Speaker 1: Push it. Your mom left the South side of Chicago.
Speaker 1: She lives with you now in New Jersey. And but
Speaker 1: but more more specifically, like she didn't just leave. She
Speaker 1: purchased a handgun a couple of years ago because she
Speaker 1: wasn't feeling safe. Yeah. Yeah, and that's someone who should
Speaker 1: not be She's got a shaky hand. I know, she
Speaker 1: should not be wielding a gun. Yeah. So when she
Speaker 1: told me this, I was like, Mom, you have to
Speaker 1: move here. Like if it's come to that, like Chicago
Speaker 1: needs another handgun on the street, right, So if it
Speaker 1: comes to that, then it's time for you to come
Speaker 1: be with us. I'm Khalil Jibrad Muhammad and I'm Ben Austin.
Speaker 1: We're two best friends, one black, one white. I'm a
Speaker 1: historian and I'm a journalist. And this is some of
Speaker 1: my best friends are this show, we wrestle with the
Speaker 1: challenges and the absurdities of a deeply divided and unequal country.
Speaker 1: In today's episode, we talk about violence and its personal.
Speaker 1: We're talking about our hometown, We're talking about our neighborhood.
Speaker 1: We're talking about the most spectacular instances of gun violence.
Speaker 1: We're worried, We're worried about overcorrecting or going back to
Speaker 1: business as usual, that somehow policing is going to solve
Speaker 1: this all on its own and ultimately we have solutions
Speaker 1: that will actually fix these problems and has very little
Speaker 1: to do actually with law enforcement. So hey man, we
Speaker 1: haven't really talked about this, but uh, I mean Hyde Park,
Speaker 1: our home neighborhood has experienced unprecedented islands collapsing in one day.
Speaker 1: How are you doing? What's going on now? What's the response? Yeah? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so yeah, I mean there was a day where there
Speaker 1: was a shooting with automatic gunfire and hard report. There
Speaker 1: was a murder of a University of Chicago student and
Speaker 1: a murderer, a stabbing of a man in a domestic situation.
Speaker 1: I don't even know much more about it, and it's
Speaker 1: really scary. I mean people are scared. There's you know,
Speaker 1: the loss of life and and then thinking about you know,
Speaker 1: for for me, and I think for you too, like
Speaker 1: how do you feel safe? But also guy, yeah, but
Speaker 1: also the fear that there's going to be some response
Speaker 1: that is going to be like more policing, and it's
Speaker 1: going to cause it's going to cause other problems. Like
Speaker 1: I'm scared of that right. Yeah, well, I can tell
Speaker 1: you from a mom who've gotten a lot of report
Speaker 1: song she's watching I see it. I see her on
Speaker 1: social media every day talking about Yeah. I mean, she
Speaker 1: and I have basically been having an ongoing conversation about
Speaker 1: it because she's getting news stories. She's talking to people
Speaker 1: who live in Chicago, live in your neighborhood. And I'm
Speaker 1: really concerned not only about, you know, how how people
Speaker 1: experience what's happened, but also what comes now. You know,
Speaker 1: people in a moment like this decide to pack up
Speaker 1: and leave, like it's an existential moment. You know, people
Speaker 1: are like, I've had enough and this is what this
Speaker 1: is what destroys communities. So I mean, I tell you
Speaker 1: that I have neighbors who were like, is this the
Speaker 1: breaking point? Is it? Should we leave? And I hate
Speaker 1: hearing that. I hate it. I mean, and I know
Speaker 1: I know that that people. You know that we have
Speaker 1: to have really honest discussions about crime and safety. But
Speaker 1: you know, I feel committed to this city, into this neighborhood,
Speaker 1: and so there's something so destructive for me. It's also
Speaker 1: I think what I'm most interested in talking to you
Speaker 1: about today is exactly how this moment opens up possibilities
Speaker 1: that we haven't really done before and or in thinking
Speaker 1: about the summer of George Floyd and everything that came
Speaker 1: and the you know, the possibilities of really understanding the
Speaker 1: relationship of of social justice and policing, you know, yeah, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is the moment, This is the moment to test
Speaker 1: our medal, right, to see because they were willing to do,
Speaker 1: they're responses to crime, and in a moment like this,
Speaker 1: they're a most predictable more policing. But we want to
Speaker 1: talk about, you know, what are other responses, what are
Speaker 1: other responses that are better. So let's let's go to
Speaker 1: Hyde Park. Let's look exactly at what happened there, and
Speaker 1: let's look at the responses. Yeah, so I called Sophia King,
Speaker 1: who is my local alderman. So Sophia, I'm recording, Oh
Speaker 1: are you? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, she's good. She's good people.
Speaker 1: And I just saw her when I was a couple
Speaker 1: weeks are her. I saw her and I wanted to
Speaker 1: hear what happened from her perspective. There were at least
Speaker 1: I think twenty seven shell casings found, which you know,
Speaker 1: again just underscores the brazen miss of it. We're pulling
Speaker 1: into onto Harper right now, coming from coming from Kenwood,
Speaker 1: and this is our route essentially every day for lunch,
Speaker 1: you know, Kenwood kids, right, I mean and until at noon.
Speaker 1: You know, it's it's a busy um street and and
Speaker 1: it's right in the middle of the day in downtown
Speaker 1: Hyde Park. Um And yeah, it could have been a
Speaker 1: mass murder. And also get a better sense of what
Speaker 1: the responses have been because she's been in hundreds of
Speaker 1: meetings since then with concerned you know whatever. The stakeholders
Speaker 1: as we call them, right, people are calling for more policing.
Speaker 1: You know. My response is is that this is also
Speaker 1: an opportunity, tunity to have alternative policing, like the neighbors,
Speaker 1: the store owners, the University of Chicago. Because you probably
Speaker 1: have heard Um the Kilwin's owner. You know, it was
Speaker 1: a traumatic experience for her and her employees, who you know,
Speaker 1: Um luckily weren't in the windows that were shot out,
Speaker 1: but you know, in that regard, it was traumatic and
Speaker 1: people were hurt. Her business is still closed. They're scared,
Speaker 1: and they want to know, they want to know what
Speaker 1: to do about this crime, and they want to know
Speaker 1: what she's going to do, because you know, a crime occurs,
Speaker 1: and then what is the proper response? I mean, that's
Speaker 1: what where you and I are always talking about this, right,
Speaker 1: you know, I just want to make sure that there's
Speaker 1: the appropriate response, and think in speaking of you know,
Speaker 1: appropriate policing, there are other avenues. And she's a neighbor too,
Speaker 1: and I know that she's experiencing this in a in
Speaker 1: a real way that you know, I'm friends with her
Speaker 1: and I've known her for years, but I know that
Speaker 1: she's also on the block driving around, has some of
Speaker 1: the same concerns that Danielle, my wife has, and also
Speaker 1: that I have. You do you feel less less safe?
Speaker 1: Are you taking more precautions? I do? I do feel
Speaker 1: less safe. I gosh, I come out of my my parking,
Speaker 1: I'm out of my garage, and I'm turning my head
Speaker 1: and going You've had friends on your block? Yes, friend,
Speaker 1: I've got my good friends who were carjacked and and
Speaker 1: and it's very traumatic for them. It's traumatic for me
Speaker 1: to know that that happened, to know how they feel,
Speaker 1: and and and it's hard to internalize it. You and
Speaker 1: I are constantly talking about about over policing and also
Speaker 1: about responses to crime and about the criminal justice system.
Speaker 1: And so here we are in our neighborhood where I
Speaker 1: live and where you grew up and where your mom
Speaker 1: just left, and there's this crime that occurs, and how
Speaker 1: do you respond to it in the short term and
Speaker 1: the long term? What do you do to make people
Speaker 1: feel more safe? And then you know, not make things
Speaker 1: worse at the same time. Yeah, I mean, so here
Speaker 1: we are right where we are? What are we a
Speaker 1: year and a half? We're a year and a half.
Speaker 1: What are we I thought I thought you were going
Speaker 1: to say, we are two leading experts on criminal justice system.
Speaker 1: We're a year and a half since the massive protests
Speaker 1: following the murders of George Floyd and Brianna Taylor buy
Speaker 1: police officers and and and widespread calls for defund the police.
Speaker 1: And and you know, then when crime occurs, when occurs
Speaker 1: in Chicago, when hers all over the country, people return
Speaker 1: to this sense of like, well, shit, we must need
Speaker 1: more policing. You know, forget the fund. We need actually
Speaker 1: more policing because that's what's going to keep us safe.
Speaker 1: That there is still this fallback to the kind of
Speaker 1: status quo sensibility of public safety. Yeah. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I would put it a little differently. I would say
Speaker 1: that while while it's certainly true we've seen news reports
Speaker 1: of refund almost every city that promised some kind of
Speaker 1: cut has put a lot of that money back in
Speaker 1: cities all over the country, I would say that part
Speaker 1: of what I'm sensing from the conversations that are happening
Speaker 1: on social media about what's happening in Chicago and even
Speaker 1: sort of watching the New York City mayoral race here,
Speaker 1: is that there's this sense that the uptick in violence
Speaker 1: requires an immediate response, like somehow the protests unleashed a
Speaker 1: sense of entitlement to the streets that Lala has just
Speaker 1: sort of taken advantage. My mom even used the word
Speaker 1: like this is these are people who are doing things
Speaker 1: out of opportunity, and that somehow, like a tourniquet, there
Speaker 1: needs to be some immediate response to stop the bleeding
Speaker 1: and then we could get back to these bigger questions.
Speaker 1: And I think, and I think that's the kind of
Speaker 1: the tension that's certainly the tension I feel in my
Speaker 1: own household talking about this, but it's it's also the
Speaker 1: tension I think I feel when I'm listening to people,
Speaker 1: you know, who have a more complicated response to this
Speaker 1: than just the old law and order stuff from back
Speaker 1: in the day. And I'm wondering what does Sophia say
Speaker 1: about how does she balance this tension and awareness of
Speaker 1: like the consequences of kind of going back to a
Speaker 1: much more vigorous police presence. Yeah, I mean Sophia is complicated.
Speaker 1: She's the head of the Progressive Caucus and the City Council.
Speaker 1: She does ask for things like alternative forms of policing.
Speaker 1: She asked for funding for housing in schools, but she
Speaker 1: also wants it's on the ground. She wants more police officers. Sophia,
Speaker 1: in a way, is going to be held accountable for this. Right,
Speaker 1: She's directly responsible if people feel unsafe. Someone's going to
Speaker 1: run against her and say I'm the safety candidate, right,
Speaker 1: and so she has to respond to this. I think
Speaker 1: we should move towards those ideals, but keep some real
Speaker 1: boots on the ground. That's that's the reality. So, like
Speaker 1: I said, I think we need more presents, um and
Speaker 1: police as part of that. I also think, you know,
Speaker 1: positive loidering and having a bustling and hustling business as
Speaker 1: a part of it. But you're right, um, you know,
Speaker 1: these are kinds of opportunity where there there's not much,
Speaker 1: you know, somebody could do. I mean, one of the
Speaker 1: one of the reasons I think we decided to have
Speaker 1: a bigger conversation about it happening here in Hyde Park
Speaker 1: is that, like I'm experiencing that need for an immediate response.
Speaker 1: This is the community where where we live, you know,
Speaker 1: So this is real for my family. So Lysia, my daughter,
Speaker 1: who is sixteen, still walks to and from school and
Speaker 1: now that it's you know, now that it's winter, it's
Speaker 1: dark when she comes back, and every day after school
Speaker 1: she likes to stop by the Medici this this U
Speaker 1: restaurant and get you know, like a bad dat our favorite,
Speaker 1: our favorite pizza place. Yeah. But but she her her
Speaker 1: friends have been told that they're not allowed to go
Speaker 1: out with her. Not because she's a bad influence. So
Speaker 1: maybe that is the reason, I don't know, but because
Speaker 1: the parents are worried about crime and they can't be
Speaker 1: out when it's after school or walk around. Okay, so this,
Speaker 1: this is a this is a totally new thing. In
Speaker 1: response to the shootings that happen in High Park, most recently,
Speaker 1: this is, this is right now, right now happening. I
Speaker 1: mean she has one friend who this is you know,
Speaker 1: I heard the second hand from a sixteen year old,
Speaker 1: so take a taken like that. But who she was
Speaker 1: told she can't sit in the front of their of
Speaker 1: their home that's facing the street because they're worried about
Speaker 1: straight gunfire. I mean that's real, right in every possible way,
Speaker 1: and people do get killed randomly, and oftentimes kids. But
Speaker 1: like this is this is our neighborhood. Like it's a
Speaker 1: very middle class, upper income community, and so the thought
Speaker 1: that that's the advice now in Hyde Park is really wild.
Speaker 1: And you know, I have talks with her about not
Speaker 1: being the low hanging fruit, about now walking with her
Speaker 1: phone out and looking at her phone, that there have
Speaker 1: been a lot of robberies of people just pulling up
Speaker 1: and jumping people and taking their phones and often with guns,
Speaker 1: you know, saying give me what you have. And so
Speaker 1: I tell her not to be that person who is
Speaker 1: with her head down and a phone and looks like
Speaker 1: an easy target. Yeah. I went to a meeting of
Speaker 1: the Chamber of Commerce. I did this on zoom, and
Speaker 1: all the store owners from the neighborhood were like they
Speaker 1: wanted to know what to do. And it wasn't like
Speaker 1: they were all demanding more police, but they were like,
Speaker 1: what do we do to feel safe? You know? Should
Speaker 1: we have cameras, Should we have drones, should we like
Speaker 1: you know it, should there be secure guards? Like they
Speaker 1: wanted something. Yeah, And I and I mean, just to
Speaker 1: add to that, I also read an open letter written
Speaker 1: by something like three hundred faculty members at the University
Speaker 1: of Chicago in response to the killing of a Chinese
Speaker 1: national student. So the student who was robbed, the student
Speaker 1: was Chinese national student who was here in the neighborhood.
Speaker 1: And he's he's the third University of Chicago student killed
Speaker 1: this year, and the second one who is an international student.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, And in that letter, and a couple of
Speaker 1: things jumped out, I mean to this point about how
Speaker 1: do you respond. I mean, there was like literally a
Speaker 1: call for surveillance cameras and this is not an exaggeration
Speaker 1: on every intersection in Hyde Park. And while they didn't
Speaker 1: quite say cops on every corner, they did say security
Speaker 1: guards on every corner. And you know, I mean, I
Speaker 1: could I can certainly understand it because the stakes of
Speaker 1: what that very significant response might mean in terms of
Speaker 1: delivering public safety cut against the other problems which gave
Speaker 1: rise to police reform debates, which is what happens when
Speaker 1: you over police a community and everyone's treated like a suspect,
Speaker 1: especially if they happen to be black and brown. Like
Speaker 1: this is where I think my mom and those faculty
Speaker 1: members at the UFC are probably not that far apart, right,
Speaker 1: because there is a sense like you have to do
Speaker 1: something in the moment, you have to do something now
Speaker 1: to lock it down. I'm really interested, maybe not so
Speaker 1: much in alternative policing, but I want to talk about
Speaker 1: alternatives to police. I think. So let's let's let's talk
Speaker 1: about safety and justice and what that looks like without policing. Yes,
Speaker 1: safety and justice without policing. Well, put, that's right, because
Speaker 1: people want those things, but they're having a hard time
Speaker 1: trying to get there without police playing a big role. Yo,
Speaker 1: so Khalil in the aftermath of the shooting in Hyde Park,
Speaker 1: the murder in Hyde Park, I guess you know, the
Speaker 1: robbery and killing and another stabbing murder in Hyde Park
Speaker 1: all in one day, and the general uptick and crime
Speaker 1: that's been going on everywhere, right, Yeah, one I think
Speaker 1: that's been real clear to me is just like people
Speaker 1: need some kind of response to it, and they need
Speaker 1: a sense of safety, and that could come in all
Speaker 1: sorts of forms. There's that demand for a sense of
Speaker 1: accountability or writing the moral balance. And here here in
Speaker 1: Hyde Park, after those crimes, what was offered was more policing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot a lot more cops. Right. I mean my
Speaker 1: mom the other night over dinner, she looked at me
Speaker 1: and she was like, you know, this is terrible. You know,
Speaker 1: she mentioned Donald Trump's call for the National Guard a
Speaker 1: few years ago and said something to the effect of, like,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe Donald Trump was right about that, right
Speaker 1: for the wrong reasons, because he really didn't care about Chicago.
Speaker 1: But maybe since the police are failing, the national Guard
Speaker 1: can do better. Yeah, And she said it in a
Speaker 1: way that she's like, and I know you don't agree,
Speaker 1: but she was also daring me to have a better response. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think I might have told you this. I'm not sure,
Speaker 1: but you know, my brother Jake, who runs a music
Speaker 1: venue in the neighborhood just just a block from where
Speaker 1: that shooting happened, Romatory. The Friday after the shooting, he
Speaker 1: was having a show there, a concert that happened to
Speaker 1: be a rap act, you know, and the police essentially
Speaker 1: showed up and we're like, na, na, if you have
Speaker 1: this show and and and anything happens anywhere in the
Speaker 1: neighborhood at any time afterward, we're gonna hold you accountable.
Speaker 1: And so he had to postpone the show. Is that
Speaker 1: even lawful? For real? Though? I mean, I mean this
Speaker 1: in asking that question is just a little tip of
Speaker 1: the spear of where the slippery slope ends up. So
Speaker 1: I mean just to kind of put a put a
Speaker 1: pen on this point. So you know, this is in
Speaker 1: many ways hot spot policing. As the entire neighborhood of
Speaker 1: Hyde Park, this is basically the idea that you have
Speaker 1: a hot spot right an area where we've identified a
Speaker 1: lot of crime happening in a concentrated space. And in
Speaker 1: the tradition of hot spot policing that's been going on
Speaker 1: for about twenty five years now, this community, our community,
Speaker 1: which hasn't really experienced this level of intensified, spectacular violence
Speaker 1: now is saying we want all these things that we've
Speaker 1: tried in what's called high crime areas that are often
Speaker 1: low income can munities, often with black and brown. So
Speaker 1: that's what's been presented here. Let's you and I talk
Speaker 1: about some other alternatives to policing, not alternative policing, but
Speaker 1: alternatives two policing. Right, we know to your point, like,
Speaker 1: we know that the menu of options is actually much
Speaker 1: greater than what we're even hearing in our own home community.
Speaker 1: All right, so let's let's let's run through it. Let's
Speaker 1: run through the menu. That's right. Let's call these the
Speaker 1: shovel ready immediate responses, okay, ding ding ding, already immediate responses. No,
Speaker 1: because when you like that, when you think about opportunity
Speaker 1: out of crisis, um, you think about like what's on
Speaker 1: the shelf that we can we can mobilize at this moment,
Speaker 1: and maybe we're hardwired as a long term fix us. Okay,
Speaker 1: go for it. Violence interruption, Yes, yes, I think. I
Speaker 1: think in fact, if we were playing a version of
Speaker 1: a family feud, that would be the number one answer.
Speaker 1: Why is at the case Because the very concept of
Speaker 1: putting people who already live in a community in charge
Speaker 1: of conflict mediation, who have trustworthy relationships with members of
Speaker 1: the community, who can go to them and say, hey,
Speaker 1: I've got a problem with so and so, and if
Speaker 1: someone doesn't help me fix it, you know, there's gonna
Speaker 1: be there's gonna be drama, there's gonna be violence, and
Speaker 1: we need to figure out a way to stop this
Speaker 1: before it happens. And this is a twenty year old,
Speaker 1: proven approach to violence mediation, and it's it's working in Chicago,
Speaker 1: it's working in Baltimore, it's working in New York City.
Speaker 1: I've seen it up close with my own eyes, and
Speaker 1: it's been discussed in some ways nationally. Not enough, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, so we have to invest hugely in community
Speaker 1: violence interruption. It's proven, it's empirically strong and it works. Okay,
Speaker 1: So second on the menu. So the fact is that
Speaker 1: about probably more than ninety percent of what police respond
Speaker 1: to our non violent offenses. And so that's right, and
Speaker 1: sometimes the numbers are as low as five percent, I mean,
Speaker 1: in terms of what they actually record calls for service, Right,
Speaker 1: that's the data we have for when police actually are
Speaker 1: responding to somewhat member of the public saying I need help,
Speaker 1: About five percent or less of those often are for
Speaker 1: something that we call So there's another solution, which is
Speaker 1: that for first responders to mental health crises, to homelessness cases,
Speaker 1: to many drug cases, to even traffic stops. You could
Speaker 1: send people who are experts in those and who are
Speaker 1: not armed police officers. You can have a different set
Speaker 1: of first responders. That's right. This is just about people
Speaker 1: who need help, and in a society, particularly in communities
Speaker 1: that are star for resources, it just isn't a whole
Speaker 1: lot of infrastructure. If if you need help, if you've
Speaker 1: got somebody in distress, if you need I mean, I know,
Speaker 1: in our own suburban community, police officers literally, I mean
Speaker 1: like the old classic case of my cat crawled up
Speaker 1: into a tree, could you help get my cat out
Speaker 1: of the tree. I know this for a fact because
Speaker 1: we've I've been at meetings where people have talked about
Speaker 1: how ridiculous it is that the police have to do
Speaker 1: this kind of But you know when people talk about
Speaker 1: the fund, if there's a limited pool of money, that
Speaker 1: more of that money would go to these alternatives, these
Speaker 1: other responders, rather than to arm police officers to take
Speaker 1: on these cases, which they have not been trained in
Speaker 1: many cases to do almost in all cases. They're not
Speaker 1: mental health experts, they're not social service workers, those kinds
Speaker 1: of things that's right, and so this is something that's
Speaker 1: also been been done in cities and states across the country. Yes.
Speaker 1: A third thing on the menu is something that actually
Speaker 1: some of my neighbors brought up here in response to
Speaker 1: the recent spate of crime, and that's having more positive loitering. So,
Speaker 1: you know, one of my neighbors talked about having ambassadors
Speaker 1: going out on the street and definitely not a community
Speaker 1: watch and definitely not something to call the police on people,
Speaker 1: but just to be present on corners and to meet
Speaker 1: people and to build community. This is something that also
Speaker 1: happens in Englewood, the neighborhood where we discussed in the
Speaker 1: episode with Tanika Johnson fighting and equities throughout. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: that that and you know there were a group of
Speaker 1: mothers that hang out on corners on Fridays and Saturday
Speaker 1: nights to make sure that that violence doesn't happen. This
Speaker 1: is a way to build community and to strengthen the
Speaker 1: bonds in different neighborhoods. Yeah, yeah, so, I mean it's
Speaker 1: a the sociologists call this collective efficacy and uh, and
Speaker 1: some of my own colleagues have written a lot about this. Basically,
Speaker 1: communities that have thriving nonprofit organizations that are doing art activities,
Speaker 1: that are doing youth based activities where there's just a
Speaker 1: lot of rich social engagement, and that it often is
Speaker 1: taking place in public spaces. Often is not just a
Speaker 1: deterrent to crimes of opportunity, but also is a sign
Speaker 1: of community well being and this kind of a virtuous cycle. So,
Speaker 1: you know, we presented these ideas, but none of them
Speaker 1: are really going to get us to like, you know,
Speaker 1: deeper structural changes. They're not going to get us there
Speaker 1: in terms of public safety. Right, you know, people have
Speaker 1: been out of work, they've been out of school, they've
Speaker 1: they've seen the unequal responses to the pandemic. And this
Speaker 1: is on you know, the tail end of police violence
Speaker 1: and for closure crisis and closed schools and closed hospitals
Speaker 1: and closed mental health facilities. And you know, this idea
Speaker 1: that you you treat the effect of all those causes,
Speaker 1: which is violence, the uptick and violence that we're seeing
Speaker 1: in Chicago and everywhere, and and don't look at any
Speaker 1: of the causes seems crazy. Let's lean into this idea, like,
Speaker 1: let's imagine government pushing and doing all the things we want.
Speaker 1: Let's imagine the structural changes. You know, it sounds like
Speaker 1: build back better, right, and buildback better a little bit
Speaker 1: tongue in cheek, but I mean honestly, when we think
Speaker 1: about what an infra infrastructure would mean, that would be
Speaker 1: bottom up, would start with communities most in need of resources,
Speaker 1: of jobs, of affordable housing, of education, of education, of
Speaker 1: treating trauma, of a clean, green economy. But all those
Speaker 1: things those lead to public safety. Correct, That's how you
Speaker 1: fight crime. That way to fight crime is to invest
Speaker 1: in housing, to invest in education, to invest in health,
Speaker 1: to invest in trauma reduction, universal healthcare. Right. That is
Speaker 1: on the ticket of long term solutions to helping people
Speaker 1: not need the police. Right. So what this means practically
Speaker 1: speaking is these are actually the things that we ought
Speaker 1: to do in this moment in High Park, in Englewood
Speaker 1: in other places when we want to answer the question
Speaker 1: what should we do to minimize the chance that people
Speaker 1: will use guns to settle differences, will act out in
Speaker 1: public by spraying up whole communities, and we'll feel the
Speaker 1: frustrations of their societies by taking them out on their
Speaker 1: loved ones when they don't have social service or mental
Speaker 1: health professionals to talk to first, these other responses, I
Speaker 1: think we've got to lean into that, right, We got
Speaker 1: to say here is your answer, right, and and we
Speaker 1: need a lot more and we need a lot more
Speaker 1: right And Yeah, all of those, like you said, are
Speaker 1: critical and they're incredibly useful. They're not only useful, they
Speaker 1: work right the wor they stopped the harm before it happens,
Speaker 1: at the point of the breakdown, right when something'll go down.
Speaker 1: So so if I'm you know, I'm worried about crime
Speaker 1: in my neighborhood and i want something immediate, and I'm
Speaker 1: scared right now. And you know, two jokers on this
Speaker 1: podcast say, well, you need big structural changes. You know,
Speaker 1: that sounds almost like pie in the sky stuff. It
Speaker 1: sounds like it'll never happen. It sounds impossible. And just
Speaker 1: you know, hearing you talk and thinking about this made
Speaker 1: me think about the work that you do as a historian,
Speaker 1: and that these kinds of investments are not only possible,
Speaker 1: but it's proven that they lead to public safety, that
Speaker 1: they lead to crime reduction. Yeah. Absolutely absolutely, I mean,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you for setting me up to talk
Speaker 1: about the condemnation of blackness. But you know, the short
Speaker 1: version of this is at a time an American short version,
Speaker 1: short version. Yeah, when white people were killing each other
Speaker 1: on the streets of Chicago. When are we talking about here,
Speaker 1: we're talking about We're talking about the early twentieth century,
Speaker 1: the turn of the twentieth century. With huge economic inequalities.
Speaker 1: White immigrants were struggling. They were subject to all kinds
Speaker 1: of racist attacks and stigma attached to them. Eventually, this
Speaker 1: got so bad that that prohibition was passed, you know,
Speaker 1: like ding ding ding, massive effort to lock up everybody
Speaker 1: having anything to do with alcohol distributes, like a precursor
Speaker 1: to War on drugs, right, massive failure. It criminalized the
Speaker 1: massive numbers of low income, working class white people that
Speaker 1: were committing a lot of crime. To be sure, there
Speaker 1: was a lot of violence in those communities, but the
Speaker 1: social response, what was the response was the social response
Speaker 1: was massive investments in those communities that led from the
Speaker 1: progressive era to the New Deal. They got they got housing,
Speaker 1: they got economic security through through various rights as workers,
Speaker 1: we got unemployment insurance, we got social security, they got
Speaker 1: access to the American dream with homes. We got police reform. Um.
Speaker 1: I mean, we could run down the list of all
Speaker 1: the things that most people know about as kind of
Speaker 1: the new Deal, the same stuff that is inspiring build
Speaker 1: back better today and all kinds of infrastructure. But what
Speaker 1: people don't realize is a lot of that was absolutely
Speaker 1: a direct response to crime in white working class as
Speaker 1: and immigrant communities, and it was a massive crime solution response.
Speaker 1: So it worked, and it worked. So thank you for that, professor.
Speaker 1: You're welcome. H Let's talk more about today how we
Speaker 1: get structural change, Like, how can we possibly get this
Speaker 1: structural change that's going to lead to reduction and crime?
Speaker 1: And one of the ways we do it is through protest, right,
Speaker 1: That's right, It is a key. I mean, man, you
Speaker 1: are you are on fire today, that's right? I know, yeah,
Speaker 1: of course right. No, No massive change in society happens
Speaker 1: without people in the streets demanding demand, demanding people organize
Speaker 1: people to agree upon what it is that they want
Speaker 1: to see change. When have we seen this before? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean this gets us back to the summer of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty and all the protests, and you know, after
Speaker 1: George Floyd is killed by police, Brianna Taylor was killed
Speaker 1: by police, Jacob Blake is killed by police. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: massive organizing to change society for the better, and then
Speaker 1: we get like crazy police cracked down and we get
Speaker 1: white self deputized men like Kyle Rittenhouse. I mean, like
Speaker 1: like literally as the response to the possibility of actually
Speaker 1: changing these things in a in a big structural way. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And you know, we were recording earlier, and while we
Speaker 1: were recording, we got news of the verdict in his case,
Speaker 1: in Kyle Riddenhouse's case, that he was acquitted of all charges. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It was disturbing because we were in the middle of
Speaker 1: talking about all of these issues and yeah, and we
Speaker 1: were just sort of completely dumbfounded by it and sort
Speaker 1: of overwhelmed. Yeah, I mean, it is still hard to
Speaker 1: fathom that when Kyle Riddenhouse can be acquitted for arming
Speaker 1: himself to be willing to shoot protesters who are protesting
Speaker 1: or racial justice and an into police brutality, that he
Speaker 1: doesn't symbolize a society at large. It privileges police power
Speaker 1: over protests. And so to me, part of the challenge
Speaker 1: for us at this moment and taking stock of our
Speaker 1: own community, taking stock of where we are, is that
Speaker 1: a lot of good things are happening in spite of
Speaker 1: all of this. Yeah, it also prioritizes policing over healthcare
Speaker 1: and education and housing and all sorts of things that also,
Speaker 1: as we know, reduce crime. Yeah, or even back to
Speaker 1: public health interventions, like all these other menu of choices
Speaker 1: keep falling prey to the immediate need to say we
Speaker 1: need policing, and yet in so many ways, as we've
Speaker 1: just talked about, it's not going to get us there,
Speaker 1: and in fact it's a source of the problem. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's easy to feel a lot of despair. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's sort of in the you know, hearing the Kyle
Speaker 1: Rittenhouse verdict. Overwhelmed by crime. I've got neighbors who are
Speaker 1: talking about leaving Chicago. Yeah. Yeah, you sent me that
Speaker 1: Chicago Tribune report about like hundreds of thousand, two hundred
Speaker 1: and something thousand by people, like two hundred fifty thousand
Speaker 1: in the last twenty years, two hundred and sixty thousand
Speaker 1: plus one, including two hundred and sixty thousand and one.
Speaker 1: You know, it sucks, Yeah, you know, And and it's
Speaker 1: hard to think about these these big structural changes. You know,
Speaker 1: it's hard to you know, when when the crisis feels
Speaker 1: right now. But I gotta say that there is a
Speaker 1: sign of progress from maybe from those protests from twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: It doesn't happen all at once, it happens over time, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and maybe may be you and I have to be
Speaker 1: more patient with people as funds. Yeah, we have to.
Speaker 1: We have to keep you. But I mean, I mean, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: but I right, but like making the case requires some
Speaker 1: degree of patients for people who have this existential sense
Speaker 1: of crisis, like I can't send my kid to school
Speaker 1: right now, um, like Lysia's friends, like you know, you
Speaker 1: have to come home immediately. That there is that immediacy.
Speaker 1: And I think I think what we what we want
Speaker 1: to say in response, what we've said just now is
Speaker 1: that you can do both. And I mean, and that's
Speaker 1: like you need to do. You need to focus on
Speaker 1: the things we can do, which are these public health
Speaker 1: violence interruption responses, redirecting actual public resources towards the actual
Speaker 1: service providers social workers who can take care of most
Speaker 1: of what people need and make long term investments in
Speaker 1: actually changing the conditions that produce and breed violence in
Speaker 1: the Yeah, and you know, you know what you're saying
Speaker 1: is I think that listen, we can't wait for some
Speaker 1: pie in the sky utopia we can't wait for like
Speaker 1: everything to be solved in order to like delve into
Speaker 1: this important structural work, these big changes that has to
Speaker 1: happen right now, Like we're not going to get to
Speaker 1: some magical time when there's no violent crime. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: I would say it actually even differently, I would say, one,
Speaker 1: it's not utopic to see what most communities look like
Speaker 1: where murders happen, you know, every decade or so or
Speaker 1: once a year, Right, That's not an abstraction. That's very
Speaker 1: real in tons of communities across this Country's it describes
Speaker 1: mostly the community I live in, but everything else that
Speaker 1: also describes this community is a community with tremendous economic resources,
Speaker 1: tremendous economic security, a community where where people have most
Speaker 1: of what we're talking about your suburb, New Jersey. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm talking about my suburb. But it's just it's just
Speaker 1: one of many and that, and they're not all suburbs.
Speaker 1: Sometimes there are even neighborhoods inside of cities like your own,
Speaker 1: like like part parts of parts of Chicago. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: so I think we have, you know, we have to
Speaker 1: work to demystify this notion that there is a way
Speaker 1: to invest in people and not policing that we want
Speaker 1: to invest in the actual people because we know we
Speaker 1: have all the evidence. We need to know that we're
Speaker 1: not doing a very good job of it, and we
Speaker 1: need to We need to do it now. We need
Speaker 1: to do it now. We need to stay right and
Speaker 1: as long as and as long as we think that
Speaker 1: this moment is unique, like no, no, no, Khalil and Ben,
Speaker 1: this is this is such a crazy moment of bullet
Speaker 1: flying everywhere that we just need There's always going to
Speaker 1: be there's always there's les people that's right, you know it.
Speaker 1: There's there's always going to be the worst case scenario
Speaker 1: that says on. Fortunately, you know, we just have to
Speaker 1: do these things and police are going to be the
Speaker 1: people who protect us. All right, my man, all right,
Speaker 1: love you man too. Some of My Best Friends Are
Speaker 1: is a production of Pushkin Industries. The show is written
Speaker 1: and hosted by me Khalildbron Mohammed, and my best friend
Speaker 1: Ben Austin. It's produced by Sheriff Vincent and edited by
Speaker 1: Karen Shakerji. Our engineer is Martin Gonzalez. Our associate editor
Speaker 1: is Keishell Williams. Our associate producer is Lucy Sullivan and
Speaker 1: our showrunner is Sasha Matthias. Our executive producers are Leta
Speaker 1: Molad and Mia La Belle. Special thanks to Sophia King
Speaker 1: My Alderman, to Dereka Purnell, the author of Becoming Abolitionist,
Speaker 1: Police Protest and the Pursuit of Freedom, and to my
Speaker 1: state Senator Robert Peters, who also spoke to us for
Speaker 1: this episode. At Pushkin Thanks to Heather Faine, Carly Nigliori,
Speaker 1: John Schnars, and Jacob Weisberg. Our theme song, Little Lily,
Speaker 1: is by Fellow Chicago and AVERYR. Young from his amazing
Speaker 1: album Tubman. You will definitely want to check out more
Speaker 1: of his music at his website averyar Young dot com.
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Speaker 1: it a five star review, and please tell some of
Speaker 1: your best friends about it, like a lot of your
Speaker 1: best friends, all of your best friends, all of your
Speaker 1: best friends. Now, yeah, I mean from as far as
Speaker 1: a lot of research goes. And this is my Balllywick
Speaker 1: at a policy school. That's right, balllywick, new word of
Speaker 1: the day, man, That's how people talk at Harvard. Is that?
Speaker 1: Excuse me, sir? This is my Balllywick today. You know. No, no,
Speaker 1: that's my Balllywick. So all right, all right, we got it,
Speaker 1: we got it, we got it. M