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Speaker 1: In the wake of the recent protests, I've been flooded

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Speaker 1: with questions from well meaning people who are looking for

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Speaker 1: advice on how to use their time, energy and money

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Speaker 1: to make the biggest impact in the fight for equality

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Speaker 1: and justice in our criminal legal system. So on Thursday,

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Speaker 1: June eleventh, I moderated an online panel that we called

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Speaker 1: Power to the People. Who was a discussion and Q

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Speaker 1: and a session featuring a panel of four of the

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Speaker 1: world's leading criminal legal system experts and civil rights activists,

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Speaker 1: Black Lives Matter co founder Patrese, Marie Cullers, prison industry

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Speaker 1: expert Bianca Tilek, Drug Policy Alliance executive director of Cassandra Frederic,

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Speaker 1: and civil rights lawyer Alec Harkatsanis, all of whom shared

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Speaker 1: their thoughts on how each and every one of us

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Speaker 1: can take action individually and collectively in the most powerful way.

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Speaker 1: This went so well and I learned so much, as

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Speaker 1: did I hope our audience, that we decided to release

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Speaker 1: the conversation here as a podcast as well. I hope

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Speaker 1: you find this discussion as interesting and informative as I did.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Power to the People. This is a zoom

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Speaker 1: event that we've put together because I think all of

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Speaker 1: us have been getting so many questions from people who

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Speaker 1: want to get involved, or their kids want to get involved,

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Speaker 1: or their grandmother wants to get involved, whatever, and people

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Speaker 1: want to help. And so I thought, if we could

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Speaker 1: put together an event where we have some of the

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Speaker 1: true leaders in the space, civil rights leaders, you know,

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Speaker 1: people who are actually out there on the ground doing

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Speaker 1: the work, and we can figure out how to really

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Speaker 1: harness and direct some of that amazing positive energy that's

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Speaker 1: being generated after these two weeks of really revolutionary protests,

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Speaker 1: then let's do that. And so I came up with

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Speaker 1: a word today. I actually saw it somewhere, but I'm

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Speaker 1: going to I'm gonna steal it, or I'm gonna commandeer it,

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna borrow it. So I'm gonna call this this

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Speaker 1: group not rather than revolutionaries, I'm gonna call you all solutionaries,

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Speaker 1: because these are people who are out there creating, innovating,

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Speaker 1: and putting into practice actual solutions to some of the

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Speaker 1: primary problems of our age and some of the things

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Speaker 1: that I believe are driving people to get in the

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Speaker 1: streets beyond what they see on the videos, the horrific

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Speaker 1: videos that we've all seen over the last weeks and months,

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Speaker 1: culminating of course in the disgusting lynching of George Floyd.

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Speaker 1: That it seems like everyone in the world has seen now,

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Speaker 1: but it's so much more than that. And so I'm

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Speaker 1: going to go ahead now and introduce our group of solutionaries,

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Speaker 1: our amazing panels solutionaries, and I'll do it in alphabetical order.

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Speaker 1: So I'm going to how we're to do this is

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Speaker 1: I'm going to do a quick introduction of everyone, and

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Speaker 1: then I'm ask each of you to give us a

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Speaker 1: couple of minutes on what you're up to right now

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Speaker 1: with your respective organization. So patrese Colors, unless some as

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Speaker 1: anyone's been living in a cave for the last seven years,

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Speaker 1: you probably know that Patrice is the co founder of

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Speaker 1: Black Lives Matter, which came to be in the aftermath

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Speaker 1: of the awful murder of Schrayvon Martin in twenty thirteen,

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Speaker 1: and since then a Black Lives Matter has become a

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Speaker 1: force in culture writ large. So Patrice, thank you for

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Speaker 1: being here. Second, of course, is Cassandra. Frederic Cassandra is

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Speaker 1: the dynamic leader executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance,

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Speaker 1: which I describe and I'm a board member there. I

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Speaker 1: described the Drug Policy Alliance as the epicenter of the

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Speaker 1: war against the War on drugs. And it's so important

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Speaker 1: that you're here because the war on drugs is a

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Speaker 1: real driver of systemic racism in this country. And I'm

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Speaker 1: very excited to hear what you have to say about

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Speaker 1: all of that. Alec Harcasanis is what can I say.

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Speaker 1: I mean, he's become sort of my mentor and personal

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Speaker 1: hero in the space. Alec is the author of usual cruelty.

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Speaker 1: He is also directly responsible for tens of thousands of

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Speaker 1: Americans being free today who otherwise would be in jail.

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Speaker 1: And that's not hyperbole. Alec is leader of Civil Rights

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Speaker 1: Court it. He'll tell us about that in a minute.

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Speaker 1: And Bianca Tyleck, Bianca has become at half my age.

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Speaker 1: She's become my mentor, even though IVE probably been doing

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Speaker 1: criminal justice work as long as you've been alive. But

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Speaker 1: Bianca is a Harvard lawyer who has overcome her own

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Speaker 1: negative interactions with the criminal justice system and police as

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Speaker 1: a young girl to become a real change maker. Trying

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Speaker 1: to sue the profits out of prisons is by the way,

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Speaker 1: I would say that so anyway, so now let me

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Speaker 1: go to each of you. Patrice, can you give us

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Speaker 1: a little overview of what Black Lives Matters is up

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Speaker 1: to right now?

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Speaker 2: Sure, thanks so much for having me, Jason, and thank

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Speaker 2: you everybody for joining one. The co founder is a

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Speaker 2: Black Lives Matter organization and movement and hashtag that started

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Speaker 2: seven years ago. We have focused on really a number

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Speaker 2: of things, but one of the things that's been opening

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Speaker 2: up a new conversation around anti black racism and white

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Speaker 2: supremacy and its relationship to black people. We've focused primarily

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Speaker 2: on police and the issues of policing in this country,

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Speaker 2: and our current movement is focused on defunding the police.

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Speaker 2: Many people have seen that as a controversial slogan, but

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Speaker 2: seven years ago, Black Lives Matter was a controversial slogan

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Speaker 2: and Amazon has it plastered on their screen. So things change,

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Speaker 2: Moments change, and they change with courageous people and courageous action.

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Speaker 2: And that's what we're demanding in this moment. We're demanding

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Speaker 2: a reevaluation of where we've prioritized our dollars, our funding,

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Speaker 2: and our support. If we look at the continuation of incarceration,

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Speaker 2: the first point of contact is usually the police, and

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Speaker 2: so the police are the funnels towards jail cells and

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Speaker 2: prison seals, and we have to have a real conversation

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Speaker 2: around the ways in which our country has created new

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Speaker 2: conditions for the police to be the most powerful governmental

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Speaker 2: agency politically, culturally, and economically. Last thing I'll say is,

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Speaker 2: after thirty three years of being on television, Cops has

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Speaker 2: been canceled. Good job, Pairamount, Paul Patrol is now being canceled.

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Speaker 2: Good job, Paaramount. We need to unlearn the ways in

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Speaker 2: which we have really been ingested propaganda around what the

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Speaker 2: police do and what they are. So I'm grateful to

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Speaker 2: be a part of this movement, and I'm grateful to

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Speaker 2: be a part of this panel, and thank you Teresa.

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Speaker 1: And I want to say there's going to be a

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Speaker 1: Q and A. We're going to talk for about thirty

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Speaker 1: thirty five minutes as a group, and then there's going

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Speaker 1: to be a thirty minute Q and A at the end.

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Speaker 1: So anyone who wants to answer questions, you do it

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Speaker 1: in the comments section and we will get to you

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Speaker 1: as soon as we're done. Okay, Cassandra, Drug Policy Alliance

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Speaker 1: Executive Director.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks, thanks so much.

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Speaker 4: Jason, So Drug Policy Alliance is a national organization working

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Speaker 4: to end the criminalization isssociated with drug use and drug sales.

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Speaker 4: We believe that what our drug problem is is prohibition,

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Speaker 4: and that we actually need to end prohibition so that

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Speaker 4: we could end the violence associated with it and actually

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Speaker 4: redistribute resources to deal with addiction. Some of the things

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Speaker 4: that we are working on right now is defunding the police.

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Speaker 4: So most people, when you are out in the protests

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Speaker 4: and you see people having tanks and the battle regalia,

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Speaker 4: that's drug war money that funds that drug war money

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Speaker 4: is funding the tanks that we see we saw on

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Speaker 4: the streets and ferguson to the helicopters we see in

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Speaker 4: the sky right now in New York City, and all

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Speaker 4: of that equipment is stuff that the.

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Speaker 3: Drug war funds.

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Speaker 4: And so we were excited to elevate and amplify the

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Speaker 4: call that Black Lives Matter put out around defunding the police,

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Speaker 4: because that is the work that we've been working on anyway,

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Speaker 4: to demilitarize police and disrupt the funding that goes in

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Speaker 4: that way. The other thing that's been so interesting about

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Speaker 4: this moment, and later on I'll talk about the intersection

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Speaker 4: between what's happening right now and the drug war is

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Speaker 4: that the da which is the Drug Enforcement Agency, not

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Speaker 4: only enforces the drug war, but it also is being

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Speaker 4: used as a surveillance tool right now for protesters. And

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Speaker 4: so they have now just used the Drug War Agency

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Speaker 4: to now surveil protesters, and folks will know.

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Speaker 3: You know, we're big on history.

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Speaker 4: Part of the reason the drug war was waged in

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Speaker 4: the first place was to go after the anti war left.

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Speaker 4: And so we're seeing this come full circle about the

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Speaker 4: drug war being used as a way to deal with dissent.

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Speaker 4: And then the thing that's really important for us and

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Speaker 4: that we bring to this space is understanding that you know,

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Speaker 4: Breonna Taylor was killed in her bed because they thought

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Speaker 4: she had drugs in her house, right, and so the

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Speaker 4: police showed up because drugs was the thing that brought

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Speaker 4: them there. When George Floyd was being killed by having

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Speaker 4: the police officers knee on his neck, one of the

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Speaker 4: officers said to the crowd, that's why you don't do drugs.

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Speaker 4: And so for us as DPA, we want to remove

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Speaker 4: the idea that drug involvement in any way is an

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Speaker 4: excuse for law enforcement to kill you, because for me,

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Speaker 4: it doesn't matter to me if there were drugs in

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Speaker 4: Breonna Taylor's house or not. There is no reason for

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Speaker 4: someone to be killed by the state and their bed.

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Speaker 4: There is no reason if drugs are there or not.

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Speaker 4: And so for us, we're really elevating and complicating the

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Speaker 4: idea of if drugs serve as a justification for state

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Speaker 4: sanctioned violence, and so really elevating the role that the

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Speaker 4: drug work plays in a multiplier effect to police violence

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Speaker 4: in this country.

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Speaker 1: Thank you, Casandra and Alec, You're up next.

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Speaker 5: The Civil Rights Core is a small nonprofit organization in Washington,

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Speaker 5: DC that works with directly impacted people and community lawyers

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Speaker 5: and organizers and civil rights attorneys and public defenders and

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Speaker 5: others all over the country to try to dismantle the

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Speaker 5: criminal punishment bureaucracy. I think it's really important to understand

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Speaker 5: that work, understand the context in which we're engaging in

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Speaker 5: that where this country cages human beings at a rate

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Speaker 5: five times its own historical average, five to ten times

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Speaker 5: the rate of other comparable countries. We cage black people

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Speaker 5: at a rate six times out of South Africa at

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Speaker 5: the height of apartheid. It's within that context that things

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Speaker 5: like Ferguson happened. When I showed up in Ferguson after

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Speaker 5: Michael Brown's murder in twenty fourteen, the city of Ferguson

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Speaker 5: averaged three point six arrest worants per household. Almost all

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Speaker 5: of those arrest warrants were for black people. Almost all

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Speaker 5: of them were for unpaid debt to the city. We

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Speaker 5: have converted our criminal legal apparatus into one that targets

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Speaker 5: people of color, that targets poor people, that profits off

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Speaker 5: of them, that surveils them, that cages them, that separates

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Speaker 5: them from their families, to the tune of tens of

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Speaker 5: millions of human beings every single year. And it's this

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Speaker 5: systemic brutality that is normalized. That's the systemic brutality that

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Speaker 5: quote unquote good cops engage in every single day. That

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Speaker 5: is what modern contemporary Americ and policing is. It is

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Speaker 5: a system that is designed to preserve distributions of wealth

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Speaker 5: and property and distributions of racial supremacy and to uplift

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Speaker 5: this concept which has really been at the core of

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Speaker 5: the evolution of modern policing and the modern criminal punishment bureaucracy,

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Speaker 5: which is white supremacy and so what we try to

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Speaker 5: do in our own small way through litigation and advocacy

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Speaker 5: and storytelling, is to try to change our culture's understanding

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Speaker 5: of what the police and what this entire metastasized punishment

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Speaker 5: bureaucracy is. Why do we have it, what function is

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Speaker 5: it serving, who does it benefit? How does it decide

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Speaker 5: what it's doing? And in this moment in particular, I

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Speaker 5: want to lift up a patri said, I think the

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Speaker 5: core thing we all need to understand is that we

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Speaker 5: need to draw very clear lines. Now, are we going

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Speaker 5: to propose subtle, small little tweaks to the way we

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Speaker 5: talk about things, so that we're going to put a

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Speaker 5: camera on a cop as they brutalize the same people

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Speaker 5: in the same neighborhoods, Or we're going to have conversations

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Speaker 5: about why do we need cops and why are we

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Speaker 5: investing tens of billions of golf every single year in

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Speaker 5: ages and handcuffs and sirens and taters and bulletproof vests

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Speaker 5: and not in the kinds of things that our communities

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Speaker 5: need to flourish. So this narrative right now, in this

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Speaker 5: moment of divesting from things that cost evial pain and

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Speaker 5: that hurt people, and which there's no evidence of any benefit,

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Speaker 5: and investing in the kinds of things that all of

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Speaker 5: us know our communities need.

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Speaker 1: That's a perfect segue into your work.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, thank you so much.

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Speaker 7: It is hi everyone, the acitylic Eed at Worth Rises.

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Speaker 6: Worth Rises.

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Speaker 7: We're an organization that works to dismantle the prison industry

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Speaker 7: and the exploitation of people touched by it. Those are

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Speaker 7: both people inside as well as family on the outside.

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Speaker 7: We are really striving to build a world in which

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Speaker 7: no entity or individual depends on human caging or.

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Speaker 6: Control for their wealth, operation, or livelihood.

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Speaker 7: That means whether you're a CEO of a fortune five

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Speaker 7: hundred company or a large private prison company earning six

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Speaker 7: million dollars year year, or your corrections officer earning twenty

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Speaker 7: eight thousand dollars a year.

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Speaker 6: We want to ensure that there is nobody.

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Speaker 7: Who is dependent on people being incarcerated in order to

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Speaker 7: exist in this world or build wealth. And so in

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Speaker 7: large part, we're looking at ways to promote people over

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Speaker 7: property and people over profit, which is something that again

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Speaker 7: folks are now starting to mention as we talk about

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Speaker 7: defund police. We have also been working really hard to

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Speaker 7: amplify the calls made on the ground by the Black

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Speaker 7: Lives Matter movement as well as by the movement for

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Speaker 7: Black Lives to Defund Police, and a lot of our

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Speaker 7: work has historically touched on things like this. We work

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Speaker 7: a lot on prison phone justice issues for those who

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Speaker 7: are unfamiliar with the injustice of prison phones. A phone

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Speaker 7: call out of a jail in the US can run

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Speaker 7: as high as twenty five dollars for a fifteen minute

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Speaker 7: phone call. That is in large part because there are

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Speaker 7: some big profit tiers running corporations dedicated simply to exploiting

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Speaker 7: people's ability to communicate with their loved ones.

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Speaker 6: Who are incarcerated.

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Speaker 7: Those corporations, it should be known, are owned by big

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Speaker 7: private equity firms that own some of your favorite teams,

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Speaker 7: the Detroit Pistons are owned by the exact same person

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Speaker 7: who owns the largest prison telecom company in the country,

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Speaker 7: and so working on that, and part of why prison

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Speaker 7: phone calls are so expensive is because a portion of

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Speaker 7: those rates are actually paid back and kickbacks by the

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Speaker 7: corporation two jails and two sheriffs, and so those are

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Speaker 7: being used to further fund the police. And so our

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Speaker 7: work a lot right now in our efforts to amplify

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Speaker 7: the calls in the ground to defund police to look

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Speaker 7: for radical transformational change to the system is to starve

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Speaker 7: all of the different funding streams that police have and

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Speaker 7: making sure that we ensure they're not going anywhere else,

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Speaker 7: particularly looting our black and brown communities, to fill whatever

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Speaker 7: gaps are created elsewhere.

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Speaker 1: Thank you, Patrice. There's a lot of misinformation out there

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Speaker 1: about what defunding the police really means. You get people

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Speaker 1: coming up and saying, well, if I call nine one one,

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Speaker 1: no one's if I'm being robbed or something right, and

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Speaker 1: that very off chance that someone's actually being right. We

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Speaker 1: know that a tiny percentage of nine one one calls

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Speaker 1: are actually for violent crime anyway, much less than five percent.

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Speaker 1: But can you explain what defunding the police really means?

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Speaker 1: And I'm going to ask everyone when you answer this question,

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Speaker 1: if you can also talk about what can people do,

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Speaker 1: whether they have time to give, whether they have money

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Speaker 1: to give, whether they have a network that they can

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Speaker 1: share messages with. So if you could just incorporate that

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Speaker 1: and over to you, Patrice, thank you.

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Speaker 8: Absolutely.

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Speaker 2: First thing I'll say is check out People's Budget, la

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Speaker 2: dot Com as well as the alternatives to incarceration report

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Speaker 2: that came out of La County. Here in Los Angeles,

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Speaker 2: we have been experimenting with the idea of no police

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Speaker 2: and no prisons for quite some time. We've gained a

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Speaker 2: significant amount of traction in the last several years, both

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Speaker 2: at the county level and at the city level. What

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Speaker 2: we're talking about is truly an honestly about a reprioritization

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Speaker 2: of resources. There are five things that the police are

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Speaker 2: in charge of that they shouldn't be in charge of.

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Speaker 2: There's a lot of things, but I start with the

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Speaker 2: first five. Low hanging fruit, drug and alcohol addiction as

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Speaker 2: first responders, homelessness as first responders, mental health crisis as

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Speaker 2: first responders, people not having access to jobs, so people

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Speaker 2: loitering and things like that. They're the first responders. And

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Speaker 2: they're also in K through twelve schools. So we have

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Speaker 2: to have a different conversation right now. We have allowed

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Speaker 2: for the police to essentially be in every single part

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Speaker 2: of our lives. And when I say our, I mean

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Speaker 2: poor black people's lives, because the world that currently exists

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Speaker 2: for white, affluent people is a world without police unless

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Speaker 2: you call them and they show up for you. So

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Speaker 2: they do the job for white, affluent people. They don't

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Speaker 2: do the job for poor, black and brown people. So

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Speaker 2: those five things can be the first things that we

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Speaker 2: look at. If we look at a police budget, we

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Speaker 2: can look at their budget and can say, hey, let's

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Speaker 2: cross these things out. And as we're crossing them out

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Speaker 2: and realizing how much money is being poured into those things,

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Speaker 2: we can then reprioritize and reallocate those dollars to getting

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Speaker 2: access to social workers, case managers, community interventionists. The list

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Speaker 2: goes on. There are so many things in which we

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Speaker 2: have divested from and have not allowed for our communities

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Speaker 2: to thrive because of that divestment. There are so many

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Speaker 2: programs that actually exist and doing a great job, but

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Speaker 2: they cannot scale, They cannot do the things that say

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Speaker 2: police do because they don't have any dollars. A budget

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Speaker 2: is finite. We have to make a decision about what

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Speaker 2: we are going to prioritize when it comes to a budget.

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Speaker 2: And what the country and what our city in particular

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Speaker 2: in Los Angeles has prioritized for the last thirty years

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Speaker 2: is a bloated police budget and a bloated incarceration budget.

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Speaker 2: Now is the time that we defund those and reprioritize.

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Speaker 1: And Cassandra, that's a perfect leading to you, because one

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Speaker 1: of the things that Drug Policy Alliance has been fighting

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Speaker 1: for is putting a stop to the low level drug

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Speaker 1: possession arrest in this country. I think people would be

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Speaker 1: shocked to know how many people are arrested from marijuana possession.

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Speaker 1: It's considered an essential service right stayed open during the pandemic.

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Speaker 1: So can you speak on that for a minute and

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Speaker 1: then also again advise people how they can move forward

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Speaker 1: in solidarity.

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Speaker 3: Thanks Jason and Patrice. That's exactly right.

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Speaker 4: When we think about the way that police have acted

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Speaker 4: as foot soldiers to be first responders for people who

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Speaker 4: struggle with addiction, they are called in for things that

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Speaker 4: they have no business doing. Drug Policy Alliance is very

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Speaker 4: clear that law enforcement should never be the first responder

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Speaker 4: when it comes to drugs, and that's why we are

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Speaker 4: actually working on decriminalizing all drugs, so removing drugs from

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Speaker 4: the criminal legal system altogether.

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Speaker 3: No one should be responding to it.

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Speaker 4: And then having the conversation this point that Jason brings

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Speaker 4: up around marijuana. I'm from New York and Jason's from

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Speaker 4: New York, where New York was the marijuana arrest capital

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Speaker 4: in the country. We were arresting more people for marijuana

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Speaker 4: than could fit in Yankee Stadium every year. And yet

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Speaker 4: in this moment where New York still hasn't legalized marijuana,

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Speaker 4: but we have a medical marijuana.

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Speaker 3: Place, they deemed it an essential service.

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Speaker 4: And in the beginning of COVID, NYPD was still tweeting

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Speaker 4: out pictures of them harassing people in the subway station

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Speaker 4: and being like, we found a bag of weed, and

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Speaker 4: everyone was like, it's literally a pandemic. And so this

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Speaker 4: is about not just redistributing the resources, but redistributing our

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Speaker 4: priorities and recognizing that drugs should not be something that

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Speaker 4: we deal with within the criminal legal system because it

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Speaker 4: actually doesn't give people options, and that recognizing that that

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Speaker 4: low hanging fruit is the excuse for people to engage

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Speaker 4: and surveil and harm people of color and specifically black people,

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Speaker 4: specifically black trans women who are consistently being harass by

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Speaker 4: law enforcement because of their either trading sex or they're

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Speaker 4: trading drugs. And so for us, you know, one of

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Speaker 4: the things that we're saying is that if people want

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Speaker 4: to get involved, they should follow Drug Policy Alliance. We're

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Speaker 4: on Twitter, We're on Instagram, Join our list. We send

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Speaker 4: out action alerts like literally every two days.

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Speaker 3: Right now.

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Speaker 4: We're focused on pushing the congressional bill right now that

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Speaker 4: does not end no knock rades that kill Brionna Taylor,

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Speaker 4: that continues to put money towards law enforcement, putting money

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Speaker 4: towards treatment. And so we're putting out action alerts every

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Speaker 4: day to really push the congressional Democrats to recognize that

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Speaker 4: now is the time that if you're going to put

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Speaker 4: forward congressional action.

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Speaker 3: That it actually has to be about defunding.

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Speaker 4: And if we want to say that we don't want

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Speaker 4: of another Brionna Taylor to happen, then we have to

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Speaker 4: end the militarization of police in our country.

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Speaker 1: And again, another perfect setup because Alec, all of this

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Speaker 1: intersects with the work that you're doing. I mean, this

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Speaker 1: group is obviously sabbatico, but can you just take it

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Speaker 1: right from there.

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Speaker 5: I think it's very important to understand that when we

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Speaker 5: use words like defund the police, that word has a

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Speaker 5: very particular meaning in context, and I think we're likely

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Speaker 5: to see many mainstream politicians and even police officials start

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Speaker 5: to try to co opt what that word means in

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Speaker 5: the same way that now you have people like Mitt

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Speaker 5: Romney saying black lives matter. Well, when Romney says something

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Speaker 5: like black lives matter, I guarantee you he's not thinking

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Speaker 5: about a fundamental shift reparations, shifting the way that we

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Speaker 5: invest in black communities all over the country. That's not

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Speaker 5: how Mitt Rodney conceives as that term. The same is

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Speaker 5: true with something like defunding the police. When Joe Biden

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Speaker 5: talks about defunding the police, he's talking about increasing their

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Speaker 5: funding for training and anti bias measures and more money

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Speaker 5: for body cameras to surveil black communities. And he's talking

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Speaker 5: about slightly reducing the amount of money perhaps on giving

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Speaker 5: police military equipment, but increasing overall the amount of money

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Speaker 5: going to police. We need to be very very clear.

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Speaker 5: So I want to just make one point, crystal clear

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Speaker 5: to the extent i able. When those of us in

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Speaker 5: this movement talk about what needs to be done structurally

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Speaker 5: to challenge the structural racism and inequality at the core

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Speaker 5: of our system of policing, and we use terms like

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Speaker 5: defunding the police, we mean very directly slashing their budgets

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Speaker 5: in the way that Patrice was talking about and taking

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Speaker 5: that money and investing in the flourishing of the communities

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Speaker 5: that have been preyed on by the police for centuries.

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Speaker 5: And anyone who tries to tell you that defunding the

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Speaker 5: police means something different than that, Maybe it means investing

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Speaker 5: in better resources for the cops to be better. Those

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Speaker 5: are people who are trying to get you to buy

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Speaker 5: into a propagandistic notion of good cops and bad apples, right,

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Speaker 5: And all we need to do is help the good cops,

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Speaker 5: give them the resources so that we can find the

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Speaker 5: bad apples and kick them off the force and prosecute them.

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Speaker 8: But let me just say one thing.

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Speaker 5: It's not bad apples who quintupled this country's incarceration rate

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Speaker 5: since nineteen eighty. It's not bad apples who are caging

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Speaker 5: people every single day from marijuana. It's not bad apples

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Speaker 5: who invented the cash bail system that can find four

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Speaker 5: hundred thousand human beings every single day in this country

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Speaker 5: away from their families just because they can't make a

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Speaker 5: monetary payment. It's not bad apples that purchases grenade launchers

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Speaker 5: and tasers and hear gas and tanks for our police forces. Right,

437
00:23:15,000 --> 00:23:17,040
Speaker 5: These aren't things that bad apples are doing. These are

438
00:23:17,080 --> 00:23:19,480
Speaker 5: what the good cops are doing with our money every

439
00:23:19,520 --> 00:23:22,000
Speaker 5: single day. So we need to draw some lines in

440
00:23:22,040 --> 00:23:24,960
Speaker 5: the sand. And if a politician or a local official

441
00:23:25,040 --> 00:23:28,320
Speaker 5: or a leader is not talking about directly taking money

442
00:23:28,480 --> 00:23:32,120
Speaker 5: from bloating police budgets and transferring them to communities, that

443
00:23:32,160 --> 00:23:34,760
Speaker 5: person is not talking about anything that we should care about.

444
00:23:34,960 --> 00:23:36,040
Speaker 8: Let me just give you an example.

445
00:23:36,640 --> 00:23:39,840
Speaker 5: The City of Houston has a nine hundred and thirty

446
00:23:39,920 --> 00:23:41,600
Speaker 5: million dollar police budget.

447
00:23:41,840 --> 00:23:43,159
Speaker 8: That is just the city of Houston.

448
00:23:43,200 --> 00:23:45,399
Speaker 5: It sits in Harris County, and the Harris County Sheriff's

449
00:23:45,400 --> 00:23:47,880
Speaker 5: Office has another five hundred and sixty one million dollar

450
00:23:47,920 --> 00:23:51,400
Speaker 5: budget justin Harris County alone. The Houston metro area there

451
00:23:51,400 --> 00:23:57,240
Speaker 5: are sixty additional police forces six zero. So Harris County, Texas,

452
00:23:57,280 --> 00:24:00,320
Speaker 5: just that one metro area spending several billion dollars year

453
00:24:00,800 --> 00:24:03,320
Speaker 5: just on policing. I'm not even talking about prosecutors and

454
00:24:03,359 --> 00:24:06,240
Speaker 5: prisons and tasers and tanks. I'm just talking about their

455
00:24:06,359 --> 00:24:10,439
Speaker 5: yearly budgets. What kind of society looks at that and

456
00:24:10,520 --> 00:24:13,439
Speaker 5: sees the complete divestment from the schools in Houston, from

457
00:24:13,520 --> 00:24:16,440
Speaker 5: medical care, from safe, affordable housing, and what kind of

458
00:24:16,440 --> 00:24:18,280
Speaker 5: person looks at that and thinks it's reasonable. We need

459
00:24:18,320 --> 00:24:20,680
Speaker 5: to fundamentally change when we think about all of this

460
00:24:20,880 --> 00:24:22,880
Speaker 5: and to do that. And this is where I think

461
00:24:22,880 --> 00:24:24,439
Speaker 5: gets to your question about what we can all do

462
00:24:24,520 --> 00:24:27,160
Speaker 5: to get involved. I think there's really two things all

463
00:24:27,200 --> 00:24:30,159
Speaker 5: of us need to do. The work to learn about

464
00:24:30,200 --> 00:24:33,040
Speaker 5: the history and the functions of these systems. We need

465
00:24:33,080 --> 00:24:36,440
Speaker 5: to read people like Angela Davis. Everyone should read Our

466
00:24:36,440 --> 00:24:40,119
Speaker 5: Prisons Obsolete as a starter, right, check out Critical Resistance,

467
00:24:40,200 --> 00:24:42,480
Speaker 5: Just google them, start reading some of the materials they've

468
00:24:42,480 --> 00:24:44,680
Speaker 5: been putting out for several decades, the work of Ruth

469
00:24:44,680 --> 00:24:48,440
Speaker 5: Wilson Gilmour, take a look at what Mariam Kaba Kaba

470
00:24:48,760 --> 00:24:52,000
Speaker 5: is writing for the last years on systems of mutual aid.

471
00:24:52,040 --> 00:24:56,280
Speaker 5: Because it's communities setting up their own systems that respond

472
00:24:56,440 --> 00:24:59,040
Speaker 5: to these problems that are going to be the alternatives

473
00:24:59,040 --> 00:25:01,320
Speaker 5: that we turn to when we we don't need police anymore. Right,

474
00:25:01,640 --> 00:25:04,200
Speaker 5: Systems that help people who don't have a home, Systems

475
00:25:04,200 --> 00:25:07,200
Speaker 5: that help people confront when someone hurts someone in our society,

476
00:25:07,240 --> 00:25:09,320
Speaker 5: we don't need to cage the person, right. We need

477
00:25:09,320 --> 00:25:13,000
Speaker 5: a system of transformative justice that understands accountability, but that

478
00:25:13,080 --> 00:25:17,000
Speaker 5: also understands the trauma that our racist and unequal system

479
00:25:17,000 --> 00:25:19,720
Speaker 5: of policing and punishment has been inflicting. So I would

480
00:25:19,800 --> 00:25:22,359
Speaker 5: encourage you to do that basic learning and reading, and

481
00:25:22,359 --> 00:25:24,840
Speaker 5: then to look in your area. What are the groups

482
00:25:24,840 --> 00:25:27,320
Speaker 5: that are doing mutual aid for their communities. Who are

483
00:25:27,320 --> 00:25:28,960
Speaker 5: the people that are showing up for other people in

484
00:25:29,000 --> 00:25:32,600
Speaker 5: their community, providing them the things that they need, Providing

485
00:25:32,720 --> 00:25:35,199
Speaker 5: things for undocumented people in your community, Providing things are

486
00:25:35,240 --> 00:25:38,120
Speaker 5: people that are houseless, writing things are people that need

487
00:25:38,160 --> 00:25:41,199
Speaker 5: mental health care and other services, and get involved in

488
00:25:41,200 --> 00:25:43,119
Speaker 5: those in a really real way, and start building the

489
00:25:43,200 --> 00:25:46,840
Speaker 5: kinds of connections and relationships that actually are going to

490
00:25:46,880 --> 00:25:50,560
Speaker 5: be the foundation for a much different, much safer, much

491
00:25:50,560 --> 00:25:52,879
Speaker 5: more just society and Bianca.

492
00:25:53,200 --> 00:25:54,920
Speaker 1: I'm going to turn to you as well, And you

493
00:25:54,960 --> 00:25:56,520
Speaker 1: know I've been calling you because I have so many

494
00:25:56,520 --> 00:25:59,080
Speaker 1: friends calling me and saying, my sixteen year old, my

495
00:26:00,200 --> 00:26:03,720
Speaker 1: whatever wants to volunteer. What can they do to help? You? Know?

496
00:26:03,880 --> 00:26:06,359
Speaker 1: Your work is so important because I think we have to,

497
00:26:06,440 --> 00:26:10,160
Speaker 1: as you say, strangle the profit system, right because as

498
00:26:10,200 --> 00:26:13,800
Speaker 1: long as there's money to be made by caging human beings,

499
00:26:14,160 --> 00:26:17,199
Speaker 1: it's going to continue to happen, and at the moment,

500
00:26:17,440 --> 00:26:19,000
Speaker 1: I think people will be shocked to find out how

501
00:26:19,000 --> 00:26:21,439
Speaker 1: big that business really is, at what percentage of our

502
00:26:21,480 --> 00:26:24,040
Speaker 1: budgets it makes up. And you're, you know, one of

503
00:26:24,040 --> 00:26:25,800
Speaker 1: the leading experts on that. So I'm going to turn

504
00:26:25,840 --> 00:26:27,639
Speaker 1: to you, and then we're going to take questions from

505
00:26:27,840 --> 00:26:30,840
Speaker 1: the audience, which you're starting to really roll in, so Bianca.

506
00:26:31,280 --> 00:26:35,480
Speaker 7: So prisons are eighty billion dollar industry. Policing is another

507
00:26:35,520 --> 00:26:39,920
Speaker 7: one hundred billion dollar industry, taxpayer money largely put out

508
00:26:39,960 --> 00:26:42,080
Speaker 7: in some parts to the private sector and others to

509
00:26:42,680 --> 00:26:44,360
Speaker 7: resources and staff.

510
00:26:44,680 --> 00:26:48,680
Speaker 6: And so in this amplification of the demand.

511
00:26:48,440 --> 00:26:52,840
Speaker 7: To defund police, we've been talking about five particular funding

512
00:26:53,000 --> 00:26:55,280
Speaker 7: streams that police and prisons have.

513
00:26:55,760 --> 00:26:57,360
Speaker 6: The first is legislative budgets.

514
00:26:57,400 --> 00:26:59,359
Speaker 7: That's been the one that's been sort of talked about

515
00:26:59,400 --> 00:27:01,000
Speaker 7: the most moving money out.

516
00:27:00,920 --> 00:27:04,440
Speaker 6: Of legislative budgets, which is the biggest.

517
00:27:04,040 --> 00:27:07,600
Speaker 7: Source of money also and therefore obviously incredibly important.

518
00:27:08,040 --> 00:27:09,600
Speaker 6: The second is fines and fees.

519
00:27:10,000 --> 00:27:12,520
Speaker 7: So something often that folks may not be aware of,

520
00:27:12,560 --> 00:27:15,280
Speaker 7: but you think about this, it'll be really intuitive. Traffic

521
00:27:15,320 --> 00:27:18,879
Speaker 7: finds realizing there's a reason that you know, there's always

522
00:27:18,880 --> 00:27:21,199
Speaker 7: a social commentary around quote is at the end of

523
00:27:21,240 --> 00:27:23,720
Speaker 7: the month. It's because that is money that is used

524
00:27:23,720 --> 00:27:27,119
Speaker 7: to fund police departments. Fees that goes back to the

525
00:27:27,119 --> 00:27:30,200
Speaker 7: commissions or the kickbacks that I was mentioning earlier around

526
00:27:30,280 --> 00:27:32,720
Speaker 7: prison phone calls and things of that sort.

527
00:27:33,119 --> 00:27:33,800
Speaker 6: Court fees.

528
00:27:33,880 --> 00:27:37,360
Speaker 7: There are fees for legal representation even if you are indigent.

529
00:27:37,440 --> 00:27:40,120
Speaker 7: That is a misnomer that you can simply get free

530
00:27:40,320 --> 00:27:43,879
Speaker 7: representation in most places. Third is civil asset forfeiture, something

531
00:27:43,920 --> 00:27:47,120
Speaker 7: that far fewer folks are aware of, but.

532
00:27:47,240 --> 00:27:49,480
Speaker 6: Basically the police can come up in your house and

533
00:27:49,520 --> 00:27:50,240
Speaker 6: take your stuff.

534
00:27:50,680 --> 00:27:53,879
Speaker 7: And this really connects deeply to what Cassandra was talking about,

535
00:27:53,920 --> 00:27:56,520
Speaker 7: which is in most cases it's because of drug crimes.

536
00:27:56,800 --> 00:27:58,280
Speaker 6: They can literally walk.

537
00:27:58,040 --> 00:28:01,560
Speaker 7: Into your house and say, oh, there's a sixty inch television.

538
00:28:01,800 --> 00:28:04,520
Speaker 7: We think you might be selling drugs. We're going to

539
00:28:04,600 --> 00:28:07,720
Speaker 7: take your television. We don't have to arrest you, charge you,

540
00:28:08,119 --> 00:28:11,040
Speaker 7: let alone convict you, and we can keep your things

541
00:28:11,359 --> 00:28:14,240
Speaker 7: and you can hire an attorney because in civil courts

542
00:28:14,280 --> 00:28:16,600
Speaker 7: you don't get away to an attorney. Nevertheless, that is

543
00:28:16,600 --> 00:28:20,400
Speaker 7: actually your item that is on trial, and they can

544
00:28:20,520 --> 00:28:23,600
Speaker 7: either keep your belongings or resell them. And those proceeds

545
00:28:23,640 --> 00:28:25,560
Speaker 7: are used to fund police departments.

546
00:28:25,600 --> 00:28:28,040
Speaker 6: In some cases thirty percent fifty percent of.

547
00:28:28,040 --> 00:28:31,280
Speaker 7: Police departments funded on civil asset forfeiture, and studies have

548
00:28:31,320 --> 00:28:34,560
Speaker 7: shown the civil asset forfeiture is dependent on more when

549
00:28:34,640 --> 00:28:38,840
Speaker 7: legislative budgets are cut. So if you don't backstop these

550
00:28:38,920 --> 00:28:42,960
Speaker 7: multiple different streams of funding, you can create some really

551
00:28:43,240 --> 00:28:46,200
Speaker 7: off of byproducts, the last two being service contracts. So

552
00:28:46,280 --> 00:28:49,800
Speaker 7: this is something that Patrice was mentioning contracts with public schools,

553
00:28:50,160 --> 00:28:53,760
Speaker 7: contracts with corporations. To think about your favorite NBA stadium,

554
00:28:54,200 --> 00:28:57,280
Speaker 7: the police that are stationed there, and that those stadiums

555
00:28:57,280 --> 00:28:59,960
Speaker 7: that have contracts with police, the police get paid for

556
00:29:00,240 --> 00:29:02,400
Speaker 7: those that is part of their funding stream.

557
00:29:02,480 --> 00:29:04,040
Speaker 6: And then finally, corporate support.

558
00:29:04,320 --> 00:29:07,400
Speaker 7: A lot of corporations, your favorite corporations, the verizons of

559
00:29:07,400 --> 00:29:10,680
Speaker 7: the at and TS, targets of the world Amazon are

560
00:29:10,840 --> 00:29:13,800
Speaker 7: all funding police and they're doing it in one of

561
00:29:13,880 --> 00:29:18,000
Speaker 7: two fashions. They might be funding National Sheriff's Association or

562
00:29:18,000 --> 00:29:21,960
Speaker 7: the National Police Organization. They might also be literally just

563
00:29:22,080 --> 00:29:26,000
Speaker 7: building surveillance in cities and then handing the keys to

564
00:29:26,040 --> 00:29:28,680
Speaker 7: that surveillance over to police, and that never hits a

565
00:29:28,680 --> 00:29:31,880
Speaker 7: budget line. So it's really important that we actually look

566
00:29:31,920 --> 00:29:35,600
Speaker 7: at all of these different parameters as we are working

567
00:29:35,720 --> 00:29:39,080
Speaker 7: on this defund the police spectrum. And last thing on

568
00:29:39,120 --> 00:29:41,920
Speaker 7: that is also what is not defunding the police is

569
00:29:41,960 --> 00:29:43,800
Speaker 7: moving everything to electronic monitoring.

570
00:29:44,120 --> 00:29:47,800
Speaker 6: Surveillance is part of policing period.

571
00:29:48,080 --> 00:29:50,520
Speaker 7: So like moving people out of cages and putting them

572
00:29:50,520 --> 00:29:53,320
Speaker 7: on monitors is not the solution, and don't let anyone

573
00:29:53,320 --> 00:29:55,760
Speaker 7: tell you that it is. In terms of the things

574
00:29:55,760 --> 00:29:59,360
Speaker 7: that people can do, I want to echo alex first suggestion,

575
00:29:59,400 --> 00:30:02,479
Speaker 7: which is edu yourself. There are people in this movement

576
00:30:02,520 --> 00:30:05,959
Speaker 7: that have been doing this for years, decades, and so

577
00:30:06,640 --> 00:30:08,920
Speaker 7: you're not gonna learn it overnight. You're not gonna learn

578
00:30:08,960 --> 00:30:11,560
Speaker 7: it by joining a few webinars. You're not gonna learn

579
00:30:11,600 --> 00:30:14,200
Speaker 7: it in one book. You're gonna learn it by actually

580
00:30:14,320 --> 00:30:18,200
Speaker 7: dedicating yourself to a practice of educating yourself, of reading

581
00:30:18,320 --> 00:30:22,840
Speaker 7: and listening to people. As you're doing that, donate to

582
00:30:23,080 --> 00:30:26,760
Speaker 7: organizations because you don't have the answers yet, and there's

583
00:30:26,800 --> 00:30:30,760
Speaker 7: a lot of organizations out there, in large part right now,

584
00:30:30,840 --> 00:30:33,920
Speaker 7: black led organizations that do have the answers and have

585
00:30:34,040 --> 00:30:36,080
Speaker 7: the answers for their communities. And you need to be

586
00:30:36,160 --> 00:30:39,520
Speaker 7: donating to those and so those are grassroots organizations, black

587
00:30:39,560 --> 00:30:44,360
Speaker 7: led organizations, organizations doing systemic work which lasts far past

588
00:30:44,440 --> 00:30:45,040
Speaker 7: this moment.

589
00:30:45,720 --> 00:30:48,960
Speaker 6: Those are organizations like Letterots, BIP one hundred, a movement.

590
00:30:48,640 --> 00:30:53,040
Speaker 7: For Black Lives, Back Out, collective organizations, here, Worth Rises,

591
00:30:53,120 --> 00:30:53,760
Speaker 7: and others.

592
00:30:54,280 --> 00:30:56,640
Speaker 6: Thirdly, uplift their actions.

593
00:30:56,840 --> 00:31:00,320
Speaker 7: So if people are telling you that defund is the answer,

594
00:31:00,920 --> 00:31:05,080
Speaker 7: don't argue, go learn, donate, and then say defunct is

595
00:31:05,120 --> 00:31:08,200
Speaker 7: the answer, and so uplift those actions. If you want

596
00:31:08,240 --> 00:31:10,600
Speaker 7: to pick up the phone and call your legislators, uplift

597
00:31:10,600 --> 00:31:13,320
Speaker 7: their actions. Know that you know all of these things

598
00:31:13,320 --> 00:31:15,920
Speaker 7: that Cassandra's mentioned, Pateresa's mentioning, those are the things that

599
00:31:16,000 --> 00:31:18,360
Speaker 7: you should be doing. In the next stimulus bill, we

600
00:31:18,480 --> 00:31:21,200
Speaker 7: have a part of that bill that we are hoping

601
00:31:21,240 --> 00:31:24,560
Speaker 7: to pass that will dramatically cut the cost of prison

602
00:31:24,600 --> 00:31:28,920
Speaker 7: phone calls and end commissions to sheriffs and jails and

603
00:31:29,000 --> 00:31:32,920
Speaker 7: prisons entirely, meaning that phone calls will no longer use

604
00:31:33,000 --> 00:31:37,200
Speaker 7: to subsidize the police. Support those initiatives, tell your legislators

605
00:31:37,200 --> 00:31:40,240
Speaker 7: to support them. Fourthly, excuse me, I'm tomorrow, I'll be done.

606
00:31:40,960 --> 00:31:46,720
Speaker 7: Fourthly is on volunteers again. You don't know the answers.

607
00:31:46,800 --> 00:31:50,280
Speaker 7: Call your legislators and uplift those demands that are out there.

608
00:31:50,320 --> 00:31:55,120
Speaker 7: And Secondly, black led organizations and organizations that do direct

609
00:31:55,200 --> 00:31:58,560
Speaker 7: actions need bodies, and that is the most important thing

610
00:31:58,600 --> 00:32:01,360
Speaker 7: that you can do as a you know, person of privilege,

611
00:32:01,480 --> 00:32:04,800
Speaker 7: as like white folks and allies, is be out there.

612
00:32:05,000 --> 00:32:07,560
Speaker 7: Like when there is a call to put people out there,

613
00:32:07,960 --> 00:32:12,040
Speaker 7: come out support, be a body and support direct actions.

614
00:32:12,520 --> 00:32:15,960
Speaker 7: And finally, and most importantly I think in my.

615
00:32:16,000 --> 00:32:18,880
Speaker 6: View, is do something that's sustainable.

616
00:32:19,360 --> 00:32:22,080
Speaker 7: And that means it's not right now, it's not this week,

617
00:32:22,120 --> 00:32:25,040
Speaker 7: it's not just this month, but actually do things and

618
00:32:25,080 --> 00:32:30,200
Speaker 7: commit to a practice that is supporting the movement in

619
00:32:30,280 --> 00:32:34,360
Speaker 7: defense of black lives and for criminal justice transformation and

620
00:32:34,400 --> 00:32:38,000
Speaker 7: the abolition of prisons in jail. So if that's donating

621
00:32:38,040 --> 00:32:40,960
Speaker 7: on a monthly and recurring basis great. If that's you're

622
00:32:41,000 --> 00:32:44,360
Speaker 7: going to call your legislators every week, that's it. Whatever

623
00:32:44,400 --> 00:32:46,640
Speaker 7: you do, make sure that you're doing it for the

624
00:32:46,680 --> 00:32:48,640
Speaker 7: long haul and you're not here with us just.

625
00:32:48,560 --> 00:32:49,120
Speaker 6: For this call.

626
00:32:49,400 --> 00:32:52,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm going to say defund and divest, because

627
00:32:52,120 --> 00:32:55,560
Speaker 1: divesting from investments that you may have in your portfolios

628
00:32:55,560 --> 00:32:57,000
Speaker 1: that you may not even know about, or that your

629
00:32:57,000 --> 00:32:59,360
Speaker 1: parents may have. Speak to them and say, do you

630
00:32:59,440 --> 00:33:02,800
Speaker 1: have any stocks in companies that make money on the

631
00:33:02,840 --> 00:33:06,640
Speaker 1: caging of human beings or any other system of oppression

632
00:33:06,760 --> 00:33:09,880
Speaker 1: of human beings that exists in this country? Divest that's

633
00:33:09,920 --> 00:33:12,120
Speaker 1: going to make people stand up and pay attention, and

634
00:33:12,160 --> 00:33:13,920
Speaker 1: maybe we'll be able to create a resource out to

635
00:33:14,000 --> 00:33:17,840
Speaker 1: that to connect volunteers with volunteering opportunities. Now, I'm going

636
00:33:17,840 --> 00:33:22,360
Speaker 1: to turn to questions that we've gotten from people who

637
00:33:22,400 --> 00:33:25,080
Speaker 1: are watching, and anyone who wants to take them can

638
00:33:25,080 --> 00:33:28,320
Speaker 1: take them. So Autumn is asking, where can one find

639
00:33:28,360 --> 00:33:31,720
Speaker 1: a comprehensive list of all companies that knowingly benefit from

640
00:33:31,720 --> 00:33:32,320
Speaker 1: this system?

641
00:33:32,680 --> 00:33:33,560
Speaker 6: Thank you, Autumn.

642
00:33:33,800 --> 00:33:38,160
Speaker 7: So Worth Rises actually publishes a report annually. We just

643
00:33:38,200 --> 00:33:41,720
Speaker 7: published our twenty twenty version of the report last month.

644
00:33:42,120 --> 00:33:45,880
Speaker 6: It is a report that exposes all of the corporations

645
00:33:46,280 --> 00:33:48,240
Speaker 6: that are engaged in.

646
00:33:48,040 --> 00:33:51,520
Speaker 7: The prison industry and the prison industrial complex.

647
00:33:51,600 --> 00:33:54,000
Speaker 6: It has over four thousand companies on it.

648
00:33:54,080 --> 00:33:56,880
Speaker 7: You can download the data directly, and the data is

649
00:33:56,920 --> 00:33:59,280
Speaker 7: really comprehensive. It will tell you not just the name

650
00:33:59,320 --> 00:34:03,000
Speaker 7: of the corporation, but exactly what they're doing, who they're

651
00:34:03,080 --> 00:34:06,600
Speaker 7: owned by, if they're not a standalone company, what their

652
00:34:06,640 --> 00:34:09,480
Speaker 7: revenues might be, and all of the sources. So if

653
00:34:09,480 --> 00:34:12,680
Speaker 7: you're looking to Jason's point to divest and do those things,

654
00:34:12,840 --> 00:34:13,760
Speaker 7: look closely.

655
00:34:14,400 --> 00:34:16,560
Speaker 6: And there's a few big names that I'll like mention.

656
00:34:16,800 --> 00:34:19,880
Speaker 7: Think about Amazon, Google, Stanley, Black and Decker.

657
00:34:20,360 --> 00:34:21,799
Speaker 6: You have some screwdrivers in there.

658
00:34:21,800 --> 00:34:25,640
Speaker 7: They also make detention hardware for solitary cells. Three AM

659
00:34:25,719 --> 00:34:28,880
Speaker 7: big supportive prison labor Era Mark, which is probably in

660
00:34:28,920 --> 00:34:32,680
Speaker 7: your schools and stadiums and all those places government buildings.

661
00:34:32,680 --> 00:34:35,320
Speaker 7: They also serve food and prisons have ensued a million

662
00:34:35,360 --> 00:34:38,759
Speaker 7: times for maggot field road and field like food. There

663
00:34:38,760 --> 00:34:42,120
Speaker 7: are many companies in your portfolios, in your parents' portfolios,

664
00:34:42,160 --> 00:34:45,360
Speaker 7: in your friends' portfolios, in your pensions if that is

665
00:34:45,400 --> 00:34:49,200
Speaker 7: your in your school endowments, all related to those companies.

666
00:34:49,560 --> 00:34:51,239
Speaker 1: Okay, and of course we haven't said it yet, but

667
00:34:51,239 --> 00:34:52,800
Speaker 1: I'm going to say it now. And vote. Don't just

668
00:34:52,880 --> 00:34:55,319
Speaker 1: vote in the national elections. Vote in local elections. That's

669
00:34:55,360 --> 00:34:57,960
Speaker 1: so important. Vote in your DA races, vote in your

670
00:34:58,160 --> 00:35:01,560
Speaker 1: state senate, anything, because those are the people that drive

671
00:35:01,600 --> 00:35:05,280
Speaker 1: the change upwards. Okay, next question, this is from Victoria,

672
00:35:05,320 --> 00:35:07,160
Speaker 1: and she asked how can we start to educate the

673
00:35:07,200 --> 00:35:12,360
Speaker 1: public about how police and prosecutoral immunity go hand in hand? Patrice,

674
00:35:12,400 --> 00:35:14,040
Speaker 1: do you want to take this one? Sure?

675
00:35:14,160 --> 00:35:17,919
Speaker 2: I mean, I think you know one way is having conversations,

676
00:35:17,920 --> 00:35:21,319
Speaker 2: but I also think another way is working with organizations

677
00:35:21,400 --> 00:35:24,880
Speaker 2: that are having those conversations. Lots of times people forget

678
00:35:24,960 --> 00:35:28,720
Speaker 2: that the way we create change is by joining something.

679
00:35:29,080 --> 00:35:33,120
Speaker 2: We can't individually change a system, but we can change

680
00:35:33,120 --> 00:35:37,080
Speaker 2: the system when we work with organizations like many that

681
00:35:37,120 --> 00:35:39,479
Speaker 2: are on the panel right now. We can also send

682
00:35:39,480 --> 00:35:42,359
Speaker 2: you a list of orgs in your own community. Join

683
00:35:42,440 --> 00:35:44,279
Speaker 2: something right now. I think that's the best thing that

684
00:35:44,320 --> 00:35:46,520
Speaker 2: people can do and be a part of the efforts

685
00:35:46,560 --> 00:35:50,040
Speaker 2: that people are making happen. And if you feel like

686
00:35:50,120 --> 00:35:52,680
Speaker 2: there isn't a group that's actually doing the thing you want,

687
00:35:53,080 --> 00:35:55,560
Speaker 2: then figure out how to bill it yourself.

688
00:35:55,560 --> 00:35:57,480
Speaker 1: Like you did. Yeah. And if someone was gonna say, well,

689
00:35:57,520 --> 00:35:59,680
Speaker 1: I want, Patresea, tell me one organization I should join today?

690
00:35:59,719 --> 00:36:03,080
Speaker 2: What No, I can't do one? Every organization plays such

691
00:36:03,080 --> 00:36:06,040
Speaker 2: a powerful role. But if you're talking about like DAS

692
00:36:06,040 --> 00:36:08,400
Speaker 2: and police and you want to actually challenge that, I

693
00:36:08,400 --> 00:36:10,719
Speaker 2: think it depends like what side of the work you

694
00:36:10,719 --> 00:36:12,160
Speaker 2: want to do. Do you want to do work that's

695
00:36:12,200 --> 00:36:14,600
Speaker 2: just educating people or do you want to do work

696
00:36:14,640 --> 00:36:17,279
Speaker 2: where you're getting those terrible das out of office and

697
00:36:17,280 --> 00:36:20,040
Speaker 2: then bringing new people in. I'm not good at the

698
00:36:20,239 --> 00:36:22,440
Speaker 2: like give me one, because I just think there's such

699
00:36:22,440 --> 00:36:25,080
Speaker 2: a nuanced approach to it. But there's lots of orgs

700
00:36:25,480 --> 00:36:28,040
Speaker 2: that are taking on DA's world. Justice Pack is one

701
00:36:28,040 --> 00:36:30,440
Speaker 2: of them. I work with them. They've taken on multiple

702
00:36:30,520 --> 00:36:33,440
Speaker 2: das and they've won a lot of races. Here in

703
00:36:33,440 --> 00:36:35,680
Speaker 2: Los Angeles. If you live here, we have a DA

704
00:36:35,840 --> 00:36:39,920
Speaker 2: race that's happening. Jackie Lacy must go and George Gascon

705
00:36:40,000 --> 00:36:41,799
Speaker 2: is running up against her, and we like him and

706
00:36:41,880 --> 00:36:44,680
Speaker 2: we've endorse him. So just so, it's really important that

707
00:36:44,760 --> 00:36:47,440
Speaker 2: you know what your local elections are going to be

708
00:36:47,520 --> 00:36:50,160
Speaker 2: and who's up against each other and researching them.

709
00:36:50,560 --> 00:36:53,920
Speaker 1: Okay, next question is are there any significant efforts being

710
00:36:53,960 --> 00:36:58,240
Speaker 1: made regarding legislation of civilian review boards with actual power

711
00:36:58,600 --> 00:37:02,239
Speaker 1: that oversee police internal affairs division. This comes from someone

712
00:37:02,239 --> 00:37:05,839
Speaker 1: who's not a neophyte. Okay, how like that sounds like you.

713
00:37:06,239 --> 00:37:10,720
Speaker 5: I have not heard of anything that I would term significant. Again,

714
00:37:10,840 --> 00:37:13,040
Speaker 5: that term is very loaded though, I mean I'm not

715
00:37:13,120 --> 00:37:15,279
Speaker 5: a big fan of that kind of intervention in any way.

716
00:37:15,600 --> 00:37:18,400
Speaker 5: I'm much more in favor of just dramatically reducing the

717
00:37:18,440 --> 00:37:21,160
Speaker 5: size of police department. I think it's a really fraught

718
00:37:21,200 --> 00:37:23,520
Speaker 5: business to say we're going to improve police departments by

719
00:37:23,640 --> 00:37:26,960
Speaker 5: giving a little more oversight, by investigating, by giving more

720
00:37:27,000 --> 00:37:30,400
Speaker 5: resources to other police to investigate those police, right. I

721
00:37:30,400 --> 00:37:33,000
Speaker 5: think if you want to stop police brutality, if you

722
00:37:33,040 --> 00:37:36,160
Speaker 5: want to invest in communities, you reduce the size, You

723
00:37:36,200 --> 00:37:40,240
Speaker 5: reduce the number of interactions they're having with people. You decriminalize,

724
00:37:40,320 --> 00:37:43,359
Speaker 5: you reduce their ability to intervene in the negative way

725
00:37:43,400 --> 00:37:46,120
Speaker 5: in people's lives. Smaller police forces are going to do

726
00:37:46,160 --> 00:37:47,960
Speaker 5: a lot less of the things that we don't want

727
00:37:48,000 --> 00:37:51,520
Speaker 5: police doing, so for me, I think it's interesting that

728
00:37:51,760 --> 00:37:55,200
Speaker 5: many people in the establishment for years have been focusing

729
00:37:55,200 --> 00:37:57,879
Speaker 5: on interventions like that, and the police unions have won

730
00:37:58,000 --> 00:38:00,640
Speaker 5: even those battles. I mean, police unions have prevented even

731
00:38:00,680 --> 00:38:04,319
Speaker 5: the most basic interventions like civilian review boards with with

732
00:38:04,360 --> 00:38:08,400
Speaker 5: subpoena power. Police unions have blocked even the most seemingly

733
00:38:08,800 --> 00:38:11,600
Speaker 5: mild interventions to police accountability. But that doesn't mean that

734
00:38:11,600 --> 00:38:13,440
Speaker 5: we should still be pushing for those things above other

735
00:38:13,480 --> 00:38:16,560
Speaker 5: things we should be pushing in this moment. We're much bolder,

736
00:38:16,840 --> 00:38:20,840
Speaker 5: much more visionary change to the structure of who police

737
00:38:20,880 --> 00:38:22,719
Speaker 5: are and what they do and why we need them,

738
00:38:22,880 --> 00:38:25,120
Speaker 5: and we should only be using them to the extent

739
00:38:25,200 --> 00:38:27,160
Speaker 5: someone is able to tell us a very very good

740
00:38:27,160 --> 00:38:29,640
Speaker 5: reason why police need to be doing this particular thing,

741
00:38:30,040 --> 00:38:32,080
Speaker 5: and they don't need to be doing anything else. And

742
00:38:32,160 --> 00:38:34,560
Speaker 5: so I think in terms of all of the reforms

743
00:38:34,560 --> 00:38:36,960
Speaker 5: that are being pushed, you know, one of the current

744
00:38:37,040 --> 00:38:39,480
Speaker 5: reforms that police unions are most upset with is this

745
00:38:39,760 --> 00:38:43,520
Speaker 5: independent power of civilian review boards to fire officers or

746
00:38:43,560 --> 00:38:46,560
Speaker 5: subpoena them or to conduct investigations. But that's sort of

747
00:38:46,640 --> 00:38:50,040
Speaker 5: because police unions haven't yet appreciated the moment that we're in,

748
00:38:50,080 --> 00:38:53,080
Speaker 5: which is actually, potentially, if we do things right, much

749
00:38:53,120 --> 00:38:56,319
Speaker 5: more threatening to the very notion that there could be

750
00:38:56,360 --> 00:38:59,920
Speaker 5: fifty one thousand employees of the New York Police Department.

751
00:39:00,280 --> 00:39:03,600
Speaker 5: There shouldn't be fifty one thousand NYPD employees, right, And

752
00:39:03,640 --> 00:39:05,520
Speaker 5: as a first step, let's cut it down to thirty thousand.

753
00:39:05,560 --> 00:39:07,719
Speaker 5: Then we can start talking about scrutinizing and holding those

754
00:39:07,719 --> 00:39:08,800
Speaker 5: thirty thousand people account.

755
00:39:09,080 --> 00:39:11,239
Speaker 1: Cassandra I want to ask you a question because and

756
00:39:11,239 --> 00:39:13,200
Speaker 1: then I'll get it back to the questions from the audience.

757
00:39:13,200 --> 00:39:15,800
Speaker 1: But you know, and you talk very eloquently about how

758
00:39:16,080 --> 00:39:19,399
Speaker 1: much of a role drugs play in police brutality, right,

759
00:39:19,440 --> 00:39:21,560
Speaker 1: because it's the start of so many interactions, or it's

760
00:39:21,560 --> 00:39:24,879
Speaker 1: the rationale for so much brutality. And many people say, well,

761
00:39:24,880 --> 00:39:27,800
Speaker 1: I can understand legalizing pot, but legalizing drugs that's a

762
00:39:27,800 --> 00:39:29,840
Speaker 1: little too much for me. But we know from what

763
00:39:29,920 --> 00:39:33,160
Speaker 1: happened in Portugal and other places when they have decriminalized

764
00:39:33,200 --> 00:39:36,160
Speaker 1: all drugs, there's not a social scientist alive who can

765
00:39:36,200 --> 00:39:39,960
Speaker 1: point to any deleterious effect. Or am I wrong about that?

766
00:39:40,400 --> 00:39:40,920
Speaker 3: No, you're not.

767
00:39:41,080 --> 00:39:44,440
Speaker 4: I mean I think decriminalizing drugs in general removes and

768
00:39:44,600 --> 00:39:48,600
Speaker 4: excuse or lessons in excuse, right, and so it creates

769
00:39:48,640 --> 00:39:51,920
Speaker 4: this thing where law enforcement isn't supposed to do this anymore.

770
00:39:52,239 --> 00:39:55,960
Speaker 4: And then we're able to start understanding like what is

771
00:39:56,000 --> 00:39:59,239
Speaker 4: your role, right, Like you're not playing this role for drugs,

772
00:39:59,360 --> 00:40:02,000
Speaker 4: so what do you actually doing? And when we saw

773
00:40:02,120 --> 00:40:06,000
Speaker 4: Portugal in two thousand and one, violence went down, addiction

774
00:40:06,160 --> 00:40:10,360
Speaker 4: went down, young people didn't start using drugs. More blood

775
00:40:10,360 --> 00:40:14,239
Speaker 4: born illnesses also went down, people moving into treatment went up.

776
00:40:14,520 --> 00:40:16,840
Speaker 4: You know what's actually really interesting about this is like

777
00:40:17,000 --> 00:40:20,960
Speaker 4: right now in the US, Drug Policy Action is working

778
00:40:21,000 --> 00:40:24,279
Speaker 4: with groups on the ground in Oregon for Initiative forty four,

779
00:40:24,840 --> 00:40:28,880
Speaker 4: where we are working to decriminalize all drugs and also

780
00:40:29,200 --> 00:40:32,960
Speaker 4: building up the health infrastructure, because Oregon is the fiftieth

781
00:40:33,000 --> 00:40:36,719
Speaker 4: state when it comes to substance use treatment access, so

782
00:40:36,760 --> 00:40:39,040
Speaker 4: they are the worst when it comes to people getting

783
00:40:39,080 --> 00:40:42,279
Speaker 4: access to treatment. And what we're saying is because what

784
00:40:42,320 --> 00:40:45,040
Speaker 4: the nineteen ninety four Crime Bill did was say, we

785
00:40:45,120 --> 00:40:47,640
Speaker 4: have to criminalize drugs really hard so we can give

786
00:40:47,680 --> 00:40:50,960
Speaker 4: you access to treatment. And what they did was criminalize

787
00:40:51,040 --> 00:40:53,680
Speaker 4: is really hard and didn't actually give us treatment. And

788
00:40:53,719 --> 00:40:57,560
Speaker 4: there's this thing about people who are homeless or mentally

789
00:40:57,600 --> 00:41:01,160
Speaker 4: ill or who have substance whose problems is like, in

790
00:41:01,280 --> 00:41:04,239
Speaker 4: order for them to get access to treatment, they have

791
00:41:04,400 --> 00:41:06,160
Speaker 4: to be involved in the criminal legal system.

792
00:41:06,400 --> 00:41:08,480
Speaker 3: And so what we're saying is like, being involved with

793
00:41:08,520 --> 00:41:10,320
Speaker 3: the criminal legal system should.

794
00:41:10,120 --> 00:41:14,120
Speaker 4: Not be a barrier or an entryway into getting access,

795
00:41:14,200 --> 00:41:18,239
Speaker 4: and so decriminalizing drugs removes law enforcement from that role.

796
00:41:18,400 --> 00:41:21,520
Speaker 4: And to the question earlier about civil review boards, I

797
00:41:21,520 --> 00:41:24,600
Speaker 4: think it's also important to realize that individuals are the

798
00:41:24,600 --> 00:41:27,759
Speaker 4: civil review board. And so, going back to Patricia's point

799
00:41:27,840 --> 00:41:31,200
Speaker 4: and to your question about volunteer opportunities, people need to

800
00:41:31,239 --> 00:41:34,640
Speaker 4: cop watch. People need to join cop watch crews around

801
00:41:34,640 --> 00:41:38,360
Speaker 4: this country. The reason why Black Lives Matter is so big,

802
00:41:38,440 --> 00:41:40,880
Speaker 4: and the reason why George Floyd is so big is

803
00:41:40,920 --> 00:41:45,440
Speaker 4: because we're watching. We have educated ourselves to realize that

804
00:41:45,800 --> 00:41:49,520
Speaker 4: seeing police officers interact with people is a reason for

805
00:41:49,560 --> 00:41:52,520
Speaker 4: you to stop and for you to record. Just in

806
00:41:52,560 --> 00:41:55,200
Speaker 4: the same way that the state is surveilling us, we

807
00:41:55,239 --> 00:41:58,600
Speaker 4: need to surveil them. And you see how these videos,

808
00:41:58,600 --> 00:42:01,040
Speaker 4: we see the video that we got for Aubrey, the

809
00:42:01,160 --> 00:42:03,719
Speaker 4: video that we got for Ramarley Graham, the video we

810
00:42:03,760 --> 00:42:07,920
Speaker 4: got for George Floyd changed the conversation because police can lie,

811
00:42:08,200 --> 00:42:10,440
Speaker 4: and they lie often, and it's not illegal for them

812
00:42:10,440 --> 00:42:13,040
Speaker 4: to lie. And so if you are looking for things

813
00:42:13,120 --> 00:42:15,560
Speaker 4: to donate to, or you actually want to put your

814
00:42:15,560 --> 00:42:19,760
Speaker 4: body in this movement, not just in protests or in groups,

815
00:42:20,080 --> 00:42:23,440
Speaker 4: join a cop watch group. It has changed the way

816
00:42:23,840 --> 00:42:27,239
Speaker 4: people operate because now we can say, no, that's not

817
00:42:27,360 --> 00:42:28,400
Speaker 4: what happened, officer.

818
00:42:28,719 --> 00:42:30,400
Speaker 3: You actually had your.

819
00:42:30,200 --> 00:42:33,160
Speaker 4: Foot on that man's neck for nine minutes, as opposed

820
00:42:33,200 --> 00:42:35,240
Speaker 4: to what they usually do when it comes to drugs,

821
00:42:35,400 --> 00:42:37,799
Speaker 4: where they do an optopsy and if you have weed

822
00:42:37,840 --> 00:42:40,920
Speaker 4: in your system, or if you have fentanyl or methamphetamine,

823
00:42:41,239 --> 00:42:43,520
Speaker 4: then they get to say, well, it's drugs that killed them,

824
00:42:43,640 --> 00:42:44,279
Speaker 4: but it wasn't.

825
00:42:44,360 --> 00:42:45,879
Speaker 3: It was police interactions.

826
00:42:45,920 --> 00:42:48,879
Speaker 4: And so cop watching is super important, and it's an

827
00:42:48,880 --> 00:42:52,920
Speaker 4: amazing way to provide volunteer opportunities, and it really helps

828
00:42:52,920 --> 00:42:55,600
Speaker 4: people on the ground because they're doing it for you

829
00:42:55,680 --> 00:42:59,000
Speaker 4: and I and getting more people entering into the cop

830
00:42:59,040 --> 00:43:00,160
Speaker 4: watch tradition.

831
00:43:00,440 --> 00:43:01,439
Speaker 3: We'll save all of us.

832
00:43:01,800 --> 00:43:05,200
Speaker 1: Right. There's even a hashtag AFTP Always Filmed the Police,

833
00:43:05,440 --> 00:43:07,319
Speaker 1: so you can go to that hashtag. Thousands of people

834
00:43:07,440 --> 00:43:10,520
Speaker 1: uploading videos every day now on, and so it's changing

835
00:43:10,840 --> 00:43:13,560
Speaker 1: the entire culture. I just saw a question come in

836
00:43:13,560 --> 00:43:16,840
Speaker 1: from my own brother, Peter Flom, who's a PhD in

837
00:43:16,880 --> 00:43:20,000
Speaker 1: psychometric so this should be interesting. He says, given how

838
00:43:20,040 --> 00:43:22,640
Speaker 1: spread out the police are, with state police, city police,

839
00:43:22,640 --> 00:43:26,319
Speaker 1: local police, and so on, how can local legislation or

840
00:43:26,400 --> 00:43:28,160
Speaker 1: other measures apply widely?

841
00:43:28,400 --> 00:43:30,239
Speaker 5: I mean, I can start, I can just say, I mean,

842
00:43:30,520 --> 00:43:33,359
Speaker 5: the vast bulk of police officers in this country are

843
00:43:33,480 --> 00:43:37,520
Speaker 5: are local police department officers. Right, So there are tens

844
00:43:37,520 --> 00:43:40,520
Speaker 5: of thousands of police officers just in New York City.

845
00:43:40,760 --> 00:43:45,280
Speaker 5: There are tens of thousands of officers in Chicago, La, Houston, Dallas,

846
00:43:45,320 --> 00:43:48,320
Speaker 5: you know, all of the big cities have gigantic police

847
00:43:48,320 --> 00:43:52,120
Speaker 5: departments with enormous budgets, and when we talk about policing,

848
00:43:52,400 --> 00:43:55,439
Speaker 5: we are by and large talking about those police forces. Now,

849
00:43:55,600 --> 00:43:59,680
Speaker 5: of course, every single state has various versions, multiple versions

850
00:43:59,680 --> 00:44:00,680
Speaker 5: in most places.

851
00:44:00,320 --> 00:44:01,160
Speaker 8: Of state police.

852
00:44:01,600 --> 00:44:04,000
Speaker 5: All of these people call themselves law enforcement officers, which

853
00:44:04,000 --> 00:44:05,960
Speaker 5: I think is a term of propaganda, you know, designed

854
00:44:06,000 --> 00:44:08,320
Speaker 5: to shield the fact that they're only enforcing some laws

855
00:44:08,480 --> 00:44:11,000
Speaker 5: against some people some of the time. But this entire

856
00:44:11,080 --> 00:44:14,080
Speaker 5: sort of law enforcement industry, your brother is correct. There's

857
00:44:14,120 --> 00:44:17,920
Speaker 5: federal police Washington, dcv of dozens of federal police forces,

858
00:44:17,960 --> 00:44:21,680
Speaker 5: but they all pale in size the local metropolitan police department.

859
00:44:21,719 --> 00:44:24,880
Speaker 5: And so, make no mistake, local city and county governments

860
00:44:25,120 --> 00:44:29,200
Speaker 5: have direct budgetary control over their local police forces and

861
00:44:29,200 --> 00:44:32,840
Speaker 5: local sheriff's departments. And in every single town and county

862
00:44:32,880 --> 00:44:35,160
Speaker 5: in this country, the people that you elect for those

863
00:44:35,200 --> 00:44:38,319
Speaker 5: positions can slash the budgets of their police and their

864
00:44:38,320 --> 00:44:41,800
Speaker 5: sheriff's departments, and give that money to affordable housing, mental

865
00:44:41,880 --> 00:44:46,080
Speaker 5: health care, treatment, theater, poetry, music, athletic programs for children,

866
00:44:46,280 --> 00:44:48,120
Speaker 5: all the things that people actually need and want in

867
00:44:48,120 --> 00:44:50,640
Speaker 5: their communities, and that is something that can happen in

868
00:44:50,680 --> 00:44:51,759
Speaker 5: every single community.

869
00:44:51,960 --> 00:44:52,160
Speaker 6: Yeah.

870
00:44:52,200 --> 00:44:54,760
Speaker 7: I'd also add that there is a big partnership between

871
00:44:54,760 --> 00:44:58,520
Speaker 7: local police and federal police that needs to be addressed,

872
00:44:58,560 --> 00:45:02,680
Speaker 7: and that by changing local politics and policies can affect

873
00:45:02,880 --> 00:45:07,160
Speaker 7: national policing. So a great example of sanctuary cities and

874
00:45:07,800 --> 00:45:12,080
Speaker 7: cities that are refusing to cooperate with ikes right saying well,

875
00:45:12,080 --> 00:45:14,319
Speaker 7: we're not going to enforce those things, and therefore the

876
00:45:14,360 --> 00:45:18,080
Speaker 7: federal reach becomes a lot more limited and enforcement at

877
00:45:18,080 --> 00:45:21,320
Speaker 7: the federal level becomes a lot harder. Similarly, civil asset

878
00:45:21,360 --> 00:45:25,439
Speaker 7: forfeiture is actually a very common practice between federal and

879
00:45:25,760 --> 00:45:30,160
Speaker 7: local police, so to Cassandra's work in point, there's this misnomer, right,

880
00:45:30,239 --> 00:45:32,040
Speaker 7: the majority of people are in prison for drugs.

881
00:45:32,280 --> 00:45:34,080
Speaker 6: Not the case, however, is.

882
00:45:34,200 --> 00:45:36,640
Speaker 7: Or similar to the case in the federal system, and

883
00:45:36,719 --> 00:45:40,719
Speaker 7: so federal police actually really do rely on local police.

884
00:45:40,960 --> 00:45:43,000
Speaker 7: In fact, there's a federal program that allows them to

885
00:45:43,000 --> 00:45:46,560
Speaker 7: take eighty percent of civil asset forfeiture proceeds and it

886
00:45:46,600 --> 00:45:49,799
Speaker 7: incentivizes local police to work with the federal system when

887
00:45:49,840 --> 00:45:53,319
Speaker 7: the federal system is looking for someone. So there's a

888
00:45:53,360 --> 00:45:56,960
Speaker 7: lot of relational aspects between those two. That means by

889
00:45:57,040 --> 00:46:01,560
Speaker 7: changing local policies you can impact even how federal law

890
00:46:01,640 --> 00:46:03,160
Speaker 7: enforcement is done.

891
00:46:03,520 --> 00:46:05,520
Speaker 6: And the last thing I'll started to say on that

892
00:46:05,680 --> 00:46:08,360
Speaker 6: is just that jails are also local.

893
00:46:08,520 --> 00:46:12,279
Speaker 7: Their local sheriffs and counties run jails, and some of

894
00:46:12,320 --> 00:46:16,359
Speaker 7: the most egregious exploitation happens at the jail level, not

895
00:46:16,400 --> 00:46:19,719
Speaker 7: actually necessarily at the state level. So those phone calls,

896
00:46:19,719 --> 00:46:21,680
Speaker 7: when we talk about like the price of a phone call,

897
00:46:22,000 --> 00:46:25,560
Speaker 7: the national average that the jail is over five dollars

898
00:46:25,560 --> 00:46:29,200
Speaker 7: and seventy five cents. National average across prisons is a

899
00:46:29,200 --> 00:46:33,640
Speaker 7: dollar forty two. And so actually looking at local policies

900
00:46:33,760 --> 00:46:37,719
Speaker 7: is really critical and quite frankly, for organizations a lot

901
00:46:37,760 --> 00:46:40,920
Speaker 7: harder because there's so many and so work that can

902
00:46:40,960 --> 00:46:44,000
Speaker 7: be done at that level by ordinary citizens without the

903
00:46:44,040 --> 00:46:45,560
Speaker 7: work of advocacy can.

904
00:46:45,440 --> 00:46:46,360
Speaker 6: Be really impactful.

905
00:46:46,920 --> 00:46:49,319
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's crazy to think, even going back to what

906
00:46:49,400 --> 00:46:52,239
Speaker 1: Cassandra was saying, that we now know because his own

907
00:46:52,280 --> 00:46:55,640
Speaker 1: aid admitted this, that Nixon declared the war on drugs,

908
00:46:55,640 --> 00:46:58,120
Speaker 1: not because he cared about drugs. Nobody cared about drugs

909
00:46:58,200 --> 00:47:00,560
Speaker 1: back then, but he wanted a war on black people

910
00:47:00,560 --> 00:47:02,160
Speaker 1: and hippies, and he couldn't call it that, so it

911
00:47:02,200 --> 00:47:04,480
Speaker 1: was really a marketing thing that he did, and it

912
00:47:04,600 --> 00:47:08,160
Speaker 1: of course led to this unbelievably disastrous situation, including the

913
00:47:08,160 --> 00:47:10,120
Speaker 1: fact that we now live in a police state, and

914
00:47:10,200 --> 00:47:13,880
Speaker 1: we also know that drug arrests are over fifty percent

915
00:47:13,920 --> 00:47:16,120
Speaker 1: people of color, and then it goes up. The number

916
00:47:16,120 --> 00:47:18,759
Speaker 1: of prosecutions is close to sixty five percent and the

917
00:47:18,800 --> 00:47:21,480
Speaker 1: number of convictions is over seventy five percent of people

918
00:47:21,520 --> 00:47:21,960
Speaker 1: of color.

919
00:47:22,160 --> 00:47:23,680
Speaker 4: And I think it goes back to one of the

920
00:47:23,719 --> 00:47:26,480
Speaker 4: things that Patrice said earlier about the low hanging fruit.

921
00:47:26,880 --> 00:47:29,680
Speaker 4: We have to have a conversation as to why the

922
00:47:29,680 --> 00:47:34,320
Speaker 4: Cook County Jail is the largest treatment provider in the country.

923
00:47:35,920 --> 00:47:38,400
Speaker 4: Largest drug treatmental provider in the country comes out of

924
00:47:38,440 --> 00:47:41,080
Speaker 4: a jail. In New York, Department of Correction was the

925
00:47:41,160 --> 00:47:45,440
Speaker 4: largest treatment provider. So like our police state, you have

926
00:47:45,880 --> 00:47:50,560
Speaker 4: contracts not just with aramark, you have contracts with treatment facilities.

927
00:47:50,880 --> 00:47:55,080
Speaker 4: So the police state, everyone's making money based on marginalized

928
00:47:55,120 --> 00:47:57,640
Speaker 4: people that are struggling with everyday situations.

929
00:47:57,960 --> 00:47:59,360
Speaker 3: And so defunding police.

930
00:47:59,440 --> 00:48:02,120
Speaker 4: It goes back to Bianca is like the funding is

931
00:48:02,160 --> 00:48:04,880
Speaker 4: also looking at the role that capitalism is playing and

932
00:48:04,920 --> 00:48:08,080
Speaker 4: the industry that we have built on the suffering of people.

933
00:48:08,680 --> 00:48:10,520
Speaker 1: And let's not forget in all of this that the

934
00:48:10,520 --> 00:48:13,839
Speaker 1: people that are paying for all of this are taxpayers, right,

935
00:48:13,920 --> 00:48:15,720
Speaker 1: It's not like this money falls out of the sky.

936
00:48:16,239 --> 00:48:19,280
Speaker 1: We are paying one hundred and seventy five thousand dollars

937
00:48:19,320 --> 00:48:21,319
Speaker 1: to keep someone in Rikers Island. You could actually put

938
00:48:21,320 --> 00:48:23,320
Speaker 1: somebody in the four Seasons on fifty seventh Street for

939
00:48:23,360 --> 00:48:25,759
Speaker 1: the same amount of money, and we're paying to keep

940
00:48:25,800 --> 00:48:28,839
Speaker 1: them in Rikers Island. But it's us paying for all

941
00:48:28,880 --> 00:48:30,680
Speaker 1: of this, paying for them. When you hear Bionca talk

942
00:48:30,719 --> 00:48:33,440
Speaker 1: about the police department, numbers not tens of billions, but

943
00:48:33,560 --> 00:48:35,960
Speaker 1: hundreds of billions of dollars that we are spending, and

944
00:48:36,000 --> 00:48:38,600
Speaker 1: that could be going to educate kids, to healthcare, to

945
00:48:38,640 --> 00:48:40,680
Speaker 1: all the things that we actually need. But I also

946
00:48:40,680 --> 00:48:41,880
Speaker 1: want to make the point that, going back to what

947
00:48:41,880 --> 00:48:44,000
Speaker 1: we're saying before, not only do we pay to incarcerate

948
00:48:44,080 --> 00:48:47,000
Speaker 1: people as taxpayers, but we also deprive our own society

949
00:48:47,360 --> 00:48:49,320
Speaker 1: of the money that they would be paying in taxes

950
00:48:49,360 --> 00:48:51,279
Speaker 1: if they were free and working, and we deprive them

951
00:48:51,280 --> 00:48:53,360
Speaker 1: of the ability to make money in the future because

952
00:48:53,400 --> 00:48:56,480
Speaker 1: we discriminate against those very same people when they come

953
00:48:56,560 --> 00:48:59,000
Speaker 1: out of prison and they can't get a job, and

954
00:48:59,040 --> 00:49:01,600
Speaker 1: therefore they can't suppor with their family, they can't pay taxes,

955
00:49:01,680 --> 00:49:03,480
Speaker 1: and then we wonder why we have recidivism in this

956
00:49:03,520 --> 00:49:05,920
Speaker 1: country as well. It's a vicious cycle. But we can

957
00:49:05,960 --> 00:49:08,239
Speaker 1: break it, and we can break it together. So we

958
00:49:08,320 --> 00:49:10,759
Speaker 1: have one or two more questions. Someone said it has

959
00:49:10,840 --> 00:49:13,400
Speaker 1: often been said those closest to the problem are closest

960
00:49:13,400 --> 00:49:16,120
Speaker 1: to the solution, but furthest from the resources and power.

961
00:49:16,600 --> 00:49:18,919
Speaker 1: No one is closer to the resources and the power

962
00:49:19,000 --> 00:49:21,520
Speaker 1: of criminal justicism than those in the field of law.

963
00:49:22,040 --> 00:49:26,680
Speaker 1: Yet paradoxically, no one is more restrained from accessing and

964
00:49:26,880 --> 00:49:31,359
Speaker 1: entering the field than justice impacted. Is there anything more

965
00:49:31,400 --> 00:49:34,880
Speaker 1: impactful than empowering and equipping our people? Wow, that's a

966
00:49:34,920 --> 00:49:38,520
Speaker 1: lofty question. It's more of a statement than a question,

967
00:49:38,560 --> 00:49:40,120
Speaker 1: So maybe it's okay here, really.

968
00:49:40,000 --> 00:49:40,640
Speaker 6: Easy to answer.

969
00:49:40,680 --> 00:49:43,200
Speaker 7: No, there's nothing more powerful like we have to equip

970
00:49:43,239 --> 00:49:43,800
Speaker 7: our people.

971
00:49:44,080 --> 00:49:45,480
Speaker 6: It's very clear and true.

972
00:49:45,920 --> 00:49:47,960
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I think the most powerful thing to

973
00:49:48,040 --> 00:49:51,320
Speaker 4: me and our work is not just equipping people with resources,

974
00:49:51,360 --> 00:49:53,600
Speaker 4: but giving them the tools to stand in their own

975
00:49:53,680 --> 00:49:57,319
Speaker 4: power and agency. I think the most powerful relationships that

976
00:49:57,360 --> 00:50:00,360
Speaker 4: I have in working at Drug Policy Alliance is working

977
00:50:00,400 --> 00:50:02,640
Speaker 4: hand in hand with drug User Unions. So people who

978
00:50:02,680 --> 00:50:06,520
Speaker 4: use drugs in our criminalize every single day, direct our agenda,

979
00:50:06,640 --> 00:50:09,880
Speaker 4: and we plan and we conspire and we build and move.

980
00:50:09,800 --> 00:50:11,960
Speaker 3: Together and we get them resources.

981
00:50:12,040 --> 00:50:14,839
Speaker 4: So you know, organizations like Vocal New York are doing

982
00:50:14,880 --> 00:50:19,000
Speaker 4: amazing work at multiple intersections, and so folks are thinking

983
00:50:19,000 --> 00:50:22,600
Speaker 4: about who is closest to the problem.

984
00:50:22,239 --> 00:50:23,759
Speaker 3: But furthest from the resources.

985
00:50:23,800 --> 00:50:26,319
Speaker 4: I would look for drug user Unions because they're doing

986
00:50:26,360 --> 00:50:28,080
Speaker 4: a lot of the works at the intersections.

987
00:50:28,719 --> 00:50:31,440
Speaker 1: And I'm going to say now as we go to closing,

988
00:50:32,120 --> 00:50:37,160
Speaker 1: it's one very simple step is to follow Worthrises. It'sworthrises

989
00:50:37,200 --> 00:50:41,359
Speaker 1: dot org or at Worth Rises on Instagram. Of course,

990
00:50:41,440 --> 00:50:45,080
Speaker 1: Drug Policy Alliance very simple, very straightforward. The people who

991
00:50:45,080 --> 00:50:47,000
Speaker 1: are fighting the war against the War on drugs with

992
00:50:47,080 --> 00:50:51,080
Speaker 1: all of its miserable tentacles and the various goals, follow

993
00:50:51,160 --> 00:50:55,160
Speaker 1: Drug Policy Alliance on whatever social media you use. Civil

994
00:50:55,239 --> 00:50:57,560
Speaker 1: Rights Core again, if you just go to even their

995
00:50:57,560 --> 00:51:00,520
Speaker 1: Instagram or their site, you'll see it's almost a one

996
00:51:00,520 --> 00:51:04,719
Speaker 1: stop resource for figuring out how you can get involved,

997
00:51:04,719 --> 00:51:06,640
Speaker 1: how you can make your voice heard, how you can

998
00:51:06,800 --> 00:51:09,960
Speaker 1: activate your friends and energize, and of course Black Lives Matter.

999
00:51:10,000 --> 00:51:11,640
Speaker 1: I think Patrice had a six o'clock so she had

1000
00:51:11,680 --> 00:51:14,280
Speaker 1: to jump off. But no one's going to forget those words,

1001
00:51:14,320 --> 00:51:17,080
Speaker 1: and no one has any complication or confusion as to

1002
00:51:17,120 --> 00:51:20,400
Speaker 1: how to go to find resources on I just say on.

1003
00:51:20,440 --> 00:51:21,680
Speaker 6: Patrese's behalf since she's not.

1004
00:51:21,880 --> 00:51:24,960
Speaker 7: Also to follow Dignity and Power Now, which is the

1005
00:51:25,080 --> 00:51:29,359
Speaker 7: organization that Patrese founded after BLM and currently runs and

1006
00:51:29,400 --> 00:51:34,200
Speaker 7: their Twitter and Instagram is Power Dignity, it's actually inverse.

1007
00:51:34,320 --> 00:51:37,960
Speaker 1: And of course Vote Vote Vote. We do have a

1008
00:51:38,000 --> 00:51:40,000
Speaker 1: couple of minutes left and so I'd like to just

1009
00:51:40,040 --> 00:51:42,600
Speaker 1: have a quick closing, if we can do a lightning round.

1010
00:51:42,880 --> 00:51:46,880
Speaker 1: I want to thank everyone for tuning in. I'm Jason Flamm.

1011
00:51:47,480 --> 00:51:51,120
Speaker 1: This has been a presentation of Wrongful Conviction podcasts. Please

1012
00:51:51,160 --> 00:51:53,839
Speaker 1: do follow us as well. It's Wrongful Conviction Podcast on

1013
00:51:53,880 --> 00:51:55,560
Speaker 1: Instagram or if you want to follow me, it's at

1014
00:51:55,600 --> 00:51:58,040
Speaker 1: It's Jason Flamm, but you probably already know that. And

1015
00:51:58,120 --> 00:52:01,400
Speaker 1: thank you all for watching and forgetting, for caring and

1016
00:52:01,440 --> 00:52:03,880
Speaker 1: now I'm going to turn it over to our wonderful

1017
00:52:04,160 --> 00:52:07,480
Speaker 1: group of panelists to just share their closing thoughts and

1018
00:52:07,560 --> 00:52:10,000
Speaker 1: any any action steps that you want to take. Anybody

1019
00:52:10,040 --> 00:52:12,719
Speaker 1: to follow, anybody that don'tate to whatever it is, we'll

1020
00:52:12,719 --> 00:52:15,960
Speaker 1: close out. We'll go this time in reverse orders, so

1021
00:52:16,000 --> 00:52:21,160
Speaker 1: we'll go Bianca, Ale, Cassandra, and finally patrece So Bianca.

1022
00:52:21,440 --> 00:52:21,760
Speaker 3: Great.

1023
00:52:21,880 --> 00:52:25,520
Speaker 7: Well, thank you Jason for obviously pulling this together and

1024
00:52:25,560 --> 00:52:28,640
Speaker 7: for asking us all to join and for uplifting the

1025
00:52:28,680 --> 00:52:31,719
Speaker 7: calls to action that everyone here is uplifting.

1026
00:52:32,040 --> 00:52:33,879
Speaker 6: So I just want to reiterate calls to.

1027
00:52:33,880 --> 00:52:36,760
Speaker 7: Action that are being made by the Movement for Black

1028
00:52:36,800 --> 00:52:41,000
Speaker 7: Lives and black led organizations. Please also follow them, join

1029
00:52:41,160 --> 00:52:45,880
Speaker 7: their actions, and in particular they're organizing around Juneteenth next

1030
00:52:45,920 --> 00:52:49,680
Speaker 7: week and really trying to center that work and focusing

1031
00:52:50,160 --> 00:52:52,520
Speaker 7: that is I think really important. And the last thing

1032
00:52:52,560 --> 00:52:55,600
Speaker 7: I'll say is again just reiterating whatever you do, make

1033
00:52:55,640 --> 00:52:58,719
Speaker 7: sure you do it sustainably, make sure you are committed

1034
00:52:58,760 --> 00:52:59,880
Speaker 7: to this for more than this.

1035
00:53:00,000 --> 00:53:01,680
Speaker 3: It's just one moment, Okay.

1036
00:53:02,520 --> 00:53:05,200
Speaker 5: I think it's really important for people to understand that

1037
00:53:05,239 --> 00:53:08,640
Speaker 5: we are about to be immersed in a full on

1038
00:53:08,960 --> 00:53:11,600
Speaker 5: propaganda war and there's going to be a lot of

1039
00:53:11,640 --> 00:53:16,160
Speaker 5: people who have an interest in shielding the true functions

1040
00:53:16,200 --> 00:53:19,320
Speaker 5: of what the police do, what our entire criminal punishment

1041
00:53:19,320 --> 00:53:23,040
Speaker 5: bureaucracy does, And so I think it's very important that

1042
00:53:23,120 --> 00:53:26,399
Speaker 5: you educate yourself about those systems and keep a few

1043
00:53:26,480 --> 00:53:28,400
Speaker 5: rules of thumb in mind. You know, if someone is

1044
00:53:28,400 --> 00:53:32,319
Speaker 5: proposing something that doesn't reduce the resources we're putting into

1045
00:53:32,320 --> 00:53:35,759
Speaker 5: the police and the punishment bureaucracy more generally, it's not

1046
00:53:35,800 --> 00:53:36,440
Speaker 5: a good reform.

1047
00:53:36,960 --> 00:53:38,200
Speaker 8: Okay, If someone.

1048
00:53:38,000 --> 00:53:41,160
Speaker 5: Is proposing something that retains the power and discretion and

1049
00:53:41,200 --> 00:53:46,440
Speaker 5: control of actors within that system, prosecutors, police, judges, jailers,

1050
00:53:46,840 --> 00:53:49,360
Speaker 5: that's not a good reform. We need to be transferring

1051
00:53:49,840 --> 00:53:54,640
Speaker 5: authority and power into communities that are accountable to themselves,

1052
00:53:54,960 --> 00:53:57,960
Speaker 5: not to this metasticized bureaucracy. And another thing that I

1053
00:53:57,960 --> 00:54:00,839
Speaker 5: think is just absolutely critical for people to keep in

1054
00:54:00,880 --> 00:54:05,120
Speaker 5: mind is that this system is founded on a society

1055
00:54:05,320 --> 00:54:09,719
Speaker 5: of racial injustice. And it's just not possible to have

1056
00:54:09,800 --> 00:54:12,440
Speaker 5: any of these conversations without talking about how we're going

1057
00:54:12,520 --> 00:54:16,880
Speaker 5: to repair those decades and centuries of injustice. The policing system,

1058
00:54:16,920 --> 00:54:20,680
Speaker 5: the punishment bureocracy, it all exists on a structure of

1059
00:54:20,719 --> 00:54:24,680
Speaker 5: a very unequal society. And unless people are having that

1060
00:54:24,800 --> 00:54:28,560
Speaker 5: kind of deep conversation, they're not actually meaningfully.

1061
00:54:28,120 --> 00:54:29,920
Speaker 8: Engaging in these issues and they won't be able to

1062
00:54:29,960 --> 00:54:30,480
Speaker 8: solve them.

1063
00:54:30,800 --> 00:54:35,040
Speaker 5: No amount of discussion about bias, training and body cameras

1064
00:54:35,120 --> 00:54:39,239
Speaker 5: and community policing, all of these propaganistic words that you're

1065
00:54:39,280 --> 00:54:41,640
Speaker 5: probably hearing a little bit of in the media. A

1066
00:54:41,640 --> 00:54:44,520
Speaker 5: lot of people are promoting, for example, that police rewrite

1067
00:54:44,560 --> 00:54:47,800
Speaker 5: their use of force policies right or that they warn

1068
00:54:47,880 --> 00:54:48,960
Speaker 5: people before they shoot them.

1069
00:54:49,040 --> 00:54:50,480
Speaker 8: These are some of the demands that are being made.

1070
00:54:50,520 --> 00:54:51,880
Speaker 5: These are some of the things that the Democrats are

1071
00:54:51,880 --> 00:54:55,040
Speaker 5: now including in their Justice and Policing Bill, which by

1072
00:54:55,040 --> 00:54:57,680
Speaker 5: the way, is nonsense. We need to be focusing on

1073
00:54:58,080 --> 00:55:02,520
Speaker 5: structural change, on changing the priorities. Like Patrice mentioned the

1074
00:55:02,520 --> 00:55:05,160
Speaker 5: People's budget in La Take a look at that document.

1075
00:55:05,400 --> 00:55:08,319
Speaker 5: See what a truly visionary budget document for a local

1076
00:55:08,360 --> 00:55:10,799
Speaker 5: government looks like, and see how much money is being

1077
00:55:10,800 --> 00:55:13,400
Speaker 5: devoted to things like policing versus things like medical treatment,

1078
00:55:13,440 --> 00:55:14,320
Speaker 5: housing and education.

1079
00:55:14,680 --> 00:55:16,279
Speaker 8: Let's get ourselves to a society like that.

1080
00:55:16,960 --> 00:55:19,000
Speaker 1: Thank you, and don't forget to pick up Alex's book

1081
00:55:19,120 --> 00:55:22,600
Speaker 1: Usual Cruelty. I've bought hundreds of copies which I give

1082
00:55:22,600 --> 00:55:26,920
Speaker 1: out like candy, so usual. Cruelty is the book, and Cassandra,

1083
00:55:27,000 --> 00:55:28,640
Speaker 1: we're going to leave it to you to close out

1084
00:55:28,719 --> 00:55:31,360
Speaker 1: our power to the people for them, and thank you

1085
00:55:31,400 --> 00:55:32,520
Speaker 1: all again for being here.

1086
00:55:32,920 --> 00:55:33,680
Speaker 3: Thanks Jason.

1087
00:55:34,160 --> 00:55:36,520
Speaker 4: The thing that I will ask folks to do is

1088
00:55:36,600 --> 00:55:40,360
Speaker 4: to close their eyes quickly and to really think about

1089
00:55:40,440 --> 00:55:44,080
Speaker 4: the last time you felt safe. What do you see,

1090
00:55:45,120 --> 00:55:52,560
Speaker 4: who's around you, what does it sound like. Most of

1091
00:55:52,600 --> 00:55:54,799
Speaker 4: the time, when organizers, you can open your eyes. Most

1092
00:55:54,840 --> 00:55:58,480
Speaker 4: of the time, when organizers do this, we listen to

1093
00:55:58,520 --> 00:56:03,240
Speaker 4: people and no point does anyone ever say a police

1094
00:56:03,320 --> 00:56:06,880
Speaker 4: was there, there were sirens, there were protests. Most of

1095
00:56:06,880 --> 00:56:09,640
Speaker 4: the times people smell cookies. They're there with their loved ones,

1096
00:56:09,640 --> 00:56:12,839
Speaker 4: they're there with their family. When people ask us why

1097
00:56:12,840 --> 00:56:15,600
Speaker 4: we're calling to defund the police, when people are calling

1098
00:56:15,640 --> 00:56:18,480
Speaker 4: for us to say, why say black Lives matter? Is

1099
00:56:18,520 --> 00:56:21,960
Speaker 4: because we believe that everyone should feel that feeling of safety,

1100
00:56:22,800 --> 00:56:25,239
Speaker 4: that they should be surrounded by loved ones, and that

1101
00:56:25,280 --> 00:56:28,759
Speaker 4: they should have that feeling of comfort and security, and

1102
00:56:28,840 --> 00:56:31,840
Speaker 4: that too many people right now don't have that feeling.

1103
00:56:32,920 --> 00:56:35,560
Speaker 4: And that is what we're trying to get to And

1104
00:56:35,600 --> 00:56:38,600
Speaker 4: so you know, simple actions that folks can take right now,

1105
00:56:39,200 --> 00:56:43,319
Speaker 4: Going back to Bianca's point is text defend in all

1106
00:56:43,360 --> 00:56:47,000
Speaker 4: caps to nine oh nine seventy five, and then you'll

1107
00:56:47,000 --> 00:56:49,720
Speaker 4: be on the text bread for the Movement for Black Lives,

1108
00:56:49,920 --> 00:56:53,520
Speaker 4: which is calling to defund police in defense of black lives.

1109
00:56:54,000 --> 00:56:57,040
Speaker 4: And then to Alex's point, if you want to imagine

1110
00:56:57,080 --> 00:57:00,360
Speaker 4: this idea of what we can do with a runken

1111
00:57:00,440 --> 00:57:04,360
Speaker 4: police force, go to eight two Abolition eight, the number

1112
00:57:04,360 --> 00:57:08,200
Speaker 4: eight to abolition dot com. There are eight principles that

1113
00:57:08,200 --> 00:57:11,440
Speaker 4: they've laid out there, and you'll see that this conversation

1114
00:57:11,680 --> 00:57:16,680
Speaker 4: is about, you know, defunding police, demilitarizing our communities, decriminalizing

1115
00:57:16,680 --> 00:57:19,640
Speaker 4: crimes associated with survival. All these things are things that

1116
00:57:19,680 --> 00:57:22,040
Speaker 4: are possible that we can get to if we are

1117
00:57:22,080 --> 00:57:25,800
Speaker 4: willing to have the conversation about what we want to

1118
00:57:25,840 --> 00:57:28,439
Speaker 4: get to, which is safety and security.

1119
00:57:27,880 --> 00:57:32,120
Speaker 3: And love for everyone. This movement can't alone run on rage.

1120
00:57:32,400 --> 00:57:34,360
Speaker 4: It has to run on this idea that we can

1121
00:57:34,400 --> 00:57:36,520
Speaker 4: love each other and be our bestselves together.

1122
00:57:37,080 --> 00:57:40,200
Speaker 1: So, Patrice, before you start, I have a question that

1123
00:57:40,320 --> 00:57:41,840
Speaker 1: just came in and it struck me, so I wanted

1124
00:57:41,880 --> 00:57:44,560
Speaker 1: to ask you. It's a question from Danielle. She asks,

1125
00:57:44,760 --> 00:57:47,240
Speaker 1: you have done so much work to even get people

1126
00:57:47,280 --> 00:57:50,160
Speaker 1: to say the words black lives matter. How are you

1127
00:57:50,280 --> 00:57:54,280
Speaker 1: feeling from Danielle, You got a smile.

1128
00:57:56,000 --> 00:58:00,560
Speaker 2: Very kind of you. You know, there's two things I'm feeling.

1129
00:58:00,600 --> 00:58:02,280
Speaker 6: I'm a deep.

1130
00:58:03,960 --> 00:58:08,480
Speaker 2: Grief that it's taken this long for the country and

1131
00:58:08,520 --> 00:58:13,200
Speaker 2: the world to recognize the humanity of black people, and

1132
00:58:13,280 --> 00:58:15,480
Speaker 2: I think there's still a lot more work we have

1133
00:58:15,520 --> 00:58:19,280
Speaker 2: to do to bring that into practice. But also I

1134
00:58:19,320 --> 00:58:22,040
Speaker 2: think a lot of gratitude for this moment. I think

1135
00:58:22,040 --> 00:58:26,360
Speaker 2: we're an amazing opening to have new kinds of conversations.

1136
00:58:26,840 --> 00:58:29,880
Speaker 2: But also, I think number three, the role that many

1137
00:58:29,920 --> 00:58:33,440
Speaker 2: of us in this movement play, we are going to

1138
00:58:33,480 --> 00:58:36,880
Speaker 2: be attacked and people need to understand that when we

1139
00:58:36,960 --> 00:58:39,920
Speaker 2: start to win as a movement, the right attacks us.

1140
00:58:39,960 --> 00:58:42,560
Speaker 2: We're already started being attacked in the last twenty four

1141
00:58:42,560 --> 00:58:46,640
Speaker 2: hours by Candice Owens, a right wing operative of Donald Trump.

1142
00:58:46,640 --> 00:58:50,040
Speaker 2: She's a black woman, so it confuses people. But politics

1143
00:58:50,080 --> 00:58:55,080
Speaker 2: are politics, and I think that as this starts to happen,

1144
00:58:55,200 --> 00:58:57,520
Speaker 2: right so it's like everybody's saying black lives matter, and

1145
00:58:57,600 --> 00:59:01,840
Speaker 2: including major corporations, we have to be willing to stand

1146
00:59:01,920 --> 00:59:05,120
Speaker 2: up for black leaders and black leadership, and so I'm

1147
00:59:05,160 --> 00:59:08,240
Speaker 2: grateful good say black lives matter, and will you defend

1148
00:59:08,560 --> 00:59:11,360
Speaker 2: me when the right starts to attack me? Or will

1149
00:59:11,400 --> 00:59:15,120
Speaker 2: you allow them to sow seeds of uncertainty? And I

1150
00:59:15,120 --> 00:59:18,200
Speaker 2: think that's you know, seven years ago, I didn't realize

1151
00:59:18,200 --> 00:59:19,840
Speaker 2: that I was going to have right wing people attack me,

1152
00:59:19,840 --> 00:59:21,360
Speaker 2: and didn't realize they were going to call me a terrorist.

1153
00:59:21,840 --> 00:59:23,280
Speaker 2: I didn't realize there was going to be a full

1154
00:59:23,320 --> 00:59:26,919
Speaker 2: on scale attack against BLM, and there was. And seven

1155
00:59:27,000 --> 00:59:29,720
Speaker 2: years later, we're in a very similar position. And so

1156
00:59:29,800 --> 00:59:32,360
Speaker 2: I think it's powerful to hear BLM out of the

1157
00:59:32,360 --> 00:59:34,840
Speaker 2: people's mouths, but I think it'll be more powerful to

1158
00:59:34,840 --> 00:59:37,120
Speaker 2: make sure that people support us and defend us.

1159
00:59:37,880 --> 00:59:43,120
Speaker 1: Okay, thank you Cassandra, Bianca, Alec and Patrice for being here.

1160
00:59:43,280 --> 00:59:45,480
Speaker 1: Thank you everyone for listening. This has been a presentation

1161
00:59:45,520 --> 00:59:49,800
Speaker 1: of Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and thank you for that wonderful closing,

1162
00:59:50,240 --> 00:59:57,440
Speaker 1: and we'll see you all in the movement. Don't forget

1163
00:59:57,480 --> 00:59:59,760
Speaker 1: to give us a fantastic review. Wherever you get your

1164
00:59:59,760 --> 01:00:03,760
Speaker 1: pos it really helps. And I'm a proud donor to

1165
01:00:03,800 --> 01:00:06,240
Speaker 1: the Innocence Project, and I really hope you'll join me

1166
01:00:06,360 --> 01:00:09,920
Speaker 1: in supporting this very important cause and helping to prevent

1167
01:00:10,000 --> 01:00:13,880
Speaker 1: future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocenceproject dot org to learn

1168
01:00:13,920 --> 01:00:16,600
Speaker 1: how to donate and get involved. I'd like to thank

1169
01:00:16,640 --> 01:00:20,080
Speaker 1: our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis. The music

1170
01:00:20,080 --> 01:00:22,800
Speaker 1: in the show is by three time OSCAR nominated composer

1171
01:00:22,960 --> 01:00:25,760
Speaker 1: Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at

1172
01:00:25,800 --> 01:00:30,560
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction and on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast. Wrongful

1173
01:00:30,560 --> 01:00:33,320
Speaker 1: Conviction with Jason Flamm is a production of Lava for

1174
01:00:33,400 --> 01:00:41,000
Speaker 1: Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one