Chris jackson. On communication director for color change, the Largest OnlineRacial Justice organization. We are partnering with one world tonight to make a virtual space for critical conversation between editorinchief of one world Chris Jackson one of our most powerful organizers and visionaries, alicia garza. In 2014, alicia garza wrote a Facebook Post that change the world and created a movement. It read black people, i love you. I let us. Our lives matter. Black lives matter. Movement continues today and tonight alecia and chris will discuss the importance of resistance and resilience and how they ground the work in a vision for collective humanity. Color change we believe everyday people are powerful enough to end the practices that are Holding Black people back and harming our country. We Champion Solutions that move us all forward. In the last two weeks, we have helped 6. 5 Million People take action for Racial Justice in our country and we are thrilled to partner with one world for this important conversation. Without further ado this is Chris Jackson, one world editor and shes here to kick us off. Thank you so much for being here with us tonight. I cant imagine someone i would rather talk to tonight than alicia garza. One of our countrys most powerful and influential activists and someone who speaks well to the moment. Before we start i want to think other change for working with us again on this project tonight and to all of the people at random house who have been so active in getting this all organized. Its just like for us to take a short moment of silence for the many tens of thousands of people who we have lost in this pandemic we are undergoing, people disproportionately black, disproportionally brown, native, disabled, elderly and poor. And also for all of those that we have lost two racially motivated violence particularly racially motivated violence in the name. Im going to call at three names,. I hope you will join me for a short moment of silence to begin. [moment of silence] and now i would like to invite to our virtual stage alicia garza. Hey. Hey, look so good see you, alicia. Guest so good to see you and so good to be seen. Host i want to start a conversation out by going back little bits. You know, i think moments for a lot of people obviously its very upsetting and jarring to us, but as i think for a lot of people moments of awakening and i think about a mile my growing up in new york and harlem in the 70s and 80s how my unconsciousness probably developed most rapidly around some of the most dramatic moments of that coming of age. Normally having to do with proximity of death, i mean, there were so many people marry during that period in my neighborhood, but also some new people who we lost to Police Violence and for the first time i was out on the street to protest those deaths. Can you tell us a bit about you know i know you worked on this book together for some time and i know much about your own story but one of the interesting things you have always been somewhat driven towards activism, but there were inflection points like the murder of oscar grant in oakland that really drove and accelerated your commitments. Guest definitely. I mean, for me, i actually came up in the reproductive Justice Movements and got really politicized around the idea that young people couldnt make good decisions about what to do with their bodies. This was a time when, you know, bush number one and others were really pushing this narrative in this country around, not only like a focus on the family narrative, but it was very much about kind of controlling womens bodies and for me my mother had me and she didnt expect to have me alone, and the thing that gave her options is that she had them. So, she used to talk to me coming up as a young kid and she would tell me sex makes babies and babies are expensive. I did not get any of the birds and bees talk, none of that. It was really when i was in college, to be frank, that i got politicized around Racial Justice and at that time in the late 1990s, early 2000s there was a lot happening in terms of the aftermath of uprising that had shaped our entire country. You know, we all watched as rodney king was brutally beaten on video camera, which were not actually popular at that time. Then, of course if you fastforward, you fastforward to oscar grant in my community, which was just a few blocks from my home and i remember coming home after a new years of celebration turning on the television after midnight and seeing that just three blocks from my house oscar grant had been shot in front of a train full of observers and it just so happened that a young person who is interning at an organization that i worked at was one of the people who cut the entire thing on camera, and it actually became a part of the movie. So, there are these inflection points, youre correct, where we start to understand that our lives are bigger than us, but we also understand that our lives are being shaped by people other than as and with an opportunity to decide if we think that is right, if we think thats fair, if we think the way our lives are being shaped towards wellness and dignity, humanity and wholeness or whether the way that our lives are being shaped beating us towards punishment and criminalization and injustice and in each one of those inflection points we get to make a choice about who we are going to be and for me at a very young age at 12 years old i decided im going to be someone who not only tells different stories about what young people are doing, no, teenagers arent running around having sex like a crazy, but there are those of us who are in intimate relationships who are trying to figure out whats best for us and we are being denied the information and resources we need to make decisions that work for us. We are being denied access that we deserve to desire and pleasure and intimacy by someone who frankly has a whole different agenda about our bodies and our lives do we think that is right or wheat or do we think that is wrong and if we think is wrong what are we going to do about it. For me, i got politicized and got active in the movement. For others, people may shake their head and say its a shame some people dont have access to what they need and then move on with their lives. Of course, we come into moments like this you cant move on with your life. Your everyday normal is interrupted by people who have decided to take action and even in those moments you could to make a choice about who you are going to be and what you are going to contribute. Host thats really interesting. You know part of what i think, question kind of comes to me particularly in this moment and listening to your story and think about your story as i have been doing for some time to think about my life is it is seem to be in these moments where theres abruptions of visible Movement Activity and you talked about like what happened with oscar grant in the bay area. Of course, black lives matter which formed around a series of events going back to trade on martin and ferguson and so forth and now here we are again. Are we just going in a loop or do you feel like with each one of these things we are getting closer to something . Guest its a good question, chris, and i can say in writing the book i was like are we going in a loop or moving forward and i will say honestly the way that i think about and look at history and the present and the connection between the two is that we are not going in circles per se, where we end up where we began. If anything, i would imagine its like a spiral where you are moving in a circle, coming back, but not the place you started from. You are actually in a new place and can look at where you started and assess the gap in between. You know, no, things are not the same now assess our strategies and that require us to frankly keep pushing forward. I know there is a lot black lives matter, people were saying all life matters and that was the host can you hang on one second, alicia . Alicia, one second. We are having a little bit of a technical difficulty. Can you repeat that last thing you said again . Guest totally. I was just a saying that in 2013 and 2014, we were pariahs in terms of politics. We would say black lives matter and people would say all life matters and that was the most common response. We were not seen as a legitimate political force. Were in such a different place than we were then. What do you im sorry. Go ahead. Guest just going to say. Host sorry. Guest there is still work to be done. I dont want to paint rosy picture here. Frankly we are still watching the extra judicial murders of black people on television because we capture them on cellphone cameras, and it is only when there is an outcry that there is any semblance of political will to address it. We are going in a circular pattern in relationship how we conceive of solving the problem once and for all. Worry in 2014 where we got body cameras as a result of protests, that ferguson leaders led in relationship to the murder of mike brown, maybe today what we get is better training or nicer police, but fundamentally theres still a big challenge that were facing, which is what do we do about the roll of Law Enforcement in our community . Is it enough to have better training or to restrict their practices . Or do we actually need to narrow the focus and role of Law Enforcement in the first place . And its an important conversation for america to have right now. For some its an uncomfortable one but i can say seven years ago black lives matter made people uncomfortable and being uncomfortable is good for the condition tri. People were uncomfortable when black people were fighting for the right to be enfran franklin enfranchised and when women were fighting to become franklin cheesed and now look where we have come. Its not uncomfortable pea e believe that women should have the right and black people so have the right to vote. Does it mean the rights are not still under attack . Absolutely not but were in a different place because we have to the rights rights and were defending them as opposed to needing to create that. History is not circular in that way. It is a spiral, and i believe really deeply and profoundly that were closer than we have been before and that gives me hope. Host that is an encouraging thought. You have this thing in the book and reference this theory about changing common sense, that being core of a revolution, when you change the basic premise of society and then grow something now. Reading about the Minneapolis Police department or the city council in minneapolis talking about literally, like, eliminating the police and rebuilding something in its place which was unimaginable a major city would talk about that. Dogs that give you a sense of possibility of what might come . Guest absolutely. I mean i woke up and i saw that article, the first thing read when i opened my eyes this morning, and all i keep saying to myself is, what a time to be alive. The fact that the Minneapolis City Council is not only considering redistributing funds so that we dont address needs the communities have with police who arent equipped to address those needs, is incredible, and its a conversation that organizers and advocates have been pushing for the better part of 20 years. So, i can tell you what a time to be alive. I can also say i keep seeing things like, the School District in minneapolis saying that theyre ending their contracts with police, and what that means for a decade of having police in schools and now to say were not going to do that is very, very powerful. Similarly in los angeles, theyre move something of the same proposals, and so we should remember that when we see things like this, it is the result of organizing, it is the result of the pressure that protests builds on people to have the political will and the courage to examine new ways of operating and that is fundamentally what movements can accomplish and we shouldnt expect that every movement has a strategy on a blueprint they can hand to you and you can plug into. So much of what movements do is respond to changing conditions, takes the pulse of what communities long for and also what communities are scared of, and push the envelope to get closer to what it is that we deserve. So, were watching this in realtime, and its fundamentally incredible and we must, must, must, give most credit to the bad ass organizers in the city who have helped to create the conditions to make this happen and then have engaged us to work with them to help amplify it. Thats just really a blessing. Host so thats a lot of what i i think what i feel like you have to offer particularly in your book and also in the model you of your life, is this question of how do you the original title of your book was Something Like how hash tag became a moment. Now how you take something from being a germ of an idea in 2014, and then of course, 20 years before that, when people have been working toward this kind of reform, how do you keep the pressure on . How do you build it from being just like a kind of moment to being a movement . Guest well, theres a science and an art. And from the time when patrice and opal and i created the black lives Matter Network which start from a series of social media platforms and grew into a network with chapters all over the world, and we didnt have road map. We really relied on instinct and on relationships, and we paid attention to what was going on and moving in the world. And i hope that doesnt feel or sound amorphous but thats the secret sauce who is youre in relationship to, what theyre working on and what youre working on. Also, frankly, what time it is in the country, right . And your willingness to keep pushing things forward. We tried so many things. We held Conference Calls for people to talk pout issues that about issues that were of interest for that moment. Our first gathering frankly was a Conference Call that we pulled together after the killer of mcbride was convicted of murder. We all know that the cases of vinal plantty Murder Police murder the agreesors north held accountable in this case ted waver was held accountable and is in jail. That was a victory a result of organizing and dream will be mad at me for saying this, dream hansen is a bad ass writer and also an organizer. And she worked with people in michigan to make sure that a niesha mcbids dead would not go up accounted for and after that we healed a conversation because frankly so many of us believe that justice comes from people going to jail, and while that might make us feel better, make us feel like theyre feeling what were feeling, the fact of the matter is prisons and jails are terrible places to be. Prisons and jails do not rehabilitate people. They do not bring lives back. They do not address harm. And so we held a national Conference Call as black lives matter about whether or not ted waver being convicted was justice and we had people on owl different sides of the spectrum, giving their feedback and input, and those were the types of spaces we tried to create, and from that, right issue think we started to bailed reputation consecutive creating spaces for people to connect not only online but then moving into 2014, when mike brown was killed, patrice and darnell had a great idea to organize a free tom ride to ferguson, another way for people to connect correctly to what is happening on the ground. Not only was it intended for people to be able to connect and offer support, but there was also a strategic packet to it. We heard a lot that Mainstream Media was telling their own story of what was happening in ferguson, stores of looters and riotersers and unarrest and the images you see on tv of tanks and rubber bullets and tear gas. So we organized black media to ferguson and be able to tell the story from a black perspective, which made a difference in terms of how the story began to be told from that point forward. And i think that without get doing far into the ferguson conversation because fergusons leaders need to tell that story so im weeking and nodding that might be the next book but i will say that we left ferguson and didnt think we would go back, but the people who came said we want to keep organizing, and they actually forced us to form chapter. We were like were not prepared for this. And theyre like but we and are so you all have already run your mouth, you created this umbrella, so let go. So i just walked that story out to say that theres no recipe here. Its really about instinct, its about network, its about timing, and frankly, its about being able to move when you just know its right. Host one thing think is so beautiful but the way you talk about movement is that in the book this is not to plug he book again but you talk about this guest they for you, activism was fundamentally a way to connect with other people which is a beautiful way to begin the story. Its not about some big abstract political goal necessary limp its this is how we connect. And we can start to share a vision for a world we want to bring into being. And that connect cant just happen online, although were doing a lot of connecting online right now, but what is interesting is its not online that the movement is happening now. Even under the cloud of this pandemic, people feel like they need to go in the streets and see each other and be with each other and march together. What the special sauce of connection . That includes things like you have done in your life, knock on doors, go in peoples homes, touch them, hear them, sit with them, listen to them. How does that make a big difference as opposed to just not to smith what we can do online or through social media, but what is that human component and why is that so important . Guest you know, everybody longs for connection. That its what make us us human literally. We cant live in isolation, and in fact. When we put people in isolation, you actually see folks tee tier deteriorate. People in sol tar confinement tell you literally they start to tee tier youre deteriorate because we as human beings defended on connection to survive. How we read the world and read one another, and making sense of this moment, organizing is fundamentally rooted in connections, and when i was being trained as an organizer i was always told that organizes wasnt about getting somebody to get involved in your campaign, it wasnt about getting somebody to use your slogan. It was fundamentally about relationships, and everything moved at the speed of relationships. Ill give you an example. When i was coming up in organizing, the only way i could get people to do something that was outside of their confident zone was to spend many hours on their front porch, at their kids reciteles, you know, meeting their friends at their Kitchen Table while they were making dinner after a long day of work. People need to know they can trust you, and frankly, when we look at all great movements throughout history, we notice a similar response. When we look at the last period of civil rights, people moved at the speed of relationships, and that was both for connection but also for safety. In certain environments, if people didnt know who your people were, they didnt mess with you. [laughter] and i can tell youve my southern relatives are still the same way. Theyre like, but who are your people . Where do you come from . A way for us to make sense of who you are but also what your motives are. And i think moving into this moment, i think you saw people rush out of their homes in the midst of a global pandemic, because being isolated in your house while youre watching on television somebody who looks like you being brutally murdered, while the officer looks into the camera while he is doing it, it makes you feel so incredibly alone and fearful and hopeless, and so why people pour into the streets is to be connected to the energy of other people who are sharing a similar experience. Every one of us who experiencees injustice wonder if its only us or other people have that that experience, too, and movements fundamentally bring together people who long for not feeling gas lit around the experiences they have every day, they know are wrong but cant quite place why or who is responsible. And movements also give us an opportunity, a way to challenge and channel the anger, the isolation, the fear and rage into something productive. Sometimes it becomes a law or policy, other times it becomes an ecosystem of organizations that are fighting back against the injustices and ways in which our communities are disenfranchised. So when you look at organizations lie the movement for black lives, youll see this is a beautiful, rich ecosystem of black organizations that are working together and independently to impact the lives of black people, and in that coalition, we suddenly, again, feel less alone, less helpless, and we feel more powerful. When we feel powerful we take risks we wouldnt necessarily take alone but the very nucleus of being able to good from why is this happening to me to im willing to be somebody who changes this, fundamentally requires connection and relationships. Host so interesting. And feels so true. I was out at a march yesterday, and sort of watching what is going on, like from a distance, very different than being in the middle of it. And feeling that energy. Even the people who would hang out over their stoops and bang their pots, you feel leak youre not alone and thats the beginning of that sense of what you said, feeling like theres real power in this, not just my feeling, a feeling that is networked out and we can do something with the feeling. Its powerful. I guess that brings me to my next question. How do we do something with that feeling . How do we first of all, going back to your rein niesha mcmcbride story, what does justice look like. What does accountability look like right now for the people who are obviously immediately response for these deaths and some cases that has not even happened. That first level of accountability has not happened but the larger sense, larger structures that we need to make accountable for this. How do we no from this moment to that level to that reckoning with the people who have the power . Guest im going to give a deeply unsatisfying answer which is stay in the fight. We are in this moment where were we have so much anguish we want the pain to stop now, and the fact of the matter is the systems were fighting are as old as this country and they will take a while to undo. There are times when we can speed up the progress of that project, and there are times when the progress of that project really requires a methodical approach to changing what is possible politically and you need to be able to do that in a range of ways. I can sit here right now and tell you, you know, theres policies that we can enact right now that will stop police from being able to use chokeholds of make it illegal for police to put their knee on somebodys neck as a way to restrain them. I can tell you theres things we can do to train police to be nicer police, but i wouldnt be being honest with you if i didnt say that many places are already have those policies and place but no one to enforce them, and we get, again, into this cyclical pattern of what i think is sometimes trying to find the shortest distance between a to b rather than or in addition to let me say i dont think theyre in contradiction we should do stuff now to stop the bleeding for sure, but if im trying to stop the bleeding and ive also broken several bones, i can put a cast on but it doesnt mean that the bone has doesnt mean the bone has healed and its going to take a while for the bone to heal, and i might need to take a different approach for the bone to heal versus dealing with the cut on my finger. So, in this case, when it comes to policing, i just have to be honest, like, the reason that things are so bad in policing is because we ask police to do things they shouldnt be doing. We are asking police to be Domestic Violence counselors. Were asking police to be therapists. Were asking police to deal with people who are in crisis in terms of their Mental Health. Police are not trained to do that and in fact, sure, we could spend a bunch of Time Training people with badges and guns to be able to respond differently to that and maybe we should, but we also have people whose actual profession it is to do that work, and the reason that we dont have enough of those people in our community is not pause we dont have enough trained people. Its actually because we have had government that has whittled away that safety net. Government that has whittled away of infrastructure in our communities and replaced it with control and surveillance where exacerbates the problem, and so if you actually limit what police do in our communities, and how often they come into contact with our people, and for what, that is actually the key to saving more lives, as long as you also invest on the other side in making sure there is a robust set of resources that people can access that they wont be criminalized for accessing, but also where you dont have the option for a mistake of trying to deal with a Mental Health crisis and you shoot someone. Therapist dont carry guns. They have other tools they use and we need make sure that infrastructure is robust in our communities. We need to make sure that if were we could be calling police for things like petty shoplifting or we could also be dealing with the what is underneath that which is somebody doesnt have what they need. And so for me, when i hear people go, we cant just get rid of police, im like, sure, i get where youre struggling and theres places where i struggle around this, too. But i want change as much as you too, and i want us to believe that we deserve better than tinkering. We did body cameras. We have done commissions ands tars and blue libon panel and we have the answers but do we have the courage, the courage to say, actually were going to restore the role of government in our communities. Were going to enfranchise communities to be a part of the solution. And we are also going to limit the ways in which we punish people for not having the things they need because we have created a society where not everybody can have the things they need to live well. So, thats i think we can be doing in this moment. Host one of the really interesting things that has been popping up in the news over the last two days, as people are starting to think about what are the police . I think its odd because obviously had police forever, and yet now for the first time people are starting to wonder what is this institution . And also starting to look at the budgets for this for police and theyre astonishing. Like, billion dollar budgets in los angeles and new york. Even in a mace like minneapolis, enormous, millions of dollars devoted to policing that the white population barely interacts with. So, it makes you wonder what are we paying for if perhaps like an Occupying Army in certain neighborhoods. We are going to do a q a in a minute and theres a button and you ask ask them. I want to i feel like you were talking about what we or sometimes you use the second person you said you can do about some of these things and that brings me to the question of were also obviously hard to remember everything that is happening in 2020 for us because its so much, but we have an election coming up, 2020, and being an oped that stacy abrams saying voting feels knack quit in our darkest moment. And said voting will not save us all bus silence will surely damn us all. What role does electoral politics have in the matrix of what it takes to get to that point of accountability. Guest i am somebody who believes that elector to politics is harm reduction, and i came up as an organizer, really hating politics and hating elections and feeling like all of this stuff is deeply rigged and not for us. And ive come to think about it differently, mostly because ive had people older than me, wiser than me, who have tweaked my ear and been like, check this out. Actually elections do matter. And i believe that elections help us choose the terrain we want to fight on, and they help us choose the people that we want to fight, and i never expect that a candidate i support in very few cases, is a candidate i support somebody who i want to have over for dinner, or, like, build a deep relationship with but die need them to do i do need them to do things for me and my community, and i believe that the process of making elected officials accountable to the people that they represent is fundamentally important for the future of the this democracy and thats why i spend my time these days, the majority of my time thinking about how to make black communities powerful in politics through my work at the black futures lab and the blacks of the future action fund. We have spent a lot of time over the last two years listening teachly to black communities across the nation. We did the Largest Survey of black people in america in 155 years. Since slavery was abolished in the country. And we spent our time listening to the experiences that black people are having in the economy in our democracy and in our society, and really getting ourselves clearer about what are the needs that need to be addressed from the mouths of our own people and how do we translate that into a fight for power in the electoral arena. The fact of the matter is black people want what everybody wants. We want safety, we want dignity, we want to be treated as fully human and we want to have our needs met, and there are so Many Americans who want the same thing and for various reasons cant access that. Put in order for us to be the kind of force that changes the balance of power in this country, we have to be able to see ourselves as connected, and elections and electoral politics is one way we can do that. Also know that when it comes to elects and black communities so often we are used as symbol rather than substance, and whether its politicians showing up on our doorsteps in october when the election is in november, whether its the concerts we get rather than the town halls that are discussing policies to change the rules that are rigged in our communities. Whether its the place plate of tried chicken that shows up who when black folks need to be engaged. All the ways that racism is frankly deeply entrenched in our electoral system. So our work with the lab and action fund is not just centered around collecting data but using the data in the service of building power. For example, we have a program that were running called black to the ballot where we essentially created a black agenda for 2020, from the results of the Largest Survey of black people in america, and these are the thing that across gender across income, across ideology that black people across the nation can agree on in terms solution and using that to motivate our communities to register to vote and turn out, and we have a hunch that if we dont focus it so much on candidates but instead focus on what we need and forcing candidates to address the things we need, that maybe, right centers for disease maybe participation will be greater and larger and more robust because were unite not just talking points like rebuild the middle class or lift every voice or whatever nonsense out there today yes, i said it eunited around the worlds we ant shifts and how to change the rules and if and we have a way to determine who is with us and who is against us. If the people who we elect dont choose to move our agenda forward, then we fine elected officials who will or he become them ourselves. So thats the way i look at politics. Thats how i look at electoral organizing. Host thats an important point and one thing that excites me me about your work and your book as it describes the work. A form of connection, between people, which i think is inarguably something we all want, its fundamental to our speed, the desire to connect with other people, but also work that can be joyful and creative and imaginative, think can boat new world and one reason why people sometimes turn away from politics is they feel like its just the grim work of reenforcing the status quo and moments of awakening are potentially moments when you can fill that gap with imagination and say, this is what we can be. I love the idea of this getting people say what are the things that are important to them and you can actually use your vote to get closer not just to like for stalling disaster also part of it but also to kind of start to bring into being the world that you want. Do you think that we need to get a Different Group of people, like, actual lie into running for office and at that level, not just voting but really being involved in the electoral system in that way . Guest 100 . Ive been so energized by some of the folks that we have elected who really engage in politics in a very transformative way, whether its aoc or whether its our sister iana presley or people like Elizabeth Warren who probably never saw themselves as somebody who would be a senator but who worked to make inequality go away and realized that there are people who are defending rigged rules every single day, and we can throw rock at the capitol as much as we want or we can invade it. People like rashida trey, my congress woman, barbara lee who has been in politics forever and got her start actually mentor bid Shirley Chism who Everybody Knows says, bring your folding chair to the table. So i just dont want people to take a. From take away from this the only path to power is to become an elected official. Not all of us are cut out or every role but if its important if we want to change the by a that democracy functions we put people in the democracy that can model what that looks like, that can model Accountable Leadership with integrity, that can model what it means to have a radical vision and know how to get things done, and i think we need many more aocs, many more pressleys, more ilhans, more people who are not afraid to say the way this country is set up is rigged, and we have the power to change the rules put do we have the courage and do we have the will . Then they show us how to do that. Think that ive been asked a million times to run. I dont think thats really my jam. Think im better in this role. But i also encourage people to run and i help to groom people on how to run, and i believe that our people can be powerful inside of congress and city halls across the nation, and i also think that our people can be powerful in our communities, and those arent mutually exclusive. Host i think thats a really beautiful thought. Thats what politics could potentially be. I have one more question ask then ill bring some questions from our audience. We have quite a few flowing. In one thing i think is really special about i think your vision as you late out here, theres a kind of discipline of inclusiveness that i find in the way that you talk but movements and talk about political change. You talk a lot about the necessity of Multiracial Movements, but you also talk but how at the heart of them all these movements, there needs to be a particular concern for black liberation as well as there being groups that are wholly devoted to black liberation or black people can work togetherring for that purpose and places where we can all come together and you know working as you have with the Domestic Workers so long, thats true Multiracial Group that has come together to create real change for some of the most vulnerable workers in the country, immigrants and black people and from all over the world. And im curious what you say about that tension between racial movements, also centering on the need for black liberation and why those things can go together. Guest it gives me the opportunity to talk but any squad at the national Domestic Workers alliance. Let me start off just by saying that if we understand antiblackness as the fulcrum around which White Supremacy operates, then we have a better understanding of why we need Multiracial Movements and also need black liberation movements. Why those moms need to be in relationship and in coordination and they also need to be resourced and invested in equally. So, when you look at the history of Domestic Work, for example, toke work is rooted in the legacy of slavery, and this used to be work that was predominantly don by black women, and black women who were enslaved, and so when you look at the conditions of Domestic Work, Domestic Work sometimes is a term people dont understand, so Domestic Work is literally working inside the home. Work that is taking care helping to take care of a family, helping to take care of children, helping to maintain a household, helping to support and care for aging loved ones or helping to support the independence of people with disables. People who work inside the home to add additional capacity to a family. And that work used to be as i said black womens work, and the conditions of the industry today are very much shaped by the conditions that shape the industry under slavery. Low pay, low wages, no contract or agreement, no benefits, no sick days off, no time with your family, very loose rules or any rules at all, and i will say that we see those same conditions today, and if we werent investing in undoing the vestiges of dynamics that come out under slavery and directed toward black people then we dont actually have a shot of changing the conditions that exist in the industry today. Can tell you that most Domestic Workers are not covered under many federal labor protections. Same thing with Agricultural Workers because there was racist xi that slide agriculture yack workers and Domestic Works who largely black and brown from access to things thats most workers have can sees to the racist exclusions continue today and so if were not dealing with the unique conditions under which our communities are attacked, the unique conditions under which our communities are disenfran chased we dont disenfranchised we dont give ourself enough leeway arent the only of what we can and i would having been an organizer in Multiracial Movements for a long time i can tell you, i often feel alone in isolated in those movements because black folks, while there may be smatterings of out there arent really legions of news Multiracial Movements and ive always asked myself why is that . One of the answer is ive come to is that sometimes what we do in an attempt to build Multiracial Coalition or alliance is we try to flatten everybodys experiences as the same. And theyre not the same. We can walk around until we are blue in the face and say were all human about the fact of the matter is some of us irable to access humanity in a very different way than others and ifunder moms cant address that, we cant hope to bring people to them. So, you just have to be honest about that. But also i believe that we need Multiracial Movements in the country to win and what im seeing across the nation is making my heart lift and sing every single day because its not just black folks out there, theres a lot of white folks, a lot of folks who are latin, identified from the asia diaspora, and on and on. And i want us to strengthen that. And then i remember, too, that part of what it means to strengthen multi racial movements is to make sure that all of us have the infrastructure that we need to be able to fight back, and one of the consequences after the last period of civil rights and certainly with the period of black power, is that our Community Power infrastructure was intentionally decimated, in part by a government that was really intent on dismantling a very successful black Power Movement that was also Getting Energy and excitement and participation, multiracially. Theres asian folks who will tell you i was part of white folks say i was down with the panthers. We have government sponsored programs that were intentionally designed to dismantle that level of unity, and while they did it, they also dismantled the infrastructure that black communities had built to be powerful, and so we cant as black folks actually contribute to a Multiracial Movement if we ourselves are not organized. With the ourselves have not build the kind of infrastructure we need not just for offers but to be able to contribute to larger project of structure change. And so for me, i fundamentally believe that there is a science to building Multiracial Movements and some is about understanding how antiblackness functions within the movements. Some of it is about being careful but trying to flatten everyone into sameness rather than examining differences and how those differences are actually strategic to the project were trying to dismantle. And really how those moms can create a new model for how we see each other in our wholeness. Multeity racial movements cannot be color blind. We cannot do that thing where we say issue dont care if youre blue, green, purposing, white or black. There are no purple people as far as i know. No green people. But also, i want you to see all of me. I want you to see me and see me the way i want to be seen, and the way i want to be seen is as a beautiful, courageous black person who loves the skin im in and has done a lot of work to get there, and so rather than saying, im standing with you and by standing with you im not seeing you, tell me that you see me and that youre joined with me and youre committed to helping other people see me and helping you be seen, right in the ways we determine for ourselves, that is a most fundamental component of what it means for us to build movements across differences. Host that is really beautiful. Im going to turn now to some of the questions were getting from our audience. Thats a great answer to the question by the way, because i was in a march yesterday and it was a mix of people, and it was very exciting to see dish found myself excited to see it was a mix of people would were all chanting together, black lives matter. What youre describing about understanding so many oppressions were dealing with are rooted in antiblackness and if you dont deal with antiblackness, its hard to teal with any of these radiating issues but you identify that. You actually have a chance. And to see people understanding that finally, sort of, is exciting. Okay. So heres some questions. Lets see here. This is interesting one. What advice would you have some of these are not questions younot necessarily in your okay, fine. What is your response to people that i think this is interesting question who have police in their family and or even who are police themselves . Is there something you say another listener talk about the kneeling that some police are doing at events and some people finding that to be a little bit almost like a strange reenactment of the thing that were protesting, and maybe of course with a very small number of police anyway, but anyway, what do you think but is there a redemptive move that a policeman or woman can guest yes. [laughing] chris, as you were asking the question i was actually think can about thinking bow houston lots of black people have police in our families, and the experience of policing and being in relationship to police, i think is really fascinating. I hear this from white folks a lot. What if i my uncle is a police officer, my dad, my generation of my family have been police officers. And yeah issue get it and im just harkening back to the notion that for black folks we have debt with this tension for a long time. We have Law Enforcement in our families and even they know, even the members of Law Enforcement and black families know, yes, there is a problem here, and different people have different ways of making sense of it but i dont think this is such a contradiction. I think that what h pen it rises to the level of becoming a contradiction is when we defend the profession and the role that it plays because our relationship is so deep to the person in the profession. We need to be very clear that when we say defund police, we dont mean your dad doesnt matter. To say that policing is a profession, its not its a profession and when i hear things like blue lives matter, i do cringe because im like, look, if thats something that you choose to do. Being black is a way that were born and so there theyre already starting from very different fundamental places. Let me also say this. People might be surprised to hear me say this but, again, i have been in this game for a long time and i will tell you, when you talk to Law Enforcement and you really have a conversation, like, not a, like, conversation that is like do you hate the police or love the police . But like a conversation but what its like to do the job. Lots of people will tell you i got into this profession because i wanted to help people. I have met very few people who are in Law Enforcement who said i got into this profession because i really want to mess people up. People come into it because we have learn that police are protagnies in our community protagonists in our community and a way to solve problem and people come the profession because they want to be a part of solving problems they see in their communities. They want to be a part of protecting people and making people feel safe against threats that they may perceive in their community. Heres something that happens. Most of the time when i talk to people in Law Enforcement, they say, i got into the profession because i wanted to help, and then i quickly began to get frustrated at my lack of ability to do so. That actually getting called to a Domestic Violence situation and knowing that as i take away one person im also impacting a family that has no resources to rebuild, actually opportunity make me feel like hero. When i see somebody on the street who is having a Mental Health crisis and knowing that theres no shelter to bring them to, theres no program to bring them to and the only place i can take them is jail but thats probably the worst possible place for them, it really erodes that sense of effectiveness and kind of entrenches a set of battle. Im fighting a war. And that shifts peoples perception of the role theyre playing in in a community. Most Law Enforcement officer is talk to will tell you i wish those things were not my role. I wish that we were able to address the needs that at the people actually have and frankly i dont think police should do that and people will talk but law and they will talk but order and its very complicated but i wonder if theres also a place for connection there. Now, i am somebody who fundamentally believes that policing is not the way to solve problems and that doesnt mean that it dont like your for example or your uncle or your mama and ive got Law Enforcement members in my family, too, like many black people do, and even my family members understand as well what im saying and what were doing across the country. They also want to see the profession get better, and i dont know if theres ever going to be an alignment there because there is such deep hurt and pain. Knowlets of people who do the work to bring that alignment together and they are gods people, honestly. Its hard to do systems change work. And with that being said, with these the solidarity shows you talked about, i i want something more. I want something more. I think that we deserve more than Police Taking a knee. I really do. And i heard that in some cities yesterday, there were Police Taking a knee and then an hour later they were arresting people, and shooting people with rubber bullets and this constant dissonance is part of why the trauma continues and its not that people behind the shields are good people or bad people, thats note the point. The point is that their job, right, is to control, and to contain. And now were also giving them the responsibility of solving problems they cannot solve, and that is always going to create the kind of situations where theres a powder keg and a match that is waiting to be lit, and so im for symbolism but im also for substance, and i would just compare folks taking a knee to the thing that the police union had said two days nothing minneapolis where the said ive been involved in throw murders and i never lost sleep over any of them. So, i think one really important way to get involved is if its Law Enforcement is to curtail the scope and scale of the unions. I know in my city, our police union and the leader of the police union in particular, is a constant source of racist diatribe and dialogue in response to deep grief, hurt, loss and pain, and as long as we have that dynamic it will only land as symbolic when police take a knee. I got asked literally last weekend bus there was all this hoopla about who is joining the protests and the chaos in the protests and suddenly im being asked, should we be telling protesters to work with police to identify bad protesters . Im like, hey, hey, we lost focus here. No. No. What we need to be talking about is how do we keep from getting to a place where people have to take the streets in a Global Public health pandemic, just to assert that our lives matter. That is the most important thing for us to address in this moment. All of the other, like, symbols and shows are just going to remain those unless we get to the deep core of what is putting america in so much anguish right now. Host its a good answer. I think its a better one. These are all people who are part of the community, but im sorry. Not a problem. I hear you now. Host great. Good. One last question. This is i think this is not i think its a very relevant thing, we are in the middle of a Global Health pandemic and this period of isolation has been a cause of a lot of depression and neck dislocation and near depression, conditions and jobless, and now this, and how are you, for instance, like, taking care of yourself within this . Guest yeah. Ill tell you my selfcare thats week has not been great, but thats how this goes. In terms of the pandemic, i mean, from the beginning of march all the way up until a week ago i was riding my bike four times a week, 45 minute as day, religiously, and that was my way of moving through the stress and anxiety of what it means to be told that not only do you need to stay home but you need to limit or not be in contact with people outside your home. Which takes a toll on you because remember connection is at the heart of everything. And then a week ago, all kinds of stuff broke loose, and frankly, my days over the last week have been 13 hours straight on the telephone, in meetings, trying to get people to do things or trying to get people to stop doing things, and giving advice to people but what they took right now, even though theres so much stuff out there, and trying to make sure im Drinking Water and that i eat more than one thing a day. So, on monday i was doing awful. I was crispy, as i say, just like dont met with me today and then i watched the president tear gas people to take a photo with a bible upsidedown at a church hes never attended, and the symbolism but also the substance of the symbol literally broke me. I mean, as if its not enough to be dealing with a Public Health crisis, and the ongoing slaughter of black people, this country is now sliding into farc fascism in a way that terrifies me and i dont use that word or phrase lightly. But then i started to see people that continue to resist and for that resistance to grow, and nat makes me that makes me feel like we really are the majority. We really are the majority. Our values are majority values and we can win. We can win. So im thats where im at now and what is taking care of me. Seeing the progress, allowing myself to see what is changing, what victories are happening and also letting people take care of me so my partner makes sure i stick food in my mouth in between sentences on Conference Calls and my water glass is always filled, and that i get to rant and rave for like a good hour after i shut everything down. And then i just get to be quiet and its really glorious. Thats how im caring for myself right now. Host lets a wonderful way to end. Take care of yourself by watching us maybe win a little bit. Thank you everyone for coming out, thank you. I could have talk to you for another two hours, barely got into the questionses. Thank you so much and get some water. Guest thanks. Host thank you, everyone. Aten event the atlanta history museum, lee anna keith discuss this origins to the republican party. Heres portion of the program. The radical believe that kansas should be a free state and they were willing to organize themselves as immigrants, willing to take up arms as necessary to defend the idea of a free kansas. And second, kansas i mean to to resist the operation in the north and the west, to organize committees to saul courthouses sometimes with battering rams to rescue fugitives caught up in what they saw was an injust rendition system to be a john brownist, in the 1850s. The republican water was home to a number of people, its radical faction who were deeply engaged with john brown as fundraiser and not only the secret six who become famous as brown roz cocop speier fors and also a lot of rank and file republicans who made donations, who argued in favor of brown, who called brown a hero opposite the once the raid was staged and brown was executed as a to be a radical and lean into that idea and when shortly after Harpers Ferry the nation was taken don the war rod to be a radical republican was to be in favor of a hard war, war that would not and be resolve quickly but would demand so much of the nation that people became willing to confront slavery and to terminate it and so for the in the words a radical, good is a good doctor, the bad is sometimes better. And that at the agony of the nation in the civil war was the only way that we were going address these fundamental issues. Is a picture books written by fellows of the departments attention and Standard University pretty well for former secretaries of state, George Charles and economist, kissinger biographer and historian, neil ferguson. Former george w