Speaker 1: Everybody so bodus every day, no side nothing, No, that's right. Hey,
Speaker 1: this is Chaparral Wells. I'm having the pleasure of meeting
Speaker 1: right now with Jamie Calvin, who is the executive producer
Speaker 1: of Somebody podcast and also the director of the Invisible
Speaker 1: Institute in Chicago. We're sitting outside on a lovely patio,
Speaker 1: just a stone's throw away from the University of Chicago
Speaker 1: campus to the north of US and it's so noisy,
Speaker 1: and we're out here because of coronavirus, and we're trying
Speaker 1: to practice social distancing and safety. I've been sheltered in
Speaker 1: place for three months with six kids, so I'm a
Speaker 1: little cuckoo. But but you know, I would say that
Speaker 1: we've survived, and I've received so many compassionate letters. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just as in the past couple of weeks we have
Speaker 1: seen the death of George Floyd and how it has
Speaker 1: impacted everyone around the world and sparked um a myriad
Speaker 1: of protests and some violence, and so Jamie and I
Speaker 1: today are taking a moment just to to decompress. I
Speaker 1: have been hearing from people all over the country and internationally,
Speaker 1: and my sense is that there's this hunger and craving
Speaker 1: people have for language, for a way of describing this
Speaker 1: moment so that they can find their place sent that
Speaker 1: I know. For me, the thing that has just most
Speaker 1: occupied my thoughts is this extraordinary outpouring right now in
Speaker 1: the second week of civil resistance. Democracy is now in
Speaker 1: the streets. It is, It definitely is, and and I've
Speaker 1: been glued to the TV almost twenty four hours. I've
Speaker 1: had many sleepless nights because I'm wondering, what if this
Speaker 1: is gonna last? Is it going to translate to some
Speaker 1: type of legislation, because I think it's just more than
Speaker 1: just protesting for George Floyd. This is for all the
Speaker 1: victims who have been victims of police brutality as well
Speaker 1: as also unsolved murders. I was telling people that it's
Speaker 1: an undercurrent that has risen up and it's overflowing at
Speaker 1: this point because they have been marginalized and disenfranchised in
Speaker 1: Chicago for so long, and so now you see them
Speaker 1: telling them enough is enough. And that's what we're seeing.
Speaker 1: This is not just about policing. I think what the
Speaker 1: pandemic has done to an extraordinary degree is kind of
Speaker 1: laid bare the fundamental underlying structures of inequality, racial inequality
Speaker 1: in the society. George Floyd is the face of it,
Speaker 1: But what the sentiment, the power, the force, and as
Speaker 1: you said, a moment ago enough enough really seems to
Speaker 1: me to be speaking to these underlying conditions, these underlying pathologies.
Speaker 1: And I think about our work a lot in this context.
Speaker 1: You know, we're known as investigative reporters, and investigative reporters
Speaker 1: are seen as exposing what's hidden. But I actually don't
Speaker 1: think that's what our work is. I think our work
Speaker 1: is making visible what's in plain sight and not seen.
Speaker 1: And this moment feels like that's really what's happened, Like
Speaker 1: a curtain has been pulled back and we're all able
Speaker 1: to see the same thing. Whether that lasts, as you say,
Speaker 1: is the big question. How it translates into meaningful change
Speaker 1: at a practical level. You know, that's we don't know.
Speaker 1: Everybody was talking about the looters, looters, looters, loss. I said,
Speaker 1: I don't care about the looters, and people were like,
Speaker 1: what do you think, are you agreeing with the looting? No,
Speaker 1: I'm not. I'm saying you don't know their condition, you
Speaker 1: don't know why they have to go out there and loot.
Speaker 1: You don't know what they were, what they were, what
Speaker 1: they were dealing with prior to this pandemic. Of course
Speaker 1: they're gonna loose because there is a survival mode there
Speaker 1: in survival mode, And that's what I was trying to
Speaker 1: get people to understand. Is that not that I agree
Speaker 1: with any lootent or violence, because I don't, But the
Speaker 1: fact is is that our country has disenfranchised them and
Speaker 1: marginalized them far too long, and that's what they're crying
Speaker 1: out for help and for them to expose the inequities
Speaker 1: that are in this country. You know, I completely agree,
Speaker 1: And I also think that one of the things that's
Speaker 1: happened as this pattern across the country of civil resistance
Speaker 1: has advanced over these days is that the looting, the provocateurs,
Speaker 1: and there are some, are now being seen as a
Speaker 1: much more marginal phenomena. The main event is an extraordinary
Speaker 1: outpouring of citizens asserting themselves at a time when our
Speaker 1: democracy is virtually in collapse. And I am a child
Speaker 1: of the sixties, and I grew up inside the civil
Speaker 1: rights movement in this city on the South Side, and
Speaker 1: you know, we have seen since the seventies um the
Speaker 1: steady inexorable UH, dismantling of the achievements of the civil
Speaker 1: rights movement, the gutting of the Voting Rights to Act,
Speaker 1: the opening of um, inequality and um and poverty and
Speaker 1: certain abandoned neighborhoods and parts of the society. So I
Speaker 1: think some of the reaction now is against that as well.
Speaker 1: You know that we have tolerated, we have somehow accommodated
Speaker 1: ourselves in our lifetimes, you and me, in our lifetimes, this,
Speaker 1: this grotesque inequality in American life has um has normal.
Speaker 1: It became a norm. It became the norm. It became
Speaker 1: the norm, like it was acceptable that people didn't have
Speaker 1: access to high quality healthcare, food, jobs, education. It became
Speaker 1: acceptable to the to the mass. And that's what it
Speaker 1: was showing to me, that people were saying, enough is enough.
Speaker 1: I Am not going to take it anymore. So when
Speaker 1: you see all these people that are out in the street,
Speaker 1: and I'm very encouraged to see that the majority of
Speaker 1: the people what I'm seeing out there are not black people.
Speaker 1: It is people of all racist creeds and colors. A
Speaker 1: lot of young white folks that are out there protesting
Speaker 1: alongside the black lives matter groups because they get it
Speaker 1: and they're trying to transform this country. And then we
Speaker 1: have to deal with what we have in the White House.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you know this, but I early
Speaker 1: in my career I spent a number of years finishing
Speaker 1: a book on the First Amendment that my father, who
Speaker 1: is a law professor, had been working on when he died,
Speaker 1: and he left in unfinished manuscript. The title of the book,
Speaker 1: which and I titled it, is a worthy tradition freedom
Speaker 1: of speech in America. Central to the book is the
Speaker 1: idea that the First Amendment, freedom of speech, freedom of
Speaker 1: association are something more in America than just a body
Speaker 1: of law, than a group of legal precedents. There's really
Speaker 1: a tradition of the society of freedom loving people. And
Speaker 1: it's at times like this that we realize that it's
Speaker 1: it's us as individual citizens. It's the you know, rainbow
Speaker 1: coalitions of people in the street right now, who are
Speaker 1: the fundamental guardians of our constitutional freedoms in our democracy.
Speaker 1: And you know, as we live out this kind of
Speaker 1: nightmare at the federal level, this is the most encouraging moment.
Speaker 1: I mean, I feel amid all the hardship, amid you know,
Speaker 1: all the heartbreaking occasions, George Floyd and the countless names
Speaker 1: we can recite, including Courtney Copeland that despite all that,
Speaker 1: I am so happy to be alive at this moment. Yes,
Speaker 1: I agree, Jamie. I just think that that's why it's
Speaker 1: so important that we encourage the young people who are
Speaker 1: out there protesting to go out there and register to
Speaker 1: vote and to make sure they get to the polls
Speaker 1: in November, because that translates into a legislative agenda that
Speaker 1: we can push that is progressive, that protects these laws.
Speaker 1: And so I just think that, you know, we have
Speaker 1: to begin to also to um turn this pain that
Speaker 1: we're in right now into a purpose. And I always
Speaker 1: say that because that's what I've tried to do with
Speaker 1: Courtney's podcast, with Cordney's Life, And how can I change
Speaker 1: what I'm feeling that's very painful into something meaningful, not
Speaker 1: only for myself but for everyone. And I think the
Speaker 1: thing about a crisis profound and immediate dangerous coexist with
Speaker 1: great possibilities for positive change, and they exist in the
Speaker 1: same moment. You know, I often get asked, how do
Speaker 1: I continue to go on? I said, you'd be surprised
Speaker 1: what you can do when your back is against the wall,
Speaker 1: how much power you have, how much energy you have
Speaker 1: to push forward? Because your back is against the wall,
Speaker 1: you have nowhere else to go but forward. And that's
Speaker 1: what I tell people when asked me, how do I
Speaker 1: keep doing this in the midst of all that I
Speaker 1: have endured? And I tell them it's it's It's not me,
Speaker 1: It is the force of God that is pushing me
Speaker 1: for to show everybody that, hey, this injustice is happening,
Speaker 1: and so we cannot allow it to happen. We have
Speaker 1: to change it. I would be really pessimistic if we
Speaker 1: had this level of injustice, if we were actually doing
Speaker 1: our best, that would be depressing that there are so
Speaker 1: many things that are subject to being fixed. You know,
Speaker 1: you and I have talked. I mean, and I really
Speaker 1: do think that the challenge for any movement when there's
Speaker 1: this level of moral passion is to translate the moral
Speaker 1: passion into concrete, practical interventions that people can advocate for
Speaker 1: and do. And you know, it brings me to one
Speaker 1: of the things that is so prominent in somebody, which
Speaker 1: is scoop and Rum. Scoop and Rum is a program
Speaker 1: that they have in Philadelphia, where I book with a
Speaker 1: guy named Ian Hurst Herman's and basically he was shot
Speaker 1: and he was picked up by the cops, taking immediately
Speaker 1: the hospital within five minutes. That saved his life. That
Speaker 1: is a policy. It is not a law in Philly.
Speaker 1: It is a policy and it's something that the police
Speaker 1: have decided to enact to save lives. And so I
Speaker 1: thought about proposing that same type of legislation here in Chicago,
Speaker 1: and I've been working with my state representative in regards
Speaker 1: to getting that funded and actually put into effect. If
Speaker 1: scoop and run is implemented in the Chicagoland area in Illinois,
Speaker 1: it has to be a law. It can't be a
Speaker 1: discretion of the police because unfortunately they don't have that
Speaker 1: rapport with citizens and they're picking and choosing. They're picking
Speaker 1: to see just like with Cordney, they picked to choose
Speaker 1: who they want to help and who they don't. We know,
Speaker 1: if Courtney had been a young white man, he would
Speaker 1: have been rushed to the hospital, but because he was
Speaker 1: a black man, they took their time. You know, there's
Speaker 1: there's talk, including in this city about really aggressive community policing.
Speaker 1: So more and more interactions hopefully positive interactions between police
Speaker 1: and citizens. I'm actually not sure that's the direction to go.
Speaker 1: I think it would be healthier to think about the
Speaker 1: limits of law enforcement, you know. I mean, I've been
Speaker 1: in situation you may have when you need a police officer.
Speaker 1: You need a police officer. So there's a certain area
Speaker 1: where the police perform a critical function that no other
Speaker 1: institution can can perform. We've asked them almost by default,
Speaker 1: to do all sorts of things they're they're not equipped
Speaker 1: to do. So I think, you know, kind of pulling
Speaker 1: in the boundaries around law enforcement and defining what it
Speaker 1: is that you know, police uniquely are equipped and trained
Speaker 1: and suitable to do, and then as a com unity,
Speaker 1: thinking about other functions that we now have the police performing,
Speaker 1: however poorly, that are important functions but need to be
Speaker 1: performed by the community or in other ways. And so
Speaker 1: it's interesting to talk about scoop and run in that
Speaker 1: context because it does seem to me that it falls
Speaker 1: within those limits of law enforcement. You know, they either
Speaker 1: they have they get a call because of a shooting
Speaker 1: or are somehow involved. Um that immediate aftermath and the
Speaker 1: aftercare and as you've said, Courtney's one example of countless
Speaker 1: instances wherein the interval between, you know, when somebody hits
Speaker 1: the ground having been wounded and arrives at a hospital,
Speaker 1: there could have been such a different outcome if the
Speaker 1: police saw it as a fundamental part of their role.
Speaker 1: I think that would alter perceptions of the of the police.
Speaker 1: Ian even talked about how he had the the officers
Speaker 1: who saved his life named tattooed on his body. I mean,
Speaker 1: he has so much gratitude for them, and I know
Speaker 1: that had that my son been saved that he would
Speaker 1: have probably down the same thing. The police are not
Speaker 1: the problem. The culture of the police is the problem,
Speaker 1: and so you have to begin to dismantle the culture.
Speaker 1: I believe. You know that police are necessary to put
Speaker 1: to protect the citizens. I believe that. But I think
Speaker 1: that we have to change their culture and mentality, their
Speaker 1: preconceived notions that they have a black and brown people.
Speaker 1: That's what needs to change. We need to teach the
Speaker 1: police differently. I think there's also a perspective on systems
Speaker 1: and the way systems interact with cultures. We spend a
Speaker 1: lot of time allocating blame to individuals. That allocation of
Speaker 1: individual blame has been absolutely necessary and impart none of
Speaker 1: it changed systems. The conviction of Jason Van Dyke, I
Speaker 1: don't think it makes the next police shooting, and I
Speaker 1: owe it less likely. The good cops feel trapped and
Speaker 1: they feel obligated to align themselves with the bad ones.
Speaker 1: And that's what I talked about. The culture. That's what
Speaker 1: really needs to change, and it has to come from
Speaker 1: the leadership. Everything that happened to Coordney, yes it was wrong,
Speaker 1: but it was absolutely legal. How atrocious is that? I
Speaker 1: think what's so powerful about Courtney's story and the way
Speaker 1: you tell it and somebody is it really is about
Speaker 1: the system. It's not a story with an evil villain
Speaker 1: that explains an active, just indescribable cruelty like the um
Speaker 1: the knee on Floyd's neck or the shooting of Lakwon
Speaker 1: McDonald as he as he walked away. You know, those
Speaker 1: are acts of of individual cruelty. That I mean, you
Speaker 1: don't need to know the officer to be able to
Speaker 1: describe those as acts of personal evil, just on the
Speaker 1: basis of the act itself. Um, what happened to Courtney,
Speaker 1: in my understanding of it, as as you've shared, the
Speaker 1: story has so much more to do with systems and
Speaker 1: cultures and expectations. And I think that's our challenge, you know,
Speaker 1: when we think about what happened to George Floyd. You know,
Speaker 1: it was hard for me to watch that video. It
Speaker 1: was just like so painful as a mom to hear
Speaker 1: him cry out for his mom, and I and I
Speaker 1: and I sat and I thought about it, and I
Speaker 1: was like, that's what my son was doing. I know
Speaker 1: he was calling for me. Even though we didn't have
Speaker 1: any audio, you could see that he was begging for help,
Speaker 1: and I know he was wanting me to be there
Speaker 1: by his side. And it was just like, you have
Speaker 1: all these people around him. And that's what's so hard
Speaker 1: when we talk about the culture. What I think that
Speaker 1: the Chicago Police Department needs to put that empathy back
Speaker 1: in that force because if that was their child, if
Speaker 1: that was their child that they saw lying on the
Speaker 1: ground begging for help and they don't respond, we can't.
Speaker 1: We can't allow our police force to not have feelings.
Speaker 1: And that's what we're seeing. We're seeing them not have feelings.
Speaker 1: We're seeing them prejudge, We're seeing them listen to the
Speaker 1: negative connotation about black and brown people and running with it,
Speaker 1: and those are the things that we need to change,
Speaker 1: and we need to translate that into effective policy and
Speaker 1: scooping run would be something that will not only help
Speaker 1: save lives but also build repport between the community and
Speaker 1: the police. I completely understand the focus on police shootings
Speaker 1: and police the police murders, and it happens far, far
Speaker 1: too much. But in the larger scheme of things, it
Speaker 1: doesn't happen that often compared to all the other interactions
Speaker 1: that devalue black citizens in which they aren't seen or
Speaker 1: in which they're seen in light of preconceptions, um and
Speaker 1: not realities. You know, that's where the discourse needs to
Speaker 1: ultimately go, and those things aren't trivial. Those small interactions,
Speaker 1: you know, some act of disregard, disrespect, not seeing as
Speaker 1: you say that the police officer may have forgotten about
Speaker 1: within ten minutes, can leave an indelible and especially especially
Speaker 1: with young people, I think what's interesting working with young
Speaker 1: people around these issues is they're forming their understanding of
Speaker 1: the world. It's like the molecules are moving around and
Speaker 1: you can actually watch the formation of of their attitudes
Speaker 1: and it's often some um, you know, dismissive word or
Speaker 1: just all these ways of showing a lack of regard
Speaker 1: and and we're you know, one of the things we're
Speaker 1: doing at the Invisible Institute, you know, our basic mission
Speaker 1: is to help citizens hold police account police and public
Speaker 1: institutions accountable. Is we're really encouraging people, you know, in
Speaker 1: Chicago to get in touch with us with any information
Speaker 1: about individual police officers using excessive force. You know, CPDP
Speaker 1: are Database of Police Disciplinary Information, is widely being used
Speaker 1: as a resource by people to check the disciplinary histories
Speaker 1: of particular officers. So I think that's also a power
Speaker 1: that we have collectively to monitor police performance. That also
Speaker 1: tells the police, hey, you're being watched, that there is
Speaker 1: somebody else that's going to hold you accountable. And I
Speaker 1: think that's part of the challenge for all of us,
Speaker 1: if we're going to realize this extraordinary opportunity we have,
Speaker 1: is going to be not too to humanize each other
Speaker 1: in the process. And I think that's always the extraordinary
Speaker 1: thing about non violence when it's practiced well, it's definitely
Speaker 1: been enlightening as well as educational as always to sit
Speaker 1: with you, Mr Calvin and to actually just to unpack
Speaker 1: the last couple of weeks in Chicago. I think that
Speaker 1: what we're seeing is something that's beautiful yet painful, but
Speaker 1: I think that it has a way of translating into
Speaker 1: something that's going to be really great for this country.
Speaker 1: I agree, and I feel my heart is full at
Speaker 1: the moment just having this opportunity with you to to
Speaker 1: debrief and kind of compare notes. And I hope we
Speaker 1: can do it again sometime soon because things are moving
Speaker 1: so fast. But it feel it feels like I'm us,
Speaker 1: we wake up in a new world every day. Yes,
Speaker 1: so let's make a day to do it again soon. Yes,
Speaker 1: we're gonna have to break more bread and have more
Speaker 1: dinners than everything once coronavirus is gone. Looking forward to it. Yes,
Speaker 1: me too. Every bide, so bide every day? No side nothing,
Speaker 1: Oh no. Yes. This bonus episode of Somebody was produced
Speaker 1: by Bill Healey, Sarah Guys, and Alison Flowers. Special thanks
Speaker 1: to Bart Warshaw. Follow The Invisible Institute at at I
Speaker 1: N V I N s T on Twitter and follow
Speaker 1: me at Chaparral