss of property. One can see that people were much 91 00:06:36,600 --> 00:06:40,839 Speaker 1: more concerned about protecting property than they were in protecting 92 00:06:40,920 --> 00:06:44,919 Speaker 1: human lives in you know, the human rights of black 93 00:06:44,960 --> 00:06:48,880 Speaker 1: people in this concept of value in and protecting property 94 00:06:48,920 --> 00:06:54,000 Speaker 1: above human life doesn't end with emancipation. During reconstruction, Southern 95 00:06:54,040 --> 00:06:58,320 Speaker 1: states swiftly passed their own versions of black codes. In 96 00:06:58,520 --> 00:07:01,679 Speaker 1: ninete century America, we didn't have the kind of police 97 00:07:01,720 --> 00:07:05,720 Speaker 1: forces that we have today in modern America. They started 98 00:07:05,760 --> 00:07:09,200 Speaker 1: emerging in the nineteenth century in some cities, and they 99 00:07:09,240 --> 00:07:12,880 Speaker 1: grow bigger, bigger later on. Many times in the South 100 00:07:12,920 --> 00:07:16,760 Speaker 1: it is used to enforce Jim Crow passing laws that 101 00:07:16,840 --> 00:07:22,080 Speaker 1: discriminate against black people economically. So there's already the antagonistic 102 00:07:22,120 --> 00:07:26,440 Speaker 1: relationship between the police and black people. It's not as 103 00:07:26,480 --> 00:07:30,760 Speaker 1: if things never change, but each decade, you know, moves differently. 104 00:07:31,160 --> 00:07:35,920 Speaker 1: Once again, Elizabeth Hinton, one of the lost opportunities in 105 00:07:36,120 --> 00:07:41,920 Speaker 1: US history, and I think certainly with respect to the 106 00:07:41,920 --> 00:07:47,240 Speaker 1: future of racial inequality and the policing crisis, was the 107 00:07:47,320 --> 00:07:51,720 Speaker 1: Coroner Commission's report. And Lyndon Johnson called the Coroner Commission 108 00:07:51,720 --> 00:07:55,320 Speaker 1: in the middle of the Detroit Rebellion of nineteen sixty seven. 109 00:07:55,680 --> 00:07:58,960 Speaker 1: This was the long hot summer where there was unprecedented 110 00:07:59,040 --> 00:08:03,000 Speaker 1: violence in Americans at ease. No society can tolerate massive 111 00:08:03,120 --> 00:08:07,160 Speaker 1: violence any more than a body can tolerate massive disease. 112 00:08:07,800 --> 00:08:11,920 Speaker 1: But just saying that does not solve the problem. What happened, 113 00:08:12,360 --> 00:08:15,720 Speaker 1: Why did it happen? What can be done to prevent 114 00:08:15,760 --> 00:08:19,840 Speaker 1: it from happening? Again and again? Johnson calls the Kronner 115 00:08:19,880 --> 00:08:23,840 Speaker 1: Commission in this televised a dress to investigate the causes 116 00:08:23,840 --> 00:08:27,760 Speaker 1: and make recommendations about how to actually stop this violence 117 00:08:27,800 --> 00:08:31,120 Speaker 1: from continuing to happen. Those charged with the responsibility of 118 00:08:31,200 --> 00:08:35,280 Speaker 1: law enforcement should and must be respected by all of 119 00:08:35,320 --> 00:08:40,520 Speaker 1: our people. The violence must be stopped quickly, finally and permanently. 120 00:08:41,000 --> 00:08:45,040 Speaker 1: The Kroner Commission releases its report, and what the Kroner 121 00:08:45,080 --> 00:08:48,840 Speaker 1: Commission said is, okay, if you actually want to address 122 00:08:49,320 --> 00:08:52,200 Speaker 1: the inequality and the despair and the anchor that's leading 123 00:08:52,240 --> 00:08:54,439 Speaker 1: people to feel as if they have no other recourse 124 00:08:54,520 --> 00:08:58,839 Speaker 1: but to burn buildings and plunder stores and take to 125 00:08:58,960 --> 00:09:02,800 Speaker 1: the streets, you've got to go, President Johnson, way beyond 126 00:09:02,880 --> 00:09:05,720 Speaker 1: the war on poverty. You've gotta go beyond job training programs, 127 00:09:05,720 --> 00:09:07,679 Speaker 1: and you actually have to create jobs. You've got to 128 00:09:07,720 --> 00:09:10,360 Speaker 1: go beyond these remedial education programs, and you need to 129 00:09:10,480 --> 00:09:14,920 Speaker 1: completely overhaul urban public schools. You need to create more 130 00:09:14,920 --> 00:09:20,040 Speaker 1: housing opportunities for people because public housing institriating and some 131 00:09:20,360 --> 00:09:24,480 Speaker 1: landlords are continuing to exploit tenants. We've got to address 132 00:09:24,520 --> 00:09:27,320 Speaker 1: these issues. What's needed is essentially a martial plan for 133 00:09:27,360 --> 00:09:34,559 Speaker 1: American cities, massive massive investments into completely transforming institutions and 134 00:09:34,600 --> 00:09:37,720 Speaker 1: resources that people have access to in low income communities 135 00:09:37,760 --> 00:09:45,600 Speaker 1: of color. And this really full vision for domestic policy 136 00:09:45,800 --> 00:09:49,240 Speaker 1: never of course, came to fruition. Johnson said, you know, 137 00:09:49,320 --> 00:09:51,520 Speaker 1: this is too radical, and instead of that job creation 138 00:09:51,559 --> 00:09:54,400 Speaker 1: program for low income Americans, we get a job creation 139 00:09:54,400 --> 00:09:57,040 Speaker 1: program for police. For the first time in US history, 140 00:09:57,080 --> 00:10:01,840 Speaker 1: the federal government starts investing in local police departments and 141 00:10:02,480 --> 00:10:07,120 Speaker 1: uh promoting or assisting state and local governments in making 142 00:10:07,559 --> 00:10:11,080 Speaker 1: crime control a priority. This was the first time the 143 00:10:11,080 --> 00:10:13,520 Speaker 1: two years of US history that the federal government was 144 00:10:13,559 --> 00:10:17,360 Speaker 1: taking an active role in crime control, and the result 145 00:10:18,000 --> 00:10:23,640 Speaker 1: was the expansion of police in targeted low income communities 146 00:10:23,679 --> 00:10:26,880 Speaker 1: of color as the War on Crime then and these 147 00:10:26,920 --> 00:10:32,600 Speaker 1: new policing programs, policing measures, the surplus army technologies and 148 00:10:32,640 --> 00:10:36,319 Speaker 1: weapons that local police in turn led to increase arrest 149 00:10:36,440 --> 00:10:39,160 Speaker 1: rates by the end of the nineteen sixes, in early 150 00:10:39,200 --> 00:10:44,080 Speaker 1: nineteen seventies, and mass incarceration by the mid nineteen seventies on. 151 00:10:44,679 --> 00:10:49,640 Speaker 1: And now we know that this investment um has not 152 00:10:49,800 --> 00:10:53,040 Speaker 1: worked as a public safety model. The hundreds of billions 153 00:10:53,080 --> 00:10:56,000 Speaker 1: of taxpayer dollars of our money that have been allocated 154 00:10:56,040 --> 00:10:58,600 Speaker 1: to this project since Johnson called the War on Crime 155 00:10:59,080 --> 00:11:03,480 Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty by, in fact, it's one of the 156 00:11:03,520 --> 00:11:06,640 Speaker 1: biggest domestic policy failures in the history of the United States. 157 00:11:07,400 --> 00:11:15,240 Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, y'all. We'll return after this break. Welcome back. 158 00:11:15,640 --> 00:11:20,400 Speaker 1: This is context matters in the eighties and nineties, the 159 00:11:20,480 --> 00:11:22,960 Speaker 1: wars on drugs in the War on on on gun 160 00:11:23,040 --> 00:11:26,960 Speaker 1: violence in the city. It was based and reflected in 161 00:11:27,040 --> 00:11:30,640 Speaker 1: large part based on a very thin theory uh, the 162 00:11:30,760 --> 00:11:35,959 Speaker 1: idea that if you take on and address minor offenses, 163 00:11:36,000 --> 00:11:41,160 Speaker 1: low level offenses, that will prevent the escalation of of 164 00:11:41,160 --> 00:11:46,679 Speaker 1: offending in a particular place. Uh. And so policing became 165 00:11:47,040 --> 00:11:51,400 Speaker 1: what characterized by what people would described as proactive policing, 166 00:11:51,600 --> 00:11:54,920 Speaker 1: broken windows approach to policing, which so now you have 167 00:11:55,000 --> 00:11:57,320 Speaker 1: the presence of the police, they're there all the time. 168 00:11:57,920 --> 00:12:00,640 Speaker 1: They are from the perspective of young for these days, 169 00:12:00,720 --> 00:12:06,120 Speaker 1: harassing them for for otherwise, you know, petty kinds of things. Uh. 170 00:12:06,200 --> 00:12:11,080 Speaker 1: And people continue to die. But it wasn't until much 171 00:12:11,160 --> 00:12:15,480 Speaker 1: later in my um life, my little young life as 172 00:12:15,520 --> 00:12:20,200 Speaker 1: a teenager, early teens, late teens, and early twenties, that 173 00:12:20,360 --> 00:12:23,600 Speaker 1: I began to know that black folks get treated differently. 174 00:12:23,600 --> 00:12:26,640 Speaker 1: And a lot of that learning came once I joined 175 00:12:26,640 --> 00:12:31,080 Speaker 1: the l a p D. In night retired Sergeant Cheryl Dorsey, 176 00:12:31,320 --> 00:12:33,840 Speaker 1: she spent twenty years in uniform in patrol on the 177 00:12:33,880 --> 00:12:37,560 Speaker 1: Los Angeles Police Department between nineteen eighty and two thousand 178 00:12:37,920 --> 00:12:40,640 Speaker 1: her book is Black and Blue The Creation of a 179 00:12:40,679 --> 00:12:45,440 Speaker 1: Social Advocate, and having worked twenty years, having spent all 180 00:12:45,440 --> 00:12:48,760 Speaker 1: my time in patrol, I have the benefit of having 181 00:12:48,800 --> 00:12:52,000 Speaker 1: worked in each of the four bureaus that the city 182 00:12:52,160 --> 00:12:57,480 Speaker 1: is divided into, South, Central, West, and Valley Bureau. I 183 00:12:57,600 --> 00:13:01,120 Speaker 1: often talk about the two police departments, the one north 184 00:13:01,320 --> 00:13:04,920 Speaker 1: of the Santa Monica Freeway the more affluent areas, and 185 00:13:05,000 --> 00:13:08,440 Speaker 1: the police department that's south of the Santa Monica Freeway. 186 00:13:08,679 --> 00:13:12,320 Speaker 1: And one of the things that is a known fact 187 00:13:12,920 --> 00:13:15,360 Speaker 1: is that white officers who were coming on the l 188 00:13:15,440 --> 00:13:18,640 Speaker 1: a p D would often be heard saying that they 189 00:13:18,679 --> 00:13:22,319 Speaker 1: want to go to the south end, south of the 190 00:13:22,360 --> 00:13:25,160 Speaker 1: Santa Monica Freeway. They want to go to a busy 191 00:13:25,200 --> 00:13:29,600 Speaker 1: division south of the Santa Monica Freeway code talk busy 192 00:13:29,679 --> 00:13:33,000 Speaker 1: division where black folks were not so much brown, but 193 00:13:33,080 --> 00:13:37,320 Speaker 1: certainly black folks were. Why because they wanted to kick 194 00:13:37,360 --> 00:13:40,480 Speaker 1: ass and take names, because they expected a lot of 195 00:13:40,520 --> 00:13:45,360 Speaker 1: crime to be occurring in seventy seventh southeast Southwest. When 196 00:13:45,440 --> 00:13:48,640 Speaker 1: I transferred to Pacific Division, which is north of the 197 00:13:48,679 --> 00:13:53,080 Speaker 1: Santa Monica Freeway Venice Beach area, I noticed that the 198 00:13:53,120 --> 00:13:59,360 Speaker 1: way the officers dealt with the community in that part 199 00:13:59,400 --> 00:14:02,520 Speaker 1: of town was very, very different than the way officers 200 00:14:02,559 --> 00:14:05,920 Speaker 1: dealt would folks down in seventy seven and Southeast Division 201 00:14:06,640 --> 00:14:09,400 Speaker 1: south of the Santa Monica Freeway. The types of things 202 00:14:09,400 --> 00:14:13,240 Speaker 1: that officers did at seventy seventh Division they would never 203 00:14:13,280 --> 00:14:16,960 Speaker 1: do in Pacific or West l A Or Devonshire or 204 00:14:17,040 --> 00:14:22,280 Speaker 1: North Hollywood because the community wouldn't tolerate it, and because 205 00:14:22,280 --> 00:14:25,080 Speaker 1: those who are in a position of authority would not 206 00:14:25,240 --> 00:14:29,600 Speaker 1: allow certain things to occur in those areas. And so, 207 00:14:29,600 --> 00:14:33,240 Speaker 1: so what does this mean? Sociologist Nikki Jones. It means 208 00:14:33,280 --> 00:14:37,280 Speaker 1: that officers think, for example, about people in in the 209 00:14:37,360 --> 00:14:40,840 Speaker 1: quote unquote projects, so people in the projects and the 210 00:14:40,880 --> 00:14:45,400 Speaker 1: projects as a space, differently from other parts of the city, white, 211 00:14:46,000 --> 00:14:49,800 Speaker 1: wealthier or middle class settings in which the people there 212 00:14:50,160 --> 00:14:55,600 Speaker 1: are described as as normal, normal families, prime time civilians, 213 00:14:56,240 --> 00:15:00,360 Speaker 1: business owners, nice people, and those people they get service 214 00:15:00,360 --> 00:15:03,400 Speaker 1: oriented policing. The police are in fact there to serve them, 215 00:15:03,920 --> 00:15:05,920 Speaker 1: which is one of the reasons I think that the 216 00:15:06,000 --> 00:15:08,520 Speaker 1: critiques of the police that emerge over the last couple 217 00:15:08,520 --> 00:15:11,360 Speaker 1: of years are so confusing for people because they don't 218 00:15:11,360 --> 00:15:13,720 Speaker 1: want less of that policing. In fact, they want more 219 00:15:13,720 --> 00:15:15,920 Speaker 1: and in some cases they'll pay for more of that 220 00:15:16,080 --> 00:15:19,840 Speaker 1: kind of policing. And people in the projects who are 221 00:15:20,080 --> 00:15:24,080 Speaker 1: framed as a perpetual problem, who are framed as oppositional 222 00:15:24,120 --> 00:15:28,479 Speaker 1: to towards the police, who are framed as potentially more dangerous, 223 00:15:28,720 --> 00:15:30,840 Speaker 1: get a different kind of policing. They get a more 224 00:15:31,080 --> 00:15:36,240 Speaker 1: aggressive policing, a more heavy handed policing. Uh. And how 225 00:15:36,360 --> 00:15:39,680 Speaker 1: is that justified? Right? How do officers make sense of 226 00:15:39,760 --> 00:15:44,640 Speaker 1: that in an error of fair and unbiased policing? Because 227 00:15:44,640 --> 00:15:47,880 Speaker 1: they see themselves as experts and professionals in the same 228 00:15:47,920 --> 00:15:52,080 Speaker 1: way that other people imagine themselves as experts and professionals 229 00:15:52,080 --> 00:15:57,480 Speaker 1: in their field. Uh. And so because of that, because 230 00:15:57,560 --> 00:16:00,560 Speaker 1: of that, it's really difficult to talk about the ways 231 00:16:00,560 --> 00:16:06,200 Speaker 1: in which that kind of thinking in fact creates and 232 00:16:06,280 --> 00:16:12,600 Speaker 1: reproduced reproduces racial and spatial inequalities. I think about all 233 00:16:12,640 --> 00:16:15,600 Speaker 1: of the situations that I got in two with police 234 00:16:15,640 --> 00:16:18,080 Speaker 1: where I felt my life was threatened, where my life 235 00:16:18,120 --> 00:16:20,720 Speaker 1: actually was threatened, and where other people that I loved 236 00:16:20,760 --> 00:16:25,000 Speaker 1: their lives were threatened. Kendred Sampson, an actor and activists 237 00:16:25,240 --> 00:16:28,960 Speaker 1: co founder of Build Power. I also know that even 238 00:16:29,080 --> 00:16:34,480 Speaker 1: when they're not present, that they're present unfortunately today, and 239 00:16:34,600 --> 00:16:37,200 Speaker 1: that they are lurking around the corner at any moment 240 00:16:37,400 --> 00:16:40,880 Speaker 1: for us. Right. That's you know, how black people and 241 00:16:40,960 --> 00:16:45,920 Speaker 1: brown people UM have to exist. You know that in 242 00:16:45,920 --> 00:16:48,680 Speaker 1: in it informs the way that we behave in the 243 00:16:48,680 --> 00:16:51,280 Speaker 1: way that we think. Throughout the course of my work, 244 00:16:51,360 --> 00:16:55,240 Speaker 1: I've studied, sometimes at a very micro interactional level, the 245 00:16:55,400 --> 00:17:01,840 Speaker 1: ordinary ways that violence is distribut did onto the bodies 246 00:17:01,880 --> 00:17:05,679 Speaker 1: and minds of black people, UH and how people adapt 247 00:17:05,720 --> 00:17:09,760 Speaker 1: to that. One example is the kind of embodied expertise 248 00:17:10,440 --> 00:17:16,159 Speaker 1: that they gather over their adolescents right through both observing 249 00:17:16,240 --> 00:17:19,720 Speaker 1: experiences of young people UH and adults in their neighborhood 250 00:17:20,280 --> 00:17:24,080 Speaker 1: interact with the police, and then their their own experiences 251 00:17:24,119 --> 00:17:28,920 Speaker 1: as they become targets of this surveillance. And so I 252 00:17:29,040 --> 00:17:33,240 Speaker 1: draw on one short video clip, UM that I acquired 253 00:17:33,280 --> 00:17:37,520 Speaker 1: through a local videographer who had who had documented life 254 00:17:37,800 --> 00:17:40,919 Speaker 1: in his in his neighborhood for years, and one of 255 00:17:40,960 --> 00:17:44,000 Speaker 1: them is quite striking, and that you have a young 256 00:17:44,040 --> 00:17:50,440 Speaker 1: black man who is being searched by a task force 257 00:17:50,560 --> 00:17:54,320 Speaker 1: officer and there's some talk, some some some brief exchanges 258 00:17:55,480 --> 00:17:58,920 Speaker 1: over the course of the search, and what you notice 259 00:17:59,200 --> 00:18:03,159 Speaker 1: is that at no point is the officer instructing the 260 00:18:03,240 --> 00:18:07,080 Speaker 1: young man how to conduct the search. He's not telling 261 00:18:07,160 --> 00:18:09,080 Speaker 1: him to lift up his shirt, but he lifts up 262 00:18:09,119 --> 00:18:11,320 Speaker 1: his shirt. He's not telling him to lift up his arms, 263 00:18:11,320 --> 00:18:14,639 Speaker 1: but he lifts up his arms. He's not telling the 264 00:18:14,720 --> 00:18:16,679 Speaker 1: young man that he's about to search his pockets, but 265 00:18:16,720 --> 00:18:19,480 Speaker 1: the young man anticipates that he is and tells him 266 00:18:19,520 --> 00:18:21,840 Speaker 1: that he doesn't have anything in his pockets. He doesn't 267 00:18:21,840 --> 00:18:25,960 Speaker 1: have anything sharp, which he understands would be a legitimate 268 00:18:25,960 --> 00:18:28,960 Speaker 1: reason for the officer to go deeper into his pockets. 269 00:18:29,320 --> 00:18:31,440 Speaker 1: The officer doesn't tell him to turn around, but he does. 270 00:18:31,480 --> 00:18:33,399 Speaker 1: And so what you see is this performance of the 271 00:18:33,520 --> 00:18:37,640 Speaker 1: dance that this young man has learned only through observation 272 00:18:38,080 --> 00:18:41,120 Speaker 1: and experience, and he's he's so so the system itself 273 00:18:41,160 --> 00:18:44,359 Speaker 1: becomes embedded in his body. Uh. And that is not 274 00:18:44,440 --> 00:18:47,800 Speaker 1: true for for people in other settings we can imagine. Uh. 275 00:18:47,840 --> 00:18:50,040 Speaker 1: For for for those of us who haven't had those 276 00:18:50,080 --> 00:18:52,160 Speaker 1: kinds of encounters with the police, we need a step 277 00:18:52,160 --> 00:18:54,800 Speaker 1: by step instruction, right, We need to be told. And 278 00:18:54,800 --> 00:18:58,280 Speaker 1: in some ways, not having the expertise makes people vulnerable 279 00:18:58,320 --> 00:19:01,840 Speaker 1: to violence, because officers then see it as resistance and 280 00:19:01,880 --> 00:19:03,640 Speaker 1: so in the work that that I do, I really 281 00:19:03,680 --> 00:19:07,000 Speaker 1: want us to to trouble how we think about the 282 00:19:07,040 --> 00:19:09,480 Speaker 1: impact of the system and what does it mean to 283 00:19:09,560 --> 00:19:12,080 Speaker 1: be touched by the system. And so what we've seen 284 00:19:12,160 --> 00:19:14,840 Speaker 1: is a generation of young people who have lived with 285 00:19:14,880 --> 00:19:20,679 Speaker 1: this approach, this proactive, aggressive approach, this focus on minor 286 00:19:21,040 --> 00:19:24,960 Speaker 1: or low level offenses, and they don't accept it anymore. 287 00:19:25,600 --> 00:19:28,800 Speaker 1: If they ever did, they simply don't accept it. That 288 00:19:28,960 --> 00:19:32,840 Speaker 1: is part of I think the motivation behind the uprisings, 289 00:19:32,880 --> 00:19:38,560 Speaker 1: particularly among young people who have had direct experience with 290 00:19:38,720 --> 00:19:43,520 Speaker 1: law enforcement. Once again, after an activists Kendrick Sampson, when 291 00:19:43,520 --> 00:19:46,479 Speaker 1: we're out there in the streets and we're honoring the 292 00:19:46,520 --> 00:19:49,600 Speaker 1: work that was done before us, the ancestors that came 293 00:19:49,600 --> 00:19:52,199 Speaker 1: before us. People think it's some far away thing, but 294 00:19:52,280 --> 00:19:56,440 Speaker 1: it's our grandparents, our parents, you know, um that we're 295 00:19:56,440 --> 00:19:59,800 Speaker 1: fighting so hard, their generations that were fighting so hard, 296 00:19:59,840 --> 00:20:03,520 Speaker 1: and we honor that work because it was incomplete because 297 00:20:04,080 --> 00:20:09,000 Speaker 1: of whatever reason. These these uprisings are cyclical where we are. 298 00:20:09,440 --> 00:20:12,720 Speaker 1: You know, there's economic injustice, there's racial injustice, there's all 299 00:20:12,760 --> 00:20:17,159 Speaker 1: of this these unanswered problems and no accountability um to 300 00:20:17,440 --> 00:20:22,840 Speaker 1: colonization and slavery that continues in systems today. I've been, 301 00:20:23,119 --> 00:20:26,200 Speaker 1: you know, thinking a lot about this because a lot 302 00:20:26,200 --> 00:20:29,639 Speaker 1: of people think that equity is the goal, or equality 303 00:20:29,760 --> 00:20:34,600 Speaker 1: is the goal UM or that you know, being allowed 304 00:20:34,680 --> 00:20:37,520 Speaker 1: into spaces and being at the top is the goal, 305 00:20:37,800 --> 00:20:42,080 Speaker 1: or high profit and success and wealth is the goal. 306 00:20:42,119 --> 00:20:44,919 Speaker 1: Those are not the goals. That's not liberation. Liberation is 307 00:20:45,000 --> 00:20:49,760 Speaker 1: actually having the resources that we need to be autonomous 308 00:20:49,760 --> 00:20:53,600 Speaker 1: over our wellness and our communities. To have autonomy overwellness 309 00:20:53,680 --> 00:20:58,880 Speaker 1: of our communities. That I believe is true liberation. So 310 00:20:59,200 --> 00:21:02,600 Speaker 1: it's really important that we have these conversations, zoom out 311 00:21:03,080 --> 00:21:06,520 Speaker 1: see the bigger picture, and then zoom back into where 312 00:21:06,760 --> 00:21:12,400 Speaker 1: your lane is, what your influences. My lab space has 313 00:21:12,440 --> 00:21:16,359 Speaker 1: evolved in that way and will continue to do that 314 00:21:16,720 --> 00:21:22,080 Speaker 1: to continue to be UM an alignment closer to the community, 315 00:21:22,119 --> 00:21:25,240 Speaker 1: to the work of of imagining. What I want my 316 00:21:25,359 --> 00:21:29,520 Speaker 1: research and work to do now is to imagine that 317 00:21:29,600 --> 00:21:32,320 Speaker 1: world from the perspective of the young people that I 318 00:21:32,400 --> 00:21:35,359 Speaker 1: talked to, who certainly want to be safe. Certainly you 319 00:21:35,400 --> 00:21:37,240 Speaker 1: want to be safe from from violence and want the 320 00:21:37,280 --> 00:21:40,160 Speaker 1: people that they care about to be safe from violence, 321 00:21:40,160 --> 00:21:44,200 Speaker 1: but also understand the limitations of policing to provide that, 322 00:21:44,359 --> 00:21:49,240 Speaker 1: and so it's a space of dreaming, of thinking, of experimenting, 323 00:21:49,720 --> 00:21:52,200 Speaker 1: of innovation. And I know that I'm not the only 324 00:21:52,240 --> 00:21:54,679 Speaker 1: one who's doing this, and I do know that that 325 00:21:54,760 --> 00:21:57,199 Speaker 1: will have an impact in the future. We do have 326 00:21:57,200 --> 00:22:00,640 Speaker 1: people who are committed to that, and so that's where 327 00:22:00,680 --> 00:22:03,600 Speaker 1: I am spending my time and trying to train a 328 00:22:03,760 --> 00:22:06,440 Speaker 1: cohort of students who can do that work now into 329 00:22:06,520 --> 00:22:10,359 Speaker 1: the future. How can we track real change and what 330 00:22:10,440 --> 00:22:14,280 Speaker 1: does the future look like? Join us for the next 331 00:22:14,359 --> 00:22:17,720 Speaker 1: episode of Context Matters, where we'll talk to the thought 332 00:22:17,760 --> 00:22:21,440 Speaker 1: leaders and activists of today about how we can reshape 333 00:22:21,440 --> 00:22:27,000 Speaker 1: a world for future generations. This episode was brought to 334 00:22:27,080 --> 00:22:30,840 Speaker 1: you in collaboration with One Up, a social justice coalition 335 00:22:30,920 --> 00:22:34,520 Speaker 1: working to end police brutality. Hashtag Matter is a production 336 00:22:34,520 --> 00:22:37,520 Speaker 1: of Shonda land Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio 337 00:22:37,640 --> 00:22:40,560 Speaker 1: and an association with Wolf at the Door. For more 338 00:22:40,560 --> 00:22:43,800 Speaker 1: podcasts from shot land Audio, visit the I Heart Radio app, 339 00:22:44,240 --> 00:22:47,320 Speaker 1: Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.