Speaker 1: What's up.
Speaker 2: Family, it's your girl to Mika D.
Speaker 1: Mallory and it's your boy, my son the General.
Speaker 3: And we're your host of street politicians, the place and Holst.
Speaker 2: We've got our.
Speaker 3: Good old orange T shirts on today which represent Gun
Speaker 3: Violence Awareness Month.
Speaker 2: This is the first week of gv.
Speaker 3: A M, which is a time in New York City
Speaker 3: where anti violence organizations, advocates, partners, families, people who've been
Speaker 3: impacted on either side of a gun, the shooter and
Speaker 3: or the victim all come together to focus on UH,
Speaker 3: the anti violence movement, to bring attention, awareness, and support
Speaker 3: to the movement, UH, and really to just to put
Speaker 3: some some attention on the fact that there are models
Speaker 3: that work, and in New York City, we have a
Speaker 3: model which we've you know, we'll be talking much more
Speaker 3: about called the Crisis Management System. And we know that
Speaker 3: over many years, the number of violent crimes and violent
Speaker 3: incidents have been reduced by the work of so many folks.
Speaker 3: You all will see and hear the footage of the
Speaker 3: press conference that happened today where hundreds of anti violence activists, experts, organizers.
Speaker 3: We're at City Hall with the city officials, city council members,
Speaker 3: and other government officials and of course the Mayor of
Speaker 3: New York City, and you know, standing there announcing some
Speaker 3: important things that we'll talk about later on the show.
Speaker 4: We have been doing this for a long time, and
Speaker 4: history is going to show that the first crisis management
Speaker 4: funding came from an idea I had in the State
Speaker 4: Senate called snug gun spelled backwards first, allocation of money first,
Speaker 4: and it has moved into the movement you see behind us.
Speaker 5: And so when people believe that folks of.
Speaker 4: Color want to normalize gun violence in their community, they
Speaker 4: are wrong.
Speaker 6: They are wrong.
Speaker 4: This is a real issue that we want to attack
Speaker 4: head on. But what we don't want to do is
Speaker 4: minimize the complete picture that must be addressed. By the
Speaker 4: time a person picks up a gun, we've already failed.
Speaker 6: We've already failed. Now I said this over and over again.
Speaker 4: There are many rivers that feed the sea of violence,
Speaker 4: and it's time to damn every river, not just one
Speaker 4: with law enforcement.
Speaker 6: Damning every river is what we're going to do.
Speaker 4: The epidemic of gun violence is not a New York problem.
Speaker 4: It's not a Democrat Republican problem. Tulsa is a red state.
Speaker 4: The shooting that took place there was a red state.
Speaker 4: An announcement came over just a few minutes ago of
Speaker 4: a sixteen year old attempting to recruit others in Berkeley
Speaker 4: to go in and shoot up a school.
Speaker 6: Every day we're hearing about this.
Speaker 4: It's breaking our hearts, breaking our bodies, and breaking our communities.
Speaker 4: When a bullet hits the target, the physical bullet stops,
Speaker 4: but the emotional trauma rips apart the anatomy of our
Speaker 4: entire community.
Speaker 6: And there have been more mass shootings.
Speaker 4: Think about this for a moment, more mass shootings in
Speaker 4: America than days of the years. Some unbelievable. And we've
Speaker 4: normalized it. We say it's okay, and I think we
Speaker 4: often dismiss it because the victim of handguns violence, for
Speaker 4: the most part are black and brown, and then the
Speaker 4: inner cities all across America. So we've normalized it and
Speaker 4: stated that that is just the way it has to be.
Speaker 4: And we're saying today, your damn right is not going
Speaker 4: to be that way.
Speaker 6: We can turn it around and make it happen.
Speaker 4: And yes, instead of gu n s, let me give
Speaker 4: you another four letters. How about jobs. Let's get our
Speaker 4: children jobs. Let's put them on a pathway of employment.
Speaker 4: That's why we have one hundred thousand sem of youth jobs,
Speaker 4: first time in the city history. Thank you Jomini Williams
Speaker 4: for pushing this for years. That is why we're pushing
Speaker 4: the tail corporate America. We want a one hundred percent
Speaker 4: paid internship program throughout the school year leading into our
Speaker 4: fosdy care children to give them the support they need
Speaker 4: so they don't age out at twenty one, give them
Speaker 4: mentors until their twenty six. All of these things are
Speaker 4: gonna help us deal with this issue in a real way.
Speaker 6: Time to take our.
Speaker 4: City upstream and build real partnership with people who are
Speaker 4: tired as I am, of pulling people out of the
Speaker 4: river downstream.
Speaker 6: This is our moment.
Speaker 4: You do not elect me to do what everyone has
Speaker 4: done in the past. You wanted a different outcomes and
Speaker 4: you picked a different mayor. And trust me, it's a
Speaker 4: lot of noise out there. Everybody's gonna critique us. Everybody's
Speaker 4: gonna start telling them, why didn't you pick this one,
Speaker 4: Why don't you pick that? Because I'm the mayor and
Speaker 4: we're gonna make the decisions now to save our children
Speaker 4: with the level of urgency that we deserve.
Speaker 3: Today, what you see behind us is not just the
Speaker 3: government may to happen, because to be clean, we were
Speaker 3: told no every time that we asked for resources. When
Speaker 3: we first started, we met with the mayor at the
Speaker 3: time and he looked Erica Ford and not dead in
Speaker 3: the face and said, there is no proof that what
Speaker 3: you're trying to do will work.
Speaker 7: But we proved it.
Speaker 3: They sent us back.
Speaker 7: They told us to get data.
Speaker 3: And all that Erica has mentioned in terms of how
Speaker 3: many days, weeks, years, months went by without shootings in
Speaker 3: this city, we did that together. Now, once the pandemic came,
Speaker 3: it changed a lot for everybody.
Speaker 2: So stop trying to act like.
Speaker 3: In media who you are here, if you have any
Speaker 3: moral conscious, tell the true story.
Speaker 2: Violence is up everywhere. In fact, in nineteen.
Speaker 3: Sixty three, Malcolm X got in big trouble for saying
Speaker 3: something that we see today but is that the chickens
Speaker 3: are coming home to ruths.
Speaker 7: As we see.
Speaker 3: Shootings happening across this nation, shootings of all types, mass.
Speaker 7: Shootings, violence everywhere. Remember that this.
Speaker 5: Group we told you, we told.
Speaker 8: You what would happen.
Speaker 3: We gave you the forecast of what would happen to
Speaker 3: this nation. If we did not deal with mental health,
Speaker 3: if we did not deal with the lack of jobs
Speaker 3: and resources, if we did not address food, deserts and
Speaker 3: other concerning issues in our community. We already told you
Speaker 3: that today would come, and so if we are to
Speaker 3: go forward and this nation is to be better, this
Speaker 3: group is an example of what must come together in
Speaker 3: order to address those concerns. The police force cannot do
Speaker 3: it alone. If they could have, CMS would have never
Speaker 3: been needed.
Speaker 2: The government cannot do it alone.
Speaker 3: Half the time, they can't figure out from one side
Speaker 3: to the other what to do.
Speaker 2: It takes all of us.
Speaker 3: But the main thing is that the people must.
Speaker 2: Be centered here.
Speaker 5: Your title is your title.
Speaker 9: I'm a part of a very robust group of advocates
Speaker 9: that I'm very proud to be a member of, and
Speaker 9: a lot of us know each other respectfully. But thank
Speaker 9: you to Mayor Adams for naming me to be the
Speaker 9: gun violence Prevention Czar in New York City. A new title.
Speaker 9: It's the first ever, and it should be. As he mentioned,
Speaker 9: we should want some things that are different. We've been
Speaker 9: dealing with this issue for far too long, and we've
Speaker 9: been using the same tactics over and over again, and
Speaker 9: we've been getting the same results.
Speaker 5: So no one should have a problem.
Speaker 9: With us trying something different, right, give us a chance
Speaker 9: to prove our self work. We are the people who
Speaker 9: are closest to the problem, right, so quite naturally we
Speaker 9: have the answers to those problems. There's nobody that wants
Speaker 9: gun violence to in more than the young people that
Speaker 9: come from the neighborhoods and the people who live in
Speaker 9: this community every single day. And so this is a
Speaker 9: community driven approach. When you hear about the state or
Speaker 9: the FEDS and.
Speaker 5: Now the city, now include the community. That's the fourth
Speaker 5: leg of the chair.
Speaker 9: That you're sitting on, MARCHA. The community that we represent.
Speaker 1: Can create.
Speaker 9: As you heard mentioned that this podium solutions for themselves,
Speaker 9: and we're going to work hand and sync with that
Speaker 9: community to make sure that we deliver the things that
Speaker 9: they say that they need, the things that they said
Speaker 9: that they want, and these men and women behind me
Speaker 9: are trained to deliver those resources into.
Speaker 5: Those neighborhoods where other people cannot go.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm proud because I was one of the first,
Speaker 3: very very few. There was three of us who were
Speaker 3: the main leaders, and no more than maybe six to
Speaker 3: seven in the room at any given time.
Speaker 2: Who put the crisis management system together?
Speaker 1: Architect artist.
Speaker 3: We were the architects of this movement. Erika Ford was
Speaker 3: really the brainchild. She threw all of her thoughts on
Speaker 3: the board. And Richard gup Glover, who at the time
Speaker 3: I think was at Columbia, I think he was at Columbia,
Speaker 3: he was a professor. He worked to help organize her thoughts.
Speaker 3: We did the advocacy work, our brother at Mitchell and myself.
Speaker 3: We worked together with Erica pulling it and putting it
Speaker 3: and focusing and holding it to make the crisis management
Speaker 3: system a real thing. And here we are over a
Speaker 3: decade late later, you know, and the christ and the
Speaker 3: Gun Violence Awareness Month came along later where we decided
Speaker 3: that we had to have a month that really every
Speaker 3: single day there'll be educational opportunities and other moments for
Speaker 3: people to get together. So I was happy to be
Speaker 3: in the hot sun today with all our brothers and sisters.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was definitely happy to be there.
Speaker 10: Our brother at as you mentioned he was he was
Speaker 10: announced to be the bizarre of gun Violence and Prevention
Speaker 10: from New York, So that was a big thing. You know,
Speaker 10: just he's somebody that I think his mannerisms, the way
Speaker 10: they carries itself, you know, it's it's just somebody that
Speaker 10: I look up to that called for advice a lot,
Speaker 10: and he's been a mentor, you know, he's been doing
Speaker 10: this work longer, way longer than I have, and he's
Speaker 10: and he also respects my leadership at a lot of times,
Speaker 10: and we just have a beautiful relationship. So seeing him,
Speaker 10: you know, pointing to this position, knowing that it's in
Speaker 10: the right hands. He's somebody who definitely takes this work serious,
Speaker 10: sleep and wakes up with this work, who calls me,
Speaker 10: you know, and whenever something is going on, it's like
Speaker 10: what are we going to do? Like that's this is
Speaker 10: what we need to do. He comes up with strategy. So,
Speaker 10: you know, I was happy to see that. And then
Speaker 10: there was a plethora of other individuals that I've known
Speaker 10: throughout the years through different channels, some just being in
Speaker 10: the streets, some from hip hop, some from just different channels,
Speaker 10: and just seeing that they've invested their lives in this
Speaker 10: work and I've seen them really transition with something good
Speaker 10: to see. And just our family, you know, we've been
Speaker 10: doing this work for so long. All of our friends
Speaker 10: and family was out there in the sweltering heat. You know,
Speaker 10: some march all the way across the bridge. We didn't
Speaker 10: make it to the full bridge march. But I also
Speaker 10: see the young kids that I worked with at Van
Speaker 10: Sickla Middle School.
Speaker 1: They were there at the march we put together. They
Speaker 1: actually put together it's dope.
Speaker 10: Anti gun violence song that they allowed me to feature
Speaker 10: on that we're actually gonna be shooting a video for
Speaker 10: in the next couple of days. So that's something I,
Speaker 10: you know, was happy to see. And the principal, principal
Speaker 10: camp was there. You know, they have a beautiful program
Speaker 10: in which Wednesdays is like career day everywhere you able to.
Speaker 11: Every Wednesday for the first two hours on first two
Speaker 11: periods you go to either music program, video program, any
Speaker 11: kind of program that you want to do and you
Speaker 11: want to invest your time.
Speaker 10: And they take the first two periods of every Wednesday,
Speaker 10: and then there's an after school component till where you
Speaker 10: can go to after school. But these people have the
Speaker 10: state of the art studio. I'll tell you their studio
Speaker 10: is better than the studio that I work.
Speaker 3: Like, they had a food, the kids got a great
Speaker 3: studio today.
Speaker 10: Studio in that school, it was just amazing. I've been like,
Speaker 10: I've seen different music rooms and they have a little
Speaker 10: mic here and there set up, but this is a
Speaker 10: full fledged studio. So shout out to in Sickly Middle
Speaker 10: School and principal camp who who really invests in those children,
Speaker 10: Like you can see and you can see the investment
Speaker 10: playing off because they're happy to be there. You know,
Speaker 10: they're happy to come. They really are enthused. They're doing
Speaker 10: something they like. They're not just learning in this mundane setting,
Speaker 10: you know, to where it's boring and looking at the chalkboard.
Speaker 1: They're doing something that they like to do. So shout
Speaker 1: out to them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's great. I mean, you know, the evolution, if you.
Speaker 8: Will, of.
Speaker 2: Different entities within education and.
Speaker 3: Community and government and what have you beginning to know
Speaker 3: that there has to be a different way to educate
Speaker 3: our children, a different way to bring our young people
Speaker 3: along and help them be successful.
Speaker 2: That's that's happening. But it's slow. It's a slut drip,
Speaker 2: but happening.
Speaker 3: Like you said, a career day every single week. That's
Speaker 3: very different because in the past it's just once a year.
Speaker 10: Right, career day is not just them talking about careers,
Speaker 10: showing courses and classes to where it's just creativity, it's music,
Speaker 10: it's arts, is cooking and hands on, hands on and
Speaker 10: you just in that for two periods of the day,
Speaker 10: for the beginning of the day.
Speaker 1: You start your day off with something that you like
Speaker 1: to do.
Speaker 10: You're not just going into a classroom and listen, and
Speaker 10: you start in your day of doing the activity that
Speaker 10: you've chosen that you want to be a part of,
Speaker 10: and you're learning and your creating and it's just dope.
Speaker 2: But that's great. It's great. It's great.
Speaker 3: So there's a lot out of when we're talking about youth,
Speaker 3: we're talking about violence, we're talking about you know, getting
Speaker 3: ourselves organized, and there's a lot of really really dangerous
Speaker 3: and serious things happening where I think.
Speaker 2: We It's probably one of the reasons.
Speaker 3: Why the evolution is such a slow drip, because it's
Speaker 3: like you're moving forward and there are people who are
Speaker 3: pushing to change the culture and to you know, really
Speaker 3: sort of I really want to be intentional about my point.
Speaker 3: There are people who are really fighting to get the
Speaker 3: government to come out of its old and sort of
Speaker 3: archaic ways of thinking about educating youth about dealing with
Speaker 3: mental health and other issues.
Speaker 7: Right.
Speaker 2: You know, you are one of.
Speaker 3: Those people that constantly talks about how no one can
Speaker 3: just sit you down for two hours and just talk
Speaker 3: to you. Want back and forth about your issues. To
Speaker 3: help you with your needs. You need people from a
Speaker 3: therapeutic perspective, Yes, you could sit down and talk to
Speaker 3: them sometimes, but also that they may be able to
Speaker 3: come into your world, see what you're doing, work with
Speaker 3: you from a very hands on perspective. Now, maybe the
Speaker 3: fact that we're now in our forties we can sit
Speaker 3: still a little bit different.
Speaker 2: But certainly a young child will not be able to learn.
Speaker 3: The same way that other communities learn. We know that
Speaker 3: and to be you know, to receive therapeutic services and
Speaker 3: other things in those ways. And so with that being said,
Speaker 3: there are folks who are sort of pushing to change
Speaker 3: the culture. But when you have such traumatic events like
Speaker 3: what we see happening across this country going on, it
Speaker 3: takes us back. So even if you go forward, you
Speaker 3: go back because people get afraid, people get you know, traumatized.
Speaker 2: It's a lot.
Speaker 3: You've got four people killed, he had just you know,
Speaker 3: in the last four to twenty four hours. Obviously, we're
Speaker 3: taping this show, so when people hear it, it will
Speaker 3: be a week old.
Speaker 2: And that's a thing that it's a week old. By
Speaker 2: the time, you know.
Speaker 3: Several days passes, we're like, well, that happened a week ago.
Speaker 2: Buffalo shooting happened.
Speaker 3: You know now, I don't know, probably fifteen sixteen days ago.
Speaker 3: It's not a long time, but in media time, the
Speaker 3: cycle just keeps changing.
Speaker 2: Four people shot in a medical center.
Speaker 3: Then you have the police doing what police do, shooting
Speaker 3: an unarmed black woman who was suspected to be in
Speaker 3: a stolen car. She was with a guy, allegedly the
Speaker 3: guy I ran and the woman when they told her
Speaker 3: to get on the ground, trit to explain that she
Speaker 3: was pregnant and that she could not lay down, and
Speaker 3: the police shot her multiple times. She wasn't in a pocket,
Speaker 3: she wasn't None of the witnesses have said she grabbed
Speaker 3: for anything or did anything that should have caused her
Speaker 3: to be shot as a pregnant woman. But again, police
Speaker 3: will be police, and so that happened. And then you
Speaker 3: have a situation where other governments are catching on quicker
Speaker 3: than us because in a place like Canada, they are
Speaker 3: banning or at least they are new regulations that will
Speaker 3: ban the sale of purchases for certain types.
Speaker 2: Of handguns, right or maybe all handguns.
Speaker 3: So people are like, yo, we're seeing what's going on
Speaker 3: in America, and we're not gonna sit by and allow
Speaker 3: our nation to be riddled with the same types of
Speaker 3: watunate traumas.
Speaker 2: I don't know what the hell they're doing in Washington,
Speaker 2: d C.
Speaker 3: We ultimately have no choice but to fight for and
Speaker 3: fin for ourselves.
Speaker 1: Actually, you know.
Speaker 10: And and now I'm hearing that there's going to be
Speaker 10: legislation passed in New York City.
Speaker 1: Will be an open cab state. I mean New York state.
Speaker 1: I apologize New York State.
Speaker 10: That seven worse like when we when we look and
Speaker 10: see that gun violence is up, and then we're gonna
Speaker 10: make it more easy to access guns. I don't even
Speaker 10: understand how we don't realize that's a recipe for disaster.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 10: The reality of situation is everybody shouldn't have a gun,
Speaker 10: you know, And that's what the problem is. Obviously, the
Speaker 10: guns are getting into the hands of people who shouldn't
Speaker 10: have guns. When you look at these mass shootings. These
Speaker 10: aren't you know, cultable, you know culpable ready, you know
Speaker 10: informed people, it would have packed the background check and
Speaker 10: should be able to have guns. So when we understand
Speaker 10: that something is not working, why do we continue to
Speaker 10: exacerbate the mistake. It doesn't really make sense to me.
Speaker 10: You know, New York is on fire with gun ViOS.
Speaker 10: People who don't are getting illegal So now you're gonna
Speaker 10: make it a lot easier for somebody who shouldn't have
Speaker 10: a gun to get it.
Speaker 1: I just don't understand the logic. Just don't.
Speaker 3: We don't need people on the trains in New York
Speaker 3: that are already suffering.
Speaker 1: From like all types of traumas.
Speaker 2: I don't even know what it's called. That's going to
Speaker 2: go on the train.
Speaker 1: People fucked up people.
Speaker 2: People, and they buy a gun.
Speaker 1: People fucked up out here, Jack.
Speaker 10: And the thing is you we look at our police,
Speaker 10: who supposedly are trained to deal with situations, and they
Speaker 10: say they fear for.
Speaker 1: Their life and they make mistakes and they shoot.
Speaker 10: So you gonna give guns to people who got nothing
Speaker 10: near what the police got and hope that in situations
Speaker 10: such as road rage when somebody cuts you off and
Speaker 10: they get out and they got a gun name blowing
Speaker 10: your head.
Speaker 1: You see, we literally seen sick people.
Speaker 10: Driving on a highway and shoot a cause because they arguing.
Speaker 3: So yeah, but I mean your point is so valid,
Speaker 3: my son, because when you think of the fact that
Speaker 3: young kids sat in the classroom for over an hour,
Speaker 3: some shot, some almost dying, others who I've been told
Speaker 3: was shot a second time because there was so much
Speaker 3: room for additional horror, you know, sat there for over
Speaker 3: and out.
Speaker 2: And now, I mean, I don't even know.
Speaker 3: How you talk about kids, babies who for one second,
Speaker 3: if your baby is lost from you in a crowd
Speaker 3: for one second, it can turn into a complete meltdown
Speaker 3: and break down for a child. So imagine people bloody,
Speaker 3: you know, big boom, sounds of shots going off, and
Speaker 3: there was no help. So these police officers who stood,
Speaker 3: they said at least nineteen officers were in the hallway
Speaker 3: standing there. If they didn't do anything to deal with
Speaker 3: the shooter, why are we now, all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: so convinced that a resource officer is going to do something.
Speaker 2: So if that's the case, then fuck it. Fire the
Speaker 2: police officers.
Speaker 1: Exactly. If you've given us all guns to telling us
Speaker 1: protect ourselves.
Speaker 10: What is the police officer doing that we can't do ourselves.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Nobody's explained that to me. So just thinking about so
Speaker 3: much stuff that's happening. I don't want to be a
Speaker 3: conspiracy theorist, as they say, I don't even know if
Speaker 3: theorist is a word, but I don't want to be
Speaker 3: a conspiracy theorist person. But I'm really just trying to
Speaker 3: figure out my because there's so much to process, and
Speaker 3: the last few weeks I've been like, I don't even
Speaker 3: want to post anything on socials because I got to
Speaker 3: like think before, I got to like gather my thoughts
Speaker 3: and gather myself before I speak. But I've been noticing
Speaker 3: over the last few weeks that while we're dealing with
Speaker 3: all this trauma in terms of like how what type
Speaker 3: of horrific incidents are happening, there's also.
Speaker 2: Mad health challenges.
Speaker 3: Like I'm trying to figure out if when you get old,
Speaker 3: allergies come on. I mean, I'm really I know this
Speaker 3: is totally off topic.
Speaker 10: No, it's a real thing because I never had no
Speaker 10: damn allergies to like last year, I didn't even know
Speaker 10: what no allergies was like I would sneeze a little bit, But.
Speaker 1: Now I feel like I got I can't breathe.
Speaker 10: I feel like my eyes is always itching, I got
Speaker 10: a something in my Throat's like cotton balls in my nose.
Speaker 10: It's like, Yo, this is the worst shit I've ever felt.
Speaker 10: And it just started happening. And I'm like, when did
Speaker 10: all this shit just start happening?
Speaker 3: The last two years I have been experiencing allergies.
Speaker 2: Last year wasn't as bad.
Speaker 1: This year.
Speaker 3: I literally had several incidents, like different periods where I
Speaker 3: could not breathe, my throat was hurting, I was feeling exhausted.
Speaker 3: I almost felt like I had a flu, but I
Speaker 3: didn't because you know, I get a COVID test very often,
Speaker 3: and you not.
Speaker 1: The COVID HU about that.
Speaker 3: You No, No, no COVID tests that I get. They
Speaker 3: test for the flu. Also, that's why they swab me
Speaker 3: a little deeper because they go for the flu as well.
Speaker 3: You know, you should learn how to get you some
Speaker 3: of those.
Speaker 1: No thinking me.
Speaker 2: I do, but I feel like, wow, like what what?
Speaker 2: I don't understand it.
Speaker 3: And people have been saying like the environment is not
Speaker 3: what it should be. So I'm thinking like, is it
Speaker 3: is can aalogies be caused by the environment, even today
Speaker 3: at the press conference, But then how is pollend We
Speaker 3: need like a medical expert, Like how is an environmentalist?
Speaker 3: How is pollen impacted by like global warming and all
Speaker 3: of that.
Speaker 2: I feel like it could be.
Speaker 10: I mean what happens is trees are growing, and the
Speaker 10: more the warmer it gets, I guess trees are going
Speaker 10: fast and they probably producing more poling. I can't really
Speaker 10: give you. I'm just that was just some shit. I
Speaker 10: thought it, well, yes, but when you drive around now,
Speaker 10: you literally seeing clogs of polland everywhere. Like I was
Speaker 10: driving on a highway and I could just see the shit.
Speaker 10: I had to close my window. I couldn't even breathe
Speaker 10: because it was so much pollen that started coming inside
Speaker 10: my car. So like I see, like I guess being
Speaker 10: sick when when something ails you and you know it,
Speaker 10: you know it's the cause of your sickness, and you
Speaker 10: see it, you get real.
Speaker 1: So I'm very aware of piling that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, you know, we pay attention to coughing.
Speaker 3: Anybody coughs, everybody's like, why are you coughing? And I
Speaker 3: noticed today at the press conference that in the middle
Speaker 3: of the mayor speaking, he had to keep breaking to cough.
Speaker 2: It's allergies. It probably, of course I didn't.
Speaker 3: Ask him, but everywhere I go, I'm noticing that more
Speaker 3: people are like, yo, I'm really dealing with it. I'm scratching,
Speaker 3: you know, people are experiencing the side effects of I
Speaker 3: guess an analogy to polin as you said, And I'm
Speaker 3: just like.
Speaker 2: I don't want to do conspiracies because I don't know.
Speaker 3: But it's like all these things are happening at the
Speaker 3: same time, and it's real weird out with.
Speaker 10: The fluid this, you know, this variant. Everybody's allergies is
Speaker 10: acting up. The football players is dying suddenly, like.
Speaker 1: It's just like y'all.
Speaker 3: Every time I turn, every time I open my Instagram,
Speaker 3: I'm seeing somebody that die. And I'm noticing football players,
Speaker 3: basketball players like or at least a former or current
Speaker 3: they just checking out. It's a car accident, it's a
Speaker 3: heart issue. Rappers, of course, so entertain us. It's like
Speaker 3: the energy I saw on John Gray, Reverend John Gray's page,
Speaker 3: he said, we need a revival of the soul, and
Speaker 3: I thought that was the most powerful.
Speaker 2: Thing that I have read in a long time.
Speaker 3: We need a revival of the soul because.
Speaker 1: This is we need zero texts.
Speaker 2: And I feel like white supremacy.
Speaker 1: Amplifies all of the shit exactly.
Speaker 10: It's like you gotta call you gotta allergies and you've
Speaker 10: got white supremacy.
Speaker 3: Well, because they don't want to acknowledge, you know not
Speaker 3: they but the system has failed to correct or address
Speaker 3: environmental issues. There's not even an acknowledgment from UH, from
Speaker 3: the Republican Party in particular around the fact that global
Speaker 3: woman is an issue and that we're having climate change.
Speaker 3: So that's one thing policing is out of control. Also
Speaker 3: something that will being fought tooth and nail on.
Speaker 1: Everything.
Speaker 2: So that's the deal to today.
Speaker 3: Yes, we are being joined by two women who we
Speaker 3: talked about Gun Violence Awareness Month. There are two women
Speaker 3: who were instrumental in helping us to get this month
Speaker 3: off the ground, and for the last several years we've
Speaker 3: all worked together in different capacities to refine it and
Speaker 3: to continue to work up the crisis management system in
Speaker 3: different ways.
Speaker 2: You've got within.
Speaker 3: Well, we'll let them talk about what CMS looks like
Speaker 3: and all the types of folks that work within the Network,
Speaker 3: miss Orisa Napper Williams of Not Another Child, and also
Speaker 3: our dear sister mss e Fae Charles, who has been
Speaker 3: in the trenches with me for a real long time
Speaker 3: and she has been a strategist in this movement, working
Speaker 3: in the Bronx and working in different words organizations, but
Speaker 3: now she's actually working on, you know, changing the culture
Speaker 3: within the court system in New York, which is a
Speaker 3: part of it. So that's what the Network is supposed
Speaker 3: to be all about, holistic work.
Speaker 2: So let's bring them on.
Speaker 3: So as has been mentioned, we're being joined during Gun
Speaker 3: Violence Awaren this month in New York by two really
Speaker 3: really important individuals.
Speaker 2: On this show, my son, we always.
Speaker 3: Have our friends, friends, friends, and more friends, but we
Speaker 3: do know some incredible people who do incredible work. And
Speaker 3: Gun Violence Awareness Month is important, really special to me
Speaker 3: because we started it with these individuals some years ago,
Speaker 3: you know, working to try to make sure that the
Speaker 3: city of New York is really focused on the people
Speaker 3: doing the work and the people who are truly impacted.
Speaker 3: And the two people that we're joined with today two
Speaker 3: black women, by the way, and you can't say, oh,
Speaker 3: we only have black women on this show that do things,
Speaker 3: because we've been having a lot of black men lately,
Speaker 3: so don't even try it. But miss Arisa Napper Williams
Speaker 3: of Not Another Child, and also miss Efe Charles, who
Speaker 3: is she has a big title. First of all, she
Speaker 3: worked with People and Culture Center for Court Innovation, so
Speaker 3: she's in the system transforming the system, but also is
Speaker 3: the immediate past leader, if you will, of anti violence
Speaker 3: projects and initiatives in New York City. She has been
Speaker 3: working in the Bronx coordinating and organizing all of us
Speaker 3: for some time. Miss Arisa is actually a mother who
Speaker 3: lost her son two gun violence, and so we're dealing
Speaker 3: with two people who are very very close to both
Speaker 3: of you. I think, also, Ife, you lost the child
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 8: In my my son did not die from gun violence,
Speaker 8: but I've lost the son.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, but you lost the son. So that in
Speaker 3: and of itself, so we're we're we're talking with two
Speaker 3: individuals today and my son and I have just been
Speaker 3: really trying to get into this whole idea of shootings
Speaker 3: happening across the country and what it means. Some of it,
Speaker 3: of course, is racially incentivized, or at least racially motivated.
Speaker 3: Others are mental health situations. You have other things that
Speaker 3: you know are poverty, uh motivated. So there's shootings happening
Speaker 3: and people are noticing it. And one of the things
Speaker 3: that I said today when I spoke at and of
Speaker 3: course we were taping this show today for an upcoming
Speaker 3: show excuse me, an upcoming episode of Street Politicians. But
Speaker 3: one of the things that I said today is that
Speaker 3: we as in this group, the CMS group, which is
Speaker 3: the Crisis Management System in New York, as well as
Speaker 3: individual organizers around the City of New York, have sounded
Speaker 3: the alarm. And I talked about how in nineteen sixty three,
Speaker 3: Malcolm X said that the chickens were coming home to roots.
Speaker 3: And here we are watching it happen happen across the nation,
Speaker 3: where people like you, miss Sorisa and Efe have been
Speaker 3: out there hitting the pavement telling the government, officials, corporations,
Speaker 3: community members that if we did not stop to deal
Speaker 3: with this issue, we are going to experience an insurmountable
Speaker 3: level of violence across the nation.
Speaker 2: And here we are. People are afraid, they're fred to
Speaker 2: leave their homes.
Speaker 3: We've got shootings at grocery stores, We've got shootings in hospitals,
Speaker 3: we've got shootings just in general, and schools of children,
Speaker 3: and yet here we come to a place where everybody's
Speaker 3: saying what to do, and yet we have laid out
Speaker 3: a blueprint years and years and years.
Speaker 2: And years and years.
Speaker 3: So we want to talk about that blueprint today, and
Speaker 3: my son, let me kick it to you to invite
Speaker 3: these two wonderful ladies to be a part of our conversation.
Speaker 1: Quite thank you, quite thank you.
Speaker 10: As you just mentioned, we just left a press conference
Speaker 10: in which we spoke about Gun Violence Awareness Month, which
Speaker 10: is the start of the gun violence Awareness Month. But
Speaker 10: if you see these shirts, this is the gun violence
Speaker 10: awareness movement because for us who do this work, it's
Speaker 10: just not about a month, it's not about a day.
Speaker 10: It's all the time. And we go to sleep and
Speaker 10: we wake up with this work. And we've been joined
Speaker 10: by two phenomenal women, Black women who've been on the
Speaker 10: forefront of this work for a long time. So I
Speaker 10: just want to start with Efa, who right now is
Speaker 10: you know, she has elevated and evolved into she's inside
Speaker 10: the system now and you know she's able to attack
Speaker 10: it that way. But she's always been a frontline worker.
Speaker 10: You know, like you said, she's been in the bronx
Speaker 10: organized and putting together some of the best crisis management
Speaker 10: systems and organizations that we have. So EFA, you know,
Speaker 10: we look at this influx of violence, right, and like
Speaker 10: like Tamika said, the chicken's coming home the roost, and
Speaker 10: we've been saying what was going to happen? What do
Speaker 10: you think is the major cause? And what should how
Speaker 10: should they be attacking it?
Speaker 8: Well, first of all, you know, I want to salute
Speaker 8: to you, sister Tamika ant and my brother my son.
Speaker 8: You know, when you sit back here and in spaces
Speaker 8: with the both of you, there is a conscious awareness
Speaker 8: that I hold on to you from both of you guys, right,
Speaker 8: because there's a consistency in the way that you do
Speaker 8: this work. To my sister, Bariso always salute you, says,
Speaker 8: just for what you're doing now because I think as
Speaker 8: you talked about that when Malcolm talked about the chickens
Speaker 8: coming home to roost, we are here now, right, We're
Speaker 8: here hens beep and you know the rooster's growing. Right,
Speaker 8: That's what's going on right now. And so in my
Speaker 8: experience and in my work, and I go back to
Speaker 8: brother at Mitchell, who when we started doing some stuff
Speaker 8: way back and we had these sites that were being
Speaker 8: evaluated and research to come up with systems to address
Speaker 8: gun violence. I think the way that my brain always
Speaker 8: works about this is their compartmentalization of what's acting happening.
Speaker 8: There's two pieces to this, right, you have this national
Speaker 8: piece where gun laws need to be changed, policies need
Speaker 8: to be uplifted, you know, marginalization of people needs to
Speaker 8: be definitely destroyed. And then you have on a local
Speaker 8: level where there's a need for involvement. So when we
Speaker 8: just talked about my song, when you talked about the
Speaker 8: work that we've been doing or reselling you and Ta
Speaker 8: making a bunch of other folks, It's about consistency. It's
Speaker 8: about consistency in the way that you lead. It's about
Speaker 8: consistency in the way that you address problems. Too often,
Speaker 8: what we do as a city is we run for
Speaker 8: the newest and latest thing, right, not looking at what
Speaker 8: has worked really in the past and sticking with it.
Speaker 8: You can have a cookie cutter approach to gun violence.
Speaker 8: You cannot, right because just levels to this madness. Like
Speaker 8: I say this, I was telling to Meka last night.
Speaker 8: There's levels to this ship. If I can custom can
Speaker 8: I say customers for this LTTS right, it's my acronym
Speaker 8: that I made of this levels to this ship. And
Speaker 8: so too often what happens is that, you know, you
Speaker 8: have people who want to be in the front, but
Speaker 8: there's work that needs to be done behind. And I
Speaker 8: think when we talk about what's the approaches and what
Speaker 8: we need to do, I think we need to seriously
Speaker 8: evaluate who's doing work right, staying that we will each
Speaker 8: have a role in this work. There is something that's
Speaker 8: going to fight from a macro level and there's those
Speaker 8: that are going to fight from the inside on the
Speaker 8: street level, which is a lot of what CMS is doing,
Speaker 8: but addressing it comes from both angles. It just can't
Speaker 8: be one solution. And I think that's what people are
Speaker 8: trying right now is just one approach. And I think
Speaker 8: Malcolm's quote of the chicken comings home to roosts, we
Speaker 8: will be roosting for quite some time if we don't
Speaker 8: look at the multiple levels to gun violence.
Speaker 1: And miss SORIESA. You know, what do you think we
Speaker 1: need to do?
Speaker 10: How do you think we should be attacking and what
Speaker 10: do you think you know is the most sustainable strategy.
Speaker 10: Have to be in this movement for so many years
Speaker 10: and seeing what's work, seeing what's failed, understanding after we
Speaker 10: just heard the mayor and his speech about how he
Speaker 10: plans to go about it, what.
Speaker 1: Is your opinion.
Speaker 12: So first, thank you Mice and make Up for inviting
Speaker 12: me today. It is simply a pleasure to be here
Speaker 12: with you, guys, and thank you for always seeing me
Speaker 12: as more than a parent, more than a mother that
Speaker 12: lost a child. And I really think the way that
Speaker 12: CMS has always moved forward where we always moved together
Speaker 12: before you.
Speaker 3: Go forward, because I think we keep saying CMS and
Speaker 3: we have not explained.
Speaker 8: Yes, so folks will.
Speaker 3: Say, well, what are they talking about? Don't tell us
Speaker 3: what you are part of.
Speaker 2: In New York.
Speaker 12: So it is the New York City Crisis Management System.
Speaker 12: Several models was looked at from over the country, and
Speaker 12: we know that the biggest model, I would say, at
Speaker 12: that time that actually had the data that it worked
Speaker 12: was pure balance, which was balance interruptors and outreach workers.
Speaker 12: But the co architects in New York, you know you
Speaker 12: guys Ata to meet EFE, all of you pioneers from
Speaker 12: years ago, saw that that was not enough for our
Speaker 12: city and what we need. And you guys are are pioneers,
Speaker 12: so let me know if I got the history right.
Speaker 12: But you know, you guys knew that it was more
Speaker 12: that after you took the gun out of a hand,
Speaker 12: after you gave a job, therapeutic support was still needed,
Speaker 12: professional mental health services was still needed. Employment opportunities, you know,
Speaker 12: was still needed. And so the system comprises of not
Speaker 12: just the balance and diruptors and the outreach workers as
Speaker 12: the anchor, but also the wrap around services which is
Speaker 12: greatly needed. A lot of models do not reflect the
Speaker 12: mental instability.
Speaker 7: That comes along with gun violence.
Speaker 12: It does not reflect the layers of drama that is
Speaker 12: a leading cause of gun violence.
Speaker 7: And see them as does.
Speaker 12: And so I think, going back to MYCE question, you know,
Speaker 12: that's what we need to do is.
Speaker 7: Expand on that.
Speaker 12: Right now, CMS is only in and if they correct
Speaker 12: me if I'm wrong, I believe it's thirty something, maybe
Speaker 12: forty sights in about sixteen catchment areas or something to
Speaker 12: that effect.
Speaker 7: But it needs to be expanded on.
Speaker 12: The other thing that was spoken of today was the
Speaker 12: interconnecting with city agencies. You know, no longer should we
Speaker 12: be working in silos where I never forget. I have
Speaker 12: a parent that I was with and her son was murdered.
Speaker 12: She was at his house visiting him for his birthday,
Speaker 12: which was two days prior.
Speaker 7: She heard some arguing. She went out to the steps
Speaker 7: and he was like, mom, good, I'm good.
Speaker 12: When in next thing she heard was gunshots and came
Speaker 12: out and saw her child rolling down the steps.
Speaker 7: When we went back a.
Speaker 12: Day later, his blood still laid on the ground.
Speaker 1: And so.
Speaker 7: We need sanitation.
Speaker 2: To be a part absolutely.
Speaker 12: To be even given a time constraint of no. Twelve
Speaker 12: to twenty four hours, this blood.
Speaker 7: Should be off of our streets.
Speaker 12: Our parents should not be and family members should not
Speaker 12: be re traumatized to come back and see the blood
Speaker 12: of their loved ones there. And so I think having
Speaker 12: someone in in the position of the tsar, you know
Speaker 12: which he is from the streets and know the needs
Speaker 12: from there to be able to come back and implement
Speaker 12: it with the help and the support of the city
Speaker 12: agencies is dope.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 12: And I think it was Ephae that said a little
Speaker 12: while ago, you know that we just always do is comfortable.
Speaker 12: We do the same things over and over. This is
Speaker 12: a major monumental like this has never happened before, So
Speaker 12: I'm looking forward to the success with it.
Speaker 3: Well so for folks who are listening, those who may
Speaker 3: not understand, because we're so close to it that when
Speaker 3: we speak of it, we speak as if everybody knows
Speaker 3: and they should and they should.
Speaker 2: But today, well let me go back before that.
Speaker 3: Over a decade ago, a number of us came together
Speaker 3: to work on building the crisis Management System. We were
Speaker 3: told no by previous administrations because the purpose of the
Speaker 3: crisis management system and our fight was to get resources
Speaker 3: for formally incarcerated individuals, youth, families whether they be victims,
Speaker 3: and or the families of victims, to be advocates, people
Speaker 3: to work in hospitals, people to be there with therapeutic services,
Speaker 3: people to deal specifically with, you know, extreme mental health issues, jobs,
Speaker 3: so on and so forth. That was the model that
Speaker 3: we came together to create, and through that model we
Speaker 3: created CMS. And the first and I think Mayor Bloomberg
Speaker 3: was the mayor who told us no. But it happened
Speaker 3: to be that at that time there was a mayoral
Speaker 3: election and all the candidates wanted our support because we
Speaker 3: had organized ourselves around the city to be a force,
Speaker 3: and gun violence numbers were up, and so people were
Speaker 3: looking for our support. And to her credit, Christine Quinn
Speaker 3: was the speaker of the city Council but also running
Speaker 3: for mayor, and of course Jimani Williams was a city
Speaker 3: council person at that time, along with a brother of Fernando.
Speaker 2: Fernando Right, He's was the city council person.
Speaker 3: And so we worked with them outside of Nia Bloomberg
Speaker 3: to get the first five million dollars distributed to grassroots
Speaker 3: groups one million dollars per borough, five boroughs in New York,
Speaker 3: so that they could do gun violence intervention work. What
Speaker 3: we learned was that the major thing that they would
Speaker 3: focus on was data, and so we learned that and
Speaker 3: we knew we had to provide data that shows the
Speaker 3: shootings were down. Shootings dipped tremendously, and as a result,
Speaker 3: now crisis management, the crisis management system is up to
Speaker 3: over a hundred million dollars that goes to individuals who
Speaker 3: are formal who are organizing and employing formally incarcerated folks
Speaker 3: and you know and others.
Speaker 2: At Mitchell, who's one of those.
Speaker 3: In the beginning, is now the new czar I've been
Speaker 3: saying Czar, but anyway, Czar.
Speaker 7: Yar, Czar, I was saying, kaz okay.
Speaker 8: So he got a title, y'all, he got a title.
Speaker 1: We got a Yeah.
Speaker 3: The Star Violence Intervention and Prevention in New York City
Speaker 3: today was announced by our mayor.
Speaker 2: This to me once again and if you you know,
Speaker 2: jump in here.
Speaker 3: But once again, we're setting an example, we're setting the
Speaker 3: tone again. After more than a decade, we're finding new
Speaker 3: ways to revitalize our movement for to fight violence in
Speaker 3: our city. Very similar to relationships. Every now and then,
Speaker 3: when you with a man or a woman, you've got
Speaker 3: to see evaluated.
Speaker 8: You got to evaluate the relationship. And and that's and
Speaker 8: I think I think that's what we're doing as a
Speaker 8: city is as an evolution that's happening, right. People are evolving.
Speaker 8: And I think there was a point in this movement
Speaker 8: where we were standing still, right and we're dependent upon
Speaker 8: the funding. What I've seen with the movement, there's this
Speaker 8: innovation that is happening, right, there's this different thinking process.
Speaker 8: This the way that we're moving around the city. And
Speaker 8: so you're right to Mika, in any relationship that you have,
Speaker 8: you've got to grow, right, do you either grow up
Speaker 8: or you grow out? I think what's happening right now
Speaker 8: we're seeing in the city this need because this is
Speaker 8: what I say about gun violence. There's a cross pollination
Speaker 8: of the effects of gun violence.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 8: So what just happened in Buffalo, what just happened in
Speaker 8: uval in Texas? What's happening right here in the city.
Speaker 8: This is heading home for everybody. Right. It is no
Speaker 8: longer isolated. It's no longer saying well, it's only happened
Speaker 8: in Brooklyn and invest eying the row. It's only the
Speaker 8: black and brown communities. This is happening nationally and the
Speaker 8: I think now what you have is the support of
Speaker 8: folks like the President, like a man that's saying okay,
Speaker 8: so we have a model. We know that aspects of
Speaker 8: this model works. Let's use it, but then build upon it, right,
Speaker 8: and let's take someone who's had the experience. Because I
Speaker 8: tell people all the time, this work is not for
Speaker 8: the feint at heart. If you want to do gun
Speaker 8: violence work, you have to breathe it, sleep. You also
Speaker 8: have to sometimes step away from it. Like I told
Speaker 8: Tamika yesterday, it just doesn't fit into my spirit because
Speaker 8: just the death of people consistently could be traumatizing. So
Speaker 8: when sister Reesa starts talking about the trauma in the past,
Speaker 8: that wasn't even a part of the picture, right. So
Speaker 8: as we evolved now in the city, looking at different
Speaker 8: aspects and different tools to address gun violence. This holistic
Speaker 8: approach we talked about it. You can do this work
Speaker 8: unless you think about the entire group of people a nation,
Speaker 8: the people, right, that's who we have to think about.
Speaker 8: And so I think the way that we're moving now
Speaker 8: in the city where we're addressing to make it. Macenga
Speaker 8: knew this like ten fifteen years ago. Mental health issue
Speaker 8: wasn't discussed with gun violence. It was never said simultaneously
Speaker 8: that it exists in the same house. And now that
Speaker 8: we're thinking about it, we're looking at aspects as Arisa
Speaker 8: just talked about the trauma that happens, like, people are
Speaker 8: literally talking about how trauma affect individuals and not only
Speaker 8: the individuals who are victims or those who are perpetrators
Speaker 8: of crimes. We're talking about the network, right, this idea
Speaker 8: of community. So for me, when I think about it,
Speaker 8: we have evolved. We started off with five million, it's
Speaker 8: now over one hundred plus. We have over thirty somethings
Speaker 8: sites in the city. The mayor is specifically looking at
Speaker 8: ways to broaden this aspect, not just through CMS, but
Speaker 8: in other avenues. To me, a multi layer approach to
Speaker 8: addressing gun violence is what's needed. And I think that's
Speaker 8: what we're doing and it is my hope and we
Speaker 8: have to remember this. I'll say this and I'll pass
Speaker 8: it on. This can be resolved overnight. This is a
Speaker 8: long term investment, right, you know, like when you put
Speaker 8: your little dollar in a bank if you think you're
Speaker 8: getting three point three percent interest and it's going to grow.
Speaker 8: This takes a while, but it takes a while with
Speaker 8: people who are committed, and it's consistency.
Speaker 1: And again I will.
Speaker 8: Say this, because we're brown and black, the money has
Speaker 8: to match the value of the human life. And too
Speaker 8: often when we're talking about blank and brown and black
Speaker 8: communities and marginalized communities, we always want to just give
Speaker 8: a little bit, right. We don't want to open the
Speaker 8: pot fully, and that is problematic because that's not where
Speaker 8: equity is right because when we think about our others
Speaker 8: who've been injured, laws, policies, investment changes have been.
Speaker 1: Made and it's time for that to happen.
Speaker 8: And I think with the mayor, Atoms and others that
Speaker 8: that potentially could happen. So I'm optimistic. I really am optimistic.
Speaker 1: I'm optimistic as well.
Speaker 10: You know, when I was sitting here listening and I
Speaker 10: was just, you know, just looking at how the crisis
Speaker 10: management system has grown, right, and I'm seeing a lot
Speaker 10: of guys that I know, people who've been formally incarcerated,
Speaker 10: Guys that I've watched completely change their lives, change their
Speaker 10: mind states, that are really inside the communities who used
Speaker 10: to be doing harm in those communities, who have invested
Speaker 10: the same and not more energy into transforming the mind
Speaker 10: state of the young kids who had the same mindset
Speaker 10: that they have, and they're invested in it, right. So
Speaker 10: when I understand that they're invested in it without really
Speaker 10: having the monetary things that they want, just because their
Speaker 10: heart is into it.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 10: So when we start to incentivize that change and we
Speaker 10: start to you know, we start to reward that change,
Speaker 10: and people start to realize that, you know what, I
Speaker 10: can actually make a living, I can be successful, and
Speaker 10: I can be change in my community. I can be
Speaker 10: something positive because negativity and violence is incentivized.
Speaker 1: In our culture.
Speaker 10: You know, when we look at all of the negative
Speaker 10: on artists and hip hopping, all of the things, they
Speaker 10: making millions of dollars. So when these kids see them,
Speaker 10: right and they're comparing them to you, who're telling them
Speaker 10: to stop the violence, and you don't look like you successful,
Speaker 10: you don't look like you have anything, who are they
Speaker 10: really gonna listen to?
Speaker 1: And that's what I try to say.
Speaker 10: If you want us to heat with the violence, then
Speaker 10: you got to give us the resources and give us
Speaker 10: the ability to compete, give us the same stages, and
Speaker 10: give us the same platforms, and give us the same
Speaker 10: resources that you give the counterparts. So you know, I'm
Speaker 10: very optimistic at this point, it seems as Mayor Williams
Speaker 10: said that he wants to not only Mair Adams.
Speaker 1: Mayor Adams Adams about.
Speaker 10: Matt Adams said that he didn't just want to make this,
Speaker 10: you know, it's it's separate entergy.
Speaker 1: He wanted to make this a part.
Speaker 8: Of the first one, integrated.
Speaker 1: Another leg of government.
Speaker 10: He's saying that this is the fourth leg, you know,
Speaker 10: and this and this, and it really is common sense
Speaker 10: for me. It's like when you have a community and
Speaker 10: people who are in that community every day, who know
Speaker 10: the people every day, who have relationships, who build relationships
Speaker 10: over years, who have respect in all those things, and
Speaker 10: those people are incentivized to stop the violence and utilize
Speaker 10: that respect and util all of the things that they've
Speaker 10: gained over their lives to make sure that negativity doesn't
Speaker 10: happen in opposed to just having a police system that
Speaker 10: comes in when there's the violence is happening and comes
Speaker 10: in as an after.
Speaker 1: You know, as a response. No, you know, you have
Speaker 1: a I think that when you.
Speaker 10: Combine both of those days, because there will be things
Speaker 10: that you at some point it will get to a
Speaker 10: level that we might have to call police. But I
Speaker 10: think more often than not, if you give use those resources,
Speaker 10: that we'll be able to intervene and stop a lot
Speaker 10: of violence in the community. So I'm really hopeful and
Speaker 10: looking forward to what the future has. Like you said,
Speaker 10: it's not gonna be an overnight thing. It's not gonna
Speaker 10: be it's gonna have to be invested in. It's gonna
Speaker 10: be a process. It's gonna be a long haul, but
Speaker 10: you will see the narrative shift, you will see the
Speaker 10: culture start to shift. You will see the people who
Speaker 10: are celebrated for doing positivity will start to give people
Speaker 10: those same platforms and we'll say as accolades in the
Speaker 10: same everything else that negativity has gotten for the last
Speaker 10: couple of.
Speaker 3: Decades, ms Orisa, what exactly as a mother? I know
Speaker 3: you said that you obviously, you know you do a
Speaker 3: lot more than just focusing on grief as a mom,
Speaker 3: which in and of itself is a lot.
Speaker 2: But what exactly do you do?
Speaker 3: I watched you today as you know, some of our
Speaker 3: people were talking when they shouldn't have been, you know,
Speaker 3: doing things that you know you always need, you always
Speaker 3: have to have mothers of the movement, And I watched
Speaker 3: you today facilitating everything from process to behavior to you know, everything, decorum,
Speaker 3: the whole thing.
Speaker 2: What exactly is.
Speaker 3: It that that that not another child does? And also
Speaker 3: you specifically, how do you see your role in this movement?
Speaker 12: Yeah, you know, I'm the smallest one, but I'm I'm
Speaker 12: the mother of all they today. And so you know,
Speaker 12: we started off with just a basketball tournament because one
Speaker 12: of the young men that played guilty to my son's
Speaker 12: murder was fifteen, and it was in the middle of
Speaker 12: the summer August seventh, and a mother when.
Speaker 7: This happens, when this experience happens, they.
Speaker 12: Always want to scream out so that everybody will know
Speaker 12: their hurt and how they feel. And that's where I
Speaker 12: was at, you know, But I wanted to scream out
Speaker 12: to youth, you know, fifteen year old.
Speaker 7: I wanted all fifteen year olds to know what your choices.
Speaker 12: And and consequences and decisions was doing the people and
Speaker 12: how they was hurting people. And I started out with
Speaker 12: what they love, basketball, game and food, you know, and
Speaker 12: set that platform to be heard.
Speaker 7: But as the years went by, more.
Speaker 12: Parents kept showing up, you know, from both sides of
Speaker 12: the gun, to really get that support, you know, on
Speaker 12: how can I identify if my son is really into
Speaker 12: something like this or you know, I'm just trying to
Speaker 12: get through the pain of losing my child, you know.
Speaker 12: And so we grew into more of a therapeutic organization.
Speaker 12: I would like to say that everything that we do
Speaker 12: has a therapeutic basis. So, you know, we grew into
Speaker 12: peer support sessions for parents of homicide victims because you know,
Speaker 12: if it's left up to us, nobody knows how we feel. Nobody,
Speaker 12: but that's just us. Don't be offended if one of
Speaker 12: us say it to you, you know, that's just.
Speaker 7: Don't nobody know how I feel.
Speaker 12: Actually somebody may know, but you know, just those support
Speaker 12: sessions so that we can support each other, you know,
Speaker 12: without the assistance of.
Speaker 7: A counselor and different things like that.
Speaker 12: And so that's our our family support aspect, the peer
Speaker 12: support sessions, the retreats where we go away, you know,
Speaker 12: just different things we do with the parents, helping them
Speaker 12: to or providing therapy for them.
Speaker 7: Unconventional therapeutic support.
Speaker 12: We just went to Patches and Hops, which is an
Speaker 12: event space where you throw hatchets, you know, and so
Speaker 12: we made it where that's a place for them to relieve,
Speaker 12: you know, anger and things. And they also had to
Speaker 12: be you know, just looking straight forward at what they
Speaker 12: were trying to target. So we do different events and
Speaker 12: things like that for them. Even with our basketball tournament
Speaker 12: now that my song actually came to one year when
Speaker 12: we first came up to Harlem. The therapeutic aspect of
Speaker 12: that is the teams bring pictures of loved ones that
Speaker 12: they have lost the gun violence, and we hang them
Speaker 12: all around the park so that they're playing and memory
Speaker 12: of them and you know, hoping that that will defer
Speaker 12: or deter retaliation. You know, we have other youth groups
Speaker 12: out the hood where we take kids out of their neighborhood.
Speaker 12: You know, We've taken them to our club Jean Studio,
Speaker 12: showed them you don't have to be a rapper to
Speaker 12: be in the industry, you know, exposing them to various
Speaker 12: cultures and careers. We have BUDS which is the Brothers, Uncles,
Speaker 12: Dads and Sons mentorship program.
Speaker 7: And we have Brown Boys Book Club.
Speaker 12: So we do you know, we do cleanups I'll call it,
Speaker 12: you know, after child, after loved one is murdered to
Speaker 12: mecause you know, you call me plenty of days with
Speaker 12: a parent with a wife, you know, to provide support
Speaker 12: to them, but also trying to adhere our children from
Speaker 12: going either side of the gun.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 12: And that is what we do do the other youth
Speaker 12: programs that we have, you know.
Speaker 8: And when I hear reesa speak like, my mind is
Speaker 8: always blown at the way that we have evolved. Right
Speaker 8: that the idea of what therapy has been, because a
Speaker 8: lot of time is brown and blacks. The way that
Speaker 8: we heal and the way that we deal with things
Speaker 8: have not been mainstream. And the evolution of us as
Speaker 8: a city to recognize non traditional therapeutic services and say
Speaker 8: that all in the same sentence, that's growth for us
Speaker 8: as city. Right because and before you know, you push
Speaker 8: the traditional and no disrespect to white folks who are clinicians,
Speaker 8: but we push the traditional whiteism of therapy on people
Speaker 8: of color, totally not engage in religion, totally not engaging
Speaker 8: the village that we have as people of color, Totally
Speaker 8: not engaging the way that Teresa just speak about parents
Speaker 8: and getting mothers together.
Speaker 1: So the fact that.
Speaker 8: We have now been able to recognize that non traditional
Speaker 8: support for families is under the city and it's talked
Speaker 8: about in city documents as non traditional.
Speaker 1: That is growth.
Speaker 8: But again, this idea around uplifting and bringing cultural competency
Speaker 8: to the fact that we grieve differently, that is recognition
Speaker 8: by the city.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 8: I told we said this before. I remember when my
Speaker 8: son passed, he died from an illness, and when I
Speaker 8: was going through my feelings of loss and depression, I
Speaker 8: was told go to God, right, go to church.
Speaker 1: You know, that's what you do.
Speaker 8: What we change now, which is not bad because that's
Speaker 8: what we do as people of color back from slavery,
Speaker 8: you know, we pray to the same oppressors, or we
Speaker 8: go to the oppressors to relieve us from stuff that
Speaker 8: we're going through. But what we have seen in the
Speaker 8: city right now is a mayor recognizing the fact that
Speaker 8: which you consider to be traditional for some communities, you
Speaker 8: can not doe for other communities. And that recognition right
Speaker 8: there in itself to me as an advancement in the
Speaker 8: way that we're approaching the work and the way that
Speaker 8: we're approaching leadership and the support that's needed. So just
Speaker 8: a Lisa talking about and I think Aresa has done it.
Speaker 8: She has put moms in the city on a local
Speaker 8: level at a higher platform because before parents of victims
Speaker 8: were not really given the opportunity within the process of healing.
Speaker 8: Has done in the past two years, I think has
Speaker 8: made it a much more vocal point that people recognize
Speaker 8: there is a need to support parents and loved one
Speaker 8: right not just through.
Speaker 1: Victim services, but through the.
Speaker 8: Collective village that we'll grow into CMS. Let me ask
Speaker 8: this go.
Speaker 2: Ahead, my son.
Speaker 10: Know what I was going to say is I think
Speaker 10: what you touched on something that was so important you know,
Speaker 10: and it's cultural relevancy is the way that we do things.
Speaker 10: And you know, I've been I've always every government official
Speaker 10: I'm gonna be critical of. I'm not gonna just let
Speaker 10: you pass because you got black skinned, because we went
Speaker 10: to sleep before, you know. And I've been critical of
Speaker 10: some of the things that man Adams has said, you know,
Speaker 10: and I've and I've held him to it, you know.
Speaker 10: But today he says some really powerful things, you know.
Speaker 10: And he spoke as a black man, he didn't speak
Speaker 10: as a politician, and he spoke to people and said
Speaker 10: and basically said, you don't understand us. You don't understand
Speaker 10: what it is that we go through in our communities.
Speaker 10: You don't understand how we grieve. You might not understand
Speaker 10: our lingo. Everybody here you looking at you saying what
Speaker 10: are they doing here? But the bottom line is we know,
Speaker 10: we know what we're doing. We know we got this
Speaker 10: boogerloo thing that we do that works for us, that
Speaker 10: our community.
Speaker 1: There's people in this that's in.
Speaker 10: This crowd right now that can talk a gun out
Speaker 10: of somebody's hands, way different than you can. And you're
Speaker 10: gonna go there with your textbook theory of how we're
Speaker 10: supposed to go. And these people right here have been shooters,
Speaker 10: have known what it is to be shootings, been around,
Speaker 10: and they know exactly what to do. So I'm going
Speaker 10: to give them the opportunity to do what they've been
Speaker 10: doing their whole life, and we're gonna make sure that
Speaker 10: it's recognized as someone who does first response to And
Speaker 10: that was really important for me. It wasn't just the
Speaker 10: regular old conversation that the politicians have and we want
Speaker 10: to do. He really he really spoke to that and
Speaker 10: making at Mitchell bizarre someone who I know very personal,
Speaker 10: and I know how he does this work.
Speaker 1: I know the relationship that he has in communities.
Speaker 10: I know his background, I know the people around him background,
Speaker 10: I know how engaged and serious he is about this work,
Speaker 10: and I know how he's going to bring more people
Speaker 10: who have that same vigor, who have that same background,
Speaker 10: who have that same intention into this work and the
Speaker 10: people he's already connected with. And I'm just I'm just
Speaker 10: really excited, man. I'm very excited.
Speaker 8: More excited, mind, you know, I really am, because.
Speaker 1: It's going to be culturally it's going to be culturally relevant.
Speaker 10: Work is not going to look like what people think
Speaker 10: it is he's saying at And the thing that I
Speaker 10: respect is that he said the fact that we didn't
Speaker 10: make him part of government because we wanted him to
Speaker 10: have his autonomy to do the work the way he
Speaker 10: does it, to walk into communities the way that he
Speaker 10: does and still be connected to the community, but just
Speaker 10: an extension of a different level of government.
Speaker 1: And that is something that I've never seen done before.
Speaker 8: Yeah, because his respected has lived and learned experience, right,
Speaker 8: because too often what we equate is that you have
Speaker 8: to have multiple degrees in order to execute. And what
Speaker 8: he is saying is that there are lived and learned experiences.
Speaker 1: And listen, I'm all push.
Speaker 8: About education because it shows that you can stick with
Speaker 8: something that's continuous behavior in practice. There's theories around that,
Speaker 8: but there's also theories about someone who's had to lived
Speaker 8: and learned experience. What I like about what's happening now
Speaker 8: is that we're not glorifying our past mistakes, right, And
Speaker 8: that's when we talk about the way this movement is.
Speaker 8: There's too many that want to highlight, Oh, I was this,
Speaker 8: I was that.
Speaker 1: I think to shift my son.
Speaker 8: It's something you always say, even when you're talking about
Speaker 8: when I be following my own is ig and he's
Speaker 8: talking about the rappers and all that stuff. The reality
Speaker 8: is that you're talking.
Speaker 1: Grown folks business, right.
Speaker 8: You're not talking the fact that I am Sidney and
Speaker 8: talking I was a shooter, I'm this gangster, I'm that
Speaker 8: person I got distrike. You're saying that was a part
Speaker 8: of me. But I've evolved because I understand the impact
Speaker 8: of my own violence to myself my community, and now
Speaker 8: I need to shift, right. And so there's a shift
Speaker 8: in the mind state that you're talking about. And I
Speaker 8: think that's what you're seeing that there's a mayor that
Speaker 8: recognizes the fact that you don't have to have multiple
Speaker 8: degrees to have impact.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 8: There's a mayrit that's saying, let's invest and use non
Speaker 8: traditional approaches to also aid in gun violence. There's a
Speaker 8: mayor that's saying, there are people that's been doing this work,
Speaker 8: who have evidence based and research data. Because you know
Speaker 8: how our city city is and how our people are.
Speaker 8: Show me the data, show me that it's been researched,
Speaker 8: that's been able to do that, And you have a
Speaker 8: mayor that is committed and know that it takes consistency
Speaker 8: to make change that in itself is evolution, right, That
Speaker 8: is itself is innovation for us.
Speaker 2: It is, it is, it is innovation.
Speaker 3: It is certainly I believe in it because I believe
Speaker 3: in at and in many ways, you know, I believe
Speaker 3: in Eric also, the Mayor Adams, right. I believe in
Speaker 3: him because I know him since I was a young child,
Speaker 3: and I know that he loves black people.
Speaker 2: However, I do feel that the one track that.
Speaker 3: Mayor Adams may fall into that could potentially be a
Speaker 3: trap for us as a movement and for the entire city,
Speaker 3: is the trap of believing that an investment and a
Speaker 3: continued stroke of the ego of NYPD is going to
Speaker 3: somehow be the other side, the other balance, if you will,
Speaker 3: of addressing gun violence. Certainly, he said today, which of
Speaker 3: course he's going He's a former police officer. He believes
Speaker 3: in the police and what you know, and he believes
Speaker 3: in the police and the police, right, and he said
Speaker 3: today that thirty percent of the shootings are down, and
Speaker 3: that you know, he named the number of things, the
Speaker 3: highest arrest rates of people with firearms, illegal firearms.
Speaker 2: He talked about those things.
Speaker 3: He's going to tout that he's also the mayor, which
Speaker 3: means he has to talk about the success of all
Speaker 3: his agencies, including the police department. But the thing that
Speaker 3: I realize and I hope and that he also understands,
Speaker 3: is that we've also added more jobs. So you've got
Speaker 3: more people back to work, right, you have more folks
Speaker 3: out in the world post COVID visiting other individuals out
Speaker 3: doing their work, getting their mental health services back on track.
Speaker 3: And so while yes, I think the police have one
Speaker 3: role that in and of itself is not and has
Speaker 3: never been, this solution or the turn key way to
Speaker 3: address the needs of the community. So yeah, I see
Speaker 3: how policing is important, but the budget is extremely inflated
Speaker 3: for policing and there is not enough money going to
Speaker 3: the services and the other areas that I just mentioned.
Speaker 3: We know that police are funded more than any other agency,
Speaker 3: so education is not funded in the same way.
Speaker 2: You know, foods, food.
Speaker 3: Services, to our community housing, all those things are suffering
Speaker 3: tremendously And I really do hope that as a part
Speaker 3: of what Mayor Adams does and what he is focused on,
Speaker 3: that he realizes that there has to be a shift.
Speaker 3: And that's why, whether it frustrates people and it pisses
Speaker 3: people off. And whatever we say, defund the police, not
Speaker 3: that we want to take all the resources and completely
Speaker 3: get rid of police, but we believe that police funding
Speaker 3: needs to go down and the funding for our organizations,
Speaker 3: our networks, and our services needs to increase. So let's
Speaker 3: see how that goes. You know, I support the work
Speaker 3: I can be whether they say it's no permanent friends,
Speaker 3: it's only permanent interests or something like that.
Speaker 2: So we're not enemies, you know.
Speaker 3: I tell Eric directly how I feel about some of
Speaker 3: the things.
Speaker 2: He says, and that there's no he knows clearly.
Speaker 3: We speak about it when we see each other professional
Speaker 3: and or social events. I have said many times I
Speaker 3: thought what you said on this is wrong or it's right.
Speaker 3: But I do think that the fact that he was
Speaker 3: there today, that he's made the investment, and that he
Speaker 3: named our brother the bizarre of gun violence intervention and
Speaker 3: prevention is putting us on the right track and once again,
Speaker 3: the people will save the city.
Speaker 8: That's really what we're bottom line. That's the bottom line.
Speaker 8: You know, I'm with you on that. I don't you
Speaker 8: know when they started talking about defund police, I've always
Speaker 8: been like the language has always been you know, as
Speaker 8: a as a mediator, as a certified mediator, someone who's
Speaker 8: mediad cases a lot of cases in my time. The
Speaker 8: reality for me is that when we start using language,
Speaker 8: it is toxic that can inflate and that can actually
Speaker 8: create problems.
Speaker 1: You're right to me that I get it.
Speaker 8: They have an Although i'm amount of budget, I do
Speaker 8: think there's an opportunity to shift some of that money
Speaker 8: to other resources, right, And I'm hoping that Eric does that.
Speaker 8: I'm hoping that Maya Adams does that across this city
Speaker 8: because there is a balance, and that's what we've been
Speaker 8: talking about.
Speaker 1: The balance. All we know is police, right, We've grown.
Speaker 8: Up only knowing police to resolve our situations. When we
Speaker 8: look at Switzerland as a Switzerland and Sweden that have guns,
Speaker 8: they have a number of guns, their gun crime stats
Speaker 8: are so dog gone low, right, for a place that
Speaker 8: owns guns and people use guns. All we know in
Speaker 8: our country is police, and so that's the first thing
Speaker 8: that we turn to resolving all issues, whether domestic violence,
Speaker 8: whether you have your you hit your big toe, whether
Speaker 8: you're neighbor playing music too loud, we call police. I
Speaker 8: think the shift that we're going to see right now.
Speaker 8: And I'm not saying that we don't need police.
Speaker 1: I'm hoping at.
Speaker 8: One point in our lives we don't have to have
Speaker 8: police resolve in everything. But the one thing that I
Speaker 8: would say is that I hope that Eric, as a
Speaker 8: former police officer, understand that you can do and sing
Speaker 8: him do this, is that you have other ways to
Speaker 8: resolve community safety. Invest in community, allow people to have
Speaker 8: community sustainability practice and plans, allow young people. Change the
Speaker 8: way that we educate our children in schools. We've taken
Speaker 8: away trade from the schools. Right we automatically say that
Speaker 8: folks must go to college. We don't give people another
Speaker 8: opportunity to be invested in the arts, to invest in
Speaker 8: sports in other areas. Like I think with him right now,
Speaker 8: this is a great opportunity for him to reinvent the city,
Speaker 8: and I believe with the right people in place, he
Speaker 8: can do that.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 2: We will know.
Speaker 3: We want to keep the conversation going. We're about to
Speaker 3: start a whole sort of reinvite track of bringing back
Speaker 3: all the folks that we have talked to over time
Speaker 3: to follow up on where people are. I think what's
Speaker 3: important about this conversation today is we really kind of
Speaker 3: are helping folks who are sitting at home saying they
Speaker 3: either want to get started or they already have grassroots organizations.
Speaker 3: What does that look like? What does the relationship look
Speaker 3: like to work with the mayor who you may have
Speaker 3: issues with on one hand, but on the other hand,
Speaker 3: they have the resources you need to deal with certain
Speaker 3: things in the community. There's many different layers to this,
Speaker 3: and I think in New York City, while we may
Speaker 3: not have figured it all out, we certainly have.
Speaker 2: A good model for the nation.
Speaker 3: And miss Orisa, I would say to you that your
Speaker 3: spirit and your leadership not just being again a grieving mother,
Speaker 3: which in and of itself is important, but taking that
Speaker 3: and turning it into leadership is so important because.
Speaker 2: You keep us all centered, You keep us no matter.
Speaker 3: I don't know anybody that has a problem with this,
Speaker 3: or Resa. We all have issues with one another. We
Speaker 3: fighting each other everywhere. I don't speak to this one,
Speaker 3: this one, don't speak over here in the third but
Speaker 3: we none of us have that.
Speaker 2: Issue with you. And it's important to you that we
Speaker 2: love me.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 2: We need mothers and fathers.
Speaker 8: That's because she comes with a pure spirit, to me,
Speaker 8: I'm gonna say that all the time. I tell people
Speaker 8: that all the time.
Speaker 1: You gotta have you gotta have a pure spirit, and
Speaker 1: I'm giving yours.
Speaker 8: You gotta have a pure spirit school with her because
Speaker 8: she has a pure spirit.
Speaker 12: My motive and intent is pure. I just want to amplify.
Speaker 12: I don't want another mother to be where I am.
Speaker 12: I really really don't. And so whatever I have to do.
Speaker 12: I know everybody's staff, Like I mean, at brought me
Speaker 12: in and when my mind goes back to that first
Speaker 12: time that I met him, like that's almost like twelve
Speaker 12: thirteen years ago.
Speaker 7: But I know everybody's staff. I just because I.
Speaker 12: Know the important work that they do, you know, and
Speaker 12: so pure.
Speaker 13: Heart you do, pre heart and organized has just come
Speaker 13: to the forefront a lot more, you know, given this
Speaker 13: platform to be able to do so, and because this
Speaker 13: is so important to me, Like shutting down the Brooklyn
Speaker 13: Bridge today.
Speaker 12: No like like it was shut down I know to
Speaker 12: me because you saw it.
Speaker 6: I know.
Speaker 12: My but coming from the other way after going over
Speaker 12: the Brooklyn Bridge all my life, always at a standstill,
Speaker 12: always caused to see it was like we was everybody's
Speaker 12: at a standstill, just looking and bringing awareness to gun balance.
Speaker 12: And what's important about that is today was one of
Speaker 12: several times over the history of this thing as we
Speaker 12: were building it, we bought caskets over yes.
Speaker 2: For helping us to bring this thing to fruition. And
Speaker 2: now it's time for us. You know, sometimes in the
Speaker 2: movement we get a little comfortable. People. You know, your
Speaker 2: numbers are down.
Speaker 3: You know, you're trying to just keep things afloat contracts exactly.
Speaker 2: But now we got we got to put the A
Speaker 2: team eighteen plus the newcomers back in the.
Speaker 3: In the mix and on the grind, and we can
Speaker 3: save our communities. We can work with the community to
Speaker 3: save our communities. And so that's what we're going to
Speaker 3: focus on. We love you both, you know, thank you
Speaker 3: so much for your leadership. People need to be you know,
Speaker 3: we in New York have to teach the rest of
Speaker 3: the country, uh, in pockets where they don't have models like.
Speaker 2: Ours, how to do this work. My son, you're going
Speaker 2: to take us out.
Speaker 10: I just want to say, uh, you know, bout down
Speaker 10: to you beautiful black queens. You know, thank you for
Speaker 10: all the work that you do, thank you for the
Speaker 10: energy that you bring. Thank you for your smile. Thank
Speaker 10: you for cussing us out. Sometimes it's a reason because
Speaker 10: we'll be needing it, you know.
Speaker 8: But I just want to say, hands on you Church Mama,
Speaker 8: like she'd be laying hands and got the Holy oil.
Speaker 1: Give you that look together them.
Speaker 7: That's not me, we need it.
Speaker 10: But I just want to say I love you all
Speaker 10: and I appreciate your conte part of you.
Speaker 1: Guys.
Speaker 8: Man, we are just like you know when you think
Speaker 8: about the baton being pasted and the new.
Speaker 1: Generation of folks.
Speaker 8: Yo, bro, I'm just gonna say this to you, my son.
Speaker 8: I got nothing but love for you, y'all always in
Speaker 8: my prayer to me because you're ready now. I feel
Speaker 8: about you at the end of the day. It is
Speaker 8: just great to see the both of y'all where you bomb.
Speaker 8: I to lift y'all up in every comp Happy birth
Speaker 8: I know, his birthday and all that good stuff.
Speaker 2: The episode airs on my birthday next on June.
Speaker 11: Ah.
Speaker 8: Yeah, Geminis, y'all ain't taurists though it ain't a tourist season,
Speaker 8: but I'm my son is.
Speaker 1: It was May sixteenth, O listen, I know it was
Speaker 1: something I knew, that tourist thing. It's a rest.
Speaker 2: Okay, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1: I love me and Miss Reesa and I love me.
Speaker 10: They just two of the baddest black queens that you know,
Speaker 10: and they both do different things in their perspective ways,
Speaker 10: but they are so effective man.
Speaker 3: So I think what's important about the two of them
Speaker 3: is that you know, there's different sides to this. There
Speaker 3: is the you know, the trauma side, which miss which
Speaker 3: both of them can speak to because Efa has been
Speaker 3: working in it and Miss Sorisa actually is living it.
Speaker 3: And then there is the side of the organization. How
Speaker 3: do you actually put one foot in front of the
Speaker 3: other and lead people in this work so that people
Speaker 3: can be effective and so that a movement can really
Speaker 3: grow and so we can actually help to save lives.
Speaker 3: That is what today is about. Listening to them talking
Speaker 3: about leadership qualities, vetting individuals who are working in the movement,
Speaker 3: A lot of people jump up and say they're going
Speaker 3: to work in the movement. Everybody shows up. I'm an
Speaker 3: anti violence participant, I can do this, I'm a leader.
Speaker 3: And you find out that they have more mental health
Speaker 3: issues than the kids that are out there shooting, than
Speaker 3: the people who are out there being problematic and so
Speaker 3: vetting the workers. I hope people don't miss some of
Speaker 3: what they've been talking about having mothers of the movement
Speaker 3: that can help to deal with the internal conflict, because
Speaker 3: you have much of them. That comes up in all
Speaker 3: movement spaces, but in this anti violence work, having so
Speaker 3: many people who are passionate and yet they come from
Speaker 3: the streets, you got a lot of egos and a
Speaker 3: lot of bravado that even exists within some of the
Speaker 3: women within the work, and so that is necessary working together,
Speaker 3: being unified. First thing on this shirt, unity, all of
Speaker 3: us coming together. We have boycott Black Murder and until freedom.
Speaker 3: You also have life Camp. You have Man Up. You
Speaker 3: have not another child, you have a Harlem mother saved.
Speaker 3: You have Jos exactly, Guns up, Life down, Guns down,
Speaker 3: Life up.
Speaker 2: Excuse me, guns down, Life Up.
Speaker 3: You have so many organizations in the city that's doing
Speaker 3: this work. But today we didn't go out as individual organizations.
Speaker 3: We went out as one and all of those things.
Speaker 3: Working with your mayor, working with your city officials, looking
Speaker 3: at your budgets, budgets, increasing the budgets, maintaining data, right
Speaker 3: to show your numbers in terms of how you're impacting communities,
Speaker 3: bringing people who are from the streets of the streets,
Speaker 3: you know, dealing with folks who are on both sides
Speaker 3: of the gun. All of those things are strategies for
Speaker 3: building real movements. And you know, and I think that
Speaker 3: both of these women have a lot that they can
Speaker 3: share on what that looks like from being in this
Speaker 3: and on the outskirts.
Speaker 10: Yes they do. And you know, I'm just like, once again,
Speaker 10: you know, there's a very big opportunity, you know, and
Speaker 10: we always say we need something different, and this is
Speaker 10: one of those moments where I think.
Speaker 1: Something different is actually happening.
Speaker 10: I always say that culturally relevant in us, doing things
Speaker 10: that fits within our culture, fits within our DNA is
Speaker 10: you know, we've been we've been foot fit into this
Speaker 10: cookie cutter system in the structure of the way things
Speaker 10: supposed to happen. You know, just regular policing doesn't really
Speaker 10: work in our communities.
Speaker 1: It doesn't.
Speaker 10: It hasn't stopped violence, it is you know, it hasn't
Speaker 10: stopped crime.
Speaker 1: It hasn't really done anything.
Speaker 10: It's locked more people up, but it hasn't been a
Speaker 10: solution to crime, you know, it has been a solution
Speaker 10: to nonviolence. So I think having people who are invested
Speaker 10: in the community because they actually come from there, because
Speaker 10: their mothers live there, their sisters live there, their cousins,
Speaker 10: their own children lived there, and them speaking energy into
Speaker 10: the community, them bringing peaceful energy and nonviolent energy, providing
Speaker 10: opportunities and resources, being able to employ people from their community,
Speaker 10: and saying, hey, you don't have to be out here
Speaker 10: with no gun. We're gonna give you a check, and
Speaker 10: we just need you to make sure that the park
Speaker 10: is safe. We just need you to make sure that
Speaker 10: you you know, you you intervene it. Like if we
Speaker 10: started centivizing you imagine if somebody got paid a couple
Speaker 10: of dollars every time they broke up a fight or
Speaker 10: got in the middle of some conflict. People would love
Speaker 10: to do it. People like I ain't getting in the
Speaker 10: middle of that. I ain't getting paid for that. That's
Speaker 10: not my job. So when we started centivizing those things
Speaker 10: and people start realizing there's a level of honor that
Speaker 10: comes with that, there's gonna be a celebration for someone
Speaker 10: who's able to, you know, diffuse and de escalate situations
Speaker 10: in communities, We're gonna see the whole shift in the culture.
Speaker 4: So, you know, what I mean.
Speaker 3: The problem is, But the problem is that a lot
Speaker 3: of people want to do it, but they don't realize
Speaker 3: that once it's a job, there's actual training that goes
Speaker 3: into it, and that's what we have to focus on.
Speaker 2: You also have to do internal work, right, like I
Speaker 2: talked about.
Speaker 1: But the thing is, I say it all the time.
Speaker 10: It's like it's like anything, right, It's like being a
Speaker 10: basketball player. There's a natural talent that you have and
Speaker 10: then there's coach. When you're coach once you have that
Speaker 10: natural talent and you want to be good to those
Speaker 10: just refines the talent that you have. They're mediators who
Speaker 10: just have a natural gift to mediator.
Speaker 1: Right, and they don't have they haven't been taught to
Speaker 1: certain skills.
Speaker 10: So when you give these natural mediators the skill set
Speaker 10: and you tell them, hey, these are these are the things,
Speaker 10: and most of the times, when you look at it
Speaker 10: and you when you and you're a natural.
Speaker 1: Person at it, you already applied most of those things.
Speaker 1: But you then what happens is.
Speaker 10: You understand that you have to make sure that you
Speaker 10: fit into a formula, that you fit into a structure,
Speaker 10: that there's a way to go about it.
Speaker 1: But you also implement your natural ability into everything.
Speaker 10: So yes, there's training that comes, but that training is
Speaker 10: welcome when it's incentivized. That training has come is welcome
Speaker 10: when it's when it's celebrated. So, you know, I think
Speaker 10: there's going to be a different time, I see, because
Speaker 10: like I said, there were so many quote unquote forming
Speaker 10: gangsters that was in there, people that know it's in
Speaker 10: the streets that have come home and.
Speaker 1: They have actually really changed their lives. You know.
Speaker 10: I know dudes that was notorious ten years ago that
Speaker 10: I looked at I was locked up with, and they
Speaker 10: and they got these young kids and they putting you know,
Speaker 10: they got them on the right path, and they really
Speaker 10: invested in changing the mind states and changing the trajectory
Speaker 10: of these kids.
Speaker 1: So you know, I'm just I'm really happy for that. Man.
Speaker 3: I'm looking forward to I'm looking forward to it as well.
Speaker 3: And at also you know, as a leader, he doesn't
Speaker 3: play around, so that's a good thing as well. So
Speaker 3: with that being said, what is your I don't get
Speaker 3: it but today, because I'm sure you have one, Well.
Speaker 1: My only I don't get it, right, was.
Speaker 10: You know, since we're going to be on this topic
Speaker 10: and you know, for me, it was the media. You know,
Speaker 10: the media decided that rather than celebrate something, they wanted
Speaker 10: to try to make negative and speak about background to
Speaker 10: speaking about at or how was he vetted? And you know,
Speaker 10: do you know that he had this investigation?
Speaker 1: Did you know? For you? You only have one I
Speaker 1: said for me.
Speaker 10: For me, you know, I think the one thing that
Speaker 10: I didn't get was how the media wanted to spend
Speaker 10: something that was so monumental and so positive into talking
Speaker 10: about negativity, right, and immediately went to well how was
Speaker 10: this person vetted?
Speaker 1: And did you know about this investigation?
Speaker 10: And all of these things and we all have a past,
Speaker 10: you know, and they wanted to focus on that, and
Speaker 10: they wanted to say, well what is the timeline and
Speaker 10: how do you notice?
Speaker 1: And it's like, what is the timeline for the police? Right?
Speaker 10: We we gotta hold we we've been giving billions of
Speaker 10: dollars to the police, and what is the timeline that
Speaker 10: says that they're doing their job?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 10: Because gun violence goes up, it goes down, violence crime
Speaker 10: goes up, it goes down. There's no timeline, right, There
Speaker 10: just has to be multiple strategies implemented. And I don't
Speaker 10: know why when it comes to things that we're doing
Speaker 10: as a community based especially black and brown people, there
Speaker 10: always has to be this negative connotation that surrounded. There
Speaker 10: always have to be the DeBie downer, There always has
Speaker 10: to be well, how do you know it works?
Speaker 1: How does this why we always have to go through
Speaker 1: those things?
Speaker 5: Man?
Speaker 10: I just don't get you know how the media constantly
Speaker 10: spends those things.
Speaker 1: And that's why violence.
Speaker 10: Is perpetuated, right because the picture of a mass killer
Speaker 10: is all over the TV and it gives some level
Speaker 10: of infamy.
Speaker 1: It gives some level.
Speaker 10: Of fame, and people see this and these other people
Speaker 10: who just sick, who dealing with those same issues, want
Speaker 10: that picture on the stream. But you don't give the
Speaker 10: picture of someone like at who just was giving the
Speaker 10: gun violence?
Speaker 1: Are you? That's not put all over every news channel?
Speaker 10: Right, we don't celebrate the person who is doing the
Speaker 10: gun violence.
Speaker 1: Is not class it all over every.
Speaker 2: Channel, not doing the gun violence, the person who's doing
Speaker 2: the work.
Speaker 8: The work to Then it's important, that's.
Speaker 10: Right, You're right, And it's important because people want to
Speaker 10: emulate that.
Speaker 1: People want to they want to follow something that they
Speaker 1: see celebrated, you know.
Speaker 10: So I just don't get why we don't celebrate the
Speaker 10: positivity more while we always want to focus on the
Speaker 10: negative and try to defame and discredit and devalue things
Speaker 10: that are so positive, especially when it comes to black
Speaker 10: and brown communities.
Speaker 3: Yeah no, I mean, listen, I don't have anything to say.
Speaker 3: You already said it. They begin to ask all kinds
Speaker 3: of questions today to try to create negative narratives. They're
Speaker 3: going to write a bunch of trash. We already know that,
Speaker 3: and I think that our responsibility. I said today while
Speaker 3: being interviewed by someone that if at fails, we all
Speaker 3: fail together. That's the bottom line for us. We have
Speaker 3: to work with our brother and help him and provide
Speaker 3: him with the resources and the support, and also allow
Speaker 3: him to leave without all of us thinking we know better,
Speaker 3: and therefore we could try to get in the way
Speaker 3: of what it is that he feels, what he's led,
Speaker 3: what he's motivated to do, and how he wants to lead.
Speaker 3: That's our responsibility, because we already know, based upon the
Speaker 3: line of questioning that you spoke of, that these reporters
Speaker 3: begin to ask today that they don't want to see
Speaker 3: him win, that they don't they want to be able
Speaker 3: to use the failure of the news AAR and the
Speaker 3: crisis management system in total, with one hundred plus million
Speaker 3: dollars going to formally incarcerated individuals, They want to use
Speaker 3: that to say it didn't work, it was a waste
Speaker 3: of money. And let's go back to policing and government
Speaker 3: and the processes of all the things that we know
Speaker 3: does not in and of itself work to all of
Speaker 3: our issues in our community. And so it's our responsibility
Speaker 3: to make it work. We've got to be innovative, we've
Speaker 3: got to put our strategy out there. And we also
Speaker 3: which is why I'm glad that at also doesn't work
Speaker 3: for the government so to speak, that he's not an
Speaker 3: employee of the mayor's office and it's not an agency
Speaker 3: that is inside the administration. Because guess what, we also
Speaker 3: have to challenge and push the administration. And he said
Speaker 3: today when asked by one reporter, what resources do you need,
Speaker 3: he said, we need the cooperation of all of the
Speaker 3: agencies within the city. And that's a fact because sanitation,
Speaker 3: as miss Or Resa just talked about, they need to
Speaker 3: know you cannot leave a community shot up from some
Speaker 3: incident with blood splattered everywhere, because that is very similar
Speaker 3: to bodies hanging from trees, from lynchings, that you're leaving
Speaker 3: the trauma behind. That normalizes the behavior, and it normalizes
Speaker 3: the unfortunate sort of discomfort of the people who live
Speaker 3: in communities. We have to accept the example by keeping
Speaker 3: our communities clean, by focusing on taking care of those
Speaker 3: people who because again, as has been said, most people
Speaker 3: are not shooting most people in the communities, the overwhelming majority,
Speaker 3: they want to live in safe, clean communities. Unfortunately, we
Speaker 3: have some that are knuckleheads and others who are traumatized
Speaker 3: and challenged and whatever that is. We got to do
Speaker 3: the work. So that's that for me. I think, you know,
Speaker 3: New York City is pointing in the right direction on
Speaker 3: at least this one issue. And now it's up to
Speaker 3: all of us to get in there.
Speaker 10: And do the work, you know, and I'll ended you know,
Speaker 10: as much work and as much as you know each
Speaker 10: individual I mean, each of these entities are doing, each
Speaker 10: organization is doing. We as individuals have to take pride
Speaker 10: and take a declaration that we're gonna do something in
Speaker 10: our communities, especially as black men, you know, knowing that
Speaker 10: black men are dying in this gun violence crisis that
Speaker 10: we're faced with.
Speaker 1: We're dying at at alarming rates.
Speaker 10: And as a black man who comes from marginalized communities,
Speaker 10: who has a level of influence in those said communities,
Speaker 10: you know, I declare that I will be frontline and
Speaker 10: center dealing with these young men and trying to steer
Speaker 10: them away from those streets. So with that said, I'm
Speaker 10: not gonna always be right. Miss Timika Mallory is not
Speaker 10: gonna always be wrong, but we will both always and
Speaker 10: I mean always, be authentic.
Speaker 2: Pace to.
Speaker 3: Listen to Street Politicians on the Black Effect Network on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 10: And catch us every single Wednesday for the video version
Speaker 10: of Street Politicians on iwomen dot tv.
Speaker 1: That's how