Transcripts For CSPAN2 Alicia Garza The Purpose Of Power 20240712

2014, alicia garzer wrote a Facebook Post that changed the world and created a movement, it read black people, i love you, i love us, all lives matter, black lives matter. That continues today. Tonight alicia garzer and Chris Jackson will discuss resistance and resilience and how they ground the work in the vision, every day people are powerful enough to end practices that are unfairly Holding Black people back and harming our country and we Champion Solutions that move us forward. In the last few weeks we held help 6 Million People take action for racial justice, both an important conversation. Chris jackson, one world editor in chief will kick us off. Thank you very much for being here with us. Cant imagine who i would rather be talking to tonight. Alicia garzer, one of our countrys most powerful who can speak particularly well at this moment. I want to thank color change for working with us on this project tonight and people who have been so active in getting it organized. To take a short moment of silence for the tens of thousands of people who we lost in this pandemic we are undergoing, disproportionately black, disproportionately brown, disabled, elderly and poor and for those we lost 2 racially motivated violence in the name of the state. I will call out three names tonight, breanna taylor, george floyd, please join me for a short moment of silence to begin. And now i would like to invite you to our virtual stage, alicia garzer. So good to see you. It is good to be seen. I want to start a conversation out by going back a little bit. For a lot of people very upsetting and jarring, moments of awakening and i think in my own life growing up in new york and harlem in the 70s and 80s, political consciousness developed most rapidly around the most traumatic moments of that coming of age. So many people were murdered during that period in my neighborhood but also people we lost 2 police violence, protesting those. Can you tell us, worked on this book together for some time now, one of the things that you have driven toward activism, there were these inflection points in oakland that drove and accelerated your commitment. Definitely. For me i came up in the Reproductive Justice Movement and got really politicized around the idea that younger people couldnt make good decisions what to do with our bodies. This was a time when others were pushing this narrative around not only focus on the family narrative but very much about controlling womens bodies and for me, my mother had me and didnt expect to have me alone and the things that gave her options, she had them. She used to talk to me as a young kid and tell me sex makes babies and babies are expensive. I didnt get the birds and the bees talk, none of that. When i was in college i got politicized around racial justice. At that time in the late 1990s early 2000s there was a lot happening in terms of the aftermath of uprising that shaped the entire country. We watched as rodney king was brutally beaten, it was not popular at that time. Oscar grant in the community, i remember coming home after a new years celebration and turning on the television after midnight, and oscar grant had been shot in front of a train full of the observers and it just so happened that a young person interning at an organization i worked at was one of the people who caught it on camera and it became a part of the movie and there were these inflection points, understand our lives are bigger than us but also understand our lives are being shaped by people other than us. If we decide that is not right or fair or the ways our lives are shaped, lead us toward wellness, in wholeness or the way our lives are being shaped are leading us toward punishment and criminalization and injustice and each of those inflection points we make a point of who we are going to be and for me a young age at 12 years old i decided i will be somebody who not only tells different stories about what young people are doing, teenagers are not running around having sex like crazy but there are those of us who are in intimate relationships who are trying to figure out what is 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 the access we deserve to desire and pleasure and intimacy by somebody who has a different agenda about our bodies and our lives. Do we think that is right or do we think that is wrong . If we think that is wrong what are we going to do about it . I got politicized and active in the movement. Others might shake their head and say it is a shame people dont have access to what they need and they move on with their lives. We come into moments like this you cant move on, your everyday normal is interrupted by people who decided to take action and even in those moments you make a choice about who you are going to be and what you are going to contribute. What i think, the question comes to me in this moment, thinking about your story, in these moments there were these eruptions of visible movement activity, in the bay area, black lives matter which formed around a series of events going back to Treyvon Martin and ferguson and here we are again. Are we going in a loop or does each of these things, we are getting closer to something. A good question. In writing the book are we going in a loop or are we moving forward . Honestly the way i think about and look at history and the connection between the two, we are not going in circles where we end up right where we began. I imagine it like a spiral, you are not coming back to the place you started from. You look at where you started an assessment gap in between. Things are not the same now. [silence] was that our strategy . It requires us to keep pushing forward. There is a lot. People were saying all lives matter. And we are having a little bit of technical difficulty. Repeat the last thing you said. Just saying in 201314 we were pariahs in terms of politics, we would say black lives matter and people say all lives matter and we were not seen as a legitimate political force. We were not seen as a movement. People who were radicals. Even in our own communities we were seen as people who were trying to move a gay agenda and interrupt the black agenda. Lots of ways in which we are in such a different place. Host i am sorry. Guest there is still work to be done. I dont want to paint a rosy picture here. The extra murders of black people on television because we catch them on cell phone cameras, it is only when there is an outcry, any semblance of political will to address it. How we solve this problem once and for all. I do worry just like in 2014 where we got body cameras and the result of protests ferguson leaders, to the murder of my crown, what we get is better training and nicer police but fundamentally there is a big challenge we are facing, what do we do about the role of Law Enforcement, is it enough to restrict their practices or do we narrow the focus and role of Law Enforcement in the first place and it is an important conversation for america to have, i can say six and years ago, black lives matter may people and comfortable and it is good for this country. People are uncomfortable when black people were fighting for the right to be enfranchised. People were uncomfortable when women were fighting for the right to be enfranchised and look where we have come. It is not uncomfortable to believe women should have the right to vote. It is not uncomfortable to believe black people should have the right to vote. Doesnt mean those rights are under attack, absolutely not but it means we are in a different place because we are having those rights and defending them as opposed to create those rights. History is not circular in that way. It is a spiral. I believe deeply and profoundly we are closer than we have been before. Host that is an encouraging thought. You have something in the book where you talk about this theory about changing the core of a revolution with the basic premise where society operates from. And city council in minneapolis literally eliminating and rebuilding something in its place which is unimaginable a major city would talk about that. Does that give you a sense of possibility . All i keep saying to myself is what a time to be alive. The minneapolis the council is not only considering redistributing funds so that we dont address needs communities have with police who arent addressing those needs. It is something that organizers and advocates initiate for the better part. What a time to be alive. I keep seeing things like the School District in minneapolis say they are ending their contract with police and what that means for a decade of having police in schools to say we are not going to do that is very powerful. In los angeles they are moving the same proposals. When you see things like this, it is the result of organizing, the result of pressure on people to have the political will and the courage to examine new ways of operating and that is fundamentally what movements can accomplish, you shouldnt expect every movement has a strategy or a blueprint they can hand to you. So much of what muslims do is respond to changing traditions, take the pulse of what communities long for but also what communities are scared of, push the envelope to get closer to what it is we deserve. We are watching this in real time and it is fundamentally incredible. We must must must give most credit to the organizers in the city to create the conditions that make this happen and engaged us to work with it and amplify it. Host in your book, with that model in your life, the visual title for your book, a Hashtag Movement but how is it you can take something from the point of the germ of an idea as it was in 2014 and 20 years before that when people have been working towards this for rum, how do you keep the pressure, keep it from building from a moment to being a movement . Guest there is a science and there is an art. From the time we created the black lives Matter Network which started from a series of social media platforms and grew into a network with chapters all over the world, we didnt have a roadmap. We relied on instinct and relationship and we paid attention to what was going on. I hope that doesnt feel or sound amorphous. Who you are in a relationship to, what they are working on and what you are working on also frankly what time it is in the country and your willingness to keep pushing things forward. We tried so many things. We held Conference Calls, National Conference calls for people to talk about issues of interest for that moment, our first gathering was a Conference Call we pulled together after the killer of Connie Mcbride was convicted of murder. In cases of vigilante murder and cases of Police Murder that oftentimes the aggressors are not held accountable and in this case, headway was held accountable land he sits in jail. That was a victory that was the result of organizing, i am going to say this, jim hansen is not only a that is organizer and badass writer but an organizer, she worked with people in michigan to make sure her death would not go unaccounted for and after that we held a conversation because frankly so many of us believed justice comes from people going to jail. That might make us feel better, make us feel like they are feeling what we are feeling the fact of the matter is prisons and jails are terrible place to be, prisons and jails do not rehabilitate people, they do not bring lives back, they do not address harm. We held a National Conference call as black lives matter about whether or not this was justice and we had people on all different sides of the spectrum giving their feedback and input and those were the spaces we tried to create and from that we started to build a reputation for people to connect not only online but moving into 2014 when mike brown was killed, patrice and darnell had a great idea to organize the freedom rides in ferguson, another way for people to connect directly 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 aspect to it. One of the things we heard a lot was Mainstream Media was telling their own story of what was happening in ferguson, they were telling stories of looters and rioters and unrest and all the images you would see on tv were of tanks and rubber bullets and tear gas so we organized black media to go to ferguson and to tell that 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 getting too far into the ferguson conversation because ferguson leaders need to tell that story so i am winking and nodding at you that that might be the next book but i will say we left ferguson and didnt think we were going to go back but the people who came said we want to keep organizing and they forced us to form chapters. We are not prepared for this. But they are like we are and you all have already run your mouths and created this umbrella and i walk that story out to say there is no recipe. It is really about instinct, network, timing and frankly it is about being able to move when you just know it is right. One of the things that is so beautiful about the way you talk about movements and activism, in the book you talk about this how for you activism was fundamentally a way to connect to other people which i thought that was a beautiful way to begin the story, not like a big abstract movement but this is how we connect and share a vision for all world we want to bring into being and that cant just happen online although we are doing a lot of texting online right now but interesting it is not online the movement is happening now even under this cloud of this pandemic people feel they need to go in the streets and see each other and march together. What is your special thought of connection that includes things like knock on doors, go in peoples homes, touch them, hear them, visit them, listen to them, how does that make a big difference, not to dismiss what we can do online or through social media but why is it so important . Everybody longest for connection. That is what makes us human, we cant live in isolation and when we put people in isolation you see folks deteriorate. When you hear stories of people in solitary confinement they tell you that literally they start to deteriorate because we as human beings depends on connections to survive. It is how we read the world, it is how we read one another and making sense of this moment, organizing is fundamentally rooted in connection. When i was trained as an organizer i was told organizing wasnt about getting somebody involved in your campaign are getting somebody to use your slogan. It was fundamentally about relationships and everything moves at the speed of relationships. I will give you an example. When i was organizing, the only way i could get people to do something outside their comfort zone was do something on their front porch, at their kids recitals, meeting kids that their Kitchen Table when making dinner after a long day of work. People need to know that they can trust you and when we look at all great movements throughout history we notice a similar response, look at the last period of civil rights people moved at the speed of relationship and that was connection and for safety, in certain environments if people didnt know who your people where they didnt mess with you. I can tell you my southern relatives are still the same way, where do you come from . A way to make sense of who you are and what your motives are and moving into this moment i think you saw people rush out of their homes in the midst of a political pandemic because being isolated in your house while you are watching on television somebody who looks like you being brutally murdered while the officer looks into the camera while he is doing 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 sharing a similar experience. Every one of us who has experienced injustice in the world wonders if it is only us or if other people have had that experience too. And movements bring together people who long for not fueling gas lit around the experiences they have every day that they know are wrong but cant quite place why or who is responsible and movements also give us an opportunity to challenge and channel the anger, isolation, fear and rage into something productive. Sometimes it becomes a law or a policy. Other times it becomes an ecosystem of organizations that are fighting back against the injustices and the ways in which our communities are disenfranchised. You look at organizations like the movement for black lives, you will see that it is a beautiful rich ecosystem of organizations working together and independently to impact the lives of black people. In that coalition we suddenly again feel less alone, more powerful. We take risks we dont take alone but the nucleus of being able to know why this is happening to me to i am willing to be somebody who changes it and fundamentally require connection and relationship. That is so interesting and so true. Sort of watching what is going on from a difference, the difference in being in the middle of it and feeling that energy, people who you feel a sense that you are not alone, feeling like there is real power, not just my feeling. We can do something with this feeling, it is powerful. Doing something with that feeling, going back to the bride story, you had to consider what does justice look like . What does accountability look like right now for the people who were immediately responsible, that hasnt even happened, the first level of accountability hasnt happened but in the larger sense, structures they make accountable to this. How do we go to this level or that level with power. A satisfying answer. The are in this moment, the fact of the matter is these systems we are fighting are as old as this country and they will take a while to undo. There are times we can speed up the project, the progress of that project requires a methodical approach to changing what is possible politically and you need to do that in a range of ways. I can sit here and tell you there are policies we can enact that will stop police from using chokeholds, to put their knee on someones that can a way to restrain them. There are things we can do, to waste nicer police, i want to be honest with you and say many places arent having those policies in place but no one to enforce them. To get into the cyclical pattern of what i think is finding the shortest distance, rather than in addition to, i dont think they are in contradiction, we should do stuff now but if im trying to stop the bleeding and have broken several bones i can put a cast on but doesnt mean that the bone has healed. We need to do a different approach for the bone to heal versus healing with a cut on my finger. In this case when it comes to policing i have to be honest. The reason things are so bad in policing is because we ask police to do things they shouldnt be doing. We are asking police about Domestic Violence counselors or therapists, we are asking police to deal with people who are in crisis in terms of their Mental Health and police are not trained to do that and we could send a bunch of Time Training people with badges and guns to respond differently to that and maybe we should but we also have people whose actual profession it is to do that and the reason we dont have enough of those people in our community, and it is because we have governments that has whittled away with that and government has whittled away that infrastructure and they replaced it with control and surveillance which ends up exacerbating the problem. If you limit what police do in our communities and how often they come into contact with our people and for what, that is the key to saving more lives. And making sure there was a robust set of resources that they wont be criminalized for accessing, to deal with Mental Health crisis and you shoot someone. And other tools are used, what is robust in their communities, we could be calling police for things like petty shoplifting or deal with what is underneath that that somebody doesnt have what they need. For me when i hear people go we cant just get rid of police, i get where you are struggling and there are places i struggle around this too but i want change as much as you do. I want us to believe that we deserve better. We did body cameras. We have done commissions and task forces and blue ribbon panels. At the end of the day we have the answer but do we have the courage . Do we have the courage to say we will restore the role of government in our community . We will enfranchise communities to be part of the solution and also going to limit the ways in which we punish people for not having the things they need because we created a society where not everybody can have the things they need. That is what we can be doing in this moment. One of the interesting things that has been popping up in the news over the last few days as people think about what are the police . It is odd because we have had police forever and now for the first time people are starting to wonder what is this institution and they are astonishing. Billion dollar budgets in los angeles and new york and even minneapolis, millions of dollars devoted to policing the white population barely interacts with. It makes you wonder what we are paying for, perhaps like an occupying army. We will do a q and a in a minute, we can ask them but i feel like you are talking about what you can do, that brings us to the question, hard to remember what is happening in 2020, we have an election coming up in 2020. An oped that stacy abrams wrote, voting feels inadequate and ended by saying too damn us all. What do you think electoral politics has, what it will take to that deck of accountability . I am somebody who believes electoral politics is farm reduction, i came up as an organizer hating politics, feeling like this is deeply rigged and not for us, mostly because we have people who tweaked my ear, elections do matter. To choose the terrain we want to fight on and we choose the people we want to fight. I never expect that a candidate that i support in very few cases is a candidate that i want to have over for dinner or build a deep relationship with but i do need them to do things for me and for my community, the process of making elected officials accountable to the people they represent is fundamentally important for the future of this democracy, and that is why i spend time these days, thinking about black communities powerful in politics and the action fund. We spent a lot of time listening deeply to black communities across the nation. We did the Largest Survey in america, and in the economy, in our society. What are the needs to be addressed from the mouths of our own people, in the elect oral arena. Black people want what everybody wants, safety and dignity and want to be treated as fully human, there are so Many Americans who want the same thing and for various reasons who access that. It changes the power in this country. And in electoral politics is one way we can do that. And with symbol and justice. And politicians, and rather than the townhalls that were discussing policies change the rules that were rigged in our communities that Fried Chicken mysteriously show up every time black folks need to get engaged and all these ways in which frankly racism is deeply entrenched in our electoral system. Our work with the lab and the action fund is not centered around collecting data but using that data in the service of power. To the ballot, we essentially created a black agenda for 2020 from the results of the Largest Survey of black people in america and leaves are the things across gender and ideology that people can agree on in terms of solutions and we see that to motivate our communities to register to vote and turn out and we have a hunch that if we dont focus so much on candidates but instead on what we need, forcing candidates to the things we need that may be, may be participation will be greater and larger and more robust because we are united around not just talking points like lift every voice and i said it but we are united around the rules we want shifted, a way to determine who is with us and who is against us. If the people we elect dont choose moving the agenda forward we find elected officials or become them ourselves. That is how we look at electoral that is an important point and something about your book, talk about politics as a form of connection between people, arguably something we want, fundamental to connect other people and work that can be joyful and creative and imaginative, thinking about that, the reason people turn away from politics is they feel it is the grim work of status quo. These moments of awakening are moments you can fill that gap, and what is important to them, to get closer not just forestalling disaster. The world that you want, a Different Group of people running to office not just voting but being involved in the electoral system. 100 . I have been so energized by the folks that we have elected that engage in politics in a transformative way whether it is a oc or iona presley or people like Elizabeth Warren never saw themselves, who worked to make inequality go away and realized people who are defending rigged rules every single day and throw rocks at the castle as much as we want. People like rashida tlaib. And i dont want to aid her like that. She was mentored by Shirley Chisholm who everybody knows, bring your folding chairs to the table. The only path to power is to become an elected official, not everybody is cut out for every role. I do think it is important that if we change the way democracy functions we put people in that democracy that can model what that looks like, can model Accountable Leadership with integrity, a radical vision but knows how to get things done, we need many more aocs and many more presleys and squads and many more people who are not afraid to say the way the country is set up his rigged and we have the power to change the rules but do we have the courage, tell us how to do that. I have been asked 1 million times to run. I think i am better in this world but i also encourage people to run and help to groom people and people can be powerful inside of congress and city hall across the nation and people can be powerful in our communities and those are not mutually exclusive. A beautiful thought, what politics could potentially be. I want to bring questions from the audience, we have quite a few filling in. One of the things that is special about your vision, this kind of discipline and conclusiveness, to talk about political change and necessity, talk about the heart of them, they need to be particular concern and groups that are wholly do you voted to work to get there, Domestic Workers, true Multiracial Group that has come together on the most vulnerable workers, black people and so i am curious about the tension between racial movements, the need for black liberation and how those go to gather. Give me an opportunity to talk about the squad but let me start by saying if we understood antiblackness where White Supremacy operates. And black liberation movements and why those movements need to be in relationship, to be invested in equally. When you look at the history of domestic work, in the legacy of slavery and it was predominantly done, when you look at the traditions of domestic work, is working inside the home, to maintain a household, helping to care for aging loved ones, support the independence of people with disabilities or folks who work inside the home for additional capacity. That work used to be black womens work, the conditions of the industry are different from the conditions that shaped the industry under slavery. Low wages, low contract, no benefits, no sick days off, no time with your family, very loose rules, i will say we see the same conditions today and if we werent investing in undoing the vestiges of dynamics that come out under slavery and directed towards black people, we dont have a shot with conditions in the industry today i can tell you most Domestic Workers under federal labor protection, the same with Agricultural Workers and the reason there was a racist compromise that excluded Agricultural Workers, excluded Domestic Workers who are largely black and brown with access to what workers have access to now. The racist exclusions continue today. If we are not dealing with the unique conditions under which our communities are attacked the unique conditions under which our communities are disenfranchised, dont give ourselves enough leeway under the potential of what we can build. Having been an organizer in Multiracial Movements for a long time, i often feel alone and isolated, black folks, there may be smatterings of this there arent really legions of us in Multiracial Movements and i always ask myself why is that and one of the answers i have come to, sometimes what we do, Racial Coalition or alliance, we try to flatten everybodys experiences and they are not the same. We can walk around until we are in the face but we are all human, some of us are able to access in a different way than others. If movements can address that cant hope to bring people to them. Just have to be honest about that and we need Multiracial Movements, what we are seeing across the nation, it is not just black folks out there, a lot of white folks, a lot of folks who are identified in the asian diaspora, on and on. Then i remembered too, with Multiracial Movements, all of us have the infrastructure we need to fight back. The last period of civil rights and the period of black power is 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 participating, 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 dismantled the infrastructure black communities built to be powerful. Black folks contribute to Multiracial Movement if we ourselves are not organized and if we ourselves had not failed the infrastructure we need not just for ourselves but to contribute to the larger project of structural change. For me i fundamentally believe that there is a science to building Multiracial Movement and some of it is about understanding how antiblackness functions and being careful about trying to flatten everyone into sameness rather than examining differences and how those differences are strategic to the project we are trying to dismantle and how those movements can create a new model for how we see each other in our fullness. Multiracial movements cannot become a blind. We cannot do that thing where we say i dont care if you are, green, purple, 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 in the way i want to be seen is as a beautiful courageous black person who loves the skin that i am in and has done a lot of work to get there and so rather than saying i am standing with you and not seeing you, tell me that you see me and that you are joined with me and committed to helping other people see me and helping you be seen in the ways that we determine for ourselves, that is the most fundamental moment of what it means. That is really beautiful. I am going to turn to the questions we are getting, i was in rochester today, a mix of people, find myself excited to see it was a mix of people we were chanting together black lives matter, what you are describing about understanding, if you dont deal with antiblackness it is hard to deal with any of these issues but if you identify that you have a chance and to see people understanding that is exciting. Here are some questions. What advice do you have . What is yours, this is an interesting question, who have the least in their family or even, something you say, the kneeling, people find to be strange sort of reenactment of the thing we are protesting and may be happening with a small number but anyway what do you think, a redemptive move that a policeman or woman can, you know yes. You know, as you were asking that question i was thinking how lots of black people have police in our family and the experience of policing and being in relationships with police is really fascinating. I hear this from white folks a lot. What if my uncle is a police officer, my dad, generations of my family have been police officers, i get it, i harken back to the notion that for black folks we dealt with the tension for a long time, Law Enforcement in our families and even they know, members of Law Enforcement and black families know that theres a problem here. Different people have ways of making sense of it but i dont think this is such a contradiction. And i think when 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 when we say Defund Police we dont mean your dad doesnt matter. To say that policing is a profession, it is a profession and when i hear things like Blue Lives Matter i cringe because look, that is something you choose to do. Being black is the way we are born so they are already starting from very different fundamental places. Let me also say this. People might be surprised to hear me say this but 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 conversation that is like do you hate the police or do you love the police but a conversation about what it is like to do the job, lots of people will tell you i got into this profession because i wanted to help people. Heres something that happens. Most of the time when i talk to people in Law Enforcement they say i get into the profession because i wanted to help and then quickly began to get frustrated at my lack of ability to do so. That actually im getting called to Domestic Violence situation and knowing that as a take away one person im also impacting the family that has no resources to rebuild, actually doesnt make me feel like a hero. When i see somebody on the street was having a Mental Health crisis and knowing that theres no shelter to bring them to, theres no program to bring them to as the only place i can take them is jail but thats probably the worst possible place for them, it really erodes that since of suspected this and kind of entrenches a sense of battle, right . Im fighting a war. Their perception of the role the point in the community. Most Law Enforcement officers that ive talked you will tell you i wish those things were not my role. I wish that we were able to address the needs of people actually have an frankly i dont think please should do that, and people talk about law and they will talk about 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 i dont like your grandpa 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 this country. I also want to see the profession get better, and i dont know if theres ever going to be an alignment there because theres such deep hurt and pain. I know lots of people who do the work to bring that alignment together, and they are gods people, honestly. It is hard to do system change work. With that being said, with the solidarity shows that you talked about, i want something more. I want something more. I think that we deserve more than Police Taking and knee. I really do. And i heard that in some cities yesterday there were please taking and the and then an hour later they were arresting people and shooting people with rubber bullets and then this constant dissidence is part of why the trauma continues and its not that the people behind the shields are good people or bad people. Thats not the point. The point is thats their job, is to control and to contain. Now we are also giving them the responsibility of solving problems that they cannot solve and that is always going to create the kind of situation where theres a powder keg and the match thats waiting to be lit. And so im for symbolism but im also for substance. I would just compare folks taking a knee to the thing that the police union had said two days ago in minneapolis where he said ive been involved in three murders and and i never lost sp over any of them. One really important way to get involved 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 here and as long as we have that dynamic it will only land as symbolic when police take that knee. I got asked literally last weekend because there was all this law about who was joined the protests and all the chaos in the protest, and suddenly i being asked should would be telling protesters to work with police to identify bad protesters. Unlike hey, hey, hey, weve lost focus here. Im like 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. Its a good answer and i think its a better one, like these are all people who are part of the community. Im sorry. I hear you now. Great, good. One last question. I think this is not something we talked a lot about tonight but its a relevant thing. We are in the middle of a global Health Pandemic and also this period of isolation has been a cause of lots of depression and economic dislocation which near depression conditions and job loss, and now this. How are you, for instance, like taking care of yourself within this . Yeah. Ill tell you my selfcare this 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 minutes a 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 again 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 about what they can do right now, even though theres so much stuff out there. And trying to make sure that 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, right . I was just like dont mess with me today, and that i watched the president teargas people to take a photo with the bible upside down at a church hes never attended, and the symbolism but also the substance of the symbol literally broke me. 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 fascism in a way that terrifies me, and i dont use that word or phrase lightly. But then i started to see people continue to resist, and for that resistance to grow, and that makes me feel like we really are the majority. We really are with the majority. Our values are majoritarian values, and we can win. We can win. Thats where im at now and thats whats taking care of me is like seeing the progress, allowing myself to see whats changing, with victories are happening and also letting people take care of me. So my partner make sure i i stk food in my mouth in between sentences on Conference Calls and that my water glass is always filled and that i get to rant and rave like a good hour after i shut everything down. Villages get to be quiet and a truly glorious. So that is how im caring for myself right now. At the wonderful way to him. Take care of yourself by watching us maybe win a little bit. Thank you everyone for coming out. Thank you so much, alisha. I couldve talked to you for another two hours. Barely get into my questions. We would do this again sometime. Thank you so much and get some water. Thanks. Thank you, everyone. Thank you for joining us for this important and timely conversation. I name is j r