On April 12, 2015, lifelong Baltimore resident Freddie Gray was arrested, hogtied and thrown into the back of a police van by six officers. When Gray was pulled from the van less than an hour later, he was in a coma. A week later, he passed away from severe injuries to his cervical spinal cord. The incident, and the revelations thereafter, set Baltimore and the entire country ablaze. Details of the case alleged officers had taken Gray for a “rough ride,” a police brutality practice where individuals are intentionally left unrestrained in police vehicles during dangerous driving maneuvers. After a coroner ruled Gray’s death a homicide, the six officers involved in his arrest were charged with crimes ranging from false imprisonment to manslaughter. But the damage was done, not only to Gray, but to his community, which had endured decades of deprivations and abuse by Baltimore police. The resulting Baltimore Uprising shook the city and the nation to its core, fueling a fresh wave of Black Lives Matter protests building on the murders of Trayvon Martin, Mike Brown, and Eric Garner.

In a special 10-year anniversary documentary, TRNN reporters Stephen Janis and Taya Graham asked Baltimore organizers, activists, teachers, and residents for their reflections on Freddie Gray’s death, the subsequent uprising, and where the city is now. What did they feel when they first received news of Freddie Gray’s death? Did they have any hope the police would be held accountable, and has Baltimore City and its police department changed for the better as a result of the uprising? The following conversation is a thoughtful meditation on the long term impact of police brutality, the limitations of legislating cultural change, the power of community organizing, and the determination to still love and heal this city.

Headquartered in Baltimore City, TRNN was on the ground when the uprising began 10 years ago. You can find an archive of our original reporting here.

Transcript

[CROWD CHANTING]:  While they’re smiling, we are dying. While they’re smiling, we are dying. While they’re smiling, we are dying. While they’re smiling, we are dying. While they’re smiling, we are dying. While they’re smiling, we are dying. While they’re smiling, we are dying. While they’re smiling, we are dying.

Taya Graham:  In 2015, 25-year-old Baltimore resident Freddie Gray locked eyes with a police officer. He was chased, arrested, hogtied, and thrown into the back of a van. He died a week later from severe spinal cord injuries. Baltimore City rose up to protest his death, the result of decades of aggressive overpolicing.

10 years later, The Real News spoke to activists and community leaders about what they remembered, how it affected them, and the impact on the community, and finally, their thoughts on the future of our city. This is what they said.

[CHAPTER 1: THE UPRISING]

[VIDEO CLIP] Taya Graham:  Thank you. Thank you so much. Really appreciate that. Welcome to a special live edition…

Taya Graham:  Just before the uprising began, I was actually hosting a town hall with Michelle Alexander, who’s the author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.

[VIDEO CLIP] Michelle Alexander:  We maintain this attitude that we ought to be punishing those kids and teaching them a lesson by putting them in literal cages.

Taya Graham:  And activists and organizers from all throughout the city had joined us. Members of the ACLU, Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle, all types of community members were there. And we were actually there initially to discuss the school-to-prison pipeline, but one of the people spoke up and spoke about the video of Freddie Gray that had just been released to the public.

[VIDEO CLIP] Adam Jackson:  I know here in Baltimore, in particular, we’ve been dealing with the issue of police brutality for quite some time. And Freddie Gray, recently, his spine was severed and he died, I think, two days ago.

Dayvon Love:  I actually got a text from a cousin of the Tyrone West family, and I still have it, a text message that has the picture, the famous picture that we’ve all seen of Freddie Gray in the hospital while he was still alive but on life support, and says, this is Freddie Gray. This just happened, and we think this is going to cause a big uproar.

Tawanda Jones:  When I seen Freddie Gray getting dragged into that van, it was like opening up my brother’s casket all over again.

[VIDEO CLIP] Eddie Conway:  Tyrone West’s family held their 200th-week protest and demonstration trying to demand justice for Tyrone West, who was beaten to death by a dozen police in the city and still has not received any justice.

Tawanda Jones:  Hearing him screaming and moan, it just took me to… With my brother moaning and groaning and screaming and hollering, he was getting beat down in the same streets in Baltimore — Not in the same streets, but in the same city, and nobody being held accountable. It broke my heart.

And that’s when I met Freddie Gray’s mom, Ms. Gloria, and I was just telling her pretty much to hold on, just keep fighting, and I was being prayerful that he was going to survive his attack.

D. Watkins:  I never forget, I was over Bocek’s, Bocek Park in East Baltimore, and I got a homeboy, he is one of those guys that he wanted to be affiliated — Rest in peace. He’s dead — This particular day, he was outside. He was riding around the city with my homeboy Daz because they was filming a video. And they was on a basketball court, and he just started blacking out. He was going crazy. He was going back and forth, and I’m like, what’s wrong? And he was like, the police did such and such, to my man, and he was going through it. So, that’s how I first heard about the story.

Mike Willis:  That morning, that morning… I actually had a hearing for a parole violation down in classification on Biddle Street, I think it is, in Baltimore. And when they call you in for parole hearing for a violation, if they’re calling you into the actual jail itself, it means you’re not coming out.

Doug Colbert:  I was supervising law students who were representing people in criminal court, and we had many cases just like Freddie Gray, where the police would react to a Black person who was not showing the proper respect and decorum, and they would then chase them down and eventually apprehend them and search them. And of course, those searches would not have been constitutional, legal. So, my students won most of those cases.

Mike Willis:  So, I’m at home, and I’m like, I don’t want to go to jail today. Who wants to go to jail? So, I’m like, I don’t want to go to jail, and I’m praying. And then the riots break out, shuts the whole city down.

[VIDEO CLIP] Jaisal Noor:  In Baltimore on Saturday, April 15, about 1,500 people took part in the largest demonstrations to date against the killing of 25-year-old West Baltimore resident Freddie Gray in police custody.

D. Watkins:  When people see things on video, it brings a different type of anger than just us talking about it. That’s the first thing. The second thing is poor leadership in the police department. We never really tracked down the source of who made the decision to shut the bus lines down, but some people said it came from the state, and then some people said it came from the police department. I don’t know. But whoever made that decision, was a very, very bad decision.

Doug Colbert:  Oh, I think what happened in terms of the video was so unusual. It’s when you see something and then you have live witnesses who can tell the story, that made a huge difference. And the reaction was immediate and predictable.

Mike Willis:  It made me feel, as it relates to the city, that once you push any population enough, once you keep them under your thumb enough, once you continually kick them and prod them and laugh at them and mock them, it gets unbearable after a while.

Taya Graham:  For years, our community had yelled out and screamed out, people are experiencing misconduct, people are experiencing brutality. We had endured 10 years of zero-tolerance policing, where corners were cleared, people were taken off blocks for loitering or expectorating, spitting in public, or simply not even having your ID on you to prove that you lived in the neighborhood. I actually endured that on multiple occasions in my own neighborhood, I would have to produce ID and be questioned on who I was, where I was going, and did I belong there.

[CROWD CHANTING]:  No justice, no peace, no racist police.

Doug Colbert:  Freddie Gray was well-known in his community, and there were a lot of Freddie Grays who had suffered the same consequences. So, when people were actually there, they were able to tell the story firsthand.

Mike Willis:  Freddie Gray, unarmed. Freddie Gray dying in the custody of police. And then the first thing the police do is try to soften the situation, and then they try to devalue Mr. Gray by victimizing him, putting the blame on the victim, saying that it was his fault that he died. All that together with everything else going on, it was a powder keg, and it blew up.

[CROWD CHANTING]:  Justice for Freddie. Justice for Freddie. Justice for Freddie. Justice for Freddie.

[CHAPTER 2: THE ROOT CAUSES]

Mike Willis:  You have to understand the atmosphere surrounding Freddie Gray’s murder, the uprising, which grew from, you have to understand the climate.

Jill P. Carter:  I think zero tolerance had a lot to do with it. It’s not me just thinking it. The entire Department of Justice thought so because it’s all throughout the report that led to the consent decree.

[VIDEO CLIP] Vanita Gupta:  BPD engages in a pattern or practice of making unconstitutional stops, searches, and arrests.

Jill P. Carter:  So, it absolutely did. How does it not? How do you have 100,000 people in a city of 600,000 people? Many of them are not even eligible for arrest because they’re either super old or super young. So, you take out, out of the 600, you got what, 300 or 400 that are actually maybe arrest eligible or likely, and then you got 100,000 people arrested each year. Each year.

Mike Willis:  Nothing is in a bottle, you know what I mean? Nothing is isolated, you know what I mean? It’s like a silo with wheat flurries going through it. All it takes is a spark for that silo to ignite. It’s like being at a gas pump and the fumes in the air and you light a cigarette. The pump might blow. So, the fumes, in this case, the wheat flurries in this case of the silo of Baltimore was the policing, was the attitude of the police.

Jill P. Carter:  I think that the ongoing confusion that people have, as well, when those arrests were coming, wasn’t that what was needed? Well, no, because those were also years that we had astronomical homicide numbers and astronomical violent crime numbers and astronomical shootings that didn’t lead to homicides.

Lester Spence:  Whenever I talk about the Baltimore case, I point viewers or people I’m talking to two figures. One figure is spending on parks and rec, and the other is spending on policing, starting in 1980. I think in 1980, parks and rec spending was like $35, $45 million. Parks and rec spending in 2015 was $35, $45 million. Policing was maybe, I think, $140 million. Policing by 2015 was three times that, was approximately $430, $440 million. Now, it’s above, I think, it’s maybe $500, $550 [million], if not more. And then you look at where that spending goes, that spending goes into a martial approach to policing.

Dayvon Love:  Some of the factors that I think led to the uprising is that law enforcement is a very insular industry, and the way that the system of white supremacy operates in this society is that there’s a fundamental disregard for the humanity of people of African descent. And that manifests itself in the notion that the community having oversight of law enforcement and respectable “political establishment society” is seen as ridiculous.

Taya Graham:  The fuel, the gasoline was all the crimes that had gone unpunished. And when I’m speaking of these crimes, I’m talking about police crimes, Baltimore City police crimes against our community.

Dayvon Love:  Because I remember talking to a reporter at the time for whom I mentioned this concept of community oversight of law enforcement, and young white women whose response was almost like she found it a little bit of a stretch.

D. Watkins:  If I walk out here right now and you put a gun on me and rob me, the last thing on my mind is going to be, call the police. I’m never going to think that unless I had something that was insured and I was like, oh, I can get that bread back. Then I might be like, all right, bet, call the police. But other than that, if I can’t get my stuff back or figure it out, then that person was meant to have whatever they took and that’s just theirs. That’s just what it is.

Dayvon Love:  But I’m mentioning that because when you think about all the structural forces that, in terms of socioeconomic denigration, lack of access to resources, disempowerment of community, when you have all those factors, the community doesn’t have the levers that it needs to be able to push back against police abuse.

Lester Spence:  Yeah, so at that point, what happens is [snaps fingers] you got this event. When an event happens that people didn’t predict — And remember, I didn’t predict, I do this, but I didn’t really predict it — So when something happens that people can’t predict something explosive like this, it disrupts everything. It disrupts alliances, it disrupts institutions, it disrupts the solutions that people routinely believe should be applied to political problems.

Jill P. Carter:  I was infuriated. So the arrest and ultimate death of Freddie Gray literally happened days after the conclusion of the 2015 legislative session. And that was a session where, for the second time in a row, 2014 and 2015, I had proposed a multitude of different pieces of legislation that would do things to create police reform.

Dayvon Love:  So police, in many respects, could run roughshod as a result of that, the community not having those mechanisms of accountability because they’re fundamentally politically disempowered given the society that we live in.

Jill P. Carter:  One of the ones that I thought was really important was — We’ve ultimately passed something similar now — But whistleblower protection so that officers would be free to report on other misconduct within their institutions and other officers and even their leadership without fear of repercussion. This happened a number of times, and there were a lot of different mothers testifying. And why was that painful? Because my colleagues within the legislature just didn’t seem to care.

Mike Willis:  I don’t think that people really realize that nobody on the corner wants to be on the corner. Whoever’s doing bad, selling drugs, shooting people, robbing people, nobody wants to do that. That’s the reality of it. And if anybody comes and says, look, we’re going to help you find a job, that’s all that they want. You think some man wants to go home to his girlfriend and two kids after spending all day on a corner hustling drugs?

Doug Colbert:  And what then happened is that three nights a week, they did drug sweeps or gun sweeps or whatever arrest. Whoever was on the street on a Sunday, Tuesday, or Thursday, if those were the three nights, would be arrested.

Jill P. Carter:  Those were the years, the O’Malley years, where everybody wasn’t safe outside of their home. You are sitting on your steps, on your porch, you’re in your backyard, you’re on your street, you’re on your corner, just being present and being Black could often result in an arrest without charges. So out of those 100,000 or so arrests every year, at least a third were without charges, meaning we had no reason to legitimately arrest you.

Mike Willis:  It’s directly proportionate to these men having jobs now. And we’re talking about a very impoverished area, people in trouble with the law already. And from personal knowledge, I can tell you how difficult it is to have a criminal record, a felony record, and not being able to find a job. There’s a lot of despair involved in that. There’s a lot of give up in that. You talk about taking a knee, try going to an interview, getting hired, and then a week later getting fired because your background record comes back. People get tired of that.

So the easiest path, the easier path, is just to go on the corner. I can make $75, $100 a day hanging on the corner for 8 hours, and that’s enough that they’ll get me by until tomorrow.

Doug Colbert:  And I remember having a conversation with the mayor because we happened to both belong to the downtown athletic club. Baltimore is a very small town, and I’m going, Martin, you know these arrests are not legit. He says, we got five guns off the street, that’s five less people that are going to be in danger. I said, but the other 95 people should never have been arrested in the first place. He said, well, they shouldn’t have been out in the street. I said, Martin, they have fines that they didn’t pay.

Lester Spence:  I think when Martin O’Malley was mayor, I think over a three-year period, he made more arrests than Baltimore had Black citizens. So each of those arrests ends up leaving a mark. Leaves a mark on the individual, leaves a mark on that individual’s family. And as much as those arrests are concentrated in certain types of neighborhood, it leaves marks on those neighborhoods.

[CHAPTER 3: THE PROSECUTION]

Taya Graham:  So the uprising, the protests had been going on for days, and Marilyn Mosby calls a press conference. So at the time, everyone was a little bit nervous. No one was sure what was going to be said, but we knew it was going to be important.

Mike Willis:  And you have a brand new city state’s attorney, Marilyn Mosby, who nobody thought would win, who was an extreme outsider fighting against the system just being a Black woman and running for city state’s attorney. And she wanted to show that she was different.

Taya Graham:  So she calls a press conference in front of the War Memorial, and it seemed like the entire world was there. There were reporters from across the country, and even international reporters were there to listen to what SAO Marilyn Mosby had to say.

Marilyn Mosby:  First and foremost, I need to express publicly my deepest sympathies for the family of the loved ones of Mr. Freddie Gray. I had the opportunity to meet with Mr. Gray’s family to discuss some of the details of the case and the procedural steps going forward. I assured his family that no one is above the law and that I would pursue justice on their behalf.

To the thousands of city residents, community organizers, faith leaders, and political leaders that chose to march peacefully throughout Baltimore, I commend your courage to stand for justice. The findings of our comprehensive, thorough, and independent investigation coupled with the medical examiner’s determination that Mr. Gray’s death was a homicide, which we received today, has led us to believe that we have probable cause to file criminal charges. The statement of probable cause is as follows.

Lester Spence:  So Marilyn Moseley was one of the electoral, the beneficial… It’s complicated, but her election was one of the beneficial consequences of organizing. She had far less money, if any, than her person she was running against, and she ran on the platform of holding police accountable.

Taya Graham:  City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby walks out to the memorial and she drops a bomb that she is charging all six officers. As much as it was what people in the community wanted, I think we were all shocked that was actually really happening.

[VIDEO CLIP] Elijah Cummings:  This morning at 7:00, I said on one of the national networks that I would trust whatever Marilyn Mosby did. I didn’t know that a decision would be coming down today. And the other thing that I said was this, that I believe with all my heart that she would take the facts, once she did all the research she needed to do, size it up with the law, and make the right decision. And I said this morning, before I knew any of this, that whatever her decision would be, because of her integrity and the fact that I believe in her, that I would accept that decision.

Tawanda Jones:  I was so shocked that Marilyn Mosby stood up because I never saw a state prosecutor stand up and say, you know what? You all hold y’all peace while I get accountability, gave the greatest speech that I have ever heard.

[VIDEO CLIP] Marilyn Mosby:  To the youth of this city, I will seek justice on your behalf. This is a moment. This is your moment. Let’s ensure that we have peaceful and productive rallies that will develop structural and systemic changes for generations to come.

Tawanda Jones:  And I’m like, oh my God. I’m at work. I’m in tears. I didn’t know, because I’m thinking in my mind, nobody’s going to be charged. They didn’t charge nobody in my brother’s case. But when she came out with those words, I’m like, oh my God, and that speech was profound. I’m like, yes.

D. Watkins:  I know it didn’t make her a lot of friends, but at the same time, it made her a hero to a lot of people. So a lot of people, they still talk about that — But on one side, and then a lot of people on the other side can’t stand her for that.

Mike Willis:  She wanted to show that her constituency matters to her. That she was going to stand up for them and with them because she is part of them. And she charged them. She charged those officers like they should be charged.

Doug Colbert:  What prosecutor State’s Attorney Mosby did, which she really has never gotten the full credit for, is that she handled that case so differently from the way that most criminal prosecutions against police officers would take place.

So in the first instance, she did not allow the police to investigate police officers because the outcome of that situation, not just here in Baltimore but throughout the country, was that there would never be charges filed.

Taya Graham:  But as soon as she announced those charges, the pushback from law enforcement began. Even before the trial there were, let’s say, advocates on behalf of the law enforcement-industrial complex in Baltimore City that were going on CNN, lawyers who were calling her “juvie league” and saying that she was rushing to judgment. There was an entire media blitz to discredit Mosby from the very beginning of her actually announcing those charges, let alone the trial itself.

Doug Colbert:  I think what people forget is how close the prosecution came to convicting Officer Porter, who was the first to go on trial. As I recall, the jury went out late Monday afternoon, probably around 4:00, if I recall, and they deliberated very little on Monday. They had a full day on Tuesday. On Wednesday, they sent a note to the judge in the afternoon saying that they had not yet reached a verdict. And the judge had Thursday, there was a holiday weekend coming up, as I remember. The judge easily could have allowed them to deliberate some part of Thursday, at least, to see if they could have resolved their difference. Surprisingly, the judge did not do so, and that’s when the mistrial took place. But I think that outcome really scared the bejesus out of the police union because they saw how close a jury of 12 people came to convicting the first officer.

Taya Graham:  I sat in that courtroom, and I can tell you, even though there had been a lot of chatter about how Judge Williams was going to be a fair judge, he was an honest judge and a forthright judge, when I was sitting in that courtroom, I couldn’t help but feel like the fix was in.

Dayvon Love:  So I think the officers that participated in arresting Freddie Gray that ultimately led to his death, them being clear, is, I think, a little complicated. There is a natural relationship between the prosecutor and law enforcement. So, in some ways, there’s an inherent structural mismatch between the notion of a prosecutor holding police accountable, and having the tools that when a prosecutor decides to do that, having the tools to do that because you need law enforcement in order to do the investigations in order to hold them accountable.

D. Watkins:  I tell people, I don’t claim to be an expert on anything, but it is hard to be a revolutionary, identify as a revolutionary, and work as a prosecutor. If you want to be loved by the masses, you gotta go be a public defender.

[VIDEO CLIP] Marilyn Mosby:  There were individual police officers that were witnesses to the case, yet were part of the investigative team; interrogations that were conducted without asking the most poignant questions; lead detectives that were completely uncooperative and started a counterinvestigation to disprove the state’s case by not executing search warrants pertaining to text messages among the police officers involved in the case.

Dayvon Love:  So in terms of them being cleared, for me, it is a result of the structural mismatch between the fact that law enforcement, in many respects, as a matter of policy, had developed a structure where they’re the only ones that could investigate. And so with just the culture of the blue wall of silence, it makes it nearly impossible

Mike Willis:  When those cops, when those six policemen were exonerated, I don’t want to sound cliche, but it was just deflation. It was an air balloon with the oxygen being turned off. But at the same time, I’m old enough and I’m wise enough to realize that police is a very powerful beast with a very powerful union and a very long reach. And they stay together, they stick together. There’s not too many juries and judges around that’s going to facilitate, willfully, their incarceration.

Dayvon Love:  And there are ways that both her deciding to indict those officers and prosecute marked her in ways that was detrimental to her and her family. But it was a net positive to have a person in that seat who took the positions that she ended up having to take. It was a net positive. I think it helped us on police accountability, juvenile justice. Her being there really helped in some of the policy work that we’ve done on a lot of relevant issues. And I think the targeting of her, in many ways, was not just about her, the individual. It was about her policy platform and pushing back against it.

[CHAPTER 4: THE ECONOMICS]

Taya Graham:  So after the uprising, the Baltimore City government makes a really extraordinary choice, and that choice was to give a billionaire a $600 million tax break to build out Port Covington.

[VIDEO CLIP] Stephanie Rawlings-Blake:  So my office began working with Sagamore Development months ago to make sure that all of the people of Baltimore benefited from Port Covington.

Lester Spence:  And as much as that’s all occurring within a dynamic in which Baltimore is being hollowed out in social service provision, and they’re giving tax breaks to a combination of high income earners and then to either corporate actors like Under Armour or even like my employer, like Hopkins, who doesn’t pay taxes, it ends up creating this hollowed-out city in which I think the word that comparative politics or IR scholars would use to describe Baltimore if it were a nation, I think the term is Garrison State. It’s a state in which most of its governing resources are put into policing.

Taya Graham:  This tax break of $600 million going to a billionaire is going to allow him to build out Port Covington, also now known as the Baltimore Peninsula. Now, this area is isolated from the rest of Baltimore City, so the amenities, the luxury apartments, the Under Armour headquarters, none of this is actually going to benefit city residents.

Lester Spence:  The degree to which there were some actors who were able to benefit far more than others, and that, in some ways, even though the priorities shifted, they didn’t shift, they shifted, right? So they shift a little bit, but not enough where giving a $600 million basically tax write off to a major development actor wasn’t deemed to be abnormal. It was still business as usual.

Tawanda Jones:  Again, it’s just a capitalist system that perpetuates off of poor people and used our pain for its game, just like they built a Freddie Gray community center. What is the Freddie Gray community center? How is it helping Black and Brown folks, or needy folks? What is it doing? Do anybody know what is it doing?

Jill P. Carter:  Where you spend your money is indicative of your priorities and your moral code, your moral compass. So if you’re spending your resources or expending resources to help billionaires while you have neighborhoods of people starving, that shows you the priorities. And that’s indicative of the leadership of the city that’s always been in place. I’m born and raised in Baltimore, and I wasn’t always astute about decisions of leadership and how they affected everyone, but when you look at the entire history of the city, we’ve always had leadership and an establishment that feeds the rich and starves the poor.

D. Watkins:  Freddie Gray got robbed by one of those settlement companies. You’re supposed to get a lead check for like a half a million dollars, and they come through with like 15, 20 [dollars] cash, it was something criminal like that. So it’s like you’re being preyed upon by the people at the corner store, you’re getting preyed upon by the payday loan people, you’re getting preyed upon by some of the ripoff preachers. So many different people are just picking at you, and you gotta exist in that reality. And then you got a world of people speaking on your behalf, and they don’t fuck with you either, in a real way.

Tawanda Jones:  It’s the haves and the have-nots. They take care of what they want to take care and neglect what they want to neglect. And the saddest part, they get more money in the city than they do anywhere else. And then they take our money and run with it, and take care of what they want to take care of, and leave people in food deserts, leave them. It is the same exact way. And in fact, it’s getting worse.

[CHAPTER 5: POLICING AND CONSENT]

Taya Graham:  It was a hastily called press conference at City Hall. Mayor Catherine Pugh, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and Police Commissioner Kevin Davis announced they had reached an agreement over how to reform the Baltimore City Police Department.

[VIDEO CLIP] Catherine Pugh:  I want to say that the agreement recognizes that the city’s Baltimore Police Department has begun some critical reform. However, there is much more to be done.

Taya Graham:  A process that started last year with the release of a damning report that revealed the Baltimore City Police engaged in unconstitutional and racist policing.

But the devil was in the details. Among them, a civilian oversight task force charged with assessing and recommending changes to the city’s civilian review process, requirements that suspects are seatbelted when transported and that cameras are installed in all vans. It also included additional training and emphasis on de-escalation tactics.

Doug Colbert:  The federal consent decree is the best thing that has happened in legal circles since Freddie Gray’s killing. And I say that because once you have a federal judge monitoring police behavior and police conduct, and Judge Bredar, another unsung hero has been doing so for the last, what, eight years, and he doesn’t just bring people in to pat them on the back. He’s always demanding, what are you doing to control that practice?

Dayvon Love:  So what I’m about to say is not super popular. So initially when the consent decree was conceived, I wasn’t super excited about it. And I think sometimes people say “consent decree”, but aren’t even entirely clear, structurally, what it is. It is, in essence, an agreement between the federal government and local jurisdiction that we would sue you but we won’t unless you meet these certain standards and obligations in order to withdraw any potential legal action. So that is, in essence, structurally what a consent decree is. And so the consent decree doesn’t impact policy as much as it impacts the internal practices of the institution of the police department.

Jill P. Carter:  Right on the heels of the consent decree, there’s an entire unconstitutional lockdown because an officer is possibly shot and killed in one of the neighborhoods.

[VIDEO CLIP] Jill P. Carter:  The idea of making people understand that we understand that we’re valuable, I think that the message of what they did because of the detective’s homicide or potential homicide versus the lack of that kind of action with the other 60 or so people that were killed in West Baltimore this year.

[VIDEO CLIP] Speaker:  The second day when this was locked down, this board should have went to the media and said, you’re in violation.

Jill P. Carter:  Now, every day, there are people that are not officers that are shot and killed, and we don’t have lockdowns of entire neighborhoods. That shows you that the priorities were no different even after the consent decree.

D. Watkins:  These questions are really complex, and it’s hard to give a straight answer, and I’m going to tell you why. If I’m living as an outlaw, I don’t give a fuck about a consent decree. I’m an outlaw, I’m not thinking about that shit. I’m not even watching… I love Debra Wynn, I’m not watching them talk about the dissent decree. You know what I’m saying? So it’s not even a part of my reality. So there’s nobody who’s like, yo, I’m going to be a bigger criminal because the police officers are nice now.

Doug Colbert:  At that time, the police were still being extremely aggressive. The Gun Trace Task Force had been in effect and operating for probably six years. And so on the street, people knew about the hitters. I mean, they would just jump out of their car and they would go after whoever they wanted. And there was no regulation, there was no supervision.

Mike Willis:  For years, very passive, and it was part of that, them not working for the city and working for Marilyn Mosby, they would just not do it. And I believe that it was a complete call of duty for them not to perform their duties and tasks. I really strongly believe that.

[CHAPTER 6: THE PRESENT]

Taya Graham:  I recently went to Gilmor Homes in order to speak to residents, and I have to be quite straight with you that it doesn’t look that much different than it did in 2015 when I was reporting from Gilmor Homes. Even as I was standing on the playground, there was a woman there picking up broken glass so the children wouldn’t be injured. As I looked across the street from the playground, I saw that the row houses that were connected, one of them was burned out in the middle. I mean, imagine having your home connected to a completely burned out and abandoned home.

Dayvon Love:  So I think what has happened in the 10 years since the death of Freddie Gray and the Baltimore uprising, it’s mixed. I think that one of the biggest outcomes of the uprising was that I think there was recognition of the demand for more Black community control of institutions and more investment in Black folks’ capacity collectively to have control of major institutions.

Doug Colbert:  We have to be investing in our schools, we have to be investing in our kids. It’s not that complex. And it doesn’t mean we’re going to succeed for everyone. And if we succeeded for half of the people, that would be enormous, because that would set an example for the other half. Right now, once you get a criminal record, once you get a criminal conviction, your chances of getting a good job have decreased considerably. In wealthy neighborhoods, we often will give enormous tax benefits, and that makes it, I guess, the profit margin higher. But we’re talking about a city which has a very high poverty rate and a very high low income rate. And we’re just neglecting so many people.

Mike Willis:  No, it hasn’t changed and it won’t change. It won’t ever change. That’s the hood, that’s the ghetto. That’s where lower income Black folks are relegated to. That’s their designation. That’s their station. That’s where they’re from. That’s the way it will always be. Gilmor Homes, that whole West Baltimore area is huge. So to change the whole area, you have to change that huge amount of real estate and space. And what are you going to do? What developer is going to walk in there and step on those? And then what do you do with the people when you try to redevelop it? So no, it’s not going to change. It hasn’t changed. Nothing’s changed. Poverty is poverty. Poverty is necessary, some people believe, and Gilmor Homes faces the brunt of that belief.

Jill P. Carter:  It’s possible that, 10 years ago, if you had asked me if I thought that was possible or if I had some optimism about what might happen, I probably would’ve said yes. But 10 years later, having watched what has occurred since then, no, I’m not surprised at all. There’s no real interest in… There’s a belief that the people that have been ignored, neglected, deprived, criminalized, demonized, are always going to be that way and it’s just OK. We gotta always have some group of people that we can prey on. Do you know what I mean? Do I think anyone in leadership is that crass or that insensitive? No, but it’s a subconscious kind of thinking.

Dayvon Love:  The decline in homicides and non-fatal shootings the last few years in Baltimore City, I think, is one of the most important things to discuss, and I think it has national implications.

Doug Colbert:  In some ways, we certainly have improved. I always like to start with the positive, especially in these times when sometimes it’s difficult to find positives. But our murder rate has decreased almost in half. Whoever expected it would ever go under 200. And that reflects, maybe, a different approach to policing. I don’t get as many complaints or reports from citizens. I’m not saying they don’t happen, but I used to get regular calls, we need your help. We need you to look at this.

Dayvon Love:  So let’s start with just the facts of where we are. Baltimore City Police Department, for the past several years, has said that it has a shortage of officers. So they’re having trouble recruiting officers, retaining officers, and therefore they will claim numbers between maybe 500 to almost, sometimes, let’s say a thousand short in terms of police officers in Baltimore City.

What has happened simultaneously are precipitous declines in homicides and non-fatal shootings. So the argument that we have a police shortage, but homicides and non-fatal shootings go down, the case that makes is that law enforcement is not central to addressing public safety. The historic investments, and this is where the current mayor, Brandon Scott, should get a lot of credit. One of the first mayors to make the level of historic investments and community-based violence prevention. And what that means, pretty simply, is investing in people who are formerly involved in street activity, clergy that are really engaged and on the ground level, and a variety of other practitioners from the community, and historic investments in their work to mediate conflicts, to prevent conflicts.

Jill P. Carter:  I do give credit to some of the violence intervention efforts that have sprung up since Freddie Gray and definitely since George Floyd. I don’t just give credit to the grassroots and neighborhood-based organizations. Actually, to some of the political leaderships credit, they’ve funded and resource some of these organizations in ways they never had before. That is helpful, 100% helpful. But I also believe that I don’t understand why nobody ever looks at the decrease in population as well. You’re always going to have lower numbers if you have less, fewer people.

Tawanda Jones:  What I would like to see it change, I would like the same way that it protects white folks. I would like for it to protect Brown and Black folks too, the same way it gives white privilege, we need Black privilege. That’s what I would like.

[CHAPTER 7: THE FUTURE]

Mike Willis:  I think 10 years post Freddie Gray uprising, I think it has changed the city in the sense that the residents feel a certain compatriotism, they feel tied to each other. They feel as though they’re a collective, that they can move as one, that they can achieve goals, that if they stick together, if they hang together, if they are together, then they can move forward.

D. Watkins:  Invest in the residents, not just with money, but with ideas, and that main idea being that this city is yours. It’s yours. You should love it and you should nurture it and you should take care of it because you can own a piece of it too. This is your city. It’s not a place where you rent. It’s not a place where you’re visiting. It’s not a place where you’re here until something tragic happens to you, this is yours.

Taya Graham:  Looking back 10 years after the uprising, I have a hope I didn’t before. And that’s because I have seen community organizers and activists and just community members actually feel like if they raise their voices, they can be heard. And I have seen incredible work from our community organizers going to the Maryland Legislature asking for reform, crafting legislation.

Doug Colbert:  The criminal justice system always can be improved, always, but there are signs, at least, that lawyers are fighting for their clients. I always want them to fight harder for their clients. So we have a place to start. And if we can just keep adding to that and adding more resources to all of those different areas, I think we’re going to have a bright future.

Dayvon Love:  I think for me, to overcome the narrative so that people aren’t freaked out by Black folks that are self-determined and that taking that posture doesn’t mean I dislike white people, but it is clear that there is no form of freedom where me being self-determined should be a threat to the space if folks are serious about liberation.

Jill P. Carter:  I’m always going to have hope because I’m always going to want to see people do better. I’m always going to want to see political leadership be better for all the people. But at this moment, I could honestly say I’ve been disappointed, for the most part, in what I’ve seen. But there’s always hope. Let me tell you, every generation there’s something that happens, some events that galvanizes people around [them]. And so I’m sure that there will be things in the future who’ll do the same thing.

D. Watkins:  Obviously we know a lot of people didn’t care when it happened and they don’t care now. A lot of people started off on their little activist journey and then they realized they weren’t going to get no bread, so they went and did something else. But there’s a whole lot of people who remember that, who remember those curfews, who remember seeing those tanks, who remember what happened, and they started moving differently as a result. And I think that’s important, too. I’ve known some people that have passed and didn’t really have an opportunity to mobilize a city like that. I think his life mattered, and I think his life put a whole lot of people on the journey towards being better people.

Mansa Musa, host of Rattling the Bars, spent 48 years in prison before his release in 2019. At the invitation of the UMD College Park Young Democratic Socialists of America, Mansa delivered a lecture on his life behind bars and the political struggles of prisoners.

Producer / Videographer / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino

Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Mansa Musa:

I hope that at the end of this conversation that we have, that y’all will be more enlightened about what direction y’all want to go in in terms of changing social conditions as they exist now. As she said, my government name is Charles Hopkins. I go by the name of Mansa Musa. Prior to getting out in December the 5th, 2019, I did 48 years in prison. Prior to going to prison, I was a heroin addict, a petty criminal, and that’s what got me in prison.

I went in early, I went in ’72, and during the seventies was a tumultuous time in this country. You had Kent State, you had Attica, you had Puerto Rican nationalists taking over the hospital in Bronx, you had the rise of the Black Panther Party in terms of becoming one of the most formidable fighting formations in this country. So you had a lot going on in society, but more important, the number one thing you had going on in society during that time that cost every sector in society was the war in Vietnam. Everywhere you looked, you had protests about the war in Vietnam. And you’re talking about every day somewhere in this country, 75,000, 10,000, 15,000.

People was coming out protesting the war in Vietnam and the establishment’s response was to suppress the movement, to suppress the war in Vietnam. Anybody who was anti-war, their attitude was suppressive. And what got people in an uproar about it was when the media started showing them bringing back United States citizens bodies, and the coffins they was bringing back, they was bringing them back in numbers. So society started looking and said, “Well, this is not a good thing because a lot of people dying.”

And in my neighborhood, I lived in projects in Southeast, my brother in ’68, back then they had, the way they had the draft was, it was like the lottery. Literally that’s what it was. They had balls that rolled up and your number came up, A1, A1. In my neighborhood in the projects in Southeast, my brother graduated in ’68, and in 68, the whole entire, everybody that graduated from high school, the men, was gone to Vietnam. So this shaped the attitude of the country. But more importantly, a lot of people that were coming back from the war in Vietnam was radicalized. And because they experienced a lot of segregation, a lot of classes in the military, a lot of them came back and joined the Black Panther Party.

During that period, the Black Panther Party was, according to Hoover, the number one threat in the country. So the response to them being the number one threat in the country was to eradicate them. Assassination. They killed Fred Hampton, assassinated Fred Hampton, little Bobby Hutton, they assassinated him. And they locked up a lot of Panthers. That’s how I became a Panther because they locked up a Panther named Eddie Conway, Marshal Eddie Conway. And they set him up and locked him up. And I got some information over there, y’all can pick it up when y’all leave.

When he came, so when you got the encouragement of Panthers coming into the prison system, prisoners are becoming politicized. Petty criminals like myself are becoming politicized because now we’re looking at the conditions that we’re living under and we’re looking at them from a political perspective, like why the medical was bad, why the food is garbage, why are we in overcrowded cells? Why is this cell designed for a dog? You got two people in it.

So these things started like resonating with people, but the Panthers started educating people about understanding, raising their consciousness about this is why these things are going on and this is what your response would be. So that got me into a space where I started reading more, because that was one of the things that we did. We did a lot of reading. You had to read one hour a day and exercise. But more importantly, you organized the population around changing their attitude about the conditions. Because up until that point, everything in prison was a kind of predatory.

Then when you had the Attica Rebellion, that created a chain reaction through the country, with the most celebrity political prisoner in prison that got politicized in prison was George Jackson. George Jackson was a prisoner in San Quentin. He spent most of his time in what now they call solitary confinement. They call it the Adjustment Center. Back then in San Quentin. Him and three or two other political prisoners was locked up in [inaudible 00:05:06] killing a correctional officer. After the San Quentin police had killed… [inaudible 00:05:14] police had killed some prisoners in the courtyard who were wrecking. And it was a dispute between white prisoners and Black prisoners. The only prisoners that got killed was Black prisoners. So that created a chain reaction in the prison system.

Fast forward, so this became my incursion into the political apparatus in prison. While in prison, and some of the things I did in prison, my whole thinking back then when I was in prison was I didn’t want to die in prison. I had life and I didn’t want to die in prison. So I would probably go down in the World Book of Guinness for the most failed attempted escapes ever. And if I would sit back here and go back over some of the things I did, it would be kind of comical. But in my mind, I did not want to die. I could have died, I could walk, literally come out on the other side of the fence and fall out and be dead, as long as I didn’t die in prison. It was just a thing about being [inaudible 00:06:19].

And in 2001, a case came out in the Maryland system called Merle Unger, Unger v. State. They said anyone locked up between 1970 and 1980 was entitled to a new trial. So I was entitled to a new trial because of the way they was giving the jury instructions. So at that time, everybody was getting ready to come out. Eddie Conway was on his way out. So everybody’s coming out. Now we’re able, we did a lot of organizing in prison. We had organized political education classes, we had organized forums where we had a thing where they say, “Just say your own words.” We brought political leaders in, radicals in to talk about, had books that they had a political discussion in a forum much like this. And it changed the whole prison population thinking about the way they thought about themselves and the way they thought about themselves in relation to society. So all of us coming out now.

And when I got out, I got out December the 5th of 2019. I got out, I had, they gave me $50 and let me out in Baltimore City. I’m from Washington D.C. They let me out in Baltimore City and I’m standing there with $50. I don’t know nothing. I don’t know how to use a cellphone, I don’t know how to get on the bus, I don’t know how to get from one corner to… I know the area because the area is the prison where the prison was at, where I lived at all my life. So I know the street name. I know this is Green Mount, I know this is Madison, I know the street, I know these streets, but I never seen, that’s like me knowing somewhere I read something about something in Paris. I know the name of the street, but put me there and I wouldn’t know what to do.

So this is the situation I found myself in and I didn’t know what, my family knew I was coming out, but I didn’t know whether they knew this particular time. And so I got $50. I see somebody coming with a cellphone and I’m like, “Look, I got, can I use?” He said, “No, I’m going to get on the bus.” So it was an elderly woman coming off. I said, “Look, miss, I was locked up 48 years. I got $50. You can get 25 of them. I just need you to call this number and tell my people.” And I heard somebody calling from the side, was my family.

Now I’m out. While I’m out, I’m out December the 5th of 2019. It was a major event that came right in that period, COVID. So now I’m like, I’m out in society, but really I’m back in prison because the whole country was locked down. So for most people it was a discomfort. For me, I was like, “Oh, this is all right. I can walk.” You know, I’m like basically walking, like I’m walking in, I’m coming back in. I’m not, you know, there’s not a whole lot going on, so you know. And I’m working out and people dealing with each other from afar. You see the same people, everybody like, “I see you, you have a group.” And we started having like a distant social relationship like, “Hey, how y’all doing? How you doing?” And keep it moving right?

After I got out and when COVID peaked out, I was doing some organizing in Gilmor projects in Baltimore, and backstory on that, we had took a house in Gilmor Projects, which is exactly what it is, Gilmor and their projects. Real notorious. So we took a house, we found out it was city property, we took it, renovated it and made it community property, and we started doing stuff for the kids. Because Eddie, Eddie Conway’s attitude, he’s like, “Kids don’t have no light in their face. It’s real dark.” So we started doing Easter egg hunts, showing movies on the wall, you know, doing all kinds of activities, gardening to get the kids to be kids.

And we took it and when we took it, we say, “We taking this house.” We put the city on and we had a press conference, “Yeah, we took this house, we doing this for the community. Y’all got a problem with that, y’all come down here and tell the community that they can’t have this house.” So the city pretty much like, “Ah, whatever, we ain’t going down there and messing with them people.” So we did, we gave out coats. So this is our organizing.

See, our organizing method was you meet people with their needs, you meet people’s needs. So it’s not only about giving out food and giving clothing, it’s about having a political education environment where you can teach people how to, you know, you got the analogy of Jesus saying like teach people how to fish. Right? Okay, I already know how to fish, now tell me how to survive. Tell me how to store, tell me how to build, tell me how to build out. So this is the things that we was doing and we would put ourselves in a position, we would network with legal organizations. The people had issues with their rent and we know it was a slum lord environment. And we would educate people about this is how you get your rights recognized.

So Eddie, and I’m going to talk about Eddie often, right? Because that was my mentor. Ultimately, he got lung cancer and passed away December, February the 13th a couple of years ago. He passed away the day before my birthday. My birthday was February the 14th. And I was like, when his wife called me and said, “Eddie is getting ready, you know, transition. They in Vegas, can you come out here?” And I’m like, I can’t come out there. But the only thing I’m saying is like, man, whatever you do, don’t die on my birthday. I’m like, because I ain’t going to be able to take it. I ain’t going to have no birthday no more. It’s already sad for me to have to deal with it the day before, but I just didn’t want that memory of him.

But long story short, this individual was responsible for changing the mindset of a lot of prisoners and getting us to think outside the box more or less, right? Our political education, this was one of the things that the Black Panther Party emphasized. So you see, we call it Panther porn. This is Panther porn for us. Panther porn for us is when you see the guns and you know the Berettas and the mugging, that’s Panther porn. What we identified with is the free breakfast program where we fed our kids. We tried to promote the hospital, we tried to promote where we was taking and giving sickle cell anemia tests to our people because we knew they wasn’t doing that. You know, we used to give them free breakfast program. We was getting our food, we had clothes, we was transporting prisoners, families to prisons in California. All out of the way prisons. We was holding political education classes in community and networking with people around their needs and making sure they understood exactly what was going on with them.

One of the questions I seen that was on the question is the difference between abolition as it relates to prison and the police. And we know we had this call for divest, and I’m going be perfectly honest with you. I don’t want to live in a society that there ain’t no law and order. That’s just not me. I don’t want to live in a society where we don’t feel safe. So it’s not an issue of whether or not police should be in the community. It’s an issue of what’s their relationship? They got on their car serve and protect. Okay, if you’re responsible for serving and protecting me, then my interest should be first and foremost and I shouldn’t be targeted. I shouldn’t be like back in the sixties, everybody that had long hair that was white, they was hippies and you was treated a certain way because in their mind you was anti-sociable or anti-establishment. That’s what made you a hippie. It didn’t make you a hippie because you didn’t… Your identity was based on, I don’t really have a lot of interest in the establishment.

But they looked at it as a threat. People had afros, they looked at it as a threat. So when we look at it’s not about abolishing the police, it’s about the police respecting the community and the community having more control over. So if you represent me in my community, then you need to be in my community, understand what’s going on in my community and serving my community according to serve and protect.

Abolition on the other hand is we’re about completely abolishing the prison system. What would that look like? And we was having this conversation, what do that look like? You going to open the doors up and let everybody out? I’ve been in prison 48 years. There’s some people that I’ve been around in prison, if I see him on the street the day after tomorrow, I might go call the police on them because I know that’s how their thinking is. But at the same token, if a civil society, we have an obligation to help people. And that’s what we should be doing.

You know, people have been traumatized and trauma becoming vogue now. You know everybody like oh, trauma experience. So trauma becoming vogue, but people have been traumatized and have not been treated for their trauma. So they dial down on it and that become the norm. So we need to be in a society where we’re healing people. And that’s what I would say when it comes to the abolition. Yeah, we should abolish prison as they exist now, they’re cruel, they’re inhumane. We’ve got the guards in Rikers Island talking about protesting and walkout, wildcat strike because they saying that the elimination of solitary confinement is a threat to them. How is it a threat to you that you put me in a cell for three years on end, bringing my mail to me and say that if you eliminate this right here, me as a worker, it’s going to be threatened by that non-existence. How’s that? That don’t even make sense.

But this is the attitude that you have when it comes to the prison industrial complex. The prison industrial complex is very profitable. The prison industrial complex became like an industry in and of itself. Every aspect of it has been privatized. The telephone’s been privatized, the medical’s been privatized, the clothing been privatized. So you’ve got a private entity saying, “I’ll make all the clothes for the prisons.” You got another private entity saying, “I’ll take, I want the telephone contract for all the prisons.” You got another company saying, “I want to be responsible for making the beds, the metal and all that.”

Which leads me to Maryland Correction Enterprise. Maryland Correction Enterprise is one of the entities that does this. There’s a private corporation that has preferential bidding rights on anything that’s being done in Maryland. I’m not going to say these chairs, but I’m going to say any of them tags that’s on your car, that’s Maryland Enterprise. I press tags. So I know that to be a fact. A lot of the desks in your classroom come from Maryland Correction Enterprise.

So what they’re giving us, they gave us 90 cent a day and you get a bonus. Now, you get the bonus based on how much you produce. So everybody like, so now you’re trying to get… Okay, I’m trying to get like $90 a month. I’m just starting. So somebody that’s been there for a while might be getting $2 a day and some. We pressing tags like till your elbows was on fire because you’re trying to make as much money as you possibly can. You’re trying to produce as many tags as you possibly can to make money.

Well, they’re getting billions, they’re getting millions of dollars from the labor. So I just recently did an interview with a state senator about that because he had put a bill in and I was asking him about it. And then I asked him, I said, “Okay, prisoners going to want to work.” The incentive for prisoners to work is in the Maryland prison system, you get five days off your sentence when you come through the door. Then if you get a job, then some jobs give you 10 days off, so that’s 10 days less that you do in a month. Everybody trying to get in them kind of jobs where you getting less days. So it’s not a matter I don’t want to work and it’s not a matter I like the work that I’m doing. I’m just, the incentive for me to work is really the reduction in my time in prison.

So I asked the state senator, I said, “Listen,” I said, “Would it be better if, okay, everybody going to want to work, wouldn’t it be better if you pass and try to get a bill passed that say that everybody get minimum wage, that they’d be able to pay their social security, they’d be able to pay taxes and they’d be able to acquire some money. Wouldn’t that be the better approach? Because prisoners going to work.” So I realized when I was having this conversation with them. In Kansas, that’s exactly what they’re doing in Kansas prison. They got guys that’s in Kansas prison saved up to $75,000. They got long-term, they’re not going anywhere, but they’ve been able to have an impact on their family and have a sense of responsibility.

So another question that came up was, that I was thinking about is what would be y’all response? What would I say to y’all in terms of what I think that y’all should be looking at? And I’m not here to lecture you, but this is for when we look at colleges and as they relate to the struggle, the majority of people that resisted in the seventies, sixties, they came out of school, they came out of college. You had Angela Davis, you had Huey Newton, Bobby Seales, they came out, they was in college, the Kent State, this was a college., they got rid of Angela Davis because she was teaching on campus, because of her politics.

So college has always been a place where you have a propensity to like being organized or start questioning things and start developing ideas about looking at what’s going on in society today in the country and around the world. We’re in a time right now where, I don’t know how many of y’all read George Orwell 1984, but we’re in like a George Orwellian type of society. And free speech, yeah, it’s only if you talk about a subject matter that is not contrary to capitalism. And then you got the right to free speech, but then you don’t have the right to be heard. So then you got who got control of the media.

So right now getting our voice out or taking a position and you take a position, oh you being anti, so therefore I’m going to take your grant or I’m going to take your scholarship. I only got like one more semester to graduate. Hey so what? And I’m going to blackball you or better still, I’m going to snowball you and put you in an environment where you ain’t going to be able to get a job at McDonald’s. Why? Because I’m trying to control your thinking and make sure that you don’t be organizing in a manner that’s going to be against anything that we’re doing.

We’re getting a lot of information coming out and a lot of people is like hysterical. “Oh my god, I don’t know what I’m going to do.” No, this is what you do, you organize. We don’t have the luxury of saying what somebody else is doing going to dictate me not doing nothing. We should be in the mindset that regardless of what you’re doing, I have a right. This is what they say to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I have a right if I want to be transgender, I have a right. I have a right to that. Your morality is not going to determine what I do with myself.

We were just getting ready to do a thing on transgender prisoners. They didn’t have their biology changed. Your biology changed. According to law. You went to court and got an operation. They took you out of a female prison and put you in a male prison because they say that biology aside, you was born a male, not what you are now. And rounded them up and took them to a male prison. Who does this? Who had the right to tell you that you come from another country to come here for a better life? Oh by the way, everybody in Congress, ancestors came here for a better life. So I know they should have no issue with that because they wouldn’t be where they are right now if the Statue of Liberty would say hell no. So we passed that.

But everybody, I ain’t talking about the people that they brought here, the people that was here before them, the indigenous people who said, “Hey, everybody get the hell out. Because this is our…” No. What you want to say that you create this false narrative that people of color from another country is creating all the crime in this country, therefore we’re going to round you all up. Kind of sound like something they did with the Japanese when they put them in internment camps, right? When they say like, these are people that was fighting for this country. These are United States citizens that were fighting in this country. They rounded them up, put them in internment camps because you’re Japanese and we fighting Japan. So your loyalty can’t be with us. Your loyalty got to be with them, or we just don’t care one way or the other.

It sounds like kind of like that. But the point I’m making is we don’t have the luxury to sit back and allow the hysteria that’s going on in this country around some fools to make us say, I’m not going to do nothing, or get into a position where I’m just, I don’t know what to do, I’m giving up. No. Resistance is possible. It starts with education, it starts with political education. It starts with understanding the history. Lenin said that imperialism is the highest form of capitalism. We’ve seen imperialism, we’ve seen that imperialism taking shape. So a lot of this is based on the capitalist drive for greed. It’s about greed. A lot of this.

When you talk about taking a country and say, “Oh, we’re going to take the Gaza and turn it into Disneyland.” And what you going to do with the people? “Hey we already bombed them into oblivion so they’d be glad to work, they’d be glad to put on Donald Duck suits and Mickey Mouse hats and get some money.” That’s your reality. Their reality is, “I just want to live a human life.” That’s my reality. My reality, I just want to live human. I don’t have no problem with nobody. I just want to be human and treated like a human.

But when you say something like that, “Oh, you anti.” You ain’t got the right to say nothing like that. And if you say it on campus and you try to get them to take a position on campus, their masters who they invest with, corporate America going to tell them, say no. And Congress going to say, “Oh any money we gave you, we’re taking it back.” So the money, monetary is more important than people’s lives. That’s our reality.

So as we move forward, my message to y’all is don’t settle for mediocrity, don’t settle for nothing less. Whatever you’re thinking that you think should be done, do it. If you think that, but more importantly in doing it, make sure that it’s having impact. When you’re dealing with, like I said, we took that place. We knew that neighborhood, the drug dealers in the neighborhood, this is what they used to say to us when we come through there and say, “Hey, it ain’t a good time to be down here today.” And they give us a warning like, “Y’all can’t come down here today.”

And we was good with that because they knew that it was their children that we was creating a safe environment about. They couldn’t get out of the grips of their insanity and we weren’t trying to get them out of it. Our focus was on the community and people. And we feel that if we educate the people enough, if we educate the mothers, the girlfriends, the wives enough to say like, “Y’all deserve to be safe.” The people that’s not making y’all safe is your boyfriend, your father and them. Y’all need to talk to them and tell them that y’all are making our lives unsafe. All we’re doing is educating you that you have a right.

All we’re doing is coming down there and telling you that we’re doing something with your children. We’re taking your children out of the neighborhood on trips that they’ve never been before. We’re making them feel like they have some value. We’re making them feel like, “Yeah you can get a hug today and there won’t be nothing unusual about it.” This is what we was doing and it had an impact. What they wind up doing with that neighborhood is they did with all of Baltimore, that’s a major, they started tearing down places, boarding up places. So you might be on the block or you might be in the projects and you might live in this house. The next four houses is boarded up, another house, the next two houses boarded up. How can you have a sense of community with all that blight?

Then the trash bins that’s for the area become public trash, and then people just ride by, see a trash bin, throw trash in the area. How can you live in that kind of blight? So when somebody come and say, “I’m going to give you a voucher to move somewhere that you ain’t going to be able to afford in a year,” you’re going to take it on the strength that like you ain’t factored in, I ain’t going to be able to afford it. You say, “I just want to get out of here.” And when they get you out of there, next thing you know they come in and demolish it and they got condominiums and townhouses and it’s affordable housing for somebody that’s making 90, 100,000 dollars a year. But it’s definitely ain’t affordable housing for somebody that’s making less than minimum wage. So that’s my point. And I’m opening the floor for any comments or questions.

Student:

I was going to ask what can everyday citizens, meaning not politicians do to help prisoners?

Mansa Musa:

Okay, and that’s a good question because one of the things that we had, we had a lot of people from the community come into the institution. But what you can do is educate yourself on some of the issues that’s affecting them. Like right now in Maryland they got what they call the Second Chance Act and they trying to get this bill passed to say that after you did 20 years then you can petition the court for a reduction in sentence. It’s not guaranteed you’re going to get it, but it opens the door for a person to have hope, because after you… when you get first locked up, they give you a designated amount of time to file a petition for modification. After that, it’s over with,. The only thing available to you then is parole. If you don’t make parole then you in there forever and ever and ever.

So this is a bill that’s being sponsored by people whose family members are locked up and been locked up for a long time. And it’s a good bill because what it do, it create hope. And when you have hope in an environment, it changes the way people think. So when you have a hopeless environment, and case in point the then Governor Glenn Denning came in front of the Jessup Correction Institution in Jessup because a guy was out on work release, had killed his girlfriend and he had life. So he sent all the lifers back, took them all out of camp and put them all back in prison and then stood out in front of the institution to say, “From now on life mean life, let me tell you that ain’t nobody, any of you got a life sentence, you going to die in prison.”

When he left that prison, the violence went up like that. I mean stabbings, murders and everything because there was no hope. Because now people saying, “I’m going to be here for the rest of my life so I got to dominate this environment.” When the Unger case came out, bills was passed about juvenile life, they got bills passed. They’re saying if you have drug problem you can get drug treatment and the [inaudible 00:33:05] and people started going. It was whole. So to your question, monitor some of these things and look at some of the websites of the institutions, see what kind of programs they offer. They might need some volunteers to come in help with teaching classes. They might need some volunteers to come in to help with some of the activities they doing that’s helping support prisoners. Thank you.

Student:

First of all, thank you for coming out and really appreciate it. It’s great to hear you speak. I had a question, you kind of briefly alluded to it already, but how would you compare the political conditions, especially like during Black Power in the sixties and seventies and eighties, and like the repression that everyone faced, like especially from COINTELPRO and FBI and the police to today, and like what students and people on the street are facing right now?

Mansa Musa:

I think that back then the difference was technology, the internet, where we get our information from and the AI, that’s becoming vastly like the thing now. I think the difference is like back then, and Huey Newton made this analysis, what he called intercommunalism. He talked about that at some point in time technology will become so advanced that we ain’t going to have no more borders, and which we don’t when it comes to information, right?

So the difference is that the fascists are more advanced and pluralism is more insidious. Back then, because you had a lot of repression around class, so Black people was being subjected. So you had the war in Vietnam, we had so much going on that it was easy for people to come and find a commonality. Said, “Hey, we live in this squalor here in Little Puerto Rico and New York. We live in this squalor down here in Brooklyn and so and so. We’re living in…” What’s our common thread? Our common thread is that we’re being treated inhuman. So it was easy to come together around organizing around social conditions.

Now because of so much misinformation and so much control, that it’s hard to really get a read on what is real and what’s not real. You had the president say that when they gave everybody an ultimatum to give their report by the end, like a report card or something at the end of the week and they didn’t do it. He said, so when they put the mic in front of his mouth he said, “Oh, the reason why they didn’t do it is because the people that didn’t submit it don’t work there anyway.” So somebody getting a check in their name, in other words fraud was the reason why you got a 100 workers and only 10 people work there so the other 90 don’t exist anyway, so where that money going? That money going to somebody else’s pocket.

But that was the narrative he painted. But when he painted the narrative, the media is so dim with it that they like, it’s almost like you asking them a question and it’s like, no you’re dumb, no you’re dumb, no you’re dumb, no you’re dumb. And I got a Pulitzer and I’m going back and forth a whole stop. I’m not even going to ask you no more questions. So that’s what we’ve been relegated to. So that’s the difference, but in terms of our response, I’m going to give you an example. When they killed, when them little kids got killed at Sandy Hook Elementary, the children said they going to do something about it. They asked their parents, they went on social media, they started finding everybody had the same attitude. Next thing you know they had 40,000 kids that say they going to Washington.

So now I’m telling my mother, “I’m going to Washington, whether you going with me or not.” So the parents say, “Oh we’re going to chaperone you.” That’s how quick they organize. So that’s the difference. Our ability to organize is a lot fast, it’s a lot quicker now. So we can organize a lot quicker if we come to a consensus on what we’re trying to get done. And our response can be a response of like hysteria. We got to be focused. You know, we got to really sit back and say, they’re going to do what they’re doing. You know? They’re going to do what they’re doing. So if I’m doing around workers, I got every federal worker, I’m getting with every federal worker, I’m organized. I’m not going to sit back and say, “Oh well look…” No. Organized.

You know you got a right, organize, get together, organize, bump Congress, bump, bump, filing lawsuits, bump them doing whatever they’re doing. They the problem. Get organized and say, “Okay we’re going to organize, we’re going to mobilize. We got midterms coming up, we getting in your ass. In the next presidential election, you don’t have to worry about the count, we ain’t going to give one vote. That’s going to be your vote.” That’s what you do, organize. Well don’t, we get caught up in this thing like with Trump, I don’t have no problem with him. He is what he is. My problem is making sure that I tell people and organize people and help people get some type of sense of security.

So we should be food building co-ops, food co-ops. Because $99 for a dozen eggs? No, we should be building a food co-op. We should be doing things where we really looking to each other to start a network. And on campus, we should be looking at how are we going to take and organize ourselves into a block where once we decide an issue then all we’re going to be forced to deal with that issue and try to make a difference.

See some fights is not a fight worth taking because all it’s going to do is cause a loss. So you got to be strategic in your fight. We put a 10-point platform program together for the reason of identifying the social conditions that existed in society as it related for oppressed people. We chose to police the police because that was the number one issue that was affecting people. But our main thing was feeding our children, medical, housing, and education. Those were the main things we did. So we took over education institutions. That was our main thing. Our main thing wasn’t walking around with shotguns and guns. Those was things that we did to protect the community, but our main focus was programs that directly related to serving people’s needs.

Student:

Thank you. Thank you.

Mansa Musa:

You’re welcome.

Student:

Hi, I do have a question. First of all, I want to say great job, amazing conversation and the topics are so important. So I guess my question to you is how do… you mentioned this, like how do college students on campus build morale and boost momentum? Because I know it can kind of be a little iffy and hard to do so, especially if you have that backside fear of like this could cost me my entire like college education and the future I was wishing to build for myself?

Mansa Musa:

Right, and see and that’s not something that shouldn’t be taken into account. I invested in this, you know, and I invested in for a reason. I spent money. This money, my parents put in. They ain’t going to be sitting back like, “What? You did what? All that money going down the drain? Nah, that ain’t happening.” But the reality is this here, you mobilize around educating yourself, raising your consciousness and understanding historical conditions like Kent State, what college students did back then. Vietnam War and groups like this, young Democrats, socialists of America come to create political education classes, bring in speakers much like myself.

We pass around literature of books, videos, and look at those things and develop a space for y’all coming together to talk and discuss, how that’s going to come a direction. And look at issues off the campus. Look at issues like if it’s around in this area right here, how many homeless people exist? How much property do the campus, do the school own? All right, I ain’t telling you, I ain’t going to say like don’t mess with them over in the Middle East because that’s wrong. No, I’m going to say, “Oh, damn, you know what, y’all got all this land and property and within this radius you got like homeless people sleeping on the ground. We asking that you take some of this property and turn it into homeless shelter, and in the name of Ms. Snyder or give it a name of somebody. We asking, now now we’re moving in the area, we’re asking that you take this money and feed some people.

Now in this area, now we’re talking about that. We’re taking that you dig in this area and you help people that can’t, don’t have medical insurance but need certain things that you can get done, like dental. We’re asking that you take this money and putting it… This is things that free dental health. So you can take and say, “We providing free medical assistance at this level. We tested people for sickle cell, we tested people for HIV.”

When Huey and them decided to do the Black Panther Party, they looked at Malcolm and they picked up where Malcolm left off at. That’s how they got in the space that they got. They just took the social conditions said that these are areas you need to focus on, because you got what they call objective and subjective conditions. Objective conditions is what you see every day. The subjective conditions is what we do, how we organize, how we develop ourselves, what we’re doing. Because that’s going to determine how effective we going to be when we go out. So if we can’t come to no consensus on direction then we ain’t going to be effective when we go out. Because somebody going to be saying do this and somebody going to be saying do that, but that ain’t going to be the problem. Problem going to be I don’t like what you doing. So now you my enemy.

Student:

Thank you.

Student:

So I think one of the questions was actually about Maryland Correctional Enterprise. So we could talk about that. Yeah. In response to student concerns about Maryland Correctional Enterprises, President Pines said students concerns is that inmates are underpaid. That’s out of our control and we have to abide by state law. But the other side of the story is that the inmates actually want the employment because it gives them skills. How do we combat this messaging?

Mansa Musa:

All right, so the basic thing, and somebody asked earlier, what can you do? It’s legislation because the argument is why can’t you give them minimum wage? So when we tried to unionize back in the seventies and it’s a celebrity case, North Carolina versus somebody, we tried to unionize, they said no. And the reason why they said no because then you talking about the whole prison in the United States of America, [inaudible 00:44:30] you got 2.9 million people there in prison or better. So you’re saying we in the union, we got the largest union in the country.

So the issue is legislation and advocating for them prisoners to get minimum wage, a livable wage, no matter how much time you got. That allowed for MCE, we’re not opposed to them making money, we’re opposed to them profiting off of us and we’re not getting the benefit of it. So the issue is if I left out of prison and I had my quarter paid into social security, I had my quarters three times over. Now I’m forced to work. I got to work at least three more years or more before I get my quarter. Because when I left the street, I ain’t worked like maybe three years on it all.

But if a person got their quarter while they in, they get minimum wage or they allowed to save money, they can make a contribution to their family. A lot of guys got locked up, they got children, they could do something for their children. They got their mother, their families travel long distances to see them. They could pay for that transportation. The phone calls, they could pay for the phone calls. So they’d be able to take a burden off their family.

It don’t cost MCE nothing. They got preferential treatment and contract for all state institutions. Any institution that’s in state under the state of Maryland, they can do them. Whatever they make, clothes, the chemicals, signs, signs you see up and down there. They do all that. Tags, all the furniture. All the furniture you see in the state cabinet, all that. They do all that. So yeah, they could do that. That’s the alternative is for the legislator to pass a bill that says that prisoners can get minimum wage from any industry, any prison industry. If you hired in the prison industry, then you should be given minimum wage. And they got meat cutting, they do the meats, they do the furniture, they do the laundry for like different hospitals, and they do them tags. Them tags, I’m telling you, that was like… I really realized how people felt on the plantation doing them tags. That was like some… Yeah. That was labor.

Student:

This isn’t on the responses but this is like one of the questions that we’ve thought about. In your previous podcast episode, you interviewed the state senator and he mentioned the 13th Amendment and the connection between prison labor and slavery. So what do you think are some of the connections between the prison abolition movement and like the historical movement for the abolition of slavery?

Mansa Musa:

Right now, you know the 13th Amendment says that slavery is illegal except for involuntary servitude if you’re duly convicted of a crime. So if you’re duly convicted of a crime, you can be treated as a slave. And the difference between that and the abolition movement back in the historical was the justification. The justification for it now is you’ve been convicted of a crime. Back then, I just kidnapped and brought you here and made you work. So the disconnect was this is a human, you taking people and turning them into chattel slaves. Versus, oh the reason why I can work you from sun up to sundown, you committed a crime. But the reality is you put that in there so that you could have free labor.

All that is a Jim Crow law, Black code. It’s the same. It’s the same in and of itself. It’s not no different. You work me in the system. In some states they don’t even pay you at all. South Carolina, they don’t even pay you. But they work you. In Louisiana, they still walk, they got police, they got the guards on horses with shotguns and they out there in the fields. In some places in North Carolina and Alabama, Alabama they work you in some of the most inhumane conditions like freezers, women and men, put you to work you in a meat plant in the freezer and don’t give you the proper gear to be warm enough to do the work.

And then if you complain, because they use coercion, say “Okay, you don’t want to work? We’ll take the job from you, transfer you to a prison where now you’re going to have to fight your way out. You going to literally have to go in there, get a knife and defend yourself. So this is your choice. Go ahead, work in this inhumane conditions or say no and go somewhere and be sent back to a maximum security prison where you have to fight your way out.” So now it’s no different. Only difference is it’s been legislated, it’s been legalized under the 13th Amendment.

And abolition, in response to abolition, so we’ve been trying to change the 13th Amendment. We had an attempt in California where they put a bill out to try to get it reversed, and the state went against it. The state was opposed to it. Because why would I want to stop having free labor? The firefighters in California, they do the same work that the firefighters right beside them, they do the same work, the same identical work. They fighting fire, their lives are in danger. They’re getting like 90 cent a day, maybe $90 a month. They don’t have no 401k, they don’t have no retirement plan, and they’re being treated like everybody else, go out there and fight the fire.

So yeah, in terms of abolition, the abolition movement is to try to change the narrative and get the 13th Amendment taken off, out of state constitutions because a lot of states, they adopted it. They adopted it in their own state constitution, a version of the 13th Amendment that says that except if you’ve been duly convicted for a crime, you can be treated as a slave. If you’ve been convicted of a crime, you can be treated as a slave. That’s basically the bottom line of it. Thank you.

Student:

So like, I saw two questions kind of talking about state repression and like attempts to divide solidarity movements. So how do you kind of feel like state repression has changed over the decades and how can we kind of respond to those situations?

Mansa Musa:

The thing with state repression now is it’s a little bit more insidious. It’s not as overt like it was back in the sixties when they crossed the Edmund Bridge and they beat them, put dogs on them, or like they just took a move in Philadelphia, they burned the house down, burned the whole block down. There’s one house right here we got a problem with, oh hey, you had no business living in that neighborhood. We burned the whole neighborhood down, dropped a bomb on it. Or like they went to in California and they shot the headquarters of the Black Panther Party up. Or they ran down and killed Fred Hampton, drugged him and then came in there and shot him. His wife was in the bed with him. They put like 90 holes in him and not one on her. So you already knew you had the diagram where he sleep at, you knew he was drugged because the agent provocateur spiked his milk. So he was drugged, he was knocked out. And you came in there and killed him and said, “Oh, he fired out the window.”

So the difference is now because of the media and the propaganda, you have a different slant on things, and the fear of corporate America in terms of perpetuating this fear. So you change the narrative. You can’t say certain things. You can’t. If you say certain things about certain people or certain countries, you’re going to be Blackballed, labeled. And the pressure going to come in the form of okay, you don’t care. Okay, I’m going to attack your family. I’m going to find somewhere in the scenario where I can get you to back up. If that don’t work, then I’m going to round your ass up and send you to Guantanamo Bay. I can make up something. We got the illegal combatants. You got people that’s been in Guantanamo Bay since the Gulf War and has not been sent nowhere, had not been, no due process, no where are my accusers. Oh you’ve been labeled illegal combatant, state sponsored terrorism.

So they got so many different things they can say to make it where as though it seems to be an issue of you resisting and your right to protest and demonstration. It becomes you’re a threat to society or you’re a threat to the government. And this is how we’re saying it. We’re saying that, oh you was on the internet with somebody that’s been branded a terrorist. And that become enough to get them to say, “All right, lock them up.”

So now the difference is when they had COINTELPRO, COINTELPRO they was doing all these things and setting people up and killing them. But we knew what was going on and we made people aware of it. Now all this misinformation, it’s hard to get a read on what’s going on. So the response got to be, again, we got to organize ourselves, develop our own information source and all the misinformation, be prepared to identify it and put it in perspective. This is misinformation. And start educating people on understanding that be mindful where you’re getting your information from. We’re addicted to social media. We’re addicted to being like, how many likes I get today? Hey, they don’t like me. Oh my God, I’m having a fit. No, I don’t care if you don’t like me because if they lock you up and send you to another country, you ain’t want to be liked by nobody. I don’t know.

In terms of supporting countries and movements that’s fighting for their liberation in the Congo, in the hemisphere, South America, then yeah, we support a person’s right to self-determination. For us, our position right now should be to educate ourselves, politically educate ourselves to understanding social, economic, political conditions and the relationship they have between us and people. Because people going to resist. People going to be hungry, they’re going to go to stores and take whatever the hell they want to take because they don’t have nothing to eat. That’s just the reality. They ain’t got nothing to do with, I have a propensity to steal. No, I don’t have the ability to pay to feed my children.

Versus somebody that had ability. Food is high. And then medical, they talking about the Medicaid and all that. So if they take that and poor people rely on that, how you going to get the medical treatment that you need? How you going to get the medicine that you need? So these are the areas that, this is when you’re talking about organizing people, you got to look at what they’re doing, what the repression is, how they trying to repress people and organize around the counter to that. What’s the counter to this? What’s the counter to the medical? Do y’all have medical students here? What are their attitudes towards providing services for people?

What’s the problem with mental health? Do y’all have mental health people here that’s in that field? Social workers in that field? Then your responsibility is come and get them to say, “Listen, we need you to go in the community to organize, to help us organize this. Show us how to organize this for the community to get them to be more proactive.” Okay, what’s your purpose of your education? The purpose of my education, I want to get a degree and make some money. Okay, and what? The federal government? What’s your chances of getting a job in the federal government?

They find people that’s on probation, person that got 20 years in one job, get a better job and they put them on probation. They say, “Oh you fired because you’re on probation.” No, I just took a better job. But the arbitrariness of this thinking is that I’m putting fear and I’m turning people into snitches because I’m making you, in order to keep what you got, you got to tell on somebody as opposed to us saying, take the institution of higher learning and look at the different departments and see how you can go into new departments and get them to become more proactive in doing some things in the community.

And that’s the whole thing about the higher learning. Look at these other disciplines and start asking yourself, how can I get them to start doing some things in the community to help raise people’s consciousness? How can we come together to do a plan, a program around how we can invest in the community? How can we get a plan to start dealing with getting trauma to be recognized as a national mental health and get the government to do what they supposed to do in terms of providing services for people that’s been traumatized. And stop, oh, oh yeah, you traumatized but you shouldn’t have did what you did. But you’re saying that trauma, I’m in trauma, that’s why I’m doing what I’m doing. Yeah, but we don’t recognize that because you did it. All we recognize as a problem, we’re not recognizing as it relate to you. Double talk.

Student:

I had a question about the role of electoralism, because one part of the Black Panther Party’s historical activism that’s somewhat forgotten is elections and campaigns like Bobby Seale ran for mayor of Oakland. A lot of the modern American left is starting to be more wary of the use of elections because we’ve seen people who maybe are supposed to represent our values get elected, and then do things against what their constituents want, things like that. But I was wondering if you had any thoughts about if there’s still a role for elections to, you know, be agitational and grow the organization, or you know, how we can make sure that we’re still, you know, being agitational against the establishment.

Mansa Musa:

And you know, Tip O’Neill said, “All politics are local.” And Tip O’Neill was the speaker of the House, the Democrat party back in caveman days. But my position, and to reflect on what you said about Bobby Seale, when the party took that position of running Bobby Seale for mayor, we knew that he wasn’t going to get elected. But the objective was, this was the ability to mobilize people around, educating them around what this government, what the city government is supposed to do, what your government is supposed to do. So now we are on the campaign trail saying, “No, the budget is the people’s budget. The money is the people’s money. The budget got to be like this. If I’m elected, I’m going to do this,” and make him respond to it.

But then at the same token we looked at, when we started doing that, I was telling [inaudible 01:01:59], we started looking at local elections. Our institution of elected. Ericka Huggins, who was a member of the Black Panther Party, she ran for the position to be the director of the Juvenile Services. And when she got in that position, she changed the whole narrative of how they treated the kids. So that was one way we got in there and changed policy.

What we recognize though, that in terms of electoral system, there’s no such thing as two parties. It’s one party, the capitalist party. That’s it, that’s all. They knew that this is reality, this is the reality we confronted with. If you know Biden ain’t going to be able to cut the mustard for two years, just hypothetical, you know he ain’t going to cut the mustard for two years. Why you didn’t in two years at the end there say, “Listen, the Democrat Party that’s responsible for putting all the money up, let’s start getting a candidate now. We’re going to have open primaries, whoever come out there.”

No, you put Kamala Harris, the top cop in this position and expected, one, they’re going to put a woman in there. Hillary Clinton was more qualified and more fascist than all of them put together. And they ain’t put her in there more qualified. She’s secretary of state, senator, her husband, Obama, Biden, Trump, Bush one, two, and three. More qualified than all of them. They definitely wasn’t putting her in there. And then they’re going to turn around and put Kamala Harris in there. That wasn’t happening.

So what you did, so it ain’t made no difference. Trump, they got somebody come on. I don’t know if it’s AI generated or not where he’s saying that he stole the election. That yeah, Elon Musk knew how to work the computers, so that’s why I won Pennsylvania. All right. What we did on that? Ain’t nobody in their right mind think they won’t let this woman get in there. And this is a two-party system and then y’all at the 11th hour, y’all got to… So now you’re putting the pressure on everybody donate, donate. And her position was, “Look what you want to do? What you want to do? So I’m going to do something but my thing is, I’m telling y’all don’t, I’m here. This your alternate. Vote for me, don’t vote for him.”

Why? “Because y’all going to… Look at him.” Yeah. It wasn’t like what I’m offering y’all, what am I offering y’all? How am I changing? Food was still high, gas was high. People’s everyday needs. And he, look, he did a whole bunch of crazy fire too but he played, he ran on that. Oh, he ran on that record. Oh look, y’all can’t put gas in y’all cars? Y’all can’t put food on your table? Oh man, y’all ain’t safe? Yeah, we wasn’t safe when you was in there, we didn’t have food on our table when you was in there. But you saying, “Look. Oh yeah, but look. Forget what I did. Look what they’re doing to y’all now.” Yeah. Come on.

So in turn, in response to I look at the electoral politics like this here, certain municipalities that you can make impact policy, that you can organize people and put people in there that’s going to be responsible to that. Yeah. But when you look at Congress and they beholding to corporations, they beholding to them. You ain’t going to find a Ron Dellums. You ain’t going to find a Clayton Powell. You ain’t going to find these people like this here, Shirley Chisholm, Fannie Lou Hamer. You ain’t going to find these people that’s like, I’m here, I’m here as a representative of the people.

Ron Dellums and he was a member of this right here. Ron Dellums was the first one that had congressional hearings about what they were doing to the Black Panther Party. This was when he was in the office and Hoover was in power. And so everybody was scared of Hoover, but Ron Dellums wasn’t scared of him. So when you look at the electoral politics, we got to take the position of Malcolm too. Malcolm said that we’re going to register as independents, we’re going to put our agenda together. You sign onto our agenda. If you don’t represent what you say you’re going to represent, then we’re going to be calling you. The same way we got you in, the same way we’re going to get you out. And make them sign on to that.

All right. Thank you. I appreciate it. And I got some stuff over here on Eddie Conway. I got my card over there. We can take a picture of the QR code, Rattling The Bars, real news. Appreciate this, appreciate this opportunity. My call to action for y’all is, you know, just go out, sit back, get together, start brainstorming, look at some of these institutions. How can I get… That’s where you go at, go to these bodies of work, psychology, go to these bodies of work. What are you doing? What’s your position on trauma? Oh, this is my position on trauma. All right, will you be willing to do a trauma workshop in a Black community, in a neighborhood where they traumatized? Would you be willing to help set that up?

Then go out there and find a community where they’re traumatized. Get somebody to say, “Look, hey, we want to come down here and educate y’all on trauma, but more importantly, we want to get the other part of this institution that we have that’s doing wellness to get them to create a wellness program for y’all to do it and make the institution pay for it.” Yeah, you ain’t got to tell them don’t invest in somebody. Say, “Look, invest in this.”

This story was originally published by In These Times on Jan. 30, 2025. It is shared here with permission.

“Tom Homan said Chicago is very organized,” Margarita Klein, director of member organizing for Arise Chicago, proclaimed gleefully in Spanish to a room of 80 people at an immigrant rights training, many of whom laughed and clapped in response.

Klein was calling back to a CNN appearance two days earlier by Trump’s handpicked border czar.

“Sanctuary cities are making it very difficult,” Homan told anchor Kaitlan Collins of the administration’s immigration sweeps. ​“For instance, Chicago … they’ve been educated on how to defy ICE, how to hide from ICE.”

When Trump moved to make an example of Chicago, sending federal immigration authorities to the city on Sunday, Chicago’s immigrant rights community was braced for it. The city’s vast networks of workers’ centers, unions, and community organizations have spent months preparing, disbursing flyers and cards, and sending the message to residents: Don’t talk to ICE. The two-hour training at Arise Chicago’s offices yesterday night was the organization’s sixth in-house training that month, and just one of numerous actions taking place across the city to defend immigrant residents.

It’s one thing to know, intellectually, how to handle ICE, and another to have the muscle memory, so that you follow the plan in a stressful situation. To that end, Jorge Mújica, strategic campaigns organizer, did some boisterous role playing, in which he banged on the door and marched into the room pretending to be ICE. ​“Where are you from?” he shouted as he pointed at attendees, many of whom laughed at his lively presentation. Moises Zavala, workplace justice campaigns organizer for Arise Chicago, advised attendees to go home and practice with their families: ​“After dinner, do role playing: ​‘What’s your name, where are you from, what’s your address?” (The answer, as always, was: Don’t talk to ICE.)

Over the last week, the Trump administration has worked to turn its deportation agenda into a perverse Reality TV spectacle, inviting reporters to embed with ICE operations, instructing agents to be ​“camera-ready” and even livestreaming arrests. It has publicly touted an array of federal authorities that are participating in the sweeps, including the FBI, ATF, DEA, CBP and the U.S. Marshals Service.

Chicago, a sanctuary city where local laws restrict police collaboration with ICE, is a favorite Trump punching-bag, and the center of the media spectacle. Dr. Phil hosted an hours-long broadcast on his MeritTV network on Sunday dedicated to ICE operations in Chicago, repeating widely debunked talking points about the dangers posed by immigrants, and media outlets like Bloomberg embedded with immigration authorities during the raids. 

The full impact of the federal immigration actions is not yet known. Chicago police superintendent Larry Snelling said Tuesday that he believes approximately 100 people had been detained by federal officials, though he said he couldn’t give an exact figure. Immigrant rights groups in Chicago confirm that immigration authorities are in the city, but do not have a complete tally of detentions.

What is clear is that the PR push seems designed to incite fear. 

But at the Arise Chicago office in the West Town neighborhood, the mood was not one of defeat; all of the people who spoke with In These Times and Workday Magazine wanted to underscore that their community is trying to fight fear with preparation and organization. ​“Obviously there is nervousness,” Klein said, as Arise Chicago members ambled into the office and greeted friends with smiles and hugs. ​“But we don’t see our community being paralyzed.”

Chicago’s sanctuary status means that no city agency, including the police department, is supposed to work with ICE to deport residents. The 2006 Welcoming City Ordinance enshrining these policies was recently upheld at City Hall following a large public mobilization to defend it, despite an effort by some alders to water down its sanctuary provisions.

Since taking office, Trump has unleashed a bevy of anti-immigrant actions nationwide, including indefinitely suspending refugee admissions, deploying troops to the border, cancelling asylum appointments and attempting to limit birthright citizenship rights, though the latter has been temporarily halted by a federal district court judge. Trump declared on Wednesday that he plans to cancel the student visas of Palestine solidarity demonstrators and use the Guantánamo Bay military prison to hold up to 30,000 deported migrants.

Targeting sanctuary cities is key to the new administration’s strategy. On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order that ​“sanctuary jurisdictions” will be cut off from federal funds ​“to the maximum extent possible.” And his Justice Department is instructing its prosecutors to investigate and charge state and local officials for ​“failing to comply” with immigration actions. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said in response, ​“We are not going to be intimidated by those acts of terror to radically shift our way of living.” Johnson is one of four mayors who has been called to testify before a congressional committee about their cities’ sanctuary status.

On January 25, four Chicago-based organizations filed a lawsuit in federal court, charging that the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Chicago is a bid to crush the sanctuary movement and violates activists’ First Amendment rights.

Antonio Gutierrez is an organizer with Organized Communities Against Deportations, one of the groups that filed the lawsuit. ​“We urge other groups to potentially think about similar lawsuits in their own cities,” Gutierrez says.

“Don’t open the door, remain silent if you’re arrested, tell your children not to open the door, and don’t sign anything,” Zavala told the crowd, most of whom are members of Arise Chicago, which organizes primarily Polish and Latino immigrant workers in low-wage industries like food production, manufacturing, domestic labor and food service.

The same principles apply if ICE shows up to your workplace, he underscored, and employers should know that ICE can’t enter without a warrant signed by a judge — unless the employer or another authority lets them in.

Even if the worst happens, and ICE detains you, it is best to remain silent and speak to an immigration attorney, whose number you’ve hopefully memorized, the trainers explained. Klein drove this point home with some gallows humor. ​“I know that when we are afraid, sometimes when we are nervous, we start talking and babbling too much and start telling them about all sorts of things like how many pimples we have on our back,” she said, jabbing her finger at an imaginary blemish as the room laughed.

Arise Chicago isn’t the only worker organization mobilizing to defend immigrants.

The Chicago Teachers Union won sanctuary protections in its 2019 contract, which say that Chicago Public Schools are not supposed to ask about or document the immigration status of students or community members, and ICE can’t come into schools unless it provides credentials, a reason and a criminal judicial warrant signed by a federal judge (an administrative warrant or ICE detainer is not sufficient). This commitment takes on new meaning after Trump announced that he will allow immigration authorities to make arrests in schools, as well as hospitals and churches.

The Raise the Floor Alliance, which was founded by eight Chicago-area worker centers, held a know-your-rights training for a 200-strong member assembly on January 18. ​“We got people together across organizations, across sectors,” says Raise the Floor Alliance Executive Director Sophia Zaman, for a conversation that linked workplace justice campaigns with plans to keep workplaces safe from ICE.

Like many organizers in the city, Zaman responds to Homan’s recent gripes about Chicago with pride. ​“That’s evidence of our really robust system, networks of support,” she says. ​“An informed community and an organized community is the safest community.”

If the mood at the Arise Chicago training was jovial, at times, it also was serious; trainers and attendees talked through issues that ranged from the wonky to the personal. ICE has the right to examine a workplace’s I-9 forms, Zavala explained, which have workers’ social security numbers, immigration status, and other personal information, and then use this information to compel employers to fire workers who lack authorization. However, some employers might lie about being audited, Zavala said, and use this to justify firing workers. ​“Do not engage in any conversation with your employer about ​‘yes or no, I do or don’t have papers,’” he emphasized. ​“Immediately go to a worker center to ask how to handle the situation.”

During one of the more sober moments of the training, Klein announced an upcoming meeting to discuss how to talk to children about ICE without causing them stress or trauma.

There is no shortage of trauma to go around. However organized Chicago communities might be, they are also dealing with an intense crackdown from an administration that has Chicago in its crosshairs. If there is no way to guarantee safety, organizers hope that at least solidarity can provide a layer of protection. ​“In my country, we organized against a dictator,” Klein, whose parents were political refugees from Chile, told the room. ​“An organized people will never be defeated.”

This article is a joint publication of In These Times and Workday Magazine, a non-profit newsroom devoted to holding the powerful accountable through the perspective of workers.

On the campaign trail, Donald Trump promised that, if elected, “On day one, I will launch the largest deportation program of criminals in the history of America.” Trump’s administration has wasted no time since re-entering the White House on Monday, and communities around the US are currently bracing for a wave of ICE raids. In plans that were publicly leaked ahead of Trump’s inauguration, the city of Chicago was identified as a key target for immigration raids, putting immigrant residents and their neighbors on high alert. To discuss the impending threat to Chicago and cities around the country, and how communities can fight back, The Real News speaks with Moises Zavala, Workplace Justice Campaigns Organizer for Arise Chicago, and Natascha Elena Uhlmann, a writer for Labor Notes and immigrant rights activist from Sonora, Mexico.

Additional links:
–Immigrant rights toolkit (English)
-Immigrant rights toolkit (Spanish)
–How Labor Can Fight Back Against Trump’s Mass Deportation Agenda

Studio: David Hebden, Adam Coley, Cameron Granadino
Post-Production: David Hebden
Produced by: Stephen Janis and Taya Graham
Written by: Stephen Janis

Transcript

Taya Graham:  Hello, my name is Taya Graham, and welcome to a special emergency report created to help those who are immigrants or might be helping innocent people who happen to be immigrants in our country.

And it’s no small matter. We’re tackling one of the most urgent human rights issues of our time: the weaponization of immigrant officers and law enforcement officers against working people, and it’s under the guise of law and order. This new administration has revived and expanded policies that threaten to tear families apart, destabilize communities, and target some of the most vulnerable people among us. And yet, amid the fear and uncertainty, there is resistance, resistance from those who refuse to let cruelty and chaos define our workplaces and our neighborhoods.

Today we’ll be speaking with organizers and advocates and reporters who are pushing back, creating sanctuary in unexpected places, and proving that solidarity is our strongest shield. From teachers standing up for their immigrant students to unions rewriting the rules of what it means to protect workers, these are the people finding innovative, compassionate ways to challenge the unchecked power of ICE. Leaked plans show that ICE will be heading into Chicago, and we will be directly speaking to the organizers on the ground, and we’ll try to get for you the most current updates on the situation.

We’ll also explore how deportations are not just acts of cruelty, but tools of economic control throwing lives into disarray, creating fear, and reinforcing inequality. But for those who might think, well, this doesn’t affect my life, we’ll also explain the economic disruption that will occur across the board for those of us understandably worried about the cost of groceries and other goods.

And there is solid data that shows that when President Obama deported a record 3 million people, it did not equate to 3 million jobs for Americans or proportionately higher wages. In fact, in President Trump’s first term, he only deported 1.9 million people, and I was somewhat surprised to discover that Biden deported even more than both Trump and President Obama — Although, allegedly, this was because more people entered the country during his tenure.

It is interesting to note that both Democrats and Republicans have engaged in mass deportations, but the type of deportation policies that are currently being proposed can target people here legally under temporary protected status, children born in the US to noncitizens, or people without criminal records who’ve been working here for decades who might’ve had trouble renewing a work visa or have been waiting years for the asylum process to be finalized.

So, to get a better understanding of what our country is doing, let’s dive into the policies that make this possible and, more importantly, the people and movements fighting back. Because while this is a time of fear, it is also a time when we can show our humanity, our compassion, and our resourcefulness, and to demonstrate the power of collective action.

I’m fortunate to be joined by senior investigative reporter Stephen Janis to help me break down this difficult topic.

Stephen Janis:  Absolutely. Glad to be here.

Taya Graham:  Stephen, thank you so much for joining me.

Stephen Janis:  You’re welcome.

Taya Graham: First, can you give me just a brief overview of what the Trump administration has been doing?

Stephen Janis:  I mean, it’s so complex and so expansive and sprawling, it’s difficult to connect all the dots, and we’ll be talking to our guests about this. But for example, he wants to revoke birthright citizenship for children who are born to people who are not here, I guess, legally, from his perspective. Another thing he wants to do is deputize, as we were saying before the show, all sorts of law enforcement agents to be able to deport people. So he’s ratcheting that up. He’s created a national emergency at the border, he has mobilized the military to the border, and he has issued an executive order to conduct emergency raids and to deport people on the spot. I don’t know if it’s a mass deportation, but it’s sprawling. It’s like in every aspect…

Oh, and even more importantly and even more astounding, it used to be you can’t grab a person at a church or a school. We’re not going to have people storming in there with jackets. Well, guess what? That’s absolutely on the table now, that people can go into a school or a church or something and just snatch up people. It’s scary, really, and it is an expansion of law enforcement, I think, that’s unprecedented in our recent history. But we’ve seen some of this before in the history of this country.

But it is so sprawling and so expansive and so permeates every part of life, I think it’s going to change a lot for people who thought they might’ve been voting for Trump, and they’re going to see up front how cruel this can be.

Taya Graham:  Absolutely. We want to get started as soon as possible. We are joined by two guests —

Stephen Janis:  Absolutely.

Taya Graham:  …To help us understand who is at risk and what we can do to help. First, we have Natascha Uhlmann, staff writer for Labor Notes and an organizer. Her reporting covers Unite Here, farm workers, immigrant workers, and Mexico’s growing independent labor movement. And she’s already active in cross-border solidarity. In fact, she’s the editor and translator of former Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s book, A New Hope for Mexico. Natascha is a member of the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee, and she’s the author of Abolish ICE.

Natascha, thank you so much for joining us.

Natascha Uhlmann:  Thank you so much for having me.

Taya Graham:  And next we have Moises Zavala. He is an accomplished union organizer with over 25 years of experience. He has developed strategic plans to organize workers for union membership. He trains junior organizers. He serves on the local 881 UFCW executive board, and he’s an organizer at Arise, a faith-based labor movement, where he helps workers to learn their rights and how to enforce them, including through making collective demands and building workplace committees.

Moises, thank you so much for being here. We really do appreciate it.

Moises Zavala:  Thank you for having me.

Taya Graham:  So let me turn to you first, Moises. Just tell me a little bit about your organization, Arise, that you work for, because it’s a faith-based organization, but also tell us what your concerns are for the people who are at the risk of deportation. And I just want to mention, we heard there might be an update on some of the raids across the country, so if you want to step in and speak about that first, please feel free.

Moises Zavala:  Sure. First of all, Arise Chicago is a worker center, not-for-profit, and what we do here is we support workers that are non-union to organize and protect their rights, organize collectively to improve their working conditions. We have been very involved in creating a rapid response to the problem that we have now of these mass deportations.

What we did to create this rapid response was to have our members and community be ready for this. How? By creating trainings with our members and in the community of what to expect and how to be ready for this. Because when a worker is detained by ICE or there is a raid, people get paralyzed because of fear, because of the shock, and it is very hard then to be able to fight that deportation and provide to an attorney what they need to defend these workers.

We have created an organizing toolbox for the community and for our members so they could be ready, such as what are the documents that they need to have with themselves at all times? What happens if there is a raid or they’re detained? Who is going to pick up their children? Who is going to take care of their last paycheck or be able to go into their bank accounts and be able to provide for the children or the family that’s left behind? If the children are sick, who is going to know what kind of medication the children have to take or what are the illnesses?

So there’s a huge area of readiness that our members and community have been developing now in case the worst happens. If the worst does not happen, then our community is one step ahead.

Stephen Janis:  Aren’t they going to classify family members who are actually citizens as collaterals or something? Taya and I were hearing about this as we were driving into work to do this show. Do you know anything about that and what that means for people who have families?

Moises Zavala:  All I could say is that from the looks of things, it sounds like ICE will pick up anybody that they run into. They have a list of names that they are looking for, but clearly that’s not going to stop [them] from asking others, say, in a household or in a facility where people are working, if they have documentation or not.

Stephen Janis:  Okay. Yeah, go ahead, I’m sorry.

Taya Graham:  No, I just thought it was really interesting because I believe Tom Homan had been saying that if people who we would say are at risk for deportation don’t voluntarily leave on their own, he was basically saying people are concerned that families will be separated. He said, we’ll take the family with them.

Stephen Janis:  Yeah, the whole family. They’re not going to separate them. Yeah.

Taya Graham:  Right, and people were referring to families being deported as collateral —

Stephen Janis:  Right, I just said that.

Taya Graham:  …Like collateral damage in the war. So that was really disturbing.

Stephen Janis:  Natascha, I want to ask you, your work is amazing on all this. We were reviewing it. How historic is this? We know the first couple raids have happened across the country, about 400 or 500 people. First, what do you know about this, and how unprecedented is this effort by the Trump administration, historically speaking?

Natascha Uhlmann:  Yeah, I mean, we’re definitely seeing an escalation. Some employers are already instituting non-mandated employment authorization checks. 100 custodial and kitchen workers at New York City’s Tin Building were fired after building management carried one of these out. They’re effectively called silent raids, and they’re every bit as damaging as the more visible raids that tend to get more publicity. So a lot of this stuff can happen quietly too.

Stephen Janis:  What do you mean by silent raids, so people understand? I didn’t know exactly what that meant, so can you just give us a description of what a silent raid is?

Natascha Uhlmann:  Yeah, absolutely. So basically your employer can, in a way that it is not mandated to do, say, I want to check that you’re authorized to work here, even if you’ve been working here for a year, for 10 years. And it’s a way of clearing out, if you are knowingly hiring undocumented workers. It’s every bit as damaging to get rid of them, but in a way that often goes unnoticed because it’s not the showy ICE bursting through the door.

Stephen Janis:  That’s really interesting. That’s horrifying too. And do you know anything about the raids that have occurred with the 400 or 500 people in Illinois and Maryland and a couple other states, Utah? Has anyone said anything to you about these?

Natascha Uhlmann:  So it’s really a rapidly developing situation, but I think a few things are clear. The first is that bosses are absolutely going to abuse this atmosphere of fear and uncertainty, and the second is that ICE and Border Patrol are going to throw a lot of things at the wall and see what sticks. And we’re going to need to do the same. Experiment with tactics, see what sticks, but always with an eye to building power in a strategic way.

Taya Graham:  Let me ask you, Moises, something. When you’re speaking to immigrants in your community, what are their fears, and what are they trying to do to address them? I know you’re doing organizing, I know you’re trying to prepare people, but what are their fears at heart?

Moises Zavala:  The fear is the unknown. What’s going to happen? How is it going to happen? And we don’t have those answers, but what we do have is the ability to organize. And more than ever, we are sharing with our members that this is the time to organize with their coworkers, with their community, with their churches, the schools where the children go, to really solidify that network that we have and use it to organize support.

Because this is not the first time that working families [have been] attacked in this fashion. It’s happened before, and in the past, workers and communities organized, organized very sophisticatedly to be able to win those types of oppressions, and we have to do the same thing. We have to continue that effort of unity, of organizing and information so that people do not feel or do not have that fear that is going to paralyze them. We don’t have all the answers, but what we do know is that people want to live in peace and people can organize, and that is the avenue in which our members are taking to be able to have some stability in their lives at this moment.

Stephen Janis:  Natascha, one of the executive orders was getting rid of birthright citizenship. How destructive do you think this will be? Do you think it will stick? Do you think the Trump administration will be able to make this stick? It really is contradicting the Constitution. But nevertheless, how destructive is this to families, and what are your concerns about that?

Natascha Uhlmann:  Yeah, absolutely. First, can I say, can I jump in on the fear question after this?

Stephen Janis:  Absolutely.

Taya Graham:  Oh, please do.

Stephen Janis:  You can jump in now. If you want to start with that, go ahead.

Taya Graham:  Yes.

Natascha Uhlmann:  Yeah, thank you so much.

Stephen Janis:  Absolutely.

Natascha Uhlmann:  On the topic of fear, this is, without question, a scary moment, but it is really essential that we don’t do the right’s work for them. They want people to be afraid. They want to project way more strength than they have in hopes that people will self-deport or remove themselves from public life. I am seeing a lot of bad actors who are seizing on this moment to spread terror.

I heard from one organizer that a photo circulating spreading panic of an ICE van was actually photoshopped. And I’ve also seen someone screencap a photo from an ICE raid in 2018 and post it and say it was this week. So a lot of organizers I talk to right now are saying spread power, not panic. If you’re sharing information about a raid, verify it first. It can be tempting to just want to get that info out there, and I certainly feel that urge, but it’s really important not to play into the right’s hands and not to spread fear and uncertainty.

Stephen Janis:  Do you have any sense of who is spreading this fear and why they would want to do that? Are they trying to exploit workers, or is there some motivation behind that? Just curious.

Natascha Uhlmann:  I mean, it’s all very developing, so I can’t —

Stephen Janis:  I know. Totally understand. It just struck me like, wow, what a horrible thing to do to people. What’s your motive there?

Natascha Uhlmann:  I think just abject cruelty. I certainly do think bosses are very much prepared to take advantage of this moment, no question. But I can go back to the birthright question now.

Stephen Janis:  Yeah, sure. Of course. Of course. Absolutely.

Natascha Uhlmann:  Cool. Yeah, it’s absolutely heinous, and it’s just a complete mess because where do you draw the line? Babies born today, a year ago, 10 years ago? And also he’s claimed that the US is the only country that offers birthright, [which is] just actually, factually wrong. Canada and Mexico, for starters, our literal backyard, Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, this is not an uncommon practice.

Stephen Janis:  Wow.

Taya Graham:  And just to make this clear, because one of the things that was mentioned in the inauguration speech was the idea that the people who are in this country that are immigrants are somehow criminals, and I don’t think anyone would argue that if someone is engaged in transporting narcotics or human trafficking, no matter what your status is, you’re committing a crime. But we’re hearing that there’s so many people like clergy and teachers and employers, they’re worried about protecting community members that are valued, hard-working people and even children.

I was hoping, and this is either for you, Moises, or for you, Natascha, maybe you can just tell us a little bit about the people at risk. Describe who they are, help put a face to it so people understand who you’re trying to protect.

Moises Zavala:  It’s everyday people. Everyday people are at risk. Students, restaurant workers, grocery workers, factory workers, everybody’s at risk because we don’t carry an ID that says “I’m a US citizen”, “I’m a permanent resident”, “I’m undocumented”. Hey, if you look Mexican, hm, we’re going to have to pull you over. Show me some papers. That’s the kind of world in which we live right now. If it was that simple where, hey, here’s a list. These are people that you have to go and find, that’s one thing, but that’s not what we’re hearing.

So again, we’re living in a moment where we have to inform faster than before, broader than before, and really organize to be able to push back, to be able to make sure that workers know what their rights are. For example, if there is a raid or they get pulled over or they’re stopped on the street, what’s the first thing that we mentioned in our trainings? Remain silent. Remain silent. We have little cards that say, “I’m going to remain silent, and I want to speak to my attorney.” They look something like this, where the worker can put it in their pocket and show it to an ICE agent.

So this is what we’re doing to be able to fight off this environment of fear. Attacking birthright citizenship, it’s just another way to create fear and to create anger and to try to point at people and wonder, hey, I wonder if he or she is a US citizen. Well, let’s ask them. I hope it doesn’t get to that point, but it sure as heck looks like it is. So we have to be ready for that. We have to push back.

Stephen Janis:  Natascha —

Natascha Uhlmann:  [Inaudible].

Stephen Janis:  Oh, go ahead. You go ahead. Absolutely. I don’t need to ask a question.

Natascha Uhlmann:  Great. I think Moises makes some excellent points. Just to add to that, there’s often this sort of outrage of, well, they broke the law to come here. Why didn’t they come the right way? Why didn’t they get in line? Well, first of all, for many people, there just simply is no line to get into. But secondly, often the people who say this are often the same people who say things like, I would do anything for my child. I would kill for my child. And I think it’s really important to tap into that shared humanity. People are coming here because they have hopes and aspirations, and they want to give their kids something that they didn’t have. And you cannot tell me, as a parent, if you could not feed your kid, you wouldn’t cross some damn line for them. I think these are the conversations that we need to be having.

Stephen Janis:  Yeah. Natascha, I think [crosstalk] —

Moises Zavala:  Another thing that I would add —

Stephen Janis:  OK.

Natascha Uhlmann:  Sorry.

Moises Zavala:  Another thing that I would add when we talk about criminalizing undocumented workers is, well, what are we talking about? They just pardoned 1,500 criminals that attacked our capital.

Stephen Janis:  Oh, good point.

Moises Zavala:  And what is it? What are we talking about when we say criminals?

Stephen Janis:  Well, one of the things, and I wanted both of you, if you want to jump in on understanding, have they canceled the ability to ask or seek asylum, speaking of cruelty? I think that was in part of the executive orders. Is that playing out? Is that correct?

Moises Zavala:  I believe that’s what it was.

Stephen Janis:  Because seeking asylum is an important part of that process you were talking about for people trying to come here, right? If that goes away, what happens?

Moises Zavala:  People continue to see the United States as a place of hope, and people will continue, like Natascha mentioned, they will continue to walk the miles and miles for their children. I don’t think it’s fun to be walking through the desert or through a jungle. These are needs. But there are different ways to welcome people into this country, but the way this new administration is going about it, it’s simply just to create chaos and create fear.

Taya Graham:  I think you brought up such a good point that these people are doing what any American would say they would do for their family, which is I would do anything for my child. I think you brought up such a great point, both of you.

And I hate to bring up something that stokes more fear, but there have already been instances of anti-immigrant violence. Back in December, there were two teenagers in New York. They were asked by a group of men if they spoke English. When they said no, they didn’t speak English, they were both stabbed and one died. Of course, in Springfield, Ohio, after Haitians were falsely accused of being in the US illegally and harming pets and spreading disease, there were marches by white supremacists, and there were 30 bomb threats in one week.

So I have to ask you both, are there any concerns that there could be vigilante actions against the immigrant community?

Moises Zavala:  Look, it could very well be, but I think it’s also on all of us to play a role in making sure that this changes. It’s not just for immigrant rights organizations like ours to be fighting this off. We will. That’s what we do. But it’s also the participation of the rest of our communities to stand up and to fight against these kinds of attacks on all of us.

Natascha Uhlmann:  I would just add, I think a lot of this work will come down to talking to people who don’t agree with you, building bonds of trust and solidarity, and then you can have that conversation. It’s not the undocumented worker making five bucks an hour under the table who’s getting the better end of the deal. He didn’t choose that, the boss did, and if there wasn’t some arbitrary designation of immigration status, the boss couldn’t get away with paying him five bucks an hour. It is the vulnerability of immigration status itself that creates the conditions where a boss can undercut you.

I just wanted to flag, we’ve got a great piece in Labor Notes called “Worker Solidarity is the Best Strategy to Defeat Rising Fascism”, and it talks about exactly that. It is in the boss’s interest to have us at each other’s throats, keep us divided, and see each other as a threat. I think it is going to take talking to people who don’t agree with us — Not violent people like that, but I think it’s what it’s going to have to look like.

Stephen Janis:  One thing I want to note, I think what happened with the asylum process is now people have to remain in Mexico, I believe. Just a little correction there, or clarification.

As a reporter, is there any story that stands out to you or something that shows the cruelty and the inhumanity of this or that has affected you in any way?

Natascha Uhlmann:  I think there’s so many, but unfortunately, they largely precede Trump. Even under Obama we had kids in deportation hearings, and I remember reading their feet couldn’t even touch the floor is how little they were. They didn’t know their last name is how little they were.

So unfortunately, this is a bipartisan affair, and I think that it’s… It’s just a total abdication of leadership on behalf of the Dems, and that handed us Trump. If you’re going to condemn Trump’s rhetoric and fall all over yourselves to top it in the support for the Laken Riley Act… I don’t know [sighs sharply]. It’s not only morally reprehensible, but yeah, it’s a total abdication of leadership, and it’s just bad politics. You want to tell us come election time that Trump’s a fascist, that this is the most important election of our lives. But then if you’re going to fall right into place and advance his agenda, what is the political calculus?

Stephen Janis:  That’s a great point.

Taya Graham:  I actually have a dozen more questions I want to ask, but I want to make sure that I ask the most important question, and this is for people who want to take action but maybe, let’s say, they aren’t directly involved in a union, what are some ways they can support immigrant workers and help create sanctuary workspaces or just safe spaces in their own communities? And I’ll go to you first, Moises, and then to you, Natascha.

Moises Zavala:  A number of things that they can do. One is they can reach out to a church in their community, find out if their church is doing any work or is willing to do some work and take on some of the responsibilities to create that support base in the community. Talk to the schools. Obviously, contact a worker center like us. We’d be more than happy to share the work in supporting our community. So there’s a range of ways that they can support. They can contact their aldermen, their elected officials, find out what is it that they’re doing. If it’s obviously a state like in Illinois, what are they doing, and how can they participate to strengthen the work that those elected officials are doing?

So thank you for that question. That is what we need to be thinking about. How can we incorporate and encourage others to have a role in this support base for these workers?

Natascha Uhlmann:  There’s a lot of good language you can include in your collective bargaining agreements. The Chicago Teachers Union has some good language about how you don’t let ICE through the door unless they got a signed warrant.

But a teacher I spoke with for a recent story with Sarah Lazar, the teacher’s name was Catherine Zamarrón, she made a really important point that good contract language is only useful if people know their contract. Someone’s going to have to be the person when ICE is at the door that says, hey, don’t open that door. We don’t have to let them in. So this piece I referenced at Labor Notes and Workday, Sarah Lazar and I collected the best collective bargaining agreement language that we found with these sorts of protections, protections against retaliation against nonmandated audits, stuff you’re going to want in your contract. So you can find that on both the Labor Notes and Workday Magazine websites.

But in addition, I think worker centers and community groups also have a really important role to play. There’s all the work Arise is doing, which has been integral. Escucha Mi Voz Iowa, a faith-based community org has committed to having 6,000 one-on-one conversations with church members in the area. And interestingly, they likened it to how organizers build a union. Talking to people who don’t agree, it’s going to be a slow process of building trust, of being in dialogue. It’s going to be exceptionally frustrating, but you gotta bring in people who don’t agree or we’re just going to be talking to each other.

And finally, I would just point to there are very practical things you can do in your community. I spoke with one organizer who turns out a crowd when a community member needs to go to an ICE check-in because ICE will generally not make detentions during public events as a safety precaution for their agents. So there’s a lot of stuff you can do. If you’re not in a union, organize. Reach out to one of the incredible worker centers supporting these organizing efforts or to EWOC, the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee. But I think everyone has a role to play, and it’s going to take all of us.

Taya Graham:  Well, you know what? We’re going to make a point of putting in our YouTube description perhaps a link to that article that you wrote with Sarah Lazar. I think you might also have some tips. That would be great. I think the same with you, Moises. At the beginning, you held up what looked like a little pamphlet or handbook. Perhaps we could post a link to that as well so that people can see for themselves things that they can do if they want to help protect their fellow community members.

I want to thank you both so much for joining us for this emergency livestream. We know we grabbed you last minute, and we know you both have a lot of important work to do, so we want to thank you so much for your time.

I feel like you want to add one thing, Moises?

Moises Zavala:  Yes, one thing, very important, despite the fear that is being thrown at us, I think that it is these moments that draw out the best in us to organize, to change, and to create power. And we just gotta remember that because our communities have done that in the past, and we need to continue to do it today and teach it for the future.

Taya Graham:  I’m so glad that you ended us on such a positive note, to not give into fear, but that this is a time where we can join together to do something positive. Thank you both again for your time.

Stephen Janis:  Yes, thank you.

Taya Graham:  We really appreciate you.

Natascha Uhlmann:  Thank you so much.

Moises Zavala:  Thank you.

Taya Graham:  Take care.

Once again, I want to thank our guests, Moises Zavala from Arise and Natascha Uhlmann of Labor Notes, for discussing this human rights issue with us.

Stephen Janis:  And get her book, Abolish ICE.

Taya Graham:  Yes, that’s right. Thank you.

Stephen Janis:  A great book.

Taya Graham:  But most importantly, we want to thank you for not only working in your communities to provide protection, but teaching us how we can help. We appreciate your time and your work, and we want to thank you again for joining us.

And we also want to thank everyone for watching and taking the time to listen and taking the time to care. Our immigrant neighbors aren’t our enemies. They’re our friends, our co-workers, and they’re even our family. Let’s keep sharing the things that make our country truly great: being open, being innovative, being welcoming, and being compassionate, and being a place where anyone who works hard at least has a chance at the American dream. Thank you so much for joining us.

It’s no secret that Israel has sought to annex the West Bank for decades—and now, many believe the time may be near. For Rabbi Arik Ascherman, the struggle to defend Palestinians in the West Bank from settler attacks has become his life’s work. But it’s a task that is only becoming more difficult with time, as the extreme dehumanization of Palestinians becomes all-the-more normalized by the genocide in Gaza. Ascherman returns to the Marc Steiner Show to discuss the brutal violence unfolding in the West Bank, and what, if anything, can be done to address Israel’s anti-Palestinian racism.

Studio Production: Cameron Granadino
Audio Post-Production: Alina Nehlich

Transcript

Marc Steiner:  Welcome to The Marc Steiner Show here on The Real News. I’m Marc Steiner. Good to have you with us. And this is another episode of Not In Our Name, as we continue to look at what’s happening in Israel-Palestine and the devastation taking place in Gaza, and what we do about it.

And the person I’m talking to today is somebody I’ve known for a while, I’ve interviewed before. Rabbi Arik Ascherman first came on my radio program in public radio on April 5, 2002, and we’ve been in touch ever since. He is an American Israeli, a Reform rabbi who puts his life on the line to defend Palestinian rights, to end the occupation, to stop settlers from destroying people’s homes and villages and taking their sheep.

He has been executive director of the Israeli Human Rights Association called Torat Tzedek (Torah of Justice) for 29 years. He served as co-director and executive director and director of special projects, and president and senior rabbi for Rabbis for Human Rights. He’s been beaten, arrested, threatened with death for defending Palestinian farmers, for working to find a way for Israelis and Palestinians, for Christians, Jews, and Muslims to live in the Holy Land together and share that space.

He’s back here in the United States to raise funds for his work and the work going on in Israel-Palestine and to talk about the reality of what’s going on there now in the Gaza War, where 45,000 Palestinians have been killed, along with over 1,700 Israelis.

He joins us in studio now, and Arik, welcome back. Good to see you.

Arik Ascherman:  Okay, thank you. Thank you for having me again.

Marc Steiner:  So let me ask you, I want you to describe, for people listening to us, what it’s like for you and the Palestinians you stand with when you’re attacked. When you go in there to defend Palestinian shepherds, defend them on their land, that right-wing Israeli settlers want to take from them with the backing of the government and the army. Talk a bit about that, about what you experience, and what that’s like, and what actually happens.

Arik Ascherman:  It could be anything. I mean, you can Google “Ascherman knife” and see me being attacked by a masked knife-wielding settler. If I’d —

Marc Steiner:  Well, you have been beaten, you’ve been stabbed, you’ve been thrown in jail.

Arik Ascherman:  I’ve been all that, and of course, what I’ve suffered is so minuscule compared to what Palestinians suffer. But the fact is that sometimes I just look these settlers in the eyes and I stare them down and they back down, and sometimes we get beat up or worse. But of course, it’s not just the settlers.

One of the greatest successes we’ve had in my career was the Morar High Court decision, which mandates how Israeli security forces must protect Palestinian farmers. And at least until Oct. 7, you really literally could see Israeli soldiers protecting Palestinian farmers to harvest their olives — We’re right now toward the end of the olive harvest season — Next to settlements or inside settlements.

But one of the other… We just had a harvest, for example, in a place called Deyr Jarir —

Marc Steiner:  Palestinian olive harvest.

Arik Ascherman:  …And the settlers came and attacked us, and the Palestinians, of course. The army came and they did what the High Court decision explicitly said they cannot do. It says explicitly, the Israeli High Court — And the Israeli High Court is often the flak jacket for the occupation, but sometimes they do the right thing — They said, if Israelis attack Palestinians, the army must not close the area without an order, and throw everybody out to protect the Palestinians. You must do everything possible, all the means at your disposal, to let the Palestinians continue their harvest, unless there really and truly is no other way of preventing bloodshed. And that certainly was not the case, but that’s what they did. They issued an order, and I explained to the officer on the ground what he was doing was illegal. Of course, it wasn’t his decision either. It was made by the brigade commander.

And then I spoke with the legal advisor for the occupied territories, or one of his officers, and once he agreed that he would start looking into this, I asked all of our human rights defenders that were there accompanying for the harvest, I said, we will move out of this area for now even though this was an illegal order. And I’m on tape saying, and the soldiers and the police are not our enemies. But I soon realized, if I hadn’t realized it previously, that if I don’t see them as our enemies, they see us, and me in particular, as their enemies.

Marc Steiner:  Right.

Arik Ascherman:  So, we go outside, and then after an hour of waiting, they arrest me and two others for having taken too much time to leave the closed area. And then what I often do — The point is to give us a ban, to give us a 15… Because they want us out of the picture. Just as we’ve got a high court case coming up in another week for one of the most violently expelled, separated communities, Wadi al-Siq, where literally at gunpoint they would say, you’re out of here in an hour or you die. And again, I was in jail because I was accused of having, two days earlier in Wadi al-Siq, attacking soldiers.

But I refuse to agree to the ban, and then you spend a night in jail, you go before the judge. And in the past the judges would cancel these requirements. No longer. And the words that came out of the mouth of the police officer that was there to defend the police decision were anarchists — I don’t even think they know what anarchists are — We are provocateurs. To work for justice, for work for decency, for work for Jewish values, as I see it, for basic human rights, is a provocation in their eyes.

A couple days later, the same thing. We’re with a farmer who I’ve worked with for 20 years, and after trying to go through all the rules and regulations to be able to get to his… We just went to his trees, and you hear the soldiers: [inaudible] the provocateurs are here. And again, I have some reticence to talk about what happens to us when it’s so minuscule, as I said, compared to what happens to Palestinians, but it’s indicative. It’s indicative of what’s happening to our society that anybody today who tries in any way to stand for Palestinian human rights is a traitor, a fifth golem, as I’ve been called, and a provocateur.

Marc Steiner:  And even though you could be killed in the process of defending Palestinian rights in Palestine at this moment, they, if they wanted to, could just throw you in jail for 20 years, if they wanted to. And you are, in many ways, isolated inside of Israel. The group of Israelis, as a friend of mine said, who now lives in Vietnam, who’s Israeli: we’re all gone, the left in Israel. The Jews who are on the left in Israel left. They’re here, they’re in Vietnam. They’re in France, they’re in Britain, they’re somewhere else. But you continue to do it, put your life on the line to say, no, this is not what we should do, knows who we are.

A, the question is, how long can you do that? And B, this could also end up in the complete destruction of the Jewish people inside of Israel, and Palestinians as well.

Arik Ascherman:  There’s all real possibilities. Once, even when I was only 60, and now I’m 65, my partner says to me, as I’m getting up at 4:00 in the morning to go wherever I was going, you know, you’re not that young anymore. Why do you do this [Steiner laughs]? And I say, I will continue to do it as long as I’m able and as long as it’s necessary. Unfortunately it’s still necessary, and thank God I’m still able.

But already, before Oct. 7, back just when this government was elected in January of 2023, when they took office, I wrote in the Haaretz newspaper what our [inaudible] has to be, and I said, part of it may be our blood. People have become so desensitized to Palestinian blood, but there are still some Israelis who maybe are shocked a bit by Israeli blood. And it’s not that I have a death wish, and again, it’s to make something of our risks, which are so, again, minuscule compared to what Palestinians go through, but the fact is that one of the few tools we have left in the toolbox is to put ourselves on the line and put ourselves in danger.

I was thinking, an outrageous situation: a family from the village of Deyr Dibwan, an outpost, on June 18, was set up 200 meters from their home. And they fled also with soldiers coming and firing guns in the air. And then the soldiers, who maybe realized at some level, said, well, come back and live in your home, and call us if there’s a problem. Really? Before they’re injured or dead?

And we got a court order that they couldn’t touch the home. The home’s been destroyed by the settlers. Part of the family are US citizens. We begged that the United States would do something to defend their citizens. Nada.

And sometimes I think, well, maybe we have to go and put up some tents where that demolished home was, if the court won’t agree to order that outpost removed. And what might happen to us if we do that? I’m not sure it would be very pretty. But sometimes I don’t see what else we have left to do.

And again, we’re going to have to weather the storm, do whatever we can to protect whoever we can protect, at least that Palestinians should know that they are not alone. Find ways of getting out of our echo chamber to try to really understand what makes our fellow Israelis tick, the ones that you keep on saying, how can they do these things? And also be in courts as one of our last best hopes. Try to educate. But it really is just doing whatever little we can do until this too shall pass.

Marc Steiner:  In all the years we’ve been talking together now, it’s been longer than I realized, 22 years of conversations.

Arik Ascherman:  Yes, it’s been a while.

Marc Steiner:  There was a time when, in our early years of talking together, that you actually thought, we actually thought, we could see maybe a peace blooming. There was a possibility of Palestinians and Israelis coming together. We could build a future somehow, whether it was two states or one state or some cooperative arrangement, that there was hope. But it seems to have gone in the other direction. Give us your analysis. All these years, you’ve been fighting for this. Where you think we’re going, and why are we here?

Arik Ascherman:  I think you’re absolutely right. I think, for so many years, there was some kind of feeling that we were moving in the right direction, and that’s gone, certainly since our current government was elected, certainly after Oct. 7, certainly with the election results here.

But you know, just before leaving home in Jerusalem, last Shabbat that I was in synagogue, and we had a d’var Torah, a sermon, and then breakout groups talking about how we deal with the trauma of the situation that we’re in. And everybody, no matter what your political beliefs, is traumatized. There’s no way of overestimating the depth of the fear, anger, fury, trauma that Israelis are feeling after Oct. 7, which is one of the reasons that Israelis are just so incapable right now, for the most part, of having any empathy for what we’ve been doing to Palestinians.

But the theme was particularly i vadaut, uncertainty, and the trauma caused by uncertainty. In the breakout groups, I said, I embrace uncertainty right now, because if I think of what is certain, it’s awful, it’s terrible. And the one thing that gives me some hope is that there’s that joker in the deck of uncertainty. Maybe Trump’s unpredictability, all these things, what the late Rabbi Michael Lerner spoke about, the God of The Exodus as the God that makes possible what seems impossible. But you are absolutely right, that hopefulness.

And people used to laugh at me for being one of the last optimists standing, and I don’t like to say it about myself. I’m still an optimist in the long run as a person of faith, but in the short term, I

‘m not. I’m not really optimistic right now, and I think right now we are heading into darkness.

We’ve just started the Jewish month of Kislev, at the end of which we’ll celebrate Hanukkah. We need that Hanukkah light, we need that Hanukkah miracle, but we’re also taught in the Jewish tradition le somchim al hans, you don’t count on miracles.

And when we look honestly at our situation, whether we talk about our government in Israel, the fact that for so many Israelis that maybe in the past had some kind of sympathy for Palestinian human rights, today, West Bank Palestinians are like Japanese-Americans after Pearl Harbor. Nobody is standing with them. The international courts have no teeth. Certainly, we can’t expect very much from the international community right now. And that means that Palestinians are simply unprotected.

And things aren’t great either for the Israeli Jews and other Israelis living in poverty whom we also try to protect. We had a meeting just before I left our coalition to work on public housing for Israelis, and nobody has any bandwidth to think about people living in poverty who are also the hardest hit by the realities of war.

Marc Steiner:  There’s so much in what you said that raises so many questions. And I understand the pain Israelis are going through, the attack on Oct. 7, and the kibbutzim attack, Mefalsim, Kissufim were kibbutzim where my family lived, and relatives I didn’t even know were killed in those attacks. And some I know that I’ve been in communication with from Uruguay and Mexico City, which is where many of them came from, were on the left in Israel, so I understand that pain completely.

But why do you think there’s such a detachment, then, from the mass murder of Palestinians by Israelis now? At least 45,000 people have been killed. More have been injured and wounded, entire communities leveled, people under the rubble, we don’t know how many. And how do you read that as somebody who’s been so active in trying to stem Israeli violence and to protect Palestinian lives and to build a different world, how do you begin to address what you just described?

Arik Ascherman:  Well, first of all, again, I say you cannot overestimate the depth of the trauma that people… And I would hope that what we’ve suffered should sensitize us to the suffering of others. But today, even Israelis who were, in the past, more progressive simply see Palestinians as demons, as Amalek, as people that there’s no way of making peace for. There is simply a total collapse.

And it’s also, Israelis could surf the net and see what you see, but they usually don’t. They don’t see the exploded body parts. They don’t see the hand of the child sticking out of the rubble in Gaza. What we hear 24/7 is about our pain. We hear the radio waves and television are filled day after day, hour after hour with the stories of the murdered and raped Israelis, the fallen soldiers, the kidnapped, the people who have had to have been evacuated from their homes because they’re on the border. And it’s just like never the twain shall meet. We are simply living in different realities, and there may be some other factors as well, but let’s start with those.

Marc Steiner:  In all the years — I’m going to come back to exactly what you said, let me start here — That in all the years that I’ve been covering this with some intensity, since 1993, in all the years that I’ve been involved in Israel and in Palestinian affairs, which has been since 1968, and before that when I was younger, I’ve never experienced a darker time that I can remember in my life. I understand the pain of what occurred on Oct. 7. In my mind, you can’t question that. As I just said, part of my family was gone in that attack.

At the same time, one of my closest friends here in Baltimore, who’s Palestinian, his nephew was shot and killed by rampaging settlers in Ramallah. 14 years old, doing nothing. Maybe threw a stone.

And one of the things that you know from the history of Jewish people is that beneath much of the work, secular and religious, is a humanitarianism, is a kind of wanting to reach out to the person who is being persecuted like you’ve been persecuted. So, how does that turn around? I mean, you live there. You’re in it.

Arik Ascherman:  Well, first of all, as you alluded to, and I think we’ve spoken about in the past, Israelis or Jews are arguably strong candidates for the dubious title of most oppressed people in human history, and that leaves scars on our souls. Again, I would hope… When I speak with Palestinians or when I speak with anybody, I think about the fact that we, who, for centuries, so much wished that somebody was standing with us, was in some form of solidarity when the knock came on our doors in the middle of the night, our homes, our doors were burst open in the middle of the night.

And often when I’m speaking with the Palestinians, where given the dire situation and the very limited ability that we have right now to do much other than batten down the hatches, [Hebrew] until there will be better times, to protect, to preserve whatever we can in any ways that we can, I say to people, I can’t promise much except for that you won’t be alone. You will not be alone.

But for you and I and so many others for whom the lesson of Jewish history is that never again means never again for anybody. And I remember back when I was an undergraduate, and the issue was Apartheid in South Africa, and bringing my rabbi to speak at one of the rallies, the late Ben-Zion Gold, zchrono levarka, and he said, when I left the gates of Auschwitz and left my family in the ashes, I made two promises to myself: one to dedicate my life to the well-being of the Jewish people, and that’s why I’m a rabbi today; and that this should never happen again to anybody, and that’s why I’m here at this rally today. And that just seems so obvious to you and I, but for many people, they go the opposite direction.

And we’ve talked before about Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, who back several decades before Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern political Zionism, said the Torah is saying that to’ava shel metzrim, the abomination of Egypt, is simply this: that they believe that might makes right, and therefore they had absolute power over us. They could do with us what they want, enslave us, embitter our lives. And he predicted, several decades before Herzl, someday we’re going to have a state, and the Torah’s warning us, when you have the power, as you will, do not use it as Egyptians use it against us. Even though that’s maybe the natural human thing to do, to repeat learned behaviors, but we do.

And so many Israelis are motivated by the weight of Jewish oppression over the centuries, the feeling that there’s an antisemitic world out there who is looking for any way possible to destroy us. And your incredulity is just an indicator of how we are in such different worlds from so many of these people. But I think, whether it’s the same way that so many of us maybe are incredulous about what motivated people to vote for Donald Trump. And I think at some point we’re going to have to get out of our echo chambers and into theirs, which isn’t an easy thing to do, and somehow really listen to what some of these people are saying. But I know I’m repeating myself, but it’s the reality.

Marc Steiner:  So look, you spend your time in Israel-Palestine defending Palestinian farmers and Palestinians, standing between them and settlers and them and the army, who want to evict them from their lands, push their sheep and them off their lands, and you’re sitting with part of the minority now, a small minority of Israelis, who are saying, not in our name. This shouldn’t be allowed to happen.

Arik Ascherman:  I never felt marginalized for all the over 29 years I’ve been doing this, and now I feel so marginalized. We are such a small group.

Marc Steiner:  Yeah. So, I want to talk about what you think the future holds. When Ruwaida Amer was on our program here the other week, a Palestinian woman in Gaza who lost her family, her home destroyed, blown up, people under the rubble, people she loves, what do Israelis think if they’re going to go in and destroy people’s lives like this, that’s the end of it? They’re just going to give up and go away? If people talk about the pain of Oct. 7, or the pain of the Holocaust — Which is painful. I grew up with people with numbers on their arms in my home. I know what antisemitism is. I know how deep it runs. But if we think that destroying Palestinian lives is somehow going to bring us peace, is going to create something… We’re destroying an entire world.

Arik Ascherman:  That’s the ultimate tragedy, because even if you don’t give a fig about Palestinian human rights, even if you don’t see them as human beings, even if you can’t see a foot from the Jewish people, what we are doing, in addition to the abominable injustice that we are doing to other human beings, is not going to bring us the peace and security that we deserve. Our sages taught us [Hebrew] the sword comes into the world because of justice delayed and justice denied and the improper teaching of Torah. And our sages were not in favor of the sword, but they were realists. They knew the world they were living in.

And with all the caution I have to take not to justify the unjustifiable, you can’t justify what was done. As someone who’s fought all my working career against the occupation, you can’t justify it in the name of the evils of the occupation what was done on Oct. 7. But if you really want to understand it, injustice brings about the sword.

There are hardcore Hamas leadership that, even if we were to have a just peace tomorrow, they would still be dedicated to destroying Israel. But what drives the masses into their arms is what we’re doing to Palestinians. And even if we were to entirely destroy Hamas tomorrow, there’d be something more, because you can’t kill the desire of a people. There’s been a few cases in human history where brute force has quashed entirely resistance, but generally that’s not what happens.

And it’s like there’s another image in the Talmud in Ta’anit of someone who has become ritually impure because they’ve touched a dead lizard, and they go into the ritual bath, the mikvah, to purify themselves, but they can’t purify themselves because they’re still holding onto the lizard. And the reality is, which, sadly, again, even if you don’t care about other human beings other than Jews, as long as they’re holding on to the lizard of the occupation, as long as we are oppressing Palestinians, as long as we are taking their land and acting with violence and uprooting their trees and everything else, we’re not going to have, as Israelis, any kind of peace and security.

And when I talked before about the moral imperative that I feel not to leave people alone, to at least stand with them, and probably stand maybe between people and the people that are coming to burst down their door, frankly, there’s also some self-interest there as well, because that’s what you said: What do we think… Let’s say that someday this will end, as, you know, King Solomon’s ring, the round ring that said, “This too shall pass.” When we come out of that ark and see all the destruction surrounding us, but now we’re ready to make peace, will Palestinians who have seen all their loved ones wiped out, will they have any interest in making peace with us? Again…

Marc Steiner:  So, let me, in the time we have here, there’s two kind of final thoughts. One’s political and one’s about the future, which is also political, I suppose, and it comes also down to your personal work is what I want to get to. But very quickly, before I get there, do you see a difference between the Ben-Gvirs and Hamas?

Arik Ascherman:  Sometimes I think they all get together at night to plan how to just make the rest of our lives miserable with the sick idea that they benefit from ongoing conflict and bloodshed. And of course, it is… People reminded me that when the racist Rabbi Kahane, Meir Kahane, who was the one person whose party was ever banned from the Knesset because of racism, when he would walk into the Knesset to speak, everybody would leave, including the Likud, including the other right-wing politicians.

Marc Steiner:  The right wing, right.

Arik Ascherman:  And today, Ben-Gvir, a Kahane supporter all his life, now he tries to paper that over a bit, who until he realized it wasn’t going to help him get elected, had a picture of the murderer Baruch Goldstein, who went in and shot people up and murdered people in the Hebron mosques, Tomb of the Patriarchs and mosques —

Marc Steiner:  When the right-wing Israelis attacked the mosque and killed all those people, yeah.

Arik Ascherman:  And he’s in the Knesset and now a minister. I mean, you really do have to ask, what has happened to us that that could be acceptable?

Marc Steiner:  Arik Ascherman, let me first say, thank you for coming to the studio today and being here, but I also thank you for putting your life on the line for Palestinians and for an equitable Holy Land that very few were willing to do, especially fewer and fewer people are willing to do. And I think that’s one of the things that maybe we should work on in the future conversations here is to bring you and others and Palestinians we’ve had on together to talk about what the future might be and how to get there. Because right now, to me, it’s a very dark future and a very frightening place.

Arik Ascherman:  Very dark.

Marc Steiner:  Talking to Palestinians —

Arik Ascherman:  And maybe there’ll be some Hanukkah lights.

Marc Steiner:  It’s very scary.

Arik Ascherman:  Yeah.

Marc Steiner:  Their lives are on the line, just like your life’s on the line for saying no to what’s happening to them. So again, Arik Ascherman, thanks so much for the work you do. I appreciate you joining us in studio, and we will link to all the work you’re doing so people can see exactly what takes place, and we will stay in touch. Thank you so much for being here.

Arik Ascherman:  Thank you.

Marc Steiner:  Once again, let me thank Rabbi Arik Arscherman for joining us today, and we’ll link to his work and videos about his work on our website. And thanks to Cameron Granadino for running the program today, audio editor Alina Nehlich for working her magic, Rosette Sewali for producing The Marc Steiner Show, and the tireless Kayla Rivara for making it all work behind the scenes, and everyone here at The Real News for making the show possible.

Once again, let me thank Rabbi Arik Ascherman for being here today, and more importantly for putting his life on the line for fighting for ending the oppression of Palestinians and working for an Israel-Palestine where all can live together in peace.

Please let me know what you thought about what you heard today, what you’d like us to cover. Just write to me at mss@therealnews.com, and I’ll get right back to you. Once again, thank you, Rabbi Ascherman, for joining us today. Take care.

Five incarcerated people in Alabama are fighting to push forward a lawsuit, Stanley v. Ivey, challenging the state’s power to punish prisoners who resist forced labor. Despite a state constitutional provision abolishing slavery that was passed in 2022 by referendum, Montgomery County Circuit Court dismissed the plaintiffs’ lawsuit, arguing Governor Kay Ivey and Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner John Hamm were protected by state sovereign immunity. Emily Early, Associate Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights‘ Southern Regional Office, joins Rattling the Bars to discuss the lawsuit and the plaintiffs’ ongoing fight to have their case appealed. 

Studio / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino

Transcript

Mansa Musa:  Welcome to this edition of Rattling the Bars. I’m your host, Mansa Musa.

The 13th Amendment of the United States Constitution says that slavery is legal — And they use the term involuntary servitude — They say that anyone duly convicted of a crime can be enslaved and labor can be used for slavery purposes.

Now, the question becomes what happens when a state take that clause and say it no longer should be used? And the state that’s being talked about was one of the crown jewels in slavery, the state of Alabama.

Recently in the state of Alabama, prisoners filed a suit challenging utilization of forced labor and for the abolishment of slavery as we know it. The court ruled that the defendants in the case had qualified immunity and the prisoners had no standing in bringing this suit forward.

Joining me today is Emily Early. Welcome, Emily.

Emily Early:  Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.

Mansa Musa:  And Emily, tell our audience a little bit about yourself and where you’re from before we unpack this tragedy that’s going on down in Alabama.

Emily Early:  Sure. Well first, again, I’d like to thank you for having me on your radio show to educate your audience about this really important issue that exists very much so in many of our own backyards and many people don’t know about forced prison labor and slavery that happens inside the prison walls.

I am an attorney with an organization called The Center for Constitutional Rights, which is a racial and justice advocacy organization founded in 1966. We are headquartered in New York, but we are expanding into the South through our Southern initiative, of which I am the head. My official title is the associate director of our Southern regional office, and I’m also a trained attorney. And again, I live in Atlanta, but I have colleagues who are part of this Southern initiative who reside in Alabama and who are helping to lead the litigation that I’m here to talk about today, as well as another colleague in Atlanta, and one in Jackson, Mississippi.

The case name is Stanley v. Ivey, and, again, was brought on behalf of six individuals who are incarcerated inside of Alabama prisons. I will note that one of our original six plaintiffs, Mr. Dexter Avery, sadly passed away a couple of months ago while he was in the custody of the Alabama Department of Corrections. So I wanted to note that, unfortunately, and to make sure that we say his name in the course of this interview.

The suit was brought on behalf of these individuals who have been punished for not working, or refusing to work. And the defendants whom we sued are the governor of Alabama and the Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner.

The claims that we brought were intended to, if you will, give teeth or force to the constitutional amendment that the voters of Alabama overwhelmingly voted in support of in November of 2022 that got rid of the exceptions clause, or the prison loophole clause that you were talking about, Mr. Musa, earlier, that exists, though, in Alabama’s state constitution.

After the ratification of the 13th Amendment, each state that decided to become a part of the union also had to ratify their own versions of the 13th Amendment. And so Alabama, like many other states, has its own version of the 13th federal amendment that also excludes from the prohibition of slavery persons who are duly convicted of the commission of a crime. And so in November 2022, voters voted to ratify the constitution to get rid of that prison loophole, or that exceptions clause, as it’s referred to.

Nonetheless, the state government, including the governor herself and the Alabama Department of Corrections commissioner, John Han, enacted executive laws that still proceed to punish people and threaten to punish people for refusing to work and not working. And our clients have been subjected to those laws that were passed, very much so in violation of the 2022 constitutional ratification.

So our suit, again, was filed, like I said, in May of this year. Intentionally we filed on May 1 because we recognize that this lawsuit is not only about pushing up against and eliminating this prison-industrial complex, the system of mass incarceration, but it is also very much an issue of labor rights and ensuring that individuals who are choosing to work and who do work under their own free will have the right protections of safety, adequate pay, fairness, and are treated with dignity and humanity. And this system of forced prison labor inside of the Alabama Department of Corrections that still exists, notwithstanding the constitutional amendment, is very much so not providing workers these principles, these rights, this concept of justice.

So in early August of 2024 of this year, our case was dismissed by the Montgomery County circuit court for not actually qualified immunity but what is called sovereign immunity and standing. The court gave absolutely no reasoning whatsoever in its two-sentence dismissal of this lawsuit.

But what sovereign immunity effectively is, it says that the state or the sovereign, it’s a doctrine that derives from British law that says that the king, the sovereign cannot be sued. And if the king or the sovereign or the head of state is sued then, as a matter of policy, everything that the sovereign does could be subjected to a lawsuit.

And so this doctrine of sovereign immunity was created centuries ago, and it’s adopted into many states common law, in statutes, even in federal law in one form or another. And again, that just says that the government and officers and instrumentalities of the state cannot be sued. However, there are rules that have to be met or elements that have to be met before sovereign immunity even can be triggered before it comes into play. And even if those elements are met, there are exceptions to sovereign immunity.

So our position is that sovereign immunity does not apply to this case because our clients are seeking what’s called forward-looking or prospective relief, meaning an injunction to stop the governor and the Alabama Department of Corrections from enforcing these laws that violate Section 32 of the Alabama Constitution that outlaws prison slavery, and also a declaration that declares that what these laws are doing violate Section 32 of the constitution. So because that’s the form of relief that our clients are seeking, sovereign immunity doesn’t apply.

Mansa Musa:  I mentioned earlier that we interviewed two members of a union who was involved with being co-plaintiffs in a suit, and I want our audience to know that, as you clarify, Emily, this not necessarily having anything to do with what y’all talking about, but the reality is that they complained about the same conditions that you’re complaining about and that’s being brought to the court’s attention, the inhumanity, the cruel and unusual punishment that’s taking place as it relates to men and women that’s in the Alabama prison system.

But talk about why you think that the state of Alabama, specifically the governor and the Department of Corrections, why you think that they’re taking such a staunch position to ensure and maintain this forced labor system. Because as you said, the state of Alabama, the citizens in the state of Alabama ratified the constitution eliminating any use of forced labor by getting rid of the exception clause in the state constitution. Why do you think that they’re so adamant about holding fast to this particular position?

Emily Early:  Well, I think it’s because of two justifications among others, but the two I’ll focus on here today are profit, number one, and you talked about that earlier in the interview. And number two is controlling the bodies that are inside of the prison system, which are overwhelmingly Black and low income. And as it concerns the motivation of profit, the prison system in Alabama — And I would also go as far as to say in many other states — Could not function if they did not rest on, rely on the labor of incarcerated individuals.

Incarcerated workers inside of Alabama Department of Corrections prisons, they cook the food that incarcerated individuals eat. They clean the bathrooms, the hallways, the dormitories, the grounds outside of the four prison walls. They also work — And this is a piece that I haven’t covered as much, but our lawsuit also focuses on this — They are also contracted out to private industries.

Even some of the restaurants that we frequent often in our very own communities, McDonald’s or Buffalo Wild Wings, they’re also cooking and cleaning and performing at these fast food restaurants. And then they take a van that they have to pay for, it comes out of their own pay, that Alabama Department of Corrections transports them to and then picks them back up, and then they come back and then they sleep back inside of the prison walls.

And there also are some incarcerated individuals who are performing security functions because the staff, the prison system is so understaffed and overworked. And so sometimes there are even individuals who are performing some of those same security functions that correctional officers would perform. So it definitely is profit. The Alabama Department of Corrections makes hundreds of thousands of dollars off of the backs of Black and Brown bodies inside of the prison system.

And the second justification for why the state is resisting and forcing this constitutional ratification, which relates to the first reason, is it is an extension, the prison slavery is an extension of slavery, a method used to control and dehumanize and subjugate individuals who are Black in society. And because they are now in this system of incarceration, I think there is very much an attitude, not just among the state government, but, unfortunately, among many in our society and in our community, that we can just do away with people who are inside of prison walls.

And that is not the case. That should not be the case at all. And they still deserve to be treated with dignity and humanity. And if they choose to work, then they should be provided with the same protections that those in the free world have.

Mansa Musa:  I want to unpack that as well because I was locked up 48 years prior to getting released. And at one time during my incarceration, I worked what we call industry, that’s what most prisoners referred to it as, industry. And they have with Maryland, MCE, Maryland Correctional Enterprises, and Maryland Correctional Enterprises is legislated by the state of Maryland. This particular corporation is legislated by the state of Maryland and all the labor for, they automatically get, they don’t have to bid for no contracts for state property to make the furniture, anything relative to the state. The chemicals that’s used in the institutions and in government buildings, the uniforms that the officers wear, the clothing that we wear, all these products are made by prisoners in MCE. The furniture for the state house is made by prisoners in MCE.

One, we wasn’t getting minimum wage. Two, we didn’t have no healthcare plan. Three, we couldn’t buy into social security. And four, in order to get any type of, which was considered money, we had to do an enormous amount of work in order to get a bonus.

And I was looking at the state of Alabama, the fact that they outsourcing the labor in Alabama and the fact that they’re outsourcing it. And most of these people in the work release or pre-release environment, they’re not getting, one, they’re not getting minimum wage, and, if I’m not mistaken, in some cases they’re paying for their own room and board. And you can correct me if I’m wrong on that. I know they’re paying for transportation.

And the last thing I noticed in the conversation we had was that in order to maintain the labor pool, they was denying people parole or the ability to progress through the system because they didn’t want to lose their labor. In y’all suit or y’all fact finding, did any of this come up?

Emily Early:  As far as the parole piece, it’s not something that we have highlighted directly in the suit, however, it’s something we’re very keenly aware of, that the rate of parole grants in Alabama is abysmal. It’s very, very low. And for that reason, we actually are representing a couple of our clients who are clients in the forced prison labor, Stanley v. Ivy case, in their parole hearings. And even there in our representation, at least on the first try, two of our clients were denied parole.

But that’s something that we’re keenly aware of. And I agree with you, Mr. Musa, that yes, the denial of parole, I think, is tied, in one way or another, to the state’s need to keep people incarcerated to continue to profit off of their labor and to continue to keep the system running.

Mansa Musa:  Another observation that was made in our previous conversations was that the fact that the utilization of prison labor automatically stopped, infringes on the rights of people having society to work. So I got cheap labor on the prison-industrial complex. I can take this labor, the same labor, and outsource it to, like you say, fast food restaurants, butcher shops, anywhere that they need labor, and they could have unions there, and I’m undermining the unions and undermining the ability for people to get minimum wage or living wage because I got cheap labor.

Do you think that this has something to do with the fact that it’s the relation between the business community has a hand in ensuring or maintaining this particular standard of slavery in the Alabama prison system? Is a connection between the business community in conjunction with the governor or the state in order to maintain cheap labor? Because if I got cheap labor and they don’t have to unionize, I don’t have to pay health, medical benefits, they don’t have to buy into social security, their pension, or none of that. Have you seen that?

Emily Early:  No, I haven’t seen that necessarily, if I’m understanding your question correctly. I think what I do agree with, and I’m gathering from your statements, is that individuals who are incarcerated within the Department of Corrections in Alabama but are contracted out to private employers don’t have to be paid health insurance, 401k, if they qualify for it, and I think that is the case. However, and many of the folks that we did speak to — And I’m not saying this is the case across the board — But many of the folks whom we spoke to in our investigation were paid the same as free world workers and I think have to be paid. They cannot be paid less.

But what happens is the State Department of Corrections takes out 40% of their paycheck and it goes back to the state prison system. And so while they may be paid the same as some individuals who are free world workers, they don’t have the same take home pay. And that’s because the Department of Corrections is taking out its own cut, fees for transportation, fees for laundry, fees for the commissary. Right there, you mentioned room and board, and that is the case as well where, in some jails and prisons, individuals have to pay for their own incarceration.

Mansa Musa:  My understanding is that they don’t have the right to say, I don’t want to work. If they don’t work, then they’re being punished even if they’re being given, in the state system they call it infractions. They’re being given disciplinary charges for refusing to work. Is that something that came out in the course of your investigation or gathering the facts of the suit?

Emily Early:  Sure. So if people have been assigned to work and they are unable to work for whatever reason, or even if they refuse to work because the conditions are not safe, as happened with one of our clients, Mr. Reginald Burrell, who was injured while working at a furniture store in the free world community and was disciplined for saying he was not going back because it was not a safe environment.

That very much so is what is happening inside of the Department of Corrections where individuals, they cannot work, they refuse to work, they exercise a choice that they should have to not work for whatever reason, and then are consequently written up. That has happened to each of our plaintiffs. That threat remains and is ongoing because of these laws that the Alabama governor and the Department of Corrections commissioner and the Alabama legislature enacted after Section 32 of the constitution was ratified.

So each of those provisions, they relate to one another. And what they effectively do is authorize disciplinary reports and write-ups for literally refusing to work or failing to work or failing to report to work.

And the consequences of those disciplinary write-ups are extra duty, so individuals can be assigned even more work, which can effectively lengthen their sentence; They can lose privileges such as visitation with family and friends who come to visit them, which is very key to their survival and mental health and stability while on the inside; They can also be transferred to more dangerous prisons, which has also happened to some of our clients as a result of a disciplinary write up; They also can lose their good time credit, which is a system where folks earn, effectively, days of time that can be knocked off their sentence for good behavior. But if they’re written up, then they can lose a lot of good time, which, once again, extends or re-extends their sentence.

So they’re being punished over and over and over again, even though they were sentenced to incarceration and, effectively, are now being sentenced to labor, to slavery, to involuntary servitude inside the prisons.

Mansa Musa:  And you know what, as you was talking, I was reminded of, I think the case was Sardin v. O’Connor, it’s a US case that came out with the concept of in order to prove an 8th Amendment claim or a claim relative to the conditions, you had to show atypical and significant hardship. You had to show that whatever you was complaining about was atypical and had significant hardship on you.

And I remember when they first came out with this concept, a lot of legal scholars unpacked it and was showing how difficult it was to meet this standard. But I was looking up in the Alabama prison system, it’s one of the most cruel, inhumane prison systems in the country. Some of the prisons — And that’s one of the things I was made aware of in terms of getting people to work — They threaten to transfer them to some of the more notorious prisons in order to pretty much get them to change their mind about not wanting to work.

But talk about going forward, what do you think the standing, what do you think the court, the higher court, going to do in terms of recognizing y’all claim that they don’t have sovereign immunity and that what y’all arguing and the issue that y’all raising has standing?

Emily Early:  Sure. So we’re not sure what the court will do, but of course our hope is, and we think we’re right, is that the court will reverse the circuit court’s dismissal of the case and the judgment that the circuit court entered in favor of the defendants, and remand or send the case back to the circuit court. So the case would then be reinstated, and we would continue to litigate the case.

We think that we are right on the law. We think that the circuit court was absolutely wrong on sovereign immunity. It’s very clear that this is a case that does not trigger sovereign immunity, and even if it does, it meets one of the exceptions. And on standing, we think that our clients have fled the claim that shows that they were injured by these three laws, the Executive Order no. 725, the Administrative Regulation 403 that was promulgated in response to the executive order, and then the Alabama statutory code provision that also punishes folks for refusing to work, that all these laws have harmed our plaintiffs, and the defendant’s continued enforcement of these laws harms our plaintiffs, and the lawsuit that they have brought for injunctive and declaratory relief will redress or resolve those harms.

So we think that they have the standing necessary to raise these claims to enforce their right under Section 32 of the Alabama Constitution. So again, we think we’re right on the law, and we can only see what the court will say once the defendant submits their brief and we submit a reply brief. We are also requesting oral argument, so there may be an opportunity for us to go before the Alabama Civil Court of Appeals to have our day in court on behalf of our clients to plead our case.

Mansa Musa:  OK. Thank you, Emily. And as we close out, tell our audience how they can stay on top of this or keep being informed about what’s going on with this lawsuit, and how they can track some of the work that y’all are doing.

Emily Early:  Sure. Well, they can absolutely follow us on all the major platforms. Again, our organization is the Center for Constitutional Rights. Our website is ccrjustice.org. And this case is titled Stanley v. Ivy, and it’s currently pending in the Alabama Civil Court of Appeals. You can find a specific case page also on our ccrjustice.org website about Stanley v. Ivy. So if you just Google it, you can get updates. And again, we do try to update our casework on all the major social media platforms.

Mansa Musa:  Thank you very much. You rattled the bars today, Emily. And we want to remind our audience that we’re talking about humanity. We’re talking about people who has been duly convicted, but the sentence was what they were serving. The crime, you have crime and punishment, the crime that I committed, and then the punishment is the time that I’m given. The punishment is not that I be leased out in forced labor and subjected to inhumane working conditions and don’t have no redress.

And so we asking that you really look into this situation that’s going on and ask yourself, would you want to wake up one day and find out that you cannot refuse to work? And that if you refuse to work, that you’re going to be subjected to more punishment, more cruelty, only because someone chooses to ignore the will of the citizens of the state of Alabama.

Thank you, Emily. We appreciate you.

Emily Early:  Thank you so much for having me.

Mansa Musa:  And we ask that you continue to support The Real News and Rattling the Bars. It’s only because of The Real News that you get this kind of coverage of what’s going on in Alabama, what’s going on throughout the United States of America and the world. And guess what? We’re actually the real news.

This story was co-published with In These Times on Nov. 12, 2024.

It was a little after 1 a.m. when I left The Real News Network studio in downtown Baltimore.

Our team spent the whole night there, anxiously watching the election results roll in. With each update — Republicans win a majority in the Senate, Trump wins North Carolina, then Georgia, then Pennsylvania — reality began setting in, hardening like concrete. Nervous optimism gave way to worry, worry gave way to disbelief, disbelief gave way to anger, anger gave way to fear — and then grief.

The race was still too close to call at the time, and as I got into my car, running through the remaining-but-rapidly-shrinking paths to victory that were still, for the time being, open to Vice President Kamala Harris and the Democrats, my phone dinged with a social media notification: “@maximillian.alvarez saved this post to laugh at you hahahaha hope you’re crying tonight. 2024 trump LFGGGG.”

The post this person was responding to was 32 weeks old — he’d been waiting a long time to get that dig in. Doing so clearly meant something to him, and former President Donald Trump’s triumphal return to power gave him the flashing green light he’d been hoping for.

A familiar feeling bubbled up as I read that message and as I’ve read through other notifications, posts and comments on TRNN’s YouTube channel the past few days, one I remember feeling constantly during Trump’s first term. The exhausted, on-edge feeling that comes from having to confront the worst parts of people on a regular basis, the parts that Trump gives his supporters bacchanalian permission to indulge and find strength in. The ugliness, the orgiastic meanness, the cackling vitriol for social norms, the dark glee found in flouting them and in trolling and bullying people; the lust for retribution and soft targets.

It’s all rushing back. It feels like it did eight years ago, but worse. First as farce, now as tragedy.

From 2015 to 2020, during the first stage of Trump’s political rise and the MAGA-morphosis of the Republican Party, an ungodly amount of ink was spilled and breath wasted by out-of-touch pundits fumbling to explain the Trump phenomenon and failing to understand the people who supported it. 

Yes, racism has always played a giant role, misogyny too. Yes, white working class people (and working people in general) have been feeling the brutal squeeze and daily pangs of ​“economic anxiety.” And yes, a lot of folks out there are ignorant, misinformed rubes who have been duped by one of the biggest con men in history. But one of the most important qualities of Trumpism that the pundit class never fully grasped is the sense of social power Trump instills in people — and how valuable that is to them.

Most of us have had some exposure to the nastiness of people trying to exercise that power online, and you’ll be seeing more of it again flaming up in social media comments, video live chats, direct messages, etc. Although, this is not the same media ecosystem we had in 2015-16. The Twitter and Facebook of that time are long gone, the power and visibility dynamics on these multiplying and changing platforms have rearranged dramatically since then, the ​“public sphere” is way more fractured, and our shared digital spaces (and physical spaces) are decreasing. So maybe you won’t see as much of the online projections of Trumpian bile from trolling strangers as before, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t currently heating back up to full boil as we speak, and you won’t be able to escape it entirely. None of us will. 

But that sense of vindictive empowerment extends well beyond the online world. You know what it looks like. It was on full display in Madison Square Garden two weeks ago, it was written on the faces of delegates cheerfully waving ​“Mass Deportation Now” signs at the Republican National Convention.

You can feel it simmering in the ether when you read lines like this, published last week inThe New York Times: ​“A wave of racist text messages summoning Black people to report for slavery showed up on phones across the United States, prompting the scrutiny of the F.B.I.” You could see it in the sinister smirk of Covington Catholic High School students surrounding Nathan Phillips, an Indigenous man, in front of the Lincoln Memorial in January of 2019. You could watch it transform regular-seeming people into monsters who shout things at families in restaurants like ​“Trump’s going to fuck you. … You fuckers need to leave … fucking Asian piece of shit.” You could hear it on the playgrounds, as Lucia Islas, president of the Comité Latino de Baltimore, recently reminded me: ​“Even in the schools … the American or other kids — they were making fun of the [Latino] kids like, ​‘Oh, the immigration is going to come for your family.’”

Here’s the thing: Leftists, progressives, community and labor organizers, social justice advocates, faith community leaders — we have all seen how beautiful of a thing it can be when regular people channel, build and exercise their power to effect change. And we all know how necessary that will be to fight back against what’s coming. But power is not a moral quantity on its own. It is a force to be harnessed — to achieve good and morally righteous ends, or dark and destructive ones. Right now, we are much, much closer to the latter scenario.

When it comes to controlling the levers of economic and political power, Trump cedes none of that ground. Quite the opposite: he seizes and consolidates real power like a CEO or a mad king, and he wields that power to serve himself and the interests of his fellow capitalist oligarchs. 

But Trump has always understood that you have to give people a semblance of power too, and he has. (Since former President Barack Obama infamously dissolved his organized base of citizen-footsoldiers after his 2008 electoral victory, Democrats have stupidly and self-servingly demobilized their rank-and-file, hoping to replace that grassroots energy and readiness to make change with a vacuous faith that the ​“adults in the room” would take care of it; Trump, on the other hand, gives his base something to do. He invites them to feel like protagonists in the story, not just spectators).

Trump gives people a tangible feeling of power to turn the tide of the ​“culture wars,” which is, in part, why MAGA-pilled people and MAGA pundits, politicians, podcasters and posters have spent years trying to turn virtually everything into a ​“woke” vs ​“anti-woke” culture war issue. In doing so, they’ve effectively taken issues of non-concern, as well as issues that could channel people’s genuine concerns towards a larger, systemic critique of capitalist economics and politics, and woven those issues into a vast cultural conspiracy. This has the dual effect of moving people farther away from identifying the capitalist pillage of our society — led by the very billionaires, profiteers and grifters Trump’s policies actually serve—as the real problem, while, at the same time, moving people closer to feeling like they are fighting for and winning something.

For MAGA, ​“the personal is political,” too, but for very different reasons than it is for Left-minded people who have invoked that phrase in the past. Personal grievances are elevated to the level of political struggles against a perceived evil that lives in other people who are ruining America — not in the political or economic systems hollowing our country out from the inside and cooking our planet — and interpersonal interactions become the always-available terrain upon which Trump supporters can feel deputized to ​“take the fight” to … someone.

When working people live in a society that has made them feel like they have so little decision-making and decision-affecting power — as workers, as political constituents, as consumers, as debtors and renters — and when the conditions that make people feel empowered to pursue and attain a good life continue to deteriorate, the desire and demand for any other kind of power increases dramatically. Trump and the MAGA movement encourage people to reclaim that lost sense of power by finding ways to exert power over people they know (neighbors, family members, coworkers, acquaintances they’re still connected to on social media) and people they don’t know, online and in public.

As a president, Trump’s oligarchy-serving style of gangster capitalist rule (now with a much stronger Christian nationalist identity) has only accelerated the deterioration of conditions that makes people feel this way — exacerbating the systematic squeezing and disempowering of working-class people and the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the rich few — but he has always simultaneously met his base’s demand to feel powerful. 

It is a false, ugly, illusory kind of power, but it is power nonetheless. It is nothing compared to the power of, say, organizing and striking with your coworkers to get your boss to bend to your collective will, but it’s much easier to exert, opportunities to exercise it are in much greater supply, and it is much more immediately rewarding than any of the alternatives presented by liberals or the Left. Punching a person in the face is more instantly gratifying than scolding a faceless system. 

The visible discomfort one can prompt in others just by wearing the red MAGA hat in public. The despicable rage and terror cowardly men can generate by saying shit like ​“Your body, my choice.” The ​“liberal tears” one can suck out of strangers by trolling them online. The change in corporate course one can contribute to by boycotting ​“woke” companies. The pain and fear and panic one can extract from one’s perceived enemies in vulnerable, dehumanized and marginalized communities (immigrants, trans people, ​“radical Left lunatics,” etc). 

These are all tangible forms of social power that anyone in the MAGA movement can exercise anywhere to feel like they’re worth a damn and part of making change. And doing so bears localized but real results; it is a way for people who live in a world in which they have so little real power to experience firsthand the immediate, perversely intoxicating power of assaulting someone, affecting the feelings and actions of the people around you, disrupting their comfort, destroying their sense of safety, even violating their bodies.

Trump makes that possible for a lot of people, and it means something to them. What’s worse, it is a renewable resource, an infinite well of dark energy to draw from, because there will always be more people to attack, more scapegoats to throw on the pyre, as conditions fail to improve for the non-rich. And the twisted, naive hope of the disciples of MAGA is that their loyalty will always secure their spot on the side of the attackers, even if it won’t, and that they will be the beneficiaries of the promised prosperity supposedly waiting for them on the other side.

The desire for some kind of power, and the dark joy that comes from the Trumpian permissibility to exercise power over other people, is a mobilizing force. It does not cater to ​“the better angels of our nature,” but to the worst, cruelest and most antisocial parts of us. 

And the hard, terrifying truth from Election Day is that this force is strong enough to defeat a bankrupt Democratic Party, and it is certainly strong enough to crush and confound what exists of the Left in this country if we don’t take the threat seriously and mount a correspondingly serious, strategic and steadfast response.

We are entering an extremely dark period in our history. It won’t be the same as 2015-2020. The MAGA-morphosis is now complete — this is Trump’s GOP, and there is no room or tolerance for dissenters within the ranks. And that party, along with its bevy of billionaire backers and Christian nationalist networks of support, may end up controlling all three branches of government when all is said and done. It won’t be the same, and we can’t be either.

But we can and must draw on the hard-won lessons we learned throughout the first Trump administration. One of the most crucial lessons, I think, is that fascism doesn’t just come from executive orders alone; the fascist creep comes from below, when a critical mass of people come to desire fascist solutions over the existing political alternatives, and when they feel empowered to play a role in bringing those ​“solutions” to fruition. For my entire life, establishment Democrats and Republicans have worked in their own shared and distinctly stupid ways to diminish people’s faith in the existing political options. ​“The Left” has not managed to provide a credible and viable political alternative, and that has enabled Trump to fill the void, channeling the naturally resulting malaise and unrest into fascistic desire.

A lot of people out there are ghoulishly delighted that the results of the election have given them that green light to shamelessly return to their worst selves. You are going to run into them more and more, and so will I. They may even make a point to seek you out. They have been waiting for this moment, all while their need for retribution has festered and the targets of that retribution have become more specific.

The most essential lessons I learned about how to confront this during the first Trump administration didn’t come from any pundit or media organization. They came from explicitly antifascist political and coalitional organizing.

1. Don’t let your enemy dictate the terms of your fear. Just because there are more people in the world telling you to fear them right now doesn’t mean you should fear everyone — many are as scared as you are, they feel just as distrustful of strangers in this moment, but most don’t want to see hate win either.
   
2. Working people, together, organized, are our own best protection against bullies and fascist violence.
   
3. A lot of regular folks out there who have succumbed to the MAGA soul rot can still be brought back, especially if they are compelled to struggle together with other working people, face to face, outside of their small social circles, and if that struggle provides them with real-world alternatives to addressing their problems, not just conceptual or moral arguments for why the path they’ve chosen is bad. That can counter these forces at the heart of Trump’s dark appeal — I’ve seen it. But we won’t be able to reach everyone, some are way too far gone. The bloodlust has consumed them. We risk the safety of all and any chance of political success by failing to recognize the difference and protect ourselves.
   
4. Out of darkness, when all seems lost and emergency is our reality, when we are forced to struggle together for survival, we find the ties that truly bind us, and the artificial walls that divide us start to come down. And once we learn to keep building and fighting from that starting point, moving upward and outward from there, a portal to a better world opens up.

Until and unless people stop fighting, hope for that world is never lost. 

If you ask me if there is hope now, my answer is the same as it always was: that depends on us and what we all do next.

Views expressed are those of the writer. As a 501©3 nonprofit, In These Times does not support or oppose any candidate for public office.

This November, California voters will have the chance to pass Proposition 6. This ballot referendum would nullify the state constitution’s exception for involuntary servitude as punishment for a crime, and institute additional protections for incarcerated people. Jeronimo Aguilar of Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, and John Cannon of All of Us or None join Rattling the Bars for a breakdown of Prop 6.

To learn more about Prop 6, visit https://voteyesprop6.com/

Studio Production: David Hebden
Post-Production: Cameron Granadino

Transcript

Mansa Musa:  Welcome to this edition of Rattling the Bars. I’m your host, Mansa Musa, rattling the bars.

It might sound odd, it might sound strange, it might even be mind-boggling to believe that in this country, these United States of America, slavery is still legal in some form, shape, or fashion. The 13th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States codified slavery under the circumstances that anyone duly convicted of a crime, they can be a slave. They can be held accountable as a slave, their labor can be processed like slave labor, and they have no rights to say nothing about that.

Joining me today are two extraordinary men in this fight to abolish slavery. And I was amazed when Jeronimo reached out to me. We had talked before, and I was amazed when he reached out to me, and they came full circle on their strategy on how to eradicate slavery as we know it. And so, I’m going to let them explain it.

Introduce yourself, Jeronimo and John.

Jeronimo Aguilar:  Right on, man. Jeronimo Aguilar here. I go by Jeronimo, I go by Geronimo. Either one is fine with me. I’m a Chicano activist, also organizer with all of us in West Sacramento, and also a policy analyst with Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, and just honored to be a servant to the movement, man. I’ll pass it over to John.

John Cannon:  My name is John Cannon. I also go by John John. I’m also an organizer with All of Us or None. I’m out here with the Oakland chapter. And did 10 years incarcerated, so being able to get out and just fight for the same things I saw behind those walls just gives me a real purpose.

Mansa Musa:  Okay. And all of us probably been in this space where you bring an expert witness in to court to testify. Before the expert witness testify, they run a list of all the things they have accomplished in terms of qualifying them to be an expert. So, it’s suffice to say, we are an expert in this matter when it comes to being slaves, or being on the plantation, under the prison-industrial complex.

But Jeronimo, let’s start with you. All right. I want you to give us a history lesson on how the code that came to exist that’s legalized slavery in California. Because you made an interesting observation before, and we was talking about it again, how we got this perception of California as being the big Hollywood, Rolls Royce.

Jeronimo Aguilar:  Yeah, thank you, Mansa. Yeah, no, you’re right, man. We got this idea of what California is. Not only the palm trees and the Rolls Royce, and it’s always sunny, but also that we’re soft on crime, and that criminals are out able to just do whatever they want out here, and there’s no law and order, and all that kind of stuff.

The reality is, the prison-industrial complex out here is as crooked and oppressive as it is in any state of the union. And so, when you talk about especially this exception clause, and specifically here in California, it’s the exception to involuntary servitude. But like we say, as you can see from my background there, one of our main messaging points is that involuntary servitude is slavery.

Mansa Musa:  That’s right.

Jeronimo Aguilar:  So, they try to lessen it or give it a fancy name, but the reality is the practice is the same thing, of subjugating human beings to work against their will.

So, when you talk about involuntary servitude in California, the history, like you mentioned, it goes all the way back to when California became a state. So, back in 1849. Remember, this territory here was territory of Mexico up until then. You had the expansionist, I wouldn’t even really call it a war, but an assault on Mexico in 1848, which ended with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

That treaty was not honored. Or like most of the treaties that the US [inaudible] with folks of Indigenous ancestry, them treaties were nothing but opportunities for the forked tongue, as they say, to get what they want.

And so, what happened is the land was taken, and Indigenous folks, Indigenous mixed with Spanish folks, became immigrants overnight. And with that said, what you started seeing was the first Constitution of California in 1849 has that exception clause that we see today. It says that involuntary servitude is prohibited except for punishment for a crime. It’s not that exact wording, but it’s the same exact practice.

And so, that set things up. That set the stage for 1850, you started seeing this. So, this is the year right after it became a state and the constitution was introduced. You see the 1850 Act for the Government and Protection of Indians.

And again, the forked tongue. The way that they named the act, you would think, oh, they’re protecting Indians, when in fact, it was a vagrancy law that they used to criminalize Indigenous people, and subsequently enslave them under the exceptions to involuntary servitude.

And so, I want to add to that. Indigenous peoples were already being enslaved by the Spanish colonial powers. We’ll talk about the mission system. So, the Southwest and California, a lot of it was already built by the enslavement of Indigenous peoples.

When you talk about colonization, and once the Spanish came and that era of terror, and then Mexico getting its independence, and you’ve seen Mexico actually outlaw slavery for a period of time while that practice of servitude was brought back once the US took the land from Mexico.

And so, like I said, from 1849 on, up until now, you’ve seen the consistent criminalization of Indigenous, Brown folks, later, obviously, our African brothers and sisters that were enslaved and brought to this continent, and also that ended up migrating, trying to find free states, trying to find places where they can actually be free from the subjugation of slavery, only to find the same kind of practices happening over here in the Southwest.

And so, following that 1850 Act of Government and Protection of Indians, which actually turned what’s now the LA Federal Courthouse, was a vibrant slave auction. Based on that law, you saw acts like the Greaser Act, which passed in 1855. It’s another vagrancy law. If you look at the actual statute, the statute reads, “Dealing with the issue of those of Spanish and Indian blood.” And so really, you’re talking about folks like me. Chicanos, Mexicans, those that are of Spanish or Latino and Indigenous ancestry.

And so, again, following that, I believe it was, man, 1858, ’59, you saw a Fugitive Slave Act that was [crosstalk]. And a lot of you are familiar with the federal Fugitive Slave Act, but California had its own Fugitive Slave Act that they passed. Don’t quote me on those years, but it was definitely in this era of oppression.

And in that Fugitive Slave Act, what they did is that they gave slave owners from the South a year to recapture their slaves that ran off to California looking for freedom.

Well, that one year that they gave them actually turned into a sunset clause that ended up lasting five-plus years. And basically, anybody that was African-American, that was Black, that was here in California, could be kidnapped and trafficked back to the South without any evidence.

All the slave master had to say was, oh, yeah, he used to be my slave. He ran off. He didn’t need no proof. He didn’t need to know nothing. Just by his word. And they were capturing folks that never had even been enslaved.

Mansa Musa:  And I think the point, and the benefit for our audience, I think you well represented the case to how they codified laws —

Jeronimo Aguilar:  That’s right.

Mansa Musa:  …To make sure that this exception clause could be enacted under any and all circumstances.

John, so now we’re at a place where in terms of y’all organized around the abolishment of slavery, the legal form of slavery as we know it now. Talk about y’all Proposition 6, John.

John Cannon:  So, Proposition 6 would actually be reversing Article 1, Section 6 of the California Constitution, which is basically just like the 13th Amendment of the United States.

So, Proposition 6, what it would do right now is give a person autonomy over their own body, give a person choice whether they want to work or not. Because as it is now, you have no choice whether to work or not. So, Proposition 6, it would prioritize rehabilitation over forced labor.

So, what that will look like is, right now as it stands, if you’re inside and you’re working, they assign you a job automatically. And whether you want to do college courses or rehabilitative courses or anything else, you’re not able to, because you’re assigned a job. You don’t get to pick the job. You don’t get to choose if you want a job. If you’re assigned the job, you have to do it.

So, if you did want to, say, take an anger management course, or seek anything to rehabilitate yourself, and that aligns at the same time as your job, you’ll have to go to that job or you’ll be punished for refusing to work.

Whether you have a death in the family, you have to go to work, or you’ll be punished for refusing. And all these cases happened to me while I was incarcerated, and you’re getting punished for refusing to work. You’re losing days off your sentence, you’re losing phone time, you’re losing all type of things if you refuse to work. So, Prop 6 would actually give a person their own choice over their own body, over their own rehabilitation.

Mansa Musa:  Okay, let’s talk about this. And both of y’all been wearing this. You can go first, Jeronimo. Okay, I understand what you’re saying, and I come out of that space. I did 48 years in that space.

So now, how do y’all address, or how will y’all address… We know Proposition 6 coming to effect, but we also know that prison has become privatized on multiple levels. The privatization of prison is the food service is private, the commissary is private, the industry is private, the way the clothes is being made. Everybody has got involved in terms of putting themselves in a space where they become a private entity.

How will Proposition 6 address that? Because what’s going to ultimately happen, the slave master ain’t going to give up the slave freely. They’re going to create some type of narrative or create some kind of forceful situation where, oh, if you don’t work, you ain’t going to get no days, and you can come over here and work, and… You see where I’m going there with this?

Jeronimo Aguilar:  Yep. Yep.

Mansa Musa:  So, did y’all see that? Do y’all see it as a problem? Or have y’all looked at that and be prepared to address it?

Jeronimo Aguilar:  No, no doubt, Mansa. I think that this is really the first step for us, because it’s going to be a long road. And those of us that have been incarcerated or have fought against the carceral system, you know that every time you do something, they’re going to figure out a way to retaliate, and to find a way to try to circumvent it, they’re going to try to find a way to basically make whatever you’re doing obsolete so they can continue their practice.

And so on our end, it was a really long and tedious process with the language, but we wanted to make sure that we weren’t just passing something that was symbolic, that ended up just being, oh, okay. We’re removing some words out of the constitution, we all feel better about ourselves, and people that are incarcerated are going through the same conditions.

Mansa Musa:  Yeah. Status quo. Go ahead.

Jeronimo Aguilar:  Status quo. Exactly. So, the language in Proposition 6, and what was ACA 8 when we passed it in the legislature to get it on the ballot, actually says that any person that’s incarcerated cannot be punished for refusing a work assignment. Cannot be [crosstalk].

So what that does is, it’s not going to stop CDCR from definitely trying to circumvent things. But what it does is it gives folks a pretty strong legal stance. So, if they do continue to be forced to work and disciplined for refusing to work, they can go to court. And we feel, with the language that we now have in the constitution, which is supposed to be the highest letter of the law, they’re going to have a pretty strong legal stance to stand on when they get to court.

So, all of those things are going to be… We’re going to have to be following and monitoring things, implement it. We know that, like you said, man, they’re not going to just give this stuff up. All of the money that’s being made. California, fifth largest economy, CDC’s got a $14 billion budget.

And so, that money… I mean, what we’ve seen here in California, Mansa, is we’ve literally reduced the prison system. We’re under 100,000 now. We’re at about 90,000 incarcerated, and their budget has gone up. So, make that make sense. They’re figuring out ways to make money.

Mansa Musa:  And tell our audience what CDCR is.

Jeronimo Aguilar:  Yeah, that’s California Department of Corrections. The R is for Rehabilitation. And like John says, CDCR, we really call it CDC. But we’re trying to get that R to actually mean something by having rehabilitation, access to rehabilitation, education, and other things be prioritized as much as labor, giving folks the opportunity to work.

Because we know folks are still going to want to work inside. We’re not trying to take away that opportunity for folks. But you shouldn’t be forced into a job, and then you want to take a class, but you’re not able to because of that. They’re prioritizing that exploitation over anything else.

Mansa Musa:  Hey, John. And talk about the feedback that y’all got from the inside, in terms of educating the population about what is expected. Because ultimately, it’s going to be on the inside that’s going to be monitoring the effect of the legislation. It’s going to be on the inside where we know from our own personal experience that we create programs to help us rehabilitate ourselves and to socialize. So, this would be a golden opportunity for that kind of initiative on the part of those of us that are still behind the walls and still on the plantation.

Talk about that, John. What kind of feedback are y’all getting from those of us that’s still on the plantation?

John Cannon:  So, we have members on the inside. And some of the feedback we’re getting is, we got a lot of letters that were written to us about people’s personal experiences, and it’s a lot similar to mine. I understood a lot of what people were saying and how some people, they want to prioritize being able to continue their education. They want to be able to do stuff that’s actually going to help them for when they get out, so they are rehabilitated when they get out here into California, on the outside world.

And also, some of the feedback we’re getting, just like Jeronimo said, is that this doesn’t mean people are just going to stop working. There’s a lot of people… There’s a waiting list to get on some of these jobs in prison.

Mansa Musa:  Right, right, right.

John Cannon:  So, it’s not the fact that people don’t want to work. People do want to work. But for those people that don’t want to be forced to work, some people want to prioritize certain courses that are offered. You have anger management courses, you have drug rehabilitation courses, and you can’t even access these courses if you’re assigned a job duty. So, those courses are there for no reason if you can’t access them.

So, this is some of the feedback that we’re getting from the inside from our members.

Mansa Musa:  All right. And Jeronimo, talk about where we at in terms of how y’all assessing the Proposition 6, because you don’t have no opposition. That’s a given. I think I was looking at some of the footage, and I think, since from the ACLU say, who going to come out and say we agree with slavery? So, talk about where y’all at in terms of getting this passed or getting people to vote on it.

Jeronimo Aguilar:  So, those of us that worked on the legislation, ACA 8, it was ACA 3 once upon a time, three, four years ago, and it failed in the California Senate the first time around. We brought it back with ACA 8, and man, it was —

Mansa Musa:  What’s ACA?

Jeronimo Aguilar:  Assembly Constitutional Amendment.

Mansa Musa:  Okay.

Jeronimo Aguilar:  And so, the author of the bill was Assemblymember Wilson. She was in the assembly. Before her, it was Assemblymember Sydney Kamlager, who’s now actually in Congress, I believe. So, yeah. It was a couple of assembly members that had brought it up.

So, there were ACAs. And just the fact that it failed one time, it showed us that it’s not as much of an afterthought as folks think, as you would think, especially here in California.

And, I mean, it goes back to that history that we were talking about. I mean, shoot, California’s first governor was actually a slaveholder, Peter Hardeman Burnett. You talk about the founder of San Quentin was a California senator named James Estelle, and he was also a slaveholder.

So, I think a lot of the stuff that we have even subconsciously in the population here in California, they don’t understand that they’re aligning with… Sometimes it’s not so much like who’s going to agree with slavery, but they buy some of this stuff that the Tough on Crime or CDCR puts out around, oh, yeah. Well, that’s true. They should work, man. They’re criminals. Or, they should do this and that. And they’re not understanding that they’re actually buying into the whole thing on slavery.

And so, with the proposition itself, man, it hasn’t pulled us as high as we would have liked. I could have told you that because ACA 8 was so hard to pass. I knew it was going to be a struggle.

And then, here in California, we’re in a pretty big crisis as it comes to the criminal justice reform. You got Proposition 36 that’s on the ballot as well, which is trying to repeal some of Prop 47, which was a landmark proposition that we passed that reduced a lot of felonies down to misdemeanors. It allowed folks to not have to end up in the prison system for low-level offenses, non-violent stuff, drugs. Stuff that it’s common sense, that it should focus [crosstalk].

Mansa Musa:  Fueling the plantations. That’s it. Fueling the plantations.

Jeronimo Aguilar:  Exactly.

Mansa Musa:  Y’all got that. Y’all been successful at taking the source away from where they’re getting the labor from, and now y’all killing the utilization of the labor.

Jeronimo Aguilar:  Right.

Mansa Musa:  Y’all been fighting on all fronts.

Jeronimo Aguilar:  We’ve been fighting on all fronts, and they’re pushing back, though.

Mansa Musa:  Yeah, most definitely. Most definitely.

Jeronimo Aguilar:  The system is definitely pushing back, and we’re filling it right now with Prop 36 on the ballot. And it’s being funded by — And this is to your point, Mansa. We just learned that Walmart dropped another $1 million to support what’s going on with Prop 36.

And so, why would Walmart be so invested in making sure that Tough on Crime passes, that more prisons get filled up? Well, that’s because they rely on that labor.

Mansa Musa:  That’s right.

Jeronimo Aguilar:  They’re exploiting that labor. They’re using that labor of Black and Brown people. And so, people need to see this, maybe. What I’m hoping this episode really is is public education for folks so they could really see, even in a state like California, it’s so invested and married to the idea of exploitation and cheap labor. California and the US has never lost its appetite for cheap labor.

And so, when you think about it, it’s going to find ways to do that. It’s always going to go back to the same thing that it knows. And so, that’s what we’re seeing.

So, Prop 6, it’s polling… We’re at 50/50 right now. I mean, we’re a little bit on the side of… The last polling that came out was not favorable to us, but I think that we’re getting closer to that 50/50 range. It’s going to be a tough, drag-out fight.

I think, really, the thing is, the real positive is what we’re seeing, that there’s a huge percentage of folks that are uneducated on this subject. And when you’re able to explain the stuff that we’re talking about here, all these different factors are at play, with the corporations and all these different people that are making money, and they don’t care about the regular person that’s struggling to pay his bills, even if he hasn’t been locked up. But he don’t care about that taxpayer.

Prop 6 actually will benefit the taxpayer because they’re getting return on their investment in the criminal justice system. You got $133,000 it costs to incarcerate somebody for a year. And our people in there, they’re not learning how to read, they’re not learning how to write, they’re not learning nothing. They’re just being forced to make money for these corporations.

So, once they start seeing all this stuff and we’re able to educate them, we’re able to move them to a yes at a pretty good rate. So, I feel confident.

Mansa Musa:  Okay. And John, you say you in Oakland, right?

John Cannon:  Right.

Mansa Musa:  And so, what are y’all doing now? Because just like Jeronimo said, it’s the fight to the finish. So, the fight is, we know the election’s coming up in November, but we know that we have to educate people to understand what the prop is, and now, how to counter the opposition. What are y’all doing in Oakland to get the vote out, get people out to respond to the proposition?

John Cannon:  The main thing we’re doing in Oakland is educating our folks on slavery, on the history of slavery and involuntary servitude, the history of what our constitution is, and also getting people engaged with voting.

There’s a lot of people that haven’t voted. Making sure people know their rights in California, because we’ve been encountering a lot of people that didn’t even know they could vote. People on parole could vote. In California, you can vote on parole. Technically, you’re allowed to vote while you’re in jail, you just can’t vote in prison. So, that’s the main part, is making sure people know.

Even myself, when I was released from prison, I didn’t even know I could vote until I came to All of Us or None, and we were actually one of the organizations that was on that proposition to get people to vote on parole.

Mansa Musa:  Okay. All right. And as we close out this for both of y’all, all right, so, what do we expect in November based on y’all taking the temperature of the climate out there? What can we look forward to? And then, two, how can our viewers always become more involved in the process of getting Proposition 6 passed? We go with you, start with you, Jeronimo.

Jeronimo Aguilar:  I think I’m hopeful. I’m very hopeful about particularly Proposition 6 in California. Like I said, there’s an all-out assault on criminal justice reform happening right now in California, so it’s a tough time. And this last legislative session, it was probably… The four or five years that I’ve been working on the policy side, trying to pass statewide bills at the Capitol, this is probably the most challenging year. The majority of our bills just didn’t make it through the legislature.

So, for us to pass ACA 8 in a climate like this, it shows you we got some very talented and skillful organizers. And so, I have that same faith and confidence in them that we’ll get Proposition 6 passed. God willing, we can defeat Proposition 36 as well.

But with that said, I think the way folks can activate, we have a website, voteyesprop6.com. Folks can check us out there. We also got our organization’s website, prisonerswithchildren.org.

And then, on social media, All of Us or None Action is basically housing all of our Proposition 6 work. And so, we’re teaming up with some… trying to get some influencers and high-level folks out there to get the word out, make sure they hit the polls and vote.

We’re doing big regional events out here in California on Oct. 8. We’re doing a statewide day of action. So, we’re going to be in here at Sac State. I’m doing something at the University of Sacramento. UC Berkeley is going to have a big event. They’re doing something out there in LA, Bakersfield, Stockton. So all over the state.

And like John said, the main thing, our mission as the grassroots ballot committee is really to activate our people, man, those that have been disenfranchised. Those that typically don’t vote, and they got every reason not to vote because of the way this system is designed.

But at the same time, there’s certain stuff that is important for us to get out and get active on. And so, this is one of those. We have the historic opportunity to end slavery and stop the forced labor and exploitation of our people inside.

Mansa Musa:  Okay. And John?

John Cannon:  Yeah. And I would just say, spreading the information, spreading the knowledge as much as you can. And we have materials that we’ll send out. If you’re in California, you want to do any type of outreach, you could reach out to me at john@prisonerswithchildren.org. I can send you a whole package with materials, postcards, flyers, and just make sure we’re spreading the information to everybody.

And also getting people aware that voting is coming up, and it’s important to vote. I know that I actually was one of those people that thought voting didn’t matter. And I remember my sister, she told me what someone told her, what my grandma told her, and she said, if our vote doesn’t count, then why they’ve been trying to take it from us since forever, or keep us from voting? So, it made sense. So, it does count. We’ve gotta get out there and just spread the news to everybody we can.

Mansa Musa:  And I want to add this as we close out. It does count, but the reason why it does count is because of y’all. Y’all making it count. Y’all educating people on the importance of understanding how to utilize their voice. Y’all educating people on understanding where it came from, the history of their voice.

But more importantly, y’all mobilizing people and franchising people to change and dismantle the prison-industrial complex. Y’all rattling the bars today.

There you have it. The Real News and Rattling the Bars. I really appreciate both of y’all, man. Y’all, look, y’all really made me feel good today because I’m one of those that was cynical when it came to the electoral process. I was one of those that didn’t believe in it. But then I remember what Tip O’Neill said, that all politics are local. But more importantly, y’all skill organization, y’all skill strategy, has now enlightened people on how to be effective in raising your voice and voting to get effective change. Thank you.

John Cannon:  Thank you.

Mansa Musa:  And we ask you to continue to support The Real News and Rattling the Bars. Look, this is the only way you’re going to get this kind of information. Two skilled individuals in the state of California, Sunshine State, where you got a big Hollywood sign up. But behind the Hollywood sign is slave labor. Now we got people that’s challenging it and attacking it, and ultimately going to be a drama, or say this is a historical event. This is going to go down history as the few that tackled the many and won. I’m out.

This story originally appeared in Truthout on Oct. 8, 2024. It is shared here with permission.

As Hurricane Milton barrels toward Florida, residents are bracing for their second catastrophic storm in less than two weeks. Since September 26, when Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida’s Big Bend as a Category 4, communities across the Southeast have been grappling with the aftermath of that storm’s destruction. Among those hardest hit — and most overlooked — are farmworkers in southern Georgia.

The Georgia Department of Agriculture estimates that the storm has caused billions of dollars in damage to the state’s agriculture industry, affecting more than 100 farmers. Absent from many of these headlines, however, is Helene’s impact on the predominantly Latinx farmworker community, many of whom are undocumented or migrant workers with temporary visas. Ever since Hurricane Helene tore across Georgia, destroying pecan farms, poultry houses, cotton fields, and more, thousands of farmworkers have nowhere to turn as they grapple with decimated homes and lost livelihoods.

“I’ve been seeing pretty much every struggle that farmworkers experience in their daily lives, but magnified times 100,” said Alma Salazar Young, the UFW Foundation’s Georgia state director. “Everybody in South Georgia is struggling, especially in those really hard hit areas, but farmworkers are still an afterthought. Nobody has thought about going the extra mile to take care of them.”

Georgia is one of the top states employing migrant farmworkers through the federal H-2A program, which offers temporary visas for agricultural work. Before Hurricane Helene, living conditions for farmworkers in Georgia were already notoriously poor. The H-2A program requires employers to provide housing for their migrant workers that complies with the standards for temporary labor camps set by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. These standards, a legal expert noted, are already the bare minimum and have not been updated in decades. Still, they are often not met by employers; federal investigations have cited Georgia farms for mold and water damage, dangerous exposed wiring, and more.

Undocumented workers, meanwhile, rent their homes, usually single-wide trailers. Desperate for affordable housing, these workers also tend to be pushed into substandard conditions, including mobile homes riddled with holes in the siding and drywall, roof and faucet leaks, lightbulbs dangling from wires, pest infestations and front doors lacking locks, secured only by a rope. And that was before the storm. When Hurricane Helene hit, these shoddy structures stood little chance against 90 mile per hour gusts.

“Conditions for the workers were already terrible to begin with, but now, many of them don’t realize that they’re homeless,” said Young, who has been traveling to the various farmworker communities in South Georgia that have been impacted by Hurricane Helene. She has seen trailers with their roofs blown off, littered with debris and the floors caving in, while families still attempt to seek shelter in whatever remains.

The roughly 35,000 H-2A workers in Georgia, as well as an untold number of undocumented immigrants, are not eligible for disaster relief from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), nor do they qualify for food stamps or unemployment assistance.

The financial burden is exacerbated by the fact that many farmworkers already lived in extreme poverty before the hurricane. Minimum wage for H-2A workers in the state is $14.68, while undocumented workers often earn less — usually 10 to 12 dollars an hour, according to Young. If workers are paid by the piece — a basket of blueberries or a busload of watermelons, for instance — that hourly rate can be even more meager. Now, with fields and farms destroyed, it’s unclear when, if at all, workers will be able to return to earning a living.

Many agents that companies hire to recruit H-2A workers charge those workers illegal fees which the workers often pay by taking out crushing loans. If they’re unable to work, these workers will be unable to pay back that debt, on top of struggling to support themselves and their families. Visas for H-2A workers are also tied to one specific employer; if that employer no longer has work for them, they must return to their home countries, primarily Mexico, or risk being in violation of the law.

In the absence of government aid, local churches and groups like the Red Cross or Salvation Army are the only sources of relief for many of Georgia’s farmworkers. But these resources don’t come without barriers.

“Even before the storm hit, we were getting information on the storm, on shelters, and I would have to translate it before I could text it to our farmworker leaders, because it was not being provided in Spanish,” said Young. Sometimes information would be posted to Facebook groups that most farmworkers might not be familiar with, “so even if they do find out, they don’t find out about any type of assistance until it’s gone.”

Additionally, police officers and National Guard members have often been present at aid distribution sites, which dissuades undocumented workers from accessing those resources. In May, aiming to crack down on undocumented immigrants, Georgia passed House Bill 1105, which requires local law enforcement agencies to notify Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) if an arrested individual cannot provide documentation. Even though the Red Cross and other groups don’t ask for a name or ID, Young said that farmworkers are still afraid to show up: “They’re not going to risk getting deported over trying to get some food.”

In addition to food and water, farmworkers’ most requested items right now are diapers and baby formula. “They’re just trying to make it day by day,” Young said. “They haven’t had a chance to think about the future, while they’re trying to just figure out what they’re going to eat today.”

Immigrants form the bedrock of the country’s food supply, making up an estimated 73 percent of agriculture workers in the United States. Young joined the UFW Foundation after working as the director of Valdosta State University’s College Assistance Migrant Program, during which she witnessed firsthand what farmworkers sacrificed throughout the COVID-19 pandemic to put food on tables around the country.

“I’m just so disheartened by how little everybody in general cares about farmworkers, because during the pandemic, they risked their lives to bring food to everybody. Not just in several states, but all over the country,” Young said. “Now that they’re in need, we forgot about them.”

As the 2024 presidential election enters its final month, a clear result has yet to materialize. Both parties are campaigning for undecided votes, and making some possibly unconventional choices along the way. Taya Graham reports from Baltimore and the suburbs of Lancaster, PA for The Real News, where conservatives and progressives alike are making a play for key swing voters.

Videography / Post-Production: Stephen Janis

Transcript

Taya Graham:  This is Taya Graham for The Real News Network in Baltimore City, Maryland. I’m standing in a parking lot in Baltimore where just last week the so-called Blacks for Trump bus appeared, hoping to change hearts and minds in a very blue state. It’s one of many efforts to sway the precious handful of undecided voters in an election that many say is too close to call.

So we went on the ground from Baltimore to Pennsylvania to document two radically different approaches to picking up votes in otherwise hostile territory.

As the election looms over a bitterly divided partisan landscape, parties on both sides are pushing to make gains in otherwise unfriendly territory. Last week, Black Republicans visited deep blue Baltimore city on a so-called More Money with Trump bus tour. While attendance was low, confidence was not.

Diante Johnson:  Baltimore is not an area that’s going conservative. The media has asked, why are we here? We can take Baltimore and with people like Kim Klacik, we will take Baltimore [crowd cheers].

Taya Graham:  Kimberly Klacik, candidate for the state’s second congressional district in Maryland, said her party was reaching out to Black voters. Her argument? Democrats take them for granted.

What exactly are we seeing here? I’m not with her, the Black voters for Trump. What is this bus?

Kim Klacik:  Yeah, so President Trump and of course VCF, they’re all in town today, just visiting areas like here, Morgan State University, just letting these students know that there is an option. You don’t have to vote for the leaning left Kamala, you don’t have to vote for this administration again. You can vote for change, which would be President Trump in this situation.

Speaker 1:  Challenge them on the, he’s a racist. What does that mean? Tell me, what do you mean? He’s a misogynist. What does that have to do about good policies, effective policies that work for our country?

Taya Graham:  Others said conservative ideas appeal to Black voters, even though they vote disproportionately Democrat.

Speaker 2:  We stopped here in front of a grocery store in a targeted community because we know that inflation is high. We know that people are struggling to put food on the table for their families.

Taya Graham:  The stakes are unusually high in Maryland. There, a former popular Republican governor, Larry Hogan, is running for a Senate seat that has been in Democratic hands for decades. His opponent, former Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, has been touting Hogan’s ties to Trump, but polls show the race is tight.

Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania, a different approach. At a community center, Lancaster Stands Up is organizing in the critical swing state that most agree could decide the presidential election. The nonpartisan group focuses on issues supporting candidates that back their policies. That means affordable housing, a living wage, and reproductive freedom.

Lindsay:  So we’re a nonpartisan organization. So our goal is really to just support candidates both locally and on the national level that represent our values. So our members vote on local candidates, and then once we endorse them, we like to offer support through things like canvassing, phone banking, hosting meet and greets, things like that.

David Miller-Glick:  We definitely do skew more towards Democrat than Republican. We tend to have a lot of problems with Republicans on labor rights and how they don’t really support workers.

Speaker 3:  So we are running IE phones for Harris and Wallace because originally, we weren’t going to do anything when Biden was going to be this presidential candidate. But now that it’s Harris, we feel like she’s someone that we’ll be able to organize with and potentially work with in DC.

Taya Graham:  Today, they were preparing people for door knocking, hoping that one-on-one encounters can change minds.

But just down the road in Lititz, a divided town shows changing minds won’t be easy.

Speaker 4:  It’s a very polarizing time right now.

Taya Graham:  Passions were so high that one resident we spoke to says he avoids talking about politics altogether.

Speaker 4:  If you want to stay friendly with people, you don’t talk about politics. That’s the bottom line. Nobody’s getting convinced, and that includes my family. I don’t agree with my kids.

Taya Graham:  Nevertheless, the people who did want to talk on the record about their choices were adamant.

May I ask who you’re voting for?

Speaker 5:  Kamala Harris, and I just don’t like his politics and do not like what he would like to see, which is the United States to become a dictatorship.

Taya Graham:  Phyllis, can you tell me if you’ve decided that you’re going to vote?

Phyllis:  Yes, I have decided. Trump.

Taya Graham:  Can you share with me what policies have inspired you to, if there’s anything in particular that really stands out to you as why you’re voting for him, I assume for the second time?

Phyllis:  Just overall, because I don’t like who’s running against him.

Taya Graham:  Is it the policies or the person you don’t like?

Phyllis:  Policies and the person.

Taya Graham:  This is Taya Graham and Stephen Janis for The Real News Network, election coverage 2024.

For nearly half a century, Russell ‘Maroon’ Shoatz was a political prisoner of the United States. Prior to his incarceration, Shoatz fought against US capitalism and imperialism as a member of the Black Panther Party, and then as a soldier of the Black Liberation Army. Due to his two successful escapes from prison and organizing behind bars, Shoatz spent two decades in solitary confinement. Despite this brutal repression, Shoatz continued to struggle for liberation, leaving behind a trove of political writings that continue to inspire revolutionaries to this day. Shoatz’s children, Russell Shoatz III and Sharon Shoatz, join Rattling the Bars for a discussion on his newly published memoir, co-written with Kanya D’Almeida, I Am Maroon: The True Story of an American Political Prisoner.

Studio / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino

Transcript

Mansa Musa:  Welcome to this edition of Rattling The Bars. I’m your host, Mansa Musa.

Back in the ’60s, we had an organization that formed a formidable fighting formation. It was known as the Black Panther Party. The founder of Rattling the Bars, Eddie Conway, was a former member of the Black Panther Party. He was set up, framed, and locked up for almost 40 years before he was released.

During this time, while he was incarcerated, he organized a collective of prisoners that we developed. A collective called the Maryland Pen Intercommunal Survival Collective, [inaudible] as a hybrid form of the Black Panther Party.

Joining me today is the children of Russell Maroon Shoatz, who also found himself in the same situation that Eddie Conway and other members of the Black Panther Party found themselves in. They dared to struggle and they dared to win, and as a result of that, they found themselves captive, enslaved, and fighting for their freedom.

Joining me today is Russell Shoatz and Sharon Shoatz. Welcome to Rattling the Bars.

Sharon Shoatz:  Thank you.

Russell Shoatz III:  Thank you for having me.

Mansa Musa:  All right, so recently — And if not, y’all can correct me as we go along — Y’all have a new book coming out called I Am Maroon, and it’s a memoir of your father, Russell Maroon Shoatz. And it’s slated to come out this month, or is it already out this month?

Sharon Shoatz:  Yeah, the pub date, September the third, the publication date. September…

Mansa Musa:  OK. So let’s unpack. Let’s unpack. First of all, who was Russell Maroon Shoatz? You can start with this one, Russell. Sharon, you can fill in — And it’s not a chauvinist thing, it’s just the way I want to do it at this time.

Russell Shoatz III:  So my father was, basically, a young Black person growing up in a community, a Black community in West Philadelphia. At that time, pre ’60s and pre Civil Rights time, there was a gang culture in Philadelphia. He was a part of that. There was a doo-wop culture in Philadelphia, he was a part of that, singing on the corner, drinking wines, all that stuff.

Went to some juvenile detention centers for his youth involvement in some of that gang and street activity, then became older and got politicized through going see Malcolm in New York. And then was involved in a political action, which was the retaliation shooting of a police officer after Amadou Diallo style, George Floyd style shooting of a youth in Philadelphia. And that’s kind of a nutshell bio of my dad.

Mansa Musa:  And Sharon, in terms of your father’s maturation, because y’all was young when he got locked up, how did you process his maturation in terms of, like your brother said, growing up in Philly, being subjected, like all like Watts, Compton, Southeast DC, you name it, any ghetto that was being colonized by the country and policed by the police. How did you look at your father’s growth and development in terms of his ultimate maturation to become a political figure?

Sharon Shoatz:  For me, I think I lived in two worlds, one in which I knew my father was a part of something larger that I couldn’t actually define as a child. But I know my family was instrumental, his family in particular, my aunts and uncles were definitely there for us growing up and keeping us in that realm of consciousness about what was going on with my father, but not really cluing us in on it as we know it in his autobiography.

And then, on the other hand, we were children growing up, and we weren’t subjected to the type of bullying that we see today. But I know when my father escaped both times, we then encountered questions about who we were. Because the Shoatz name, it’s not a common name, and when you see that plastered all over the newspaper, “Cop Killer”, you then as a child, then get those questions.

But I didn’t feel that our community wasn’t there for us. The community was still very supportive. And again, the Shoatz family, my aunts, my grandmother, they were always there to help us understand some of what was going on, but not really the level that I know it to this day.

Mansa Musa:  Right. And OK, let’s talk about how did this particular project come about? Because do y’all have another book that was written, or was this the first book that’s written?

Sharon Shoatz:  So his first book was the Maroon the Implacable, which was a series of writings that he had did over a number of years that was out there in the ether. A lot of anarchists was publishing it, and people were reading it all over the world, really.

And then, this project in particular came about, I would say, in the ’90s, particularly in 1990 when I moved to New York City. He had asked me to get his dossier to the tribunal. They were having a tribunal at that time for US held political prisoners, the human rights abuses. And I was new to New York, the geography and the landscape, so I didn’t find it. It was on Hunter’s campus, and I didn’t know the campus, and I didn’t know where I was going.

But in the process, I end up meeting members of the Black Panther Party and the BLA. And that was like Safiya Bukhari and [inaudible], the Holder Brothers. And these people actually knew my father. So here I was meeting these 20th century revolutionaries in the Black Panther Party, and it was on the hills of the landscape of Nelson Mandela being free. I had went to LA, I happened to see him at the Coliseum.

So they started telling me stories. So it allowed me to lean in on these stories that I had never heard. I had visited them all through my life. My family was there and supportive, but they had never really shared any stories. And so from that, it allowed me to press my father, like who are you? Who are you? And I know you my father, the seed and the genetic piece, but —

Mansa Musa:  But who are you?

Sharon Shoatz:  Yeah. So that started us writing back and forth until we had this family document. And then, he wanted to then use that document to get out of solitary. And that’s the collaboration where Kanya comes in.

And now we have what you have today, which is the publication of I Am Maroon, which was a family document that was used to try to secure his freedom from solitary. Fred Ho had suggested that he use it. They brought Kanya in, and then that collaboration began. And here you have this final production of I Am Maroon.

Mansa Musa:  And Russell, like Sharon said, she found herself, at one point in time, after being exposed to our comrades, members of the Black Panther Party and other revolutionaries and people fighting our struggle. At one point, she became enlightened that, OK, my father’s my father, but he’s somebody else. Did you have that same experience, being exposed to people that ultimately gave you a different perspective of your father, or you always had this perspective of your father’s being a freedom fighter and a revolutionary?

Russell Shoatz III:  No, no. Yeah, I had this similar experience —

Mansa Musa:  Talk about it.

Russell Shoatz III:  So I had been visiting my dad and doing work around him for a couple years before my sisters joined in that movement to liberate my father. And just like her, and all of us, and people after my sister, Sharon, my other sisters and brothers, as we all came to support him at different times, would ask him, who are you, dude?

Even if I had conversations with my sister and be like, oh, dad said this, or whatever, it’s still that because it’s your biological father or whatever. It’s still that, I guess, interpersonal conversation that you want to have with that person, with your dad and say… My first question, in my naivete, my first question was, who was the shooter? Did you shoot the cop or did one of the other [inaudible].

And that question was for me to be to the next question was, if you did shoot them, then why don’t you let them dudes go? And if you didn’t shoot them, why don’t you try to get out? But that wasn’t their rubric, that wasn’t their understanding. That wasn’t going to happen. They all kind of went to death. They would die before they would tell on each other or try to get out of the situation. But yes, it went very similar. Everybody wanted to know who their father was.

Mansa Musa:  Right. And let’s frame this situation, because we’re talking about Philadelphia and Rizzo and the Gestapo. LA had a Gestapo unit, but Philadelphia had a Gestapo unit of police that even your father spoke about in the early years when he was young, that they just randomly walked down on Black youth and commenced to beating them and then lock them up.

But let’s talk about that period, to your knowledge, in terms of what led to them ultimately being captives. What was that environment, from your knowledge, because he talk about in the book, what was that environment like during that era that gave birth to Maroon?

Russell Shoatz III:  If people don’t know, they should Google Rizzo. Rizzo was the police chief in Philadelphia. He is the forerunner of the police states that we see today. They had a Gestapo unit in LA. They had a couple units around the country at that time.

But even prior to those days, when Rizzo came into office, he was the first police chief to say, let’s send our officers over to Israel and train over there with them. Let’s be tactical with the dogs and stuff like that. Let’s strip the Panthers naked in front of their office. Let’s do all of these radical things, policing-wise, to keep, for lack of better terms, the people on edge. And it really did keep people on edge.

And also, the sentencing and the judicial followed his lead in the context of Philadelphia having the most lifers, the most juvenile lifers, the most people without parole, juvenile lifers without parole, lifers without parole, just the toughest sentencing in the country over a mass group of people. And so that’s just a part of that culture.

But you also see it in the activism ideology of Philly all the way from my dad, through MOVE, through the juvenile lifers. And so it’s a certain type of energy that came out of that tough, tough repression that you’re seeing bloom 30, 40 years after.

Mansa Musa:  Sharon?

Sharon Shoatz:  And I would also just add to that, not much, but the fact of the racism was more entrenched with Rizzo, as well as the brutality and oppression. But even that racist mentality of law and order, and we have to keep these Black or minority people in their place. With housing, with discrimination, it was just rampant in Philadelphia.

So it is not a wonder that there were people taking up arms in Philadelphia to deal with oppressive state and injustice where they saw it, right in their communities where they lived at. They saw it every day.

Mansa Musa:  And also, I remember, before they dropped the bomb on the MOVE, I remember looking at an article in a radical newsletter where they had a picture of the police taking the butt of the gun and bashing one of the MOVE members’ head in. It was almost like the My Lai massacre where they showed that picture of the police shooting the brain out of that kid in Vietnam.

Russell Shoatz III:  Oh yeah.

Mansa Musa:  I like what you say about Google it, but more importantly, you don’t have to Google to find out who Rizzo is, all you gotta do is read I Am Maroon to get an understanding on who the Philadelphia police were, how they operated. That’ll give you context that this is a real live person that’s regurgitating or recounting this event.

Talk about your father in terms of working his way out and ultimately getting to a point where he was positioned to get out, and how the death of 1,000 cuts had took its toll on him in terms of his health and everything.

Sharon Shoatz:  I think Maroon, my dad, never relented from freedom. And it didn’t matter what it took or what toll his body was going to take, because ultimately, those beatings… When you escape from prison, don’t think they just rush you back in nice. I mean, he took a few beat downs.

Mansa Musa:  Yeah, I already know.

Sharon Shoatz:  He took several beat downs to the point where his body ultimately succumbed to some of that, of course. And then the brutality of solitary confinement. To come out and not being able to walk up and down steps because you hadn’t walked up and down steps for 22 years.

And when he came out, we was happy, but we didn’t think about the physical toll that it would take on him. And to know that the prison, the food is unhealthy. And it’s up to the point where the medical is non-existent.

Mansa Musa:  Inadequate. Non-existent. That’s right.

Sharon Shoatz:  [Inaudible]. My sister, I mean, she was really on his medical health, and she held them to a standard. So they was calling her and reporting what his status was. You got to hold them accountable in the prison system, if not your loved one is languishing there with the run around they give you on the phone.

Russell Shoatz III:  I know that, actually, all the way up to the warden, but also all the way up to the Deputy of the Prisons, who controls all the prisons in Philadelphia, they were probably actually glad that my father was released just on the strength of my sister’s constant calling them, constantly being on them. So just one less person, all right, Maroon’s out of here. Won’t got to hear Teresa no more. We won’t hear Teresa Shoatz calling us every day about follow up, what’s going on, blah, blah, blah.

So when you talk about that ongoing struggle for freedom, there were a lot of different people involved over the years, a lot of different moving parts. And definitely towards the end, because we had pretty much threw a lot of things at the wall, but we had not engaged the medical community within the prison, the nurses, the doctors.

The doctors, when he would get sent out to other institutions, all the way up to the deputy of all of the prisons, and engaging them and saying, our father is in this situation, it was COVID, all these things. He got stage IV cancer. You guys don’t have the apparatus or anything to really take care of anybody with these conditions. Allow us to have him. And they fought that, they fought that.

Mansa Musa:  And speaking, I did 48 years in prison prior to getting out, and I did a limited amount of time in solitary confinement. I was in the super max. But more importantly, I can identify with that situation because I remember that when a police officer had got killed in the Maryland pen when they was doing an investigation, and the legislators was coming in to justify pumping more money into building more prisons, and barbed wire, handcuffs.

And they had the speaker of the House on the state level, on the Senate and the delegate side, and had the attorney general for the state of Maryland come in. They came in the South Wing, which was like the lock-up wing where most of us did our time. And when they left out of there, when they left out of that wing, left out, they was only over there for maybe a good, maybe, maybe five minutes — Maybe.

They came outside. They were like this here [panting]. Saying, we just came from the innermost circle of hell. Now imagine your father being in the innermost circle of hell 20-some years, inside and maintaining his faculties.

So the torture, it’s because of Mumia Abu-Jamal that they got medicine for Hepatitis C, that they was able to get the pill that helped to correct a lot of that ailment for people that’s locked up. Going back to your medical, it wasn’t that they got an attitude of like, we take a [hippocratic] oath and that we going to do the best. No, we are hypocrites in taking the oath that we are not going to apply. And it’s because of y’all work that your father was able to at least get out and live a semblance of life before he transitioned.

Talk about where y’all going there with the book at this time. What’s on the agenda, and what do y’all want people to know about the work and the importance of the work as it relates to raising people’s [consciousness] about the struggle and the struggle continue, and the contribution and sacrifice your father made, either one of y’all?

Sharon Shoatz:  Well, we’re on a book tour trying to get it out through the book tours, through programs like yours. So we thank you, definitely —

Mansa Musa:  Most definitely.

Sharon Shoatz:  …For having us on. And we are just trying to promote it throughout as many ways as we can, throughout media and the tours. So we’re in Philadelphia on the 22nd. I’m in Ohio next week at a [inaudible] conference with the book. And then, we’re in Philly on the 22nd. We’re in DC and Baltimore on the 28th. And then, we’re heading to Atlanta, Texas, and then we’re heading to the West Coast.

November the second, we’ll be with Mike Africa from MOVE and his book. He has a new book out, On A Move, and we’ll be with him at the Huey Newton Foundation on Nov. 2.

So we’re taking it on the road and we hope that people, for me, it’s twofold. One, that my father’s an incredible, complicated, beautifully flawed person, but he never relented from the struggle for freedom for oppressed people all across the globe. And secondly, the part for our family, they never really knew who he was.

From this perspective, I have cousins. Oh yeah, we always heard about Uncle Russell. But until he came home for those 52 days, and it was a line of family to see him, and I’m glad they were able to meet him. But again, as I didn’t know who he was, neither did they. They only knew the legend and the myth and oh, Uncle Russell.

But this story lays it out very well. And if you’re from Philadelphia, the geographics is —

Mansa Musa:  Come on, come on. That’s important.

Sharon Shoatz:  …Extraordinary because he lays it out the middle-class stronghold. And now Philly is, what, I think, the poorest city in the country? Clearly, back then there was a middle-class stronghold, and he talks about it in depth.

And so I think from those two perspectives, the part of freedom and this oppressed system and where we see an oppressed system and injustice, we need to be doing something about it in our own little way. I can’t be Maroon. I have the genetics, but he’s something special. And I can’t be him, but I can take from what I know.

And like Maya Angelou said, when you know better, you do better. When you know better, you do better. And we have freedom fighters that are still locked up.

And why? Why? And I don’t know why people aren’t on board with that. Black Lives Matter, they stood on the shoulders of these revolutionaries. There’s no reason why there shouldn’t have been an agenda regarding political prisoners. With regards to that, my brother talks about every other revolution, they free their freedom fighters.

Mansa Musa:  That’s right.

Sharon Shoatz:  I’ll stop there and let my brother —

Mansa Musa:  Come on, Russ.

Russell Shoatz III:  Well, it’s a catch-22 for me. And it’s a little tougher for me to envision what I would like people to see. Because what I would like people to see is probably further down the road and maybe either another publication, because this publication is actually, my dad wrote this long before he got out, long before he even got sick and stuff like that. And so there’s actually a part of his life that’s not there.

And then, there’s a part of his life right when he’s transitioning, and then there’s a part of a life when he gets out and comes home and he’s actually home and not in prison. That’s not in a book. There’s a part of his life where he turns into a whole different person than we know what’s in the book that he probably even knew of himself or what he just turned into a whole nother different person that nobody knew, nobody ever saw before, any of that. And so those things are important to me.

Also, I don’t want people to get mixed up and think that this is some more of his teachings. These aren’t his teachings. This is just him saying, this is my life. This is what I did, blah, blah, blah. You can get knowledge and jewels and teachings out of that, but if you really wanted to know his teachings, the final teachings kind of, sort of, you would want to look towards his comment, or in court, his transcripts from court.

Also him being like, I’m a Muslim now and everybody should take the Shahada. Everybody should blah, blah, blah. Like, really fundamental Islamic stance. And not just Islamic, but a spiritual space, the space that most people are in when they’re about to transition. And so that transition space is a whole different space with more information, knowledge, and jewels that you really only get only if you’re there or around or hear about it or what have you.

But he was on a mission to get people to contemplate their mortality because he was at that space of really, really contemplating his mortality. But most freedom fighters have already contemplated their mortality. If you are thinking about going over that wall, you trying to escape, then you got to think about them killing you.

Or if you in some prison and they put on the Star Wars uniform and knock on the door and come in to beat you up, that’s just part of it. If you are fighting for liberation and you incarcerated, nine times out of 10, there’s going to be some situations where you got to think about, well, are they going to come in here and try to do me?

And so contemplation of mortality added with your life as a tool of liberation, because that whole book is just about him saying, you can use your life actually as a tool for liberation, if that makes any sense. So those two things, you can’t do anything. You’re not going to be real effective, you’re going to be fearful and scared if you don’t contemplate your mortality.

And people in Palestine, people in South America, people all over the world every day wake up, have to contemplate their mortality. Every day in Palestine, when you wake up, you got to be like, what’s cracking today? Is it a bomb? Is it a bullet? Is it a beating? What is it? Because it could be all them things, but I contemplated that. And now from there, I’m moving on to here.

I thought about it. Yeah, it may happen. It’s a possibility. We all came here to leave. But that was something in my dad’s last teaching, that was part of his last teaching. Are you ready? Are you ready? You built for this? You ready?

Mansa Musa:  There you have it, The Real News Rattling the Bars. You have The Prison Letters of George Jackson, you have The Autobiography of Malcolm X, You have Revolutionary Suicide, Seize the Time. You have Martial Law. You have The Greatest Threat by Eddie Conway. And now you have I Am Maroon. But in each one of these books is a story that’s woven all the way out about people fighting for their liberation. The story of us always, since we’ve been brought to these shores, fighting for our liberation.

And it’s important that y’all, our listeners and our viewers, understand this and look to the book, I Am Maroon, and enlighten yourself. And like both Sharon and Russell said, it’s not about the individual, it’s about the collective. It’s about the struggle, the struggle for liberation, and the struggle to free humanity.

Thank y’all for coming on. Really appreciate y’all, and we definitely going to be posting this information, and we’ll see y’all when y’all get on this end at Sankofa, if I don’t come to Philly and check y’all out.

Sharon Shoatz:  See you.

Russell Shoatz III:  Yeah. Come to the brunch, come and eat some of that food. It is a free brunch, you don’t want to miss that.

Mansa Musa:  All right. All right. Thank you. All right. All power to the people.

Sharon Shoatz:  Power to the people.

Russell Shoatz III:  Power to the people.

Sharon Shoatz:  Peace.

The role of the death penalty as a toll of the racist system of criminal punishment has been long documented. In the case of Alameda County, California, the inside story of how prosecutors influenced jury selections to increase the likelihood of death penalty convictions demonstrates how the racism of capital punishment remains with us in the 21st century. For decades, prosecutors worked to limit jury participation from Black and Jewish individuals in order to produce juries that were more likely to support capital punishment. Michael Collins, Senior Director of Government Affairs at Color Of Change, joins Rattling the Bars for a revealing discussion on prosecutor misconduct, and what it tells us about the state of the criminal injustice system.

Studio / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino

Transcript

Mansa Musa:  Welcome to this edition of Rattling The Bars. I’m your host, Mansa Musa.

The death penalty in the United States of America. At one point in time, the Supreme Court had put it on hold because of the manner in which it was being given out. At that time, the way it was being given out is upon a person being found guilty of a capital offense, the judge made the ultimate determination whether they got the death penalty or not.

Throughout the course of litigation and the evolution of the legislative process, the death penalty started taking on the shape of a jury determining whether or not a person gets the death penalty or not after they were sentenced.

What we have now, in this day and age — And when I first heard it, it startled me to even believe that this was taking place — But in California, they have, in certain parts, the death penalty being given out, but more importantly, the death penalty given out by the prosecutor and the courts through their systematic exclusion of people’s juries of their peers.

The prosecutors, along with the courts, have systematically set up a template where they look at anybody that they think is going to be fair and impartial and have them removed from the jury. Subsequently, a lot of men and women are on death row in California.

Here to talk about the abuse of this system and the discovery of the process and exposing it is Michael Collins from Color of Change.

Welcome, Mike.

Michael Collins:  To be here. Thank you for having me.

Mansa Musa:  Hey, first, tell us a little bit about yourself, then a little bit about your organization before we unpack the issue.

Michael Collins:  I’m originally from Scotland, as you can probably tell. In the US since 2010, so like 15 years or so. Was in Baltimore for 10, 12 years off and on, and then I’m now in Atlanta.

Color of Change, where I work, is one of the largest racial justice organizations in the country. I oversee a team that works on state and local policy issues. We do a lot of work on prosecutor accountability and criminal justice reform, which is how we became involved in this death penalty scandal.

Mansa Musa:  All right.

And right there, because when I was at the conference in Maryland, [inaudible] Maryland, one of the panelists was one of your colleagues, and the topic they was talking about was prosecutorial misconduct. And in her presentation she talked about, and you can correct me as I go along, in I think it’s Alameda County in California?

Michael Collins:  Yep. That’s where Oakland is. Yeah.

Mansa Musa:  Right. In Oakland, they had, since 2001, the prosecutors always had set up a system where they systematically excluded minorities, poor people, anyone that they thought would be objective in evaluating the case, they had them excluded, therefore jury nullification, and stacking the jury that resulted in numerous people getting the death penalty.

Talk about this case and how it came about.

Michael Collins:  Yeah, it really was shocking when we first heard about it. You know, we had been doing work on prosecutor accountability in Oakland in Alameda County, and there was a prosecutor elected, a Black woman, called Pamela Price, who was elected on a platform of trying to reform the justice system and use prosecutorial discretion to right the wrongs of racial injustice and do more progressive policies within the office.

And she discovered, or one of her staff discovered, that over a period of three or four decades, prosecutors in the office had been systematically excluding Black and Jewish people from death penalty juries.

Now, in other words, how this happened was, when you go into a trial, there’s a process of jury selection, and prosecutors and defense lawyers can strike certain people from juries. Maybe people have seen some of this on TV.

Constitutionally, you are not allowed to strike people for race reasons, for religious reasons. But there was a sense from these prosecutors, who were very tough on crime prosecutors, who wanted to… They saw the death penalty as a trophy, almost, to be achieved, and they wanted to win at all costs.

And so they believed that Black people and Jewish people would be less sympathetic to the death penalty, and more likely, perhaps, to find an individual not guilty. More squeamish, if you like, about finding someone guilty who would then get the death penalty.

And so what Pamela Price, this district attorney, discovered was a series of notes and papers that documented the ways in which individual prosecutors were excluding people from juries in this way and really giving people an unfair trial.

And California has, for a number of years now, had a moratorium on the death penalty. They’ve essentially hit the pause button on the death penalty. But for a number of years it was really a state that carried out the death penalty [cross talk].

Mansa Musa:  Yeah, you’re right.

Michael Collins:  And also, one of the more startling things about this is Pamela Price, she came in, she discovered these notes. I think her reaction was, this is crazy. How does this happen? And it actually turns out that somebody raised the alarm bell about this as far back as 2004.

A prosecutor in the Oakland office who came out and he was like, listen, I was leading the trainings on this. I was somebody who was part of making these policies. And the admission went before judges, it went before courts of appeals, and they threw it out, they didn’t believe this guy. And they hounded this guy, the death penalty prosecutor, who essentially had a change of heart, and they hounded him out of town. And he now lives in Montana and practices law.

And I think he probably feels a sense of vindication about this, but it’s very troubling for us, the cover-up that’s gone on, and the number of people that are implicated. So far, we know of at least 35 cases of individuals.

The DA is investigating this. It’s probably going to be more than 35 cases. Right? It probably extends beyond the death penalty, to be honest. It probably extends to other, I would say, serious crime cases where, as I say, prosecutors wanted to win at all costs and use any tactic to get a guilty verdict, including, essentially, tampering with the jury.

And we are in a position now where I think what we want is some level of accountability. We want these individuals who have been sentenced to be exonerated. They were given an unfair trial, that’s abundantly clear. The judges and the prosecutors who were involved in this scandal, who stole lives, and who essentially put people on a path to the death penalty, what is the accountability for them? And so that’s something that Color of Change is really pushing.

Mansa Musa:  All right, so talk about the… Because now you’re saying over three decades… First, how long has the moratorium been on?

Michael Collins:  Since the current governor took office. So I think it’s four or five years.

Mansa Musa:  Okay, so four or five years. So prior to that, they was executing people.

Michael Collins:  Yes.

Mansa Musa:  All right, so how many people, if y’all have this information, how many people have been executed in that period [crosstalk] period?

Michael Collins:  We don’t have the numbers on that. I think what we are looking at just now is 35 cases where they’ve identified people who are now serving life sentences as a result of the moratorium. Because when the governor said, we’re not doing the death penalty anymore and hit the pause button on the death penalty…

And again, I’ll stress that it is a pause button, right?

Mansa Musa:  Yeah, right, right.

Michael Collins:  A new governor, a new person could take office. It’s not like it’s been eliminated. But when we hit the pause button on the death penalty, there were a number of people who had their death penalty convictions converted into life sentences.

And that was how part of this process was uncovered, because Pamela Price, this district attorney, her office was working on what kind of sentence that people, they were working with a judge to try and figure out some sort of solution to these cases where people were having their cases converted to another sentence, like perhaps a life sentence, life without parole, something like that. And in the process of working with a federal judge, that’s when they discovered these notes and files and [crosstalk].

Mansa Musa:  Let me ask you this here.

Michael Collins:  Yeah.

Mansa Musa:  Okay, so I know in the state of Maryland where I served my time at, and I’m in the District of Columbia now, the sentencing mechanism, as I opened up, was a case came out, Furman Act v. United States. That’s the case that… Furman v. United States. That’s the case that they used to change the way the death penalty was being given out back in the ’70s. Because during that time, Andre Davis had just got arrested, so there was a campaign out in California to abolish the death penalty.

But what wound up happening is they had a series of case litigation saying they violated the Eighth Amendment. So what ultimately happened was that the Supreme Court ruled that the way the death penalty was being given out, which was the judge was the sole person that gave it out, they changed it to now they allowed for after the person was found guilty, then the jury would determine whether or not they got the death penalty, that was based on the person that’s being looked at for the death penalty, or have the opportunity to allocute why it shouldn’t be given.

But how was the system set up in California? Is the person found guilty and then given the death penalty? Or is the person found guilty and then they have a sentencing phase? How is the system in California?

Michael Collins:  Yeah, I think a person’s found guilty and then there’s a sentencing phase. And there were a lot of articles about this and about the different lawyers in California. I think there’s obviously a movement to end the death penalty, and it’s gathered a lot of momentum in the last five or 10 years.

But I think if you go back to the ’80s and the ’90s especially, this era, whether you were in Maryland or whether you were in California, whether in Kentucky, just across the country, this very tough on crime era and harsh sentences, I think that the death penalty for prosecutors, or what we’ve been told and what we’ve read, the death penalty cases were almost like a prize for the prosecutors [crosstalk] do the cases.

[They were] the most complex cases, it had the most prestige attached to it, and they were really valued on their ability to win these cases. And so they would send their best prosecutors to do these cases. They would ask for the death penalty frequently.

And that’s why we have a situation where, at the very least, we know in a place like Oakland, which is not a huge place, we have 35 cases right now that they’re looking at. One of the cases has already been overturned, the conviction has been quashed for an individual. We expect that to happen in a lot of these cases as they examine the evidence, how much the jury selection was a key factor in the conviction.

But yeah, I mean, it certainly was the case that the death penalty was used very frequently in California.

Mansa Musa:  Okay. So the reason why I asked that question, I’m trying, for the purpose of educating our audience, to see at what juncture was the exclusion taking place? Or was it across the board, because [crosstalk] —

Michael Collins:  So my understanding is the exclusion took place as they were selecting the jury. You start off with a pool, maybe some of your audience have been selected for jury duty, when you go in and you’re sitting in a room and there will be maybe 100 people, and then eventually they whittle it down to 12 people and some alternates. And in that process, as a prosecutor and as a defense lawyer, you’re striking people from the jury and saying, no, I don’t want this person.

The reasons for doing that are supposed to be ethical and constitutional, like, what do you think of the… You’ll be asked, what do you think of the police? What do you think of law enforcement? Do you trust the judicial process? They’re trying to figure out, are you going to be able to properly serve on this jury? Are you tainted in some way?

But the notes were really about a feeling that Black people were not sympathetic to the death penalty, [they would] not convict. Or Jewish people, because of their beliefs, because of their religion, were also not sympathetic to the death penalty. And so the prosecutors were trained and instructed to make sure, if they found out a person was Jewish, if they had a Jewish last name or something like that, or if a person was Black, ask some questions, figure it out, but essentially get them off the jury.

And there was even a case, I mentioned before, we’re talking a lot about prosecutors, judges were involved in this as well. There was a case where a judge pulled the prosecutor after jury selection into his chambers and said, you have a Jewish person on the jury. What are you doing? Get that person off the jury.

Mansa Musa:  Oh my goodness.

Michael Collins:  And so the depths of the scandal are beyond prosecutors. It’s a real institutional crisis.

And that’s why we want the governor to get involved, Governor Newsom to get involved and provide resources to investigate this. We want the attorney general to get involved and investigate this. Because this is a very clear and obvious scandal.

And it’s not enough to, in our opinion, re-sentence these individuals, exonerate them. Other people did some very, very shady things and very unethical things and illegal things, and ruined people’s lives. And as far as they were concerned, these people were going to be killed. And so we want to make sure that there’s accountability for that. They treated this like it was a sport, like it was a competition, and people’s lives have been ruined as a result. And we want to make sure that people are held accountable for what they did.

Mansa Musa:  Okay, so talk about this prosecutor, the one that came in with this reform. Was this something she campaigned on and then carried it out? What’s her background? What’s your information on her?

Michael Collins:  Yeah, it’s a good question.

So Color of Change has worked a lot on trying to reshape the way that prosecutors operate. Historically, prosecutors, they are the most powerful player in the system. They will decide how much bail you get, how long you’re going to be on probation. Everybody likes to imagine trials like judge, jury, and [crosstalk]. Most cases are a guilty plea that are executed by the prosecutor themselves. So they have tremendous power.

And very often, as we’ve seen with this scandal, prosecutors are just old school tough on crime: I’m going to get the heaviest sentence and put this guy away for as long as possible. That was their vision of justice.

And Color of Change, along with a number of other organizations, wanted to elect prosecutors that were more justice oriented, that were more reform minded, that were people who had a different view of the justice system and wanted to use some of that tremendous power within the prosecutor’s office to do good, to do justice, to reform them.

And so roundabouts of 2016, 2017, you saw a lot of prosecutors get elected that were more interested in things like police accountability: Marilyn Mosby in Baltimore, Kim Fox in Chicago. There was also Larry Krasner in Philadelphia.

Mansa Musa:  Philadelphia. Right.

Michael Collins:  And they came in and they did things like exonerations. They would investigate previous cases where the office itself had convicted somebody and they would find wrongdoing, and then they would overturn that verdict and the person would go free. They did things like non-prosecution of low-level offenses or diversion, stuff like that.

Anyway, Pamela Price came in as the Oakland DA, a historically Black jurisdiction. She herself had a Civil Rights background, was not a prosecutor, and took office really trying to reshape the office after decades of having a tough on crime prosecutor, mostly white-led office that was locking up Black people and throwing away the key. And she came in with a lot more of a nuanced approach.

She didn’t campaign necessarily on this scandal, but I think it’s true to say that a lot of other prosecutors, the traditional tough on crime prosecutors, would’ve discovered these files and been like, just put that back. Forget it.

Because you’re opening a hornet’s nest here, because if you think about… There’s victims involved, there’s family members, there’s cases. Some of these cases are 20, 30 years old. It’s not easy what the office is going to have to go through to reinvestigate these things.

But I think there’s this crop of prosecutors that have a different vision of justice and what justice is, and they do want to hold people accountable for wrongdoing, whether it is somebody who commits a homicide or a prosecutor who commits misconduct or a police killing, they apply that one standard of justice.

And so she was very open and found these files and then approached a federal judge and said to the judge, look, here’s all this evidence that there was this systemic racism, antisemitism that resulted in people getting the death penalty. And the federal judge was the one who said, okay, you need to review all these cases. You need to move forward with a full [inaudible]. So that’s what’s happening right now.

So that’s Pamela Price’s story. Incidentally, she’s actually being recalled in California.

Mansa Musa:  Oh yeah, yeah. Larry Krasner. He was like… In Philadelphia, it was the same thing we have with him.

Michael Collins:  Yeah, it’s the same thing. There was a big backlash [inaudible] —

Mansa Musa:  Kim Fields. Yeah, yeah. Same thing we have with them.

Michael Collins:  …Prosecutors in this sort of… You know.

Mansa Musa:  Yeah, yeah.

Michael Collins:  And it’s hard because if she is recalled in November, I don’t really know what’s going to happen to these cases.

Mansa Musa:  Oh, I know. You know what’s going to happen. They’re going to go to the defendants, and they’re going to sweep it up under the rug.

Michael Collins:  Yeah. Well, that —

Mansa Musa:  But talk about the community, because that’s what led me right into this, because of what you say about her and the prospect that she might be recalled. Talk about y’all organization’s work in educating and mobilizing the community, because ultimately, if the community is engaged in the process because it’s their family members that’s being… Oakland is the birth for the Black Panther Party. Oakland has a rich history of civil disobedience, police brutality. The list goes on and on. Where are y’all at in terms of organizing or mobilizing or having some kind of coalition around this —

Michael Collins:  Yeah, we have a coalition on prosecutor accountability where we try and… Prosecutors are part of a very broken system, right? We don’t want to be cheerleaders for these prosecutors. We talk more about accountability, so prosecutor accountability.

So we have a coalition that we’re members of with Ella Baker Center and ACLU and a number of other local groups, where we meet regularly with the DA, but we try and push her to embrace more progressive policies. We try and push her to move more quickly on some death penalty cases. But at the same time, if she’s doing the right thing like she’s doing on these death penalty cases, we’re certainly going to defend her and go out there and support what she’s doing.

Mansa Musa:  Right, right, right, right. Because… Yeah. Right.

Michael Collins:  So we do community events. I’m actually in New Orleans just now where we’re holding an event with around about 100 folks from across the country from different groups to talk about, including people from Oakland, to talk about, how can you push your prosecutor and what should you do about it?

But as you know, it’s a very tough time for criminal justice reform, right?

Mansa Musa:  That’s right. That’s right.

Michael Collins:  [Crosstalk] public backlash, we’re coming out of the killing of George Floyd, there was actually a lot of mobilization of people on the streets calling for reform. And very quickly that’s disappeared and we’ve been attacked relentlessly. Anybody who engages in reform, police accountability, the establishment wants rid of them, the conservatives.

And to be honest, especially in a place like California, what we see is a lot of centrist Democrats running scared —

Mansa Musa:  Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Michael Collins:  …Using the same talking points as Donald Trump on crime. And that’s just very unfortunate. So it is an uphill struggle because there’s so much misinformation out there about crime and about prosecutors and about progressive policies.

But we’re trying, we’re trying to educate people. And when you see something like this happen, we try and tell people, look, other prosecutors would look the other way. And that certainly is what happened. As I mentioned before, this scandal goes back decades [inaudible].

Mansa Musa:  Yeah, that’s crazy.

Michael Collins:  And this woman is in office and she has had [inaudible].

Mansa Musa:  But the thing about the thing that, to highlight your point about reform and how we had the upper hand in terms of George Floyd, but George Jackson said that, and he was the best [described] person, he would describe it as reform. All the call for police accountability and divest, all those, the fascists and capitalists, they took them conversations and they twist it, and they twist it to the form like Cop City where we saying like, well, we’re doing this, the bill, to create the reform that you’re talking about, so we want better educating, better training. But you’re trained to be paramilitary.

And the same thing with what’s going on right now in terms of any type of social justice movement around prosecuting misconduct and what they call progressive prosecutors. I interned with a organization that that’s what they did. They got prosecutors, they educated them, got them involved and become progressive prosecutors. But all the progressive prosecutors are just doing what they was mandated to do, to find the truth for justice, search for the truth and justice, all them are being recalled, targeted, and organizations like yourself.

Talk about where y’all at now in terms of y’all next strategy around this issue.

Michael Collins:  So we are having conversations with the attorney general’s office because the attorney general plays this role where they themselves can identify that misconduct has happened, the unconstitutional jury instructions, and they can make a ruling. And they have more resources and more [inaudible] than the local DA.

So we met two weeks ago, I think, with the attorney general’s office to try and push them to get more involved. We’re pushing the governor to dedicate more resources and get more involved in this, somebody who himself opposes the death penalty. And we’re trying to keep the drum beat going in terms of attention. Good organizations like you guys, really appreciate you reaching out to us on this because it is so important that more people know about this.

I’m always surprised that it isn’t a bigger story. When I found out about this, I was like, oh, this is going to be front page.

Mansa Musa:  Right, right, right. It should be! Yeah. Yeah.

Michael Collins:  But I guess there’s so much going on just now, I don’t know, you never can tell what’s going to [inaudible].

Mansa Musa:  But in terms of, how can our viewers and listeners get in touch with you, and tell them how, if they want to support y’all efforts, what they can do to [inaudible].

Michael Collins:  Yeah, so Color of Change has a website called Winning Justice [winningjustice.org], which is our prosecutor accountability work. And if you go on there, you’ll see a number of actions that people can take around this death penalty scandal, even with their own local prosecutors, trying to get involved, set up coalitions, actions that can be taken where you can push your own prosecutor, whether they’re progressive or not, to do more justice and engage in [crosstalk].

So yeah, Winning Justice is our website. And if you search for it, you’ll find it and you’ll see a ton of actions and our positions on a bunch of different issues and what we try and do with prosecutors to get them to engage more in reform.

Mansa Musa:  Well, thank you, Mike.

There you have it. The Real News Rattling the Bars. It might be strange, it really might be a stretch of your imagination to believe that elected officials would actually say that if you are Black and you are Jewish, that you don’t have a right to serve on the jury because you might be sympathetic to the defendant, be it the death penalty, be it the defendant’s economic and social conditions.

But because they think that you might be sympathetic to that, that is saying like, well, you might just be objective to see that it’s a set of circumstances that contributed to the outcome of the charge. But no, as opposed to do that and search for the truth, what I do as a prosecutor, I put a playbook together and say, these people, under all circumstances, cannot serve on the jury, and do it for over three decades, not knowing how many people has been executed as a result of this malicious behavior.

Yet ain’t nobody being charged, ain’t nobody being indicted, ain’t nobody being fired. They’re being awarded a medal of honor for this dishonorable act.

We ask that you look into this matter and make a determination. Do you want your tax dollars to support this type of behavior? We ask that you look into this matter and check out what Color of Change has to offer in terms of their advocacy and see if it’s something that you might want to get involved with.

Thanks, Mike. Thank you for coming on.

Michael Collins:  I appreciate it. Thank you for your time.

This story originally appeared in Truthout on Sep. 19, 2024. It is shared here with permission.

Every day I encounter, in some form or another, the idea that everything is doomed to always get worse. Faced with a daily inundation of horrors and political bad news from around the world, it’s easy to slide into feeling that nothing can change and that no actions we can take make a difference.

But we have to resist this feeling, because this is the mindset of nihilism — it’s what authoritarians want us to feel. Their power thrives on our exhaustion and silence.

I often wake up and fall asleep unsure of my own ability to truly face this world as it is, in the fullness of pain and grief, in the obscene cruelty of a genocide aired on social media. I watch fascist leaders on TV making light of others’ pain and bragging about being strong men, hypocritical liberals claiming empathy while funding destruction.

I protest and write and collaborate and read, looking hopefully to literature and science fiction for a sense of a better future, or at least a more deliciously imagined one. But every day I also contend with nihilistic ideas, the worry that people are set in their ways, the fear that nothing can change for the better.

This is the work of media overwhelm and attention saturation, the constant feed of outrage mixed with frivolity, without suggestions for action or connections to others. The current media landscape, and the trend toward believing that everything is always getting worse, can create a feeling that nothing we do makes any difference. We cannot let this work on us.

Daily inundated with pulls toward nihilism, I stay hopeful through a careful practice, a careful focus on what matters. Here are five things keeping me hopeful right now.

1. The Elders

I have been listening to The Nerve! Conversations with Movement Elders, a podcast of the National Council of Elders that pairs young activists and organizers with elders who have been in the movement since the 60s or 70s. In the most recent episode, elders Frances Reid, Loretta Ross and Barbara Smith joined with younger activists Nautica Jenkins and Hannah Krull to talk about voting and national politics.

“No Black person has ever had the luxury of relying on the Supreme Court for our liberation,” said Ross, a longtime southern Black organizer, responding to questions about recent devastating Supreme Court decisions. “We never fell for that okie doke … it’s people’s power that decides how people’s human rights are upheld and respected.”

The elders throughout this podcast series assert that we need multiple tactics, long-term visions and also short-term strategies to improve immediate conditions. They discourage activists from getting broken down by infighting or seeking political perfection over effective action. And they discourage us from thinking of ourselves or our moment as special.

“One of the sayings from the civil rights movement that I was told,” Ross said, “was that we’ve got to stop thinking of ourselves as the entire chain of freedom. Because the chain of freedom stretches back towards our ancestors and stretches forward towards our descendants. We just have to make sure that the chain doesn’t break at our link, do not give up because of apathy or being so sure that we’re right that we’re not willing to question what we’re doing, or how we’re dissuading people from being active.”

2. The Young People

At the Socialism 2024 conference in Chicago this September, I heard members of the youth antiwar organization Dissenters speak about their practices of international solidarity.

A lot of the ambient “kids-these-days” talk is about how young people don’t know about organizing for power, or are obsessed with superficial and siloed forms of identity politics, or are apathetic. Anyone who believes that would change their minds if they took the time to listen to youth organizers like these speak about global imperialism. Three Dissenters — Christian Ephraim, Rubi Mendez and Josue Sica — reported back on their recent delegations to Cuba, the Philippines and Guatemala, giving detailed analyses of the lessons about the force of U.S. imperialism and the power we have to challenge that from the belly of the beast. They drew parallels among anti-imperialist and workers’ struggles around the world, connected U.S. support for dictatorial leadership abroad to U.S. support for the genocidal Israeli government, and provided specific action steps for supporting struggles in each country.

Meanwhile Peyton Wilson, the communications organizer for Dissenters who moderated the panel, called on everyone in the room to stop being despairing and instead “join an organization.” The message felt disciplined, old-school, inspired and fresh. I thought to myself, imagine being born after 9/11, into a society of mass shootings and endless war and climate catastrophe; coming of age as Donald Trump was voted into office; going out into the world just as the Democrats served up another four years of half-baked policy; and deciding that the only option is to acknowledge your relative privilege and access and keep on fighting with everything you’ve got. It put hope in my bones to see and feel this — not naïve optimism, but a refreshing sense of responsibility.

3. Small-Scale Organizing Works.

In my capacity as the Abolition Journalism Fellow at Interrupting Criminalization, I work with a lot of incarcerated writers, and we often do flash call-ins and protests over censorship, clemency campaigns and retaliatory actions taken against our folks in prison. These abuses range from shutting people in rooms without AC during the hottest Texas summers to “sentencing” people to indefinite solitary confinement without due process. While not every one of these campaigns is successful, a surprising number are — when prisons target people with additional forms of punishment, they are also assuming the outside world won’t pay any attention. Just this year one of our folks finally emerged from years of solitary confinement; another accessed necessary health care; another had major advances in her case for freedom, all with the support of small but strong outside campaigns.

As incomplete and sometimes unsatisfying as they are, each success like this should be celebrated. They show people inside that they are not alone, and they show prison officials that they are being watched. They lead to concrete change and raise consciousness about the inherently abusive nature of prison itself. Phone blasts, emails, petitions — they make an actual difference and they strengthen our networks of resistance. Participating in small-scale actions like this reminds me to focus on what I can do where I am, right now.

4. Our Movements Are Changing the Conversation.

We are still witnessing a genocide in Palestine. We are still watching as people are churned and cycled through criminal legal systems in the U.S. We are still watching the acceleration of climate catastrophe as most of our leaders walk the deadly road of “compromise” on the Earth’s future.

But we also can’t and shouldn’t deny that our movements for justice are changing the conversation. Take trans people — currently a scapegoat and pariah of right-wing activists. I’m not happy to be in the crosshairs, but the reality is that we have cracked open a universe of possibility with our movements for trans liberation, showing people that gender is a constellation rather than a binary, influencing health care providers and educators and social services to expand and accommodate us, insisting on more expansive languages, and sensitizing the general public to the routine violence against us, particularly against trans women and Black and Brown trans people. There is immense vulnerability that comes with these successes, and it will take disciplined solidarity to stem the tide of the attacks on our communities. And still, we should not deny or ignore that we have, through organizing, changed the conversation about trans bodies — and therefore about all bodies — permanently.

In recent years, our movements have worked unexpected wonders in carving out space in the public conversation for abolition, and for mutual aid, and for just economic futures that see beyond capitalism. We have also moved the public in the U.S. significantly on Palestine; in spite of an aggressive and persistent pro-Israel propaganda campaign perpetuated from the very top levels of power in this country, a majority of U.S. adults support a ceasefire in Gaza and disapprove of Israel’s violence in the Gaza Strip. A Harvard Kennedy School survey this spring found that young people support a permanent ceasefire by a 5-to-1 margin. Led by Palestinians, U.S. solidarity actions have generated meaningful change in the conversation — although we have yet to exercise our power to stop the genocide. Building that power requires us to steadfastly recognize and build upon those wins. To ignore them only cedes more space to those who would have us give up hope.

5. Joy and Humor

In The Nerve podcast, Loretta Ross recalled a mentor of hers when she was young advising her to “lighten up.”

“You should have joy and pleasure from being on the right side of history,” he told her, “not anguish and despair. Let the other people have that.”

Joy is not just icing on the cake or the purview of the privileged. It is an exercise in hope that has always been rigorously practiced by people facing impossible situations of oppression. Laughter, pleasure and small acts of connection are precisely where we find our power — and the soul fuel that makes it possible to go on.

Hope isn’t a feeling or a firm belief that things will go our way; it is, as Mariame Kaba often says, a discipline. Practicing hope means paying attention to what is possible, and planting ourselves in the places where we can help those possibilities grow. These acts may be as simple as putting a pen to paper, picking up a phone to call or venturing into the streets to protest. Grief and even despair may overshadow us some days. But wallowing in hopelessness is exactly what they would have us do, those who would break the chain of freedom. Our actions, even in the face of apathy and overwhelm, are just links in the chain.

The State of Missouri is scheduled to execute Marcellus “Khaliifah” Williams on Sept. 24 for a crime that even prosecutors now say he did not commit. On Sept. 12, a Missouri judge denied a motion filed by prosecutors to vacate Williams’ conviction and death penalty. Despite more than half a million petition signatures demanding Williams be freed, Missouri is set to proceed with the execution. Michelle Smith, Co-Director of Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty, joins Rattling the Bars to explain Williams’ case and the fight to free him before it’s too late.

Studio / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino

Transcript

Mansa Musa:  Welcome to this edition of Rattling the Bars. I’m your host, Mansa Musa.

In this country, according to the Constitution of the United States, a presumption of innocence goes with a person that’s arrested. They’re presumed innocent until they are found guilty. It’s not they’re presumed innocent until they exonerate themselves. The burden is always on the state to prosecute a person beyond a reasonable doubt.

We have a situation today, where a man that is innocent — Not by me saying this, but by the very people that prosecuted him saying this, that he’s innocent. Not me saying this, the evidence, the DNA evidence is saying this. Not me saying this, but a preponderance of evidence and people coming out on behalf of Marcellus Williams Khaliifah, better known as Khaliifah, who is slated to be executed the 24th of this month.

Joining me today is a supporter and an advocate for Khaliifah, is Michelle Smith. Welcome, Michelle.

Michelle Smith:  Thank you so much. Thank you for having me on. I appreciate the space to talk about Khaliifah’s case.

Mansa Musa:  Okay, so let’s start right here. First, tell us a little bit about what you do, then we are going to what’s going on with Khaliifah.

Michelle Smith:  Sure. So, well, as far as myself and my organization, I am the co-director of Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty. We are the only statewide entity in Missouri that primarily fights to get rid of capital punishment. That is our main goal. And, in doing that, we do a lot of different things.

We do things from legislative advocacy, trying to change the actual law, to connecting with our community, and educating our citizens about the usage of the death penalty in Missouri. And also, we advocate for people who are on death row, which is what we’re doing currently for Khaliifah.

So, we do a lot. And, this case right now, it is very dire. He has an execution date in, what, 11 days, and so we’re really trying to amplify his case, this injustice, and what is happening in our state concerning the pending execution of an innocent Black man.

Mansa Musa:  All right, so let’s right there. Okay, an innocent Black man. All right, make the case based on what the facts say, why he’s innocent, but start with what they say that he allegedly done.

Michelle Smith:  Sure. So in 1998, there was a, the victim’s name is Felicia Gale, and she was in her home and there was a person who entered her home and brutally killed her, and it was a tragic situation for sure. I never want to take away from that. A family lost [crosstalk].

And so after this happened in 1998, a few months prior, another person, another woman, had been murdered in her home in a similar fashion. And the medical examiner at the time said they looked similar, but also the way that they were killed with a knife from their home, and also this knife was basically left sticking out of their bodies. So the medical examiner thought that there was some similarities, maybe it was some type of serial killer situation.

But both of the cases went cold for a very long time. There were no suspects and no one arrested in either of those cases.

A little over a year later, the victim in this case, Mrs. Gale, her husband, who was a doctor, he decided to offer a $10,000 reward for someone to come forward with information because he and his family wanted justice for the killing of his wife.

So once he offered that $10,000 reward, several people came forward basically saying that Khaliifah had confessed to killing this victim. And those people were… One was a girlfriend, someone he was dating, and another person was a person he met in jail. So we all call that a jailhouse informant, or a jailhouse snitch.

So these two particular people, who I’ve actually learned knew each other, the informant, the person in jail, and the girlfriend. So they both said Khaliifah basically told them that he had killed this victim.

And the main crux of the case during that time — And he went to trial in 2001…

Mansa Musa:  That’s right.

Michelle Smith:  So several years after the murder, he went to trial. The informants both received money, they received $5,000. In one case, with the jailhouse informant, he actually met the victim’s husband at the prosecutor’s office where the victim’s husband handed him $5,000 in cash. So it’s just egregious.

But, the main crux of the case at that time was these two people’s statements, and the fact that Khaliifah was in possession of the victim’s laptop computer.

Now, you and I both know that there is a time, and even still today, stolen property is sold, handed off, et cetera. And so the fact that Khaliifah had her laptop was not necessarily surprising to me, because people do trade in stolen property.

And, interestingly enough, the girlfriend at the time, who said Khaliifah had the laptop, it was later found out that she’s the one who gave him the laptop, because she [crosstalk] off the street. Again, at that point it had been stolen property. So he had been in possession of the victim’s laptop, and these people said that he told them that he had done this.

But, when we look at the actual evidence — And when I say evidence, I mean physical evidence, not only blood at the scene, but things like footprints. There was a bloody footprint left at the home from the person who had did this. Those did not match Khaliifah.

Also, the victim, of course, she struggled, this was a brutal situation, and the victim was clutching hairs in her hand of the perpetrator, the person that had harmed her, and when they tested those hairs that were clutched in her hand, they did not match Khaliifah either. Any fingerprints in the home did not match him either, and the blood on the knife also did not match Khaliifah.

So there is no physical evidence that actually matches Khaliifah in this case. Again, the only thing that the prosecution originally put their case on is these two “witnesses” who said that Khaliifah told them that he did it, and the fact that he had an item of the victim’s in his possession, including her laptop.

Mansa Musa:  Okay, answer this for the benefit of our audience…

Michelle Smith:  Go ahead.

Mansa Musa:  Because the error that you talking about, that he got locked up, The Innocence Project, the DNA became like the national standard for exonerating. Kirk Bloodsworth, they got a law called the Kirk Bloodsworth law. But Kirk Bloodsworth was locked up with me, and Kirk Bloodsworth was locked up in the ’80s, ’85 or ’86. And Kirk Bloodsworth was locked up for allegedly raping and killing a little young girl.

They had the underwear of the little young girl in their possession, the state did, and never tested it. So when they ultimately tested it, it exonerated him. But what that did, that started this national campaign to give value to DNA evidence. That’s what this did. And I’m setting this backdrop up.

So whenever DNA evidence came up during that period, during the late ’90s, or in that whole ’90 and 2000, after OJ, you had… DNA evidence was like the crux. It was like the end of all.

If you know, why wasn’t this evidence, which is evidence that’s scientifically sound, because you got hundreds of thousands of people that are locked up to this day based on DNA evidence. Why was this evidence excluded and didn’t go towards his innocence, to your knowledge?

Michelle Smith:  Well, I’ll say a couple of things. First, getting DNA tested in cases is always and often contentious. So, often the courts don’t approve the testing. You assume that when a case has some type of evidence, it is automatically tested. That’s not necessarily the case. So in Marcellus’s or Khaliifah’s case, the forensic evidence, the DNA was not tested until 2015. And I mean the current good DNA testing, not just like a blood test, but actual…

Mansa Musa:  Right, right, right.

Michelle Smith:  So it was conducted in 2015. And during that time what happened was the DNA on the weapon, it was not Khaliifah’s DNA, but whoever’s DNA was, it was unknown. They didn’t know who. So of course the assumption is the DNA must match the perpetrator, and they did not know who that was. They were not allowed to run the DNA through the FBI system, I think it’s called CODIS. They were not allowed to run it through the system, so for many years that DNA went unknown.

However, a few weeks ago, probably mid-August, some DNA testing was conducted further on that knife. And when that testing came back, they had tested the prosecutor who originally prosecuted the case in 2001 and one of his investigators. And, interestingly enough, the DNA came back to match them.

So what that told the current prosecutor’s office is that the evidence was contaminated, because obviously the prosecutor didn’t do it himself. So the fact that the DNA on the knife matched him, meaning that there was some contamination that happened, there was some mishandling of the evidence. And so the fact that the reality is the prosecutor’s DNA is on the weapon, and also that investigator, means that there was some type of breakdown in the chain of custody and the handling of that material.

A few weeks ago, Aug. 28 when the hearing was held, that original prosecutor, he got on the stand and testified, and he basically said that yes, I did handle the knife without any gloves. He said the trial, again, happened three years after the murder, and because they had already run the fingerprint testing and the blood testing, he felt like it was okay for him to handle the knife without gloves. Actually said he did it all the time, which is concerning to me.

And so that’s how his DNA got on the knife. He handled it without gloves. He said he pulled it out of the package, and put the evidence sticker on it, and he showed it to several of the witnesses to confirm that that’s the knife that they saw — Witnesses being the police officers — And he did.

So the fact that the weapon was mishandled and the evidence contaminated obviously means that there’s something going on, because had the prosecutor not done that, it’s possible that the actual perpetrator’s DNA would have still been found on the knife. But because it had been mishandled, right now the DNA, again, does not match Khaliifah, but it has proven the evidence has been mishandled. So that is why there is such contention around the DNA evidence in this case.

Mansa Musa:  All right, talk about this here. What about the hair follicles? Did anything come out in terms of testing that against Khaliifah’s hair follicles?

Michelle Smith:  Yes, and none of the other evidence matched Khaliifah: the hair, the footprints, the fingerprints, there is no physical evidence in that home, in that murder scene, that matched Khaliifah. The only evidence they had was the fact that he was in possession of the victim’s laptop and that these two people said that he told them he did it. They didn’t see it happen. They weren’t there either, but they both said that he told.

And the person from jail, interestingly enough, he did not know that man. He had just been in jail with him for a few days, up to a week, so the fact that you would even be in jail with someone and just confessing to them that you killed people, that doesn’t make any sense to me.

Mansa Musa:  But that’s a common phenomenon in prison. People, they sit around, and they look at the paper, and they read about somebody’s case, and they use that to get out. They call the state’s attorney, state’s attorney don’t even look and see whether or not there’s any validity to it.

But let’s talk about the current prosecutor. And the current prosecutor, and them and the states representative saying that he should be released or he should definitely not be executed. Talk about that, talk about that right there.

Michelle Smith:  Sure. So in our state, in 2021, there was a law passed in Missouri. And that law says that the local prosecutor, which is the office that prosecuted a person, that the local prosecutor has the right to bring forth a case, a motion to court to ask the court to set aside adjustment or vacate a conviction. And that happens when the attorneys for the person who was convicted brings evidence to the prosecutor, and then he himself in his office reviews the evidence.

So it’s not that a prosecutor just brings any case, he actually has his own staff review the evidence, his investigators, he runs the testing, et cetera. And once he was done reviewing this case, he decided that, yes, this case is not something I would have brought to court if I had been in court at that time. Our office messed up, our office mishandled evidence, and our office convicted someone who we today believe who is not guilty, who is innocent.

And so because of all of those reasons, the prosecutor brought the motion to court, asked the judge to review it and to vacate that conviction. But, there is another party in this matter, which is the state attorney, the attorney general of Missouri.

And so, the attorney general of Missouri has the right to challenge the local prosecutor’s assertions. And this has been done several times. Now, in the past three times, it has been used since 2021, the person was exonerated and freed — And none of those people were on death row. All three of those people had life sentences. One was in prison 28 years, one was in prison 34, and one was in prison for 42 years, and all of them were Black men. Each of those Black men have been exonerated and released after decades incarcerated.

But in this particular case, when the prosecutor brought forth the case and asked for it to be reviewed, the state attorney general has tried to block him at every point, at every turn. They were going to take a Alford plea, which is basically a plea deal [crosstalk] some evidence, but that still there is doubt in that conviction. And the judge was going to accept that Alford plea, and in exchange, they were going to give a Khaliifah a life in prison sentence.

Now life in prison is still a conviction and incarceration, however, it would’ve saved his life. He would not be facing execution. But, the state attorney General went to the Supreme Court that evening, asked them to throw out this plea deal and hold the hearing, and once that hearing was held, the judge then reviewed the evidence.

And it came out yesterday, so the judgment came out yesterday and it said that, basically, the DNA evidence that, again, points to the prosecutor, meaning that it was contaminated, is not “clear and convincing.” There’s a very high bar, when we’re talking about innocence, there’s a very high bar a person has to meet, and the judge does not feel that this case meets that high enough bar in order to vacate the conviction. So the judge denied the motion to vacate the conviction.

So at this point, again, Khaliifah is facing execution on Sept. 24. His attorneys as well as the local prosecutor are trying to figure out their next legal move in court. I’m not quite sure what that is, but of course they can go to the state Supreme Court, they can also go to the US Supreme Court. And so we anticipate them doing that, and I’m sure that they’re going to keep fighting to bring justice to this case, and to exonerate Khaliifah and also stop his impending execution. But we are in [inaudible] —

Mansa Musa:  I got you. This is literally, like you say, the 11th hour. But also from my information, the family members came out and took a position on Khaliifah. What was that?

Michelle Smith:  In these cases, the victim’s families don’t always agree with the prosecution, and I think that’s a fallacy that people assume so. But the victim’s family, Mrs. Gale’s family, have stated publicly that they don’t believe in the death penalty. Again, her husband is a doctor, and I’m sure that him being a doctor, a person that is tasked with saving people’s lives, is what grounds his own ideology in this, but the family is not for the death penalty.

Now, the family believes that Khaliifah is guilty of the murder. They have stated that as well. They don’t believe he’s innocent. They believe he’s guilty, but they also don’t believe in the death penalty. So they would be satisfied if he was just incarcerated.

But I explain to people often that the prosecutor, they don’t always align with the family. The prosecutor is a political position, and the decisions that they make in the office are often politically motivated. It’s not always about the family.

I’ve seen cases where… There’s one case of a man whose family, the victim’s family, was his own family, because in his case, when he was 19, he killed a member of his family. I believe she was a great aunt who was an elderly person, and he was doing drugs, sadly, and he killed his great aunt trying to get money. But the victim’s family, his family are the same family.

And that victim’s family went to the governor, I believe it was Texas, and went to the governor of Texas and told him, we don’t want our loved one killed. We understand what he did. We are a family of faith, we are a family of forgiveness, and we want him here, and we believe that he’s a better person, and we don’t want to lose him. And the state said, we don’t care what you think and executed him anyway.

So the prosecution is not always about the victim’s families, or the victim’s loved ones, or justice for the victim’s family. Because, like in Khaliifah’s case, the victim’s family does not agree with the death penalty, however, the state is still pushing for Khaliifah to be executed. So it is not always what the victims want.

Mansa Musa:  We want to educate our audience on this point when they offer Khaliifah an Alford, because the Alford plea is a plea that’s saying that I’m innocent, it’s just that the circumstances, I can’t overcome these circumstances at this time. It’s not that they can’t be overcome, it’s just they can’t be overcome at this time. So this is a better course. So given the Alford plea, he still would’ve been able to pursue his quest to be exonerated, which is really what this is about, an innocent man.

Talk about an innocent man getting ready to be legally murdered. Talk about the state of Missouri and how they do the… Overwhelming numbers of Blacks on death row, or is this generally that they go out, and they execute or they try to get the death penalty across the board, or is it just systemically poor people?

Michelle Smith:  Interestingly enough, when we talk about… Of course, racism is embedded in the capital punishment, death penalty system, it is the crutch of it, it’s how it was done. There was a time where we were lynched. They made it legal and they made it state and they made it in the gas chamber, or an execution chair, but it’s still state-sanctioned murder.

And since it is still embedded in racism, there is a little bit of difference. It’s not necessarily the race of the defendant, which does play a part, but statistically it’s the race of the victim.

Being a white female means that you’re three-and-a-half times more likely to receive a death sentence. So if the victim is a white woman or a white female child, whoever the perpetrator is, nevermind that it could be by whoever, but that goes to show you who’s valued in society. 

Because if Khaliifah’s victim was a Black man or a Black woman, he very likely would not be on death row right now. That’s just the reality of the situation. So, racism does definitely play a part, who the victim is plays a huge part, but it is also who the defendant is as well.

And in our particular state, because we are a state that held onto slavery, actually Missouri was the last slave-owning state. So Missouri is the South. I tell people that often, Missouri is the South. And when we look at it, we look at the lynchings in our state, and we can really overlay a map of the executions, and they almost match.

So places that did lynching, extrajudicial murders, now carries out the death penalty, capital punishment. It is definitely mostly Black men, for the most part, but the overwhelming majority of people are poor. And that’s what we need to talk about, too.

People who are facing capital punishment or lengthy sentences in prison are poor, don’t have access to the best legal help. In Khaliifah’s case, his attorneys, back at that time, his defense attorneys today, those two men are judges.

And they came to court and they said, listen, we were ineffective because we had another death penalty case at the time, and we were stretched thin. We were busy, we had more than one capital punishment case, and we did not do everything that we could for Khaliifah because of that other case. And they actually admitted that in court as well.

So the representation for people, most of the time get public defenders, and they don’t have the robust representation. Everybody’s not OJ. Everybody cannot afford Johnnie Cochran and a great legal team.

Mansa Musa:  Dream team.

Michelle Smith:  Exactly. And so most poor people are facing these particular punishments because they don’t have access to their robust legal representation, and that’s the crux of it.

Even right now in our state, there are approximately 10 to 12 pending capital punishment cases, meaning they’re sitting in jail waiting to go to trial, and they’ve been charged with murder and facing a death penalty. And guess what? All of those people right now are white men from rural Missouri. So they’re from small towns in Missouri, they’re all white men.

And it is really an indictment, again, of our system. So when we talk about racism and the division and the biases, we truly need to understand that our system, our country, hates poor people overall.

Mansa Musa:  They criminalize poverty.

Michelle Smith:  [Crosstalk] tell you is, if you’re poor and you don’t have access to resources, or access to amazing litigation, et cetera, you are going to be victimized in this system.

Mansa Musa:  They criminalize poverty.

But talk… Look, before as we get ready to close out, talk about Khaliifa. I asked you earlier, I said, make the case why you think he’s innocent, and I’ll leave that up to our viewers based on the preponderance of information that you gave us, the facts of his case is in the public record. But talk about Khaliifa, how is he doing, and what kind of person is Khaliifa, for the benefit of our audience?

Michelle Smith:  So Khaliifah is, again, his birth name was Marcellus Williams. He has been a very devout Muslim for many, many years, and he took upon the Islamic name Khaliifah upon his shahada, which is that naming ceremony. He is also the Imam at the prison he’s in. So he is a person that is looked up to, that is very admired. He guides the other Muslim men in that prison, and he’s always trying to make sure that he stays in alignment with Allah.

So because of that, he keeps his faith right up front, and he is doing okay. We talked a few weeks ago and he honestly encourages me, because I’m not… Sadly, I don’t have the faith that he has. He’s always concerned, asking me how I’m doing, telling me everything is going to be okay. Because I’m a worrier, but he is very much that person that really stays calm, keeps other people calm around him, and has the perspective that everything is going to work out because he is such a faithful individual.

He’s also a father, a grandfather. He is very involved in his family, and he’s a poet. Khaliifah writes amazing poetry, and we put together a collection of his poetry as well. He’s written poems about, one is called “The Perplexing Smiles of the Children of Palestine”, and it is an amazing poem about the atrocities that are happening to the Palestinian people.

He’s written a poem about George Floyd and the issues of what happened in 2020. So he’s very in tune with what’s going on today, and he has written some amazing poetry.

So he is a beautiful-spirited person. He is definitely someone that has so much to give to others, and we are truly fighting for his innocence and his life so that he can go on impacting people in a positive way.

Mansa Musa:  So tell our audience right now what can they do, how they can support and try to help reverse this process that we know is going to take place unless we get some support and raise the voice of Khaliifah.

Michelle Smith:  So of course, his legal team are doing all they can in court, and we appreciate that. But as far as the community, locally here in Missouri and nationwide, just amplify Khaliifah’s story and his case. Talk to your community members, talk to your family, talk to your loved ones about the fact that the death penalty does not solve anything, and actually killing innocent people should be something we as a society should not be doing.

We have a petition for Khaliifah. We also have a web page, which is www.freekhaliifah.org. His name is spelled K-H-A-L-I-I-F-A-H. So freekhaliifah.org. And it has a toolkit where we have graphics, and we have information that you can share on social media. You can print also and share as well. We have a little email template that you can email our governor, especially if you live in Missouri, you can definitely utilize that.

So we’re really asking people to learn and to amplify the case, amplify Khaliifah’s life and humanity, and we would love this to get as big as possible.

Some people have made videos on TikTok and Instagram, and those are amazing as well, because those get a lot of views and really inspire other people to learn more, and so that’s truly what we’re looking to do, amplify Khaliifah’s case.

Next Tuesday the 17th from 6:00 to 9:00 PM we will be going live on Instagram, bringing on several people to talk about Khaliifah’s case and trying to do a social media push to amplify the case, again, and to amplify his life. Because a lot of people don’t know what’s happening, so we definitely want more people to understand what is going on and how it not only affects us in Missouri, it affects us nationwide, because we should have a stop at killing innocent people. That definitely is not something we should be doing.

Mansa Musa:  Thank you. There you have it. The Real News, Rattling the Bars. We ask that you review this information about Marcellus Khaliifah Williams. We ask that you ask yourself if you was in this situation, would you want to get a fair trial? Would you want people to really look at the information and the evidence? When you confronted with this information and this evidence, ask yourself, would you, as a juror, if you knew all this as a juror, would you have found Khaliifah guilty of murder? Ask yourself, if you as a juror would not be able to discern when a person have interest over humanity, where a person would take and sell somebody out for $5,000? Ask yourself what would you do?

We’re asking that you look at this information and follow what Michelle was saying as far as on Instagram, on their webpage. It’s very interactive, and make your voice known. Because if we continue to allow this country to execute people legally with impunity, then, as Angela Davis say, “If they come for me [in the morning], they will come for you in the [night].” And this is them coming for us in the morning if we don’t raise the voice of Khaliifah. Thank you, Michelle.

Michelle Smith:  Thank you. Thank you so much.

Mansa Musa:  And we ask you to continue to support Rattling the Bars and The Real News because we’re actually the real news.

There’s no denying the Trump campaign is trying to court Black voters, and the appeal to protect “Black jobs” from immigrants seems designed to do precisely that. While support for Trump among Black voters remains low, some believe that ought to change. Janiyah Thomas, Black Media Engagement Director for the Trump campaign, joins Taya Graham of The Real News for a frank discussion about the election, the Supreme Court, the loss of affirmative action, reproductive rights, and the reality of being “Black MAGA.”

Studio Production: Cameron Granadino
Post-Production: Taya Grahama, Adam Coley

Transcript

Taya Graham:  Welcome to The Real News podcast. My name is Taya Graham, and today we’re diving headfirst into a topic that challenges our fundamental understanding of the Black community in America: The rise of Black conservative women who are literally changing the face of the Republican Party.

Now, we’ve heard a lot about Black men turning to conservatism, including a series of interviews I did at the Republican National Convention exploring why they support Trump — And just a quick fact, recent polls suggest as many as 20% of Black men are highly likely to vote for former President Trump. These are critical votes in an election that is already razor-thin.

But what about Black women? What happens if they cross over in significant numbers? And that’s why we’re having a frank conversation with a bold Black woman who’s not only crossing party lines, but is taking an active leadership role in getting Donald Trump elected in 2024.

Black women have long been the bedrock of the Democratic Party, consistently delivering crucial votes and key victories. So what drives these women to align with a party that for many seems worlds apart from their communities? What are they gaining, and what are they risking in this controversial political realignment?

Well, joining us today is a dynamic force within the conservative movement: Janiyah Thomas, the Black Media engagement director for Donald Trump’s 2024 reelection campaign. And she previously worked on Senator Tim Scott’s campaign in South Carolina.

As she battles at the forefront of this volatile landscape, we’ll delve into her motivations, the obstacles she faces when defending the indefensible, and how she navigates the tension between her identity and her political stance. So get ready with me for an eye-opening discussion as we explore the challenges of taking on such a public role as a Trump surrogate and his envoy to the Black community.

So without further ado, let’s dive into our conversation with Janiyah Thomas.

Janiyah Thomas:  Yes, thank you for having me.

Taya Graham:  Janiyah, I have to ask, how did you become the Black media engagement director for the entire Trump reelection campaign? What factors influenced your decision to take the role? And I have to say, especially in the light of what people view as President Trump’s controversial stances on issues affecting the Black community?

Janiyah Thomas:  I mean, I think overall, I’ve been doing this for a while. I originally was the Black media coordinator at the RNC. That was my first job. So I’ve been working with Black press, and I love doing it because sometimes I feel like getting good stories, working with Black-owned media, I feel more rewarded because it’s not as easy to do that all the time, versus working with New York Times, like they’ll do anything and write about anything [laughs].

So it feels more rewarding to work with Black-owned media. And also, as you know, a lot of as Black people rely on Black media to give them factual information, especially when we’re in an election year.

So that has everything to do with it. Part of the reason I took it is because it’s something I thought was really cool, and I feel really passionate about working with Black media.

And I love Donald Trump also, but I think it’s important to have somebody that’s able to speak to those issues, speak to that community, and also someone that’s able to develop relationships with that community as well.

Taya Graham:  Well, I can see that you play a really important role in helping the Black community understand the Republican Party. But I would have to say, it has been strongly criticized for its stance on racial issues.

For example, I have to ask you about affirmative action. The Supreme Court, back in 2023, rejected race-based affirmative action in college admissions. We just got information from MIT, there’s a drop in Black and Latino students, an increase in Asian students.

This is just the facts. This is just the new information that’s coming out since the removal of affirmative action. And this was a direct result of the conservative justices that President Trump appointed.

So what would you say to people who are saying that this means the Trump administration means less opportunity for Black Americans and not more?

Janiyah Thomas:  I wouldn’t say that necessarily the takeaway from that shouldn’t be that it’s less opportunity for Black and Brown communities. I think that the overall point of the affirmative action decision is based on the simple fact of merit. I will speak personally to myself and say that I don’t want to be rewarded for something just because I’m Black or I’m a woman. I want to be there and be in that position because I’m the best person to be there.

So the entire argument around affirmative action on the Republican side is we care more about your work ethic, your merit, and you should be rewarded based off of that.

Taya Graham:  Well, you know what? I do agree with you about merit, but I’ll even use myself as an example. I went to a public school, and I actually got great SATs, great grades, but I didn’t have some of the extracurriculars that, let’s say, I might’ve had if I had gone to a more prestigious high school. And one could argue that affirmative action may have given me an opportunity to prove myself. Certainly I would — And I actually have witnessed this — Would’ve been put on academic probation, kicked out, lost scholarships if I didn’t perform.

But what would you say to people who are like, we’re just trying to get the foot in the door, we’re just asking for equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome, just opportunity?

Janiyah Thomas:  I think overall that argument, what you just said, especially about your high school experience and things like that, a lot of that has to do with state level stuff when it comes to the education system. And I think that we need to focus more on those types of issues at the state and local level, especially when we’re talking about schools in inner city communities.

And I think that something else we need to start doing better is implementing more mentorship programs so that these people in these underprivileged communities have more options and know that there’s another way out or there’s other things that you could be doing. There’s more to life than just what you’re seeing in the neighborhood.

Taya Graham:  How would you reconcile President Trump’s behavior, which critics say often contradicts conservative values? Not to be crude, but if Vice President Harris had been married three times and had five children with three different men, I think people would not consider her a representative of conservative values. I think people would be very critical of those personal choices.

If you can respond to critics of the former president who say he does not embody conservative values or Christian values, what would you tell them?

Janiyah Thomas:  I think a lot of these critics, a lot of it’s coming from media people, which, from my experience, their perception of reality and what actual voters care about are two different things. So I would say that I’ve never heard of an actual regular voter when we’ve been on the trail mentioning any of these things.

The point is to say to the critics, we saw what four years of President Trump looked like, we saw what four years of Kamala Harris and the Biden administration looks like, and I think that for a lot of us, especially Black and Brown people, we were all doing better under President Trump’s leadership. And I think that it’s more about what he’s done as a candidate and what he’s done as the president of the United States, less and less about his personal life.

Taya Graham:  Well, it’s interesting you said that because, as the Black media engagement director, you’re trying to reach out to the Black community and show people that the Republican Party perhaps isn’t what it’s painted by the media, that it is inclusive.

But I would say this: President Trump selected J.D. Vance as his vice president. I would say if he wanted to show the Republican Party was in a new era and welcoming Black and Brown Americans, Senator Tim Scott would’ve been an excellent choice. So I’m just curious what your take is on the choice of Vance over Scott, and do you think that affects the party’s image among Black voters?

Janiyah Thomas:  Like I said earlier, we care about merit and who’s the best person for the job, and President Trump made that decision and chose J.D. Vance as our vice president candidate. Obviously, I’m from South Carolina. I think Tim Scott’s amazing. But I mean, it’s not always about what you look like to show people we’re the party of being inclusive. I think we can do that in multiple ways.

President Trump is not the traditional Republican candidate. So I think a lot of the things that he’s done and is wanting to do haven’t always aligned with traditional Republican politics. So I think there’s ways to show that we’re inclusive and want more people to come join the party.

Example, having someone like Amber Rose speaking at our convention. That’s not something George Bush may have done [laughs], but just simple things like that, just showing and showing up. We’ve been going to Democrat-ran cities and meeting with voters there, and that’s not stuff traditional Republicans do either. So I think there’s more ways to show that he wants more people in the party and to be more inclusive versus who the vice presidential candidate is.

And I think overall our message with Black voters resonates the best with President Trump. I think that the reason we’re seeing an uptick of Black voters supporting President Trump is because they like his message. And again, like I said earlier, they’ve seen four years of Trump and they’ve seen four years of this administration, and I think that’s made it very simple for a lot of Black and Brown voters.

Taya Graham:  There are people who feel that… I mean, Black women are considered the bedrock of the Democratic Party. And of course, there are Christian conservative women that still vote Democrat. So how do you respond to critics who say that you and other Black conservatives in leadership roles are there just for optics, or even worse, doing this for cynical reasons? How would you respond to that?

Janiyah Thomas:  I’ll say, at the end of the day, I don’t have to explain myself to anybody but the Lord and my parents [laughs]. So my motive for doing what I’m doing has nothing to do with cynical reasons or to be the token Black person.

Like I said earlier, the role of being able to have someone that can engage with Black press and has developed relations with Black press is very important in this election cycle. So I think that is the reason why I’m here.

I care about making momentum with Black voters, and I care about getting our message to that audience, whether that’s traditional, non-traditional, or Black-owned media. That’s my overall goal.

So I would say the critics and people are going to say what they want to say. They’re going to say stuff regardless if you’re on the right or the left. There’s always going to be somebody criticizing you. But I mean, we always get that typical, you’re an Uncle Tom. You’re a token, whatever.

And at this point, I don’t care anymore. But it is more hurtful coming from other Black people because I think that the larger conversation we need to have as a community is we need to talk more about why we can’t have conversations, why we can’t agree to disagree, why it has to be a whole family fallout because one of us wants to think differently than the rest of the family.

I think the bigger conversation is what can we do better as a people to be able to have those tough conversations? Because if we want equality, then I think that means equality on the right and on the left.

Taya Graham:  That’s a really interesting point that you want there to be space for diversity of opinion. And you pointed out, quite rightly, that the media sometimes is at fault in helping to, let’s say, inflame rhetoric or highlight questionable rhetoric. In particular, I would say there has been quite a bit of discussion around President Trump and Sen. Vance questioning Vice President Kamala Harris’s Blackness. How would you even define personally what it is to be Black enough in America? Isn’t that really divisive rhetoric?

Janiyah Thomas:  The funny thing is I hear more white people asking this question than Black people, especially when it comes to media. One, I’ll say that what he has said, especially during the NABJ conventions in that situation in particular, he didn’t say anything that Black Twitter hasn’t been saying for years, first of all. So I mean, if your algorithm aligns that way, then you’ve seen these tweets and you’ve seen these things.

And the point of it is basically to say that she is a flip-flopper, and she goes back and forth on her identity and policy. So the point is to say, if you can’t stand firm in your identity, how can we trust what you say you’re going to do as the President of the United States?

Taya Graham:  But the thing is though, she went to a historic Black university, she joined a Black sorority, it’s not like she has…

Janiyah Thomas:  But since when are those qualifications for Blackness? I know white people that have done the same thing [both laugh]. I think we need to stop trying to categorize ourselves and put ourselves in this box to say, okay, well, you did XYZ, so that makes you Black enough. I don’t think that those two things are the qualifications, but I don’t think there is a qualification. I don’t think it matters what she is or what she isn’t. I think it’s more so about what she has done and what she can do.

Taya Graham:  Let me ask you this. This conversation around being Black enough, don’t you think this rhetoric risks alienating voters? If Black Twitter is talking about it, if white people in the media are asking about this, this idea of being Black enough, it makes me go back to the one-drop rule and people being measured in sixteenths, in quarters, in eighths. To bring that up, I understand that you say you think it’s a symbol of flip-flopping, but this is the type of rhetoric that seems to divide, not unite.

Janiyah Thomas:  No, I understand what you’re saying, but I’ll say that I think that we need to focus more on removing her race and gender out of the conversation and focus more on the policies. I feel like the more we keep focusing on whether she’s Black enough, Black people have been having a conversation about who’s Black enough forever. And are we ever going to get to a conclusion? Probably not [both laugh].

So does it really matter in the grand scheme of things? We’re definitely not going to get to a conclusion before election day, so why are we still talking about it? I think we need to talk more about the things she’s done in the past and what she’s been doing as the vice president and what she claims she wants to do in the future.

Taya Graham:  Janiyah, that’s actually a fair point to put aside race and gender. And so let’s put it aside for a moment and have you address some of the broader concerns that Trump’s policies are divisive or harmful to American democracy.

So for example, there are Republicans like Olivia Troye who said they felt more welcomed at the DNC, arguing that they were voting for democracy rather than for Democrats. So how do you counter this narrative? What would your response be to those Republicans like Ana Navarro or Stephanie Grisham, who was a former White House press secretary? What would you say to these lifelong Republicans who say that Trump is a threat to democracy?

Janiyah Thomas:  I think that we had a traditional convention with traditional votes from the delegates. Yes, they just shoved Kamala Harris down everyone’s throat, basically, with their process. So I’ll say that I think that I don’t care as much about what they’re doing and saying at their convention on the left or whatever, and these Republicans or former Republicans going to join and vote for democracy, as they say.

At our convention, we had Never Trumpers for Trump, including our vice presidential candidate. We don’t talk about it a lot, but he was, at one point, a Never Trumper, and now he is on our presidential ticket with him. I think we care more about uniting the party and they care less about that. So if they feel like going to the DNC is they’re upholding democracy, then that’s their business.

But I think that most people can see that what we’ve done on our side is… Nothing about what we’ve done, nobody’s lost rights with President Trump as the president. I don’t think that that argument of upholding democracy, we’ve never done anything to do the opposite. I think, if anything, we could say the opposite about the left.

Taya Graham:  Well, I think people would assert, and actually I’ve had conversations about this because I was really excited to have the opportunity to speak with you and Tia, and they are genuinely concerned that former President Trump would not accept election results if they were not in favor. And they did point to Jan. 6 and the things he said that day and what occurred as an example of that, as well as some of his recent comments.

That’s where this pushback is coming from, from people who really are concerned that he would not accept election results and perhaps stall and stall the process.

Janiyah Thomas:  Again, as I said earlier, I think this is another thing that I only hear coming from the D.C. people or people in the media. I don’t think that the Jan. 6 situation is a top of mind issue for voters. I think what people care about is the economy. They care about immigration. They care about crime. Those are the biggest issues for people. I’ve never once heard a voter say Jan. 6 is a determining factor in the election for them.

Taya Graham:  You brought up some good points in that these are not the things that voters are really interested in. They don’t really care who spoke at the RNC, or if the DNC had people who are former Republicans, or if the RNC didn’t have former Republican presidents come out and show their support.

So if you say these sorts of things don’t matter, then you’re saying that policy does. What are some of these policies that you say people are excited to hear that the Trump administration is offering? If you could give me some examples of the policies that you’ve told voters about and they’re excited by.

Janiyah Thomas:  I’ll start with my favorite, the opportunity zone funding that he did with Sen. Tim Scott. I think a lot of people don’t really understand the concept of opportunity zones. Basically what it did was it put private investment into distressed communities, and most of these communities were communities of color, and it generated billions of dollars in these communities.

And secondly, I would say his tax cuts during his administration also boosted the economy. So I think that voters…

Taya Graham:  Well, I’m sorry to interrupt you there, but there definitely is, I would say, solid research that suggests that the tax cuts benefited wealthy folks more than it did, let’s say, middle-class and lower-income folks. That this is a continuation of the Reagan cuts on some of our wealthiest members of our country, going from what was a 70% income tax rate, right now we’re down to what? I think the Harris administration is trying to push it back up to 23%?

There were huge tax cuts that one could argue stimulated the economy, but truly benefited some of the wealthiest people in our country. These weren’t tax cuts that lower-income and middle-class people received.

Janiyah Thomas:  I think that what President Trump has done did benefit middle-class people. I think that stimulating the economy and creating more jobs benefits middle-class and lower-class Americans. I think especially when we’re talking about the unemployment rate around Black people, he had one of the lowest unemployment rates in the most recent 10 years or so. And I think that I hear a lot of people talk about that, especially in Chicago. I’ve heard people mention how they are not getting jobs because illegal immigrants are getting handed jobs in these neighborhoods.

So I think that during Trump’s administration, I think a lot of people were better off financially overall, whether you’re upper-middle-class, middle-class, wealthy people. I think everybody was better off because of his economy. And I think that his economy stimulated in a horizontal way versus a vertical way.

And I’ll say that a lot of Black voters care about, especially when we’re talking about the jobs thing. In Chicago alone that’s been a huge issue that they did not want to talk too much about at the DNC. But a lot of resources have been going to these illegal immigrants, and they’re looking over the people that have been in these neighborhoods for decades.

Taya Graham:  I have to admit that is something that I’ve heard as a concern from people in my community, in the Black community, that they’re concerned that immigrants, in particular Latinos, are being offered work that they would prefer to be offered. And that’s just simply on an anecdotal level.

But what you’re referring to sounds to me like trickle-down economics. That sounds to me like Reaganomics where you give tax cuts up here and that’s going to stimulate the economy and the money’s going to come down. And this is actually, I don’t know if you watch the DNC if you put yourself through that, but former President Bill Clinton got on stage and said during the period where Democrats are in charge, 50 million jobs were created from his presidency onward, and only one million of those came from the Republican Party.

And even if you control for the impact of the pandemic, that’s still a big lead on jobs being created. How do you respond to former president Clinton saying something like that?

Janiyah Thomas:  I would say they’ve had the White House for 16 out of the last 20 years, I think. I’m not have an accurate number on that, but they’ve had the power for most of this amount of time. And I’ll say that, yes, I understand that they’re trying to say the same thing now about these new job numbers that they’re implementing, that they claim that they don’t know where some of the numbers came from or whatever.

I’ll say that I think that the job numbers, and especially when we’re talking in Black and Brown communities, a lot of these jobs have been documented, especially this most recent jobs report, have been documented that are going to illegal people, and they’re not going to people in these communities.

So yeah, maybe there are more jobs, maybe there aren’t. But the point is that the people in these communities that have been there for decades aren’t getting these resources, is what I’m saying.

Taya Graham:  Well, Janiyah, because I want to move to another topic, I am not going to bring up what are these Black jobs. If this is a Black jobs thing, I’m not even going to go there.

But I’m going to actually move on to women’s rights, in particular, the right to choose, pro-life, pro-choice, depending on how you view it. And so let me follow up with you on this.

At the DNC, there were women who came forward, one woman who nearly lost her life to an ectopic pregnancy because she couldn’t get termination services by doctors because they were afraid of prosecution. There was a very moving story of a young woman who was on stage, she’d been sexually assaulted by her stepfather, and she had to have an abortion at age 12.

So I have to ask you, hearing these women’s stories, how does the Trump administration want to move forward on this issue? Because as we’ve seen as some of these hard-line rules that have come into effect to prevent any form of abortion from six weeks onward or at all, no exceptions, rape or incest, how does the Trump administration want to move forward on this issue?

Sen. Vance has come out very firmly against any exceptions for rape or incest. Is there any chance that President Trump will go against some of his fellow Republicans and put his trust in women to make these decisions and choose to take government interference out of the picture? Will he choose to push aside his fellow Republicans and put his trust back in women?

Janiyah Thomas:  I’ll make this answer very short and simple because I don’t want to get into the personal stuff, but I will say that President Trump has come out and said that he’s not promoting a national abortion ban. Whether the media wants to cover it or not, he’s not doing that. And basically the point was, even with the Supreme Court case, is to leave it to the states.

So what he stands for is leaving the abortion rights, women’s rights, reproductive rights, or whatever we want to call it, is up to the states to decide.

Taya Graham:  There’s a good portion of Americans, and I would say this from polls as well as social media, as well as even our own comment section on YouTube, there’s a good portion of Americans that find former President Trump and Sen. Vance’s remarks insulting, even divisive.

There were Vance’s remarks on people without children not contributing to society, that they don’t have any true stake in its future. And of course, the infamous childless cat ladies remark. There are some really derogatory remarks that President Trump made about women, women who are admired journalists, whether it was April Ryan or, recently, Rachel Scott of ABC, he referred to them both as nasty. He even called Maxine Waters, Sen. Waters low IQ. So these things people do remember.

So how do you address concerns of voters who feel alienated and even alarmed by this rhetoric, who say, this feels to me that President Trump, Sen. Vance, they don’t respect women? How would you respond to people who remember those remarks and it hurt them?

Janiyah Thomas:  I’ll say, I think it’s important for people to do their research past a 30-second clip. I think that a lot of times, especially in these situations with candidates or just even any type of public figure, we always see on social media, or even on the news, it’s like a 30-second clip. You don’t get the whole gist of the argument.

I’m not talking about anything, one particular comment in general, but I’m saying that the left sits there and they name call, they attack President Trump all day. But if he says anything remotely negative about somebody, then it’s a whole ordeal. And it’s not fair to always have a double standard with the right and the left.

And I’ll say also that I think that…

Taya Graham:  Well, it’s a little different when the president of the United States calls you out as opposed to the power that a reporter might have. If the president of the United States calls you out and says that you’re nasty or that you’re low IQ, the whole world hears that. It’s not the same as somebody on social media calling him an authoritarian. I mean, that’s the power of the office.

Janiyah Thomas:  But this current administration has also attacked him personally, and they call him a racist, and that’s the narrative they like to spin around him all day. So there’s not that much of a difference between the two things, to me, if you’re attacking somebody’s character in that way.

Taya Graham:  Well, the difference, and now, this is not to go on the defense for the Biden-Harris administration by any means, but the differences are those are two sets of equals; people who both held the office of the presidency, who have wielded political power, who have money in their bank accounts. That’s different than a president calling women nasty. There are other remarks, I won’t go into detail out of respect for your time and being here, but there have been some very derogatory remarks made towards women.

Janiyah Thomas:  Well, I’ll say that, I mean, I think that we all need to, like I said, do our research and look into somebody’s past before you make an assumption about who they are as a person. I’ll say President Trump has done a lot to empower women. He’s empowered female architects in designing his buildings in the past. I mean, we have a female chief of… I mean, not chief of staff, sorry, a female campaign manager. He’s also had Kellyanne Conway as a campaign manager. He had Sarah Sanders, one of the first women and mothers to be press secretary. He’s had a bunch of powerful women around him.

And I think that also, even if we’re talking about Kellyanne Conway, she’s one of the first women to win a presidential election. So I think that he’s done a lot to empower women.

And I think that the narrative that they try to spin around him isn’t always fair. And I think that if people did more of their research and looked into his past, you would see he has done a lot to empower women. And I’m here, obviously so [laughs].

Taya Graham:  Well, I think the strongest case that he currently has is the fact that you’re here and you’re kind enough to spend your time with us, and we really do appreciate that.

I’ll just ask you one last question out of respect for your time, and hopefully this will give you some room to share why you support Trump’s campaign and the Republican Party so much. So I’m going to quote Civil Rights legend John Lewis here. He said, “We may have arrived on different boats, but we’re all in the same boat now.”

So in a time where many people believe that Trump’s rhetoric seems to divide rather than unite, how do you interpret and respond to this sentiment within your work? How do you want to communicate to Americans that Trump’s boat is big enough for all of us?

Janiyah Thomas:  I have two part answers to this. The first thing is to go based off of the quote you just stated. I think that, especially with the younger generation, our concept of collective consciousness may not be as true anymore because we have a lot of Black people that grow up in rural environments, we have Black people that grow up in the suburbs, and we have Black people in the inner city communities.

And I can say for my family, I grew up completely different than some of my cousins that are still in Virginia. So my outlook on life is completely different than theirs. So the way I vote and the way I feel politically might not always be the same as those people. And I think that it’s important for all of us to look at the issues that matter to you and vote your issues.

I’m 100% down with supporting President Trump because I care so much about the economy, and he is also one candidate that implemented the First Step Act, and that’s a huge criminal justice reform that has taken us a step in the right direction. So I can say that I think that Black people have a true champion and a leader in President Trump. And I think that our boat is for everybody.

We want all people here. We’re welcoming to all people. Like I said earlier, President Trump is not the traditional Republican candidate, and I think that his message and his straightforwardness resonates with a lot of people. And I think that, at least with President Trump, what you hear is what you get. He will stand on his word, and he doesn’t make promises he’s not going to keep. So I’m with President Trump because of that.

Taya Graham:  Well, thank you so much. And even in just hearing that answer, I have a million more questions I would want to ask you, but I’m trying to be good in trying to respect your time. So Janiyah, I just want to thank you again. Thank you so much for joining me. I do appreciate it.

Janiyah Thomas:  Yes, thank you.

Taya Graham:  I want to thank everyone listening for staying with me as I try to unravel the complexities and contradictions of Black women aligning themselves with the GOP in today’s polarized climate. Today’s discussion certainly has given me a lot to think about, and I’m so grateful that our guest was willing to let me really delve deep into her belief systems and even test those foundations. We’ve explored the complex intersection of race, gender, and politics through the eyes of an undeniably powerful Black woman who is deeply embedded in the conservative movement.

Janiyah Thomas, as the Black media engagement director for Trump’s reelection campaign, is focused on amplifying policies she believes will make inroads with the Black community. And although I think there are many valid criticisms of the statements and policies she defends, I respect her for being willing to put her money where her mouth is, even though she is betting it all on red.

Thank you for joining me on The Real News Network, and I hope this is just the beginning of what will be a series of provocative conversations. And this includes a conversation on book banning and LGBTQ rights with Tia Bess, the national engagement director of Moms for Liberty, a Black woman who’s not only married to another woman, but who is also profoundly Christian. We should have a link in the description if you’d like to take a listen or watch the video version of our conversation.

I’m your host, Taya Graham. Thank you so much for listening and spending your time with me and The Real News Network.

This story originally appeared in Yes! Magazine on Sep. 4, 2024. It is shared here with permission.

When I was in middle school, at a majority-white public school in Montana, I was given an assignment to interview a grandparent about their childhood. The questions were designed to help us better understand what we did and did not have in common with each other.

When I interviewed my maternal grandmother, I asked her whether there was ever a bully at her school. Her answer surprised me; she said she was the bully. “I always had soap in my mouth,” she said, punished for “talking back” to her teachers—and punished for speaking her first language: Blackfeet.

My grandmother was a student at the St. Ignatius Mission and School, a church-run, assimilationist boarding school on the Flathead Indian Reservation in western Montana. She told me stories about the horrific punishments she endured simply for being Blackfeet and about her classmates who were buried on the school grounds.

Unfortunately, my grandmother’s story is not an anomaly. Instead, her experience is representative of generations of genocidal federal policy. Beginning in 1801, more than 500 assimilative boarding schools operated across the United States, including 408 government-run schools in operation between 1819 and 1969. During this time, multiple generations of my family attended boarding school, including 12 people I’m directly descended from on my maternal side: my grandmother, all four of my great-grandparents, and seven of my eight great-great-grandparents.

Boarding schools were part of an intentional, genocidal policy aimed at “civilizing” Native people and eradicating our nations, communities, cultures, languages, religions, and family ties. Indigenous families were either forced or coerced to send their children to boarding schools. Families who refused were denied the money or goods paid to them in exchange for land, as designated in treaty agreements. This coercion was enshrined in an 1893 code that allowed the secretary of the interior to “withhold rations, clothing and other annuities from Indian parents or guardians who refuse or neglect to send and keep their children of proper school age in some school a reasonable portion of the year.”

Indigenous children were often taken to schools far away from their homes because, as John B. Riley, an Indian school superintendent, said in 1886, “only by complete isolation of the Indian child from his savage antecedents can he be satisfactorily educated.” My grandmother first attended St. Ignatius Mission, which is about 200 miles south of her home on the Blackfeet Reservation. She later attended the Chemawa Indian Training School in Oregon, 700 miles west of home and two states away.

Once at school, children experienced what the Department of the Interior described as “systematic militarized and identity-alteration methodologies.” Before kids as young as age 6 stepped foot in a classroom, their long hair — culturally significant for many tribes — was cut to imitate white hairstyles. They were also required to wear military, non-tribal clothing as uniforms, and they were required to speak English — a language many didn’t speak at home.

It is important to reframe what we mean by “school.” These were sites of exploitation and cultural genocide, not places where Native children were educated. The dominant narrative about boarding schools often excludes or de-emphasizes the role of forced labor, or what some scholars conceptualize as human trafficking. Many of my family’s stories about boarding school are about working rather than being educated. In fact, unpaid labor was the goal.

A 2022 report by the Department of the Interior, the first ever to examine the extent of federal boarding schools in the U.S., highlighted the breadth of unpaid labor Native children performed at school: “lumbering, working on the railroad — including on the road and in car shops, carpentering, blacksmithing, fertilizing, irrigation system development, well-digging, making furniture including mattresses, tables, and chairs, cooking, laundry and ironing services, and garment-making, including for themselves and other children in Federal Indian boarding schools.”

My family members performed other unpaid duties: My grandmother’s brother worked as a butcher and a barber, while my great-grandpa worked as a rancher. Some children were also taken out of school to perform unpaid labor in the surrounding community. In California, thousands of Native children were unpaid indentured servants on white ranches, farms, hotels, and households.

A 1928 report by the Institute for Government Research on the social and economic conditions of Native peoples, known as the Meriam Report, notes that Indian boarding schools violated child labor laws in most states. And though it was released 12 years before my grandmother was born, the findings did not lessen the impact of her experience at boarding school.

In addition to robbing children of their cultural and linguistic identities, boarding schools had other devastating impacts. Children were beaten and sexually abused. They experienced overcrowding, food deprivation and nutritional experimentation, and widespread infectious diseases, including tuberculosis.

They were forcibly separated from the love and connection and support and validation of their families and communities. They spent years working as unpaid laborers without receiving an education that could aid them after graduation. Some children died before ever having the opportunity to become parents or eventually elders. These experiences have left generational wounds on survivors, their families, and broader Indigenous communities that continue to hurt to this day.

Agenda of assimilation

Boarding schools were just one part of the federal government’s efforts to eradicate tribal nations. As boarding schools sought to eliminate tribal languages, religions, and cultures among Native children, the federal government passed policies making these cultural practices illegal in Native communities. In 1883, the Code of Indian Offenses banned tribal religious practice. The Indian Religious Crimes Code was reversed in 1934, but it wasn’t until the passage of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978 that all legal restrictions on practice were lifted. Still, issues remain today, particularly when it comes to accessing sacred sites and practicing tribal religions in prison. In 1887, the use of tribal languages was banned in schools; this was not reversed until the 1990 passage of the Native American Languages Act, or NALA.

The General Allotment Act of 1887 also had devastating economic, cultural, and political consequences for tribal communities. The act converted communal tribal land into private property and turned individual Native men into private property owners. Tribal landowners were forced to make land agriculturally productive, even in areas where the land was not suitable as such, and the U.S. government assessed their success, or lack thereof. This assimilative tactic drastically shifted, or attempted to shift, Native peoples’ relationship to the land at the same time that their children were being removed from their homes and forced to labor for white people.

The impacts of boarding school and these policies can be understood through the lens of historical trauma, a term conceptualized by Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart, Ph.D., a Hunkpapa/Oglala Lakota social worker, in 1995. Historical trauma is the idea that intergenerational, compounded trauma has measurable impacts on the mental health of the descendants of traumatic events, including the forced separation of Native children from their families.

A 2004 study that asked Native participants how often they thought about historical losses, such as the seizure of land and boarding schools, found that “perceptions of historical loss are not confined to the more proximate elder generation, but are salient in the minds of many adults of the current generation.” This generational trauma has impacted how families interact with each other: My grandmother didn’t teach my mother Blackfeet because she didn’t want her to be discriminated against for speaking English with a Blackfeet accent.

Boarding schools have also impacted the physical health of Native Americans: Research suggests that boarding school survivors are more likely to have chronic health conditions, such as diabetes, hypertension, and arthritis, than Native people who didn’t attend boarding school.

Boarding schools have also had other material impacts on Native communities. The jobs students were training for often did not match jobs available back home, making it difficult to find meaningful employment after leaving school. Today, Native people continue to face higher rates of poverty and unemployment, and lower rates of homeownership compared to white people. Native children also continue to be removed from their homes, and are disproportionately impacted by child welfare reports, investigations, and out-of-home placements.

Native people know that the legacy of boarding schools continues to impact our communities’ physical health, mental health, housing and economic stability, educational attainment, parenting and family functioning, cultural knowledge, and more. And yet, there has been limited storytelling — in media, academic research, and government reports — that measures these impacts.

Contemporary truth telling

For many people in Indian Country, it is quotidian to share stories about boarding schools. Boarding schools are openly discussed in my family: My grandma, and great-grandma when she was alive, spoke about their time as students, about their friends who died of poisoning from the lye in the soap placed in their mouths, and about the labor they performed. I grew up having family picnics on the grounds of the boarding school my great-grandmother attended; her grandmother is buried in the school’s cemetery.

Over the past 50-plus years, there have been a handful of federal government programs attempting to reckon with the tragedy of boarding schools. In 1969, a decade after my grandmother left boarding school, a scalding report titled “Indian Education: A National Tragedy — a National Challenge” illuminated the disastrous impacts of boarding schools, noting that they were “a failure when measured by any reasonable set of criteria.” In 1978, the Indian Child Welfare Act, or ICWA, was passed, which prioritized placing Native children with family members and tribal members before placing them with non-Native families.

ICWA notes that “there is no resource that is more vital to the continued existence and integrity of Indian tribes than their children.” Advocates for the bill recognized that removing Native children from their families—through both boarding schools and the child welfare system—had devastating impacts on both the children and their broader communities. In 1990, NALA passed, allowing the use of tribal languages in schools for the first time since the late 19th century. These legal efforts focused on ensuring Native children stayed connected to their families and cultures but stopped short of collecting testimony from boarding school survivors.

In recent years, there has been increased media attention paid to boarding schools, notably after mass graves were found at the Kamloops Indian Residential School in Canada in 2021. There’s also been in-depth reporting in national newspapers about the extent of sexual abuse in boarding schools in the U.S., and an episode of Reservation Dogs, a hit FX show that aired for three seasons from 2021 to 2023, about the traumatic impacts of residential schools.

Since Deb Haaland, a descendant of boarding school survivors, became secretary of the interior in 2021, there has been a surge of federal interest in truth telling from boarding school survivors and their descendants. In 2021, after decades of advocacy from tribes and Native organizations, the Department of the Interior launched the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative, which included an extensive federal report on the impacts of boarding schools, the first-ever inventory of federal boarding schools, and the collection of testimony from boarding school survivors.

Part of the initiative is the Road to Healing project, launched in 2022, in which Haaland and Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Bryan Newland toured the U.S. to collect testimony from hundreds of boarding school survivors. Boarding school survivors and their descendants were also invited to publicly speak about their experiences. For some survivors, this was their first time speaking about their boarding school experiences. Each event had trauma counselors and break rooms to support survivors.

The Department of the Interior is also funding the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, a Minneapolis-based nonprofit, to continue to gather testimony from boarding school survivors over the next few years and create a public oral history repository. These efforts will ensure that the stories and experiences of survivors are preserved for future generations and, survivors hope, help hold the U.S. accountable for the atrocities perpetrated.

Survival and resistance

On the legislative front, advocates are pushing for the passage of the Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act, which was introduced in the U.S. Senate in 2023 and the U.S. House in 2024. Truth and reconciliation efforts are not an uncommon response to violence like cultural genocide. Dozens of states across the globe have attempted truth and reconciliation efforts. Some consider Argentina’s 1983 National Commission on the Disappeared to be the first major effort, though the 1995 Truth and Reconciliation Commission: South Africa, led by Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela, is perhaps the most well-known. There have been a handful of commissions focused on the impacts of colonialism, including one in Australia and one in Maine examining the placement of Wabanaki tribal children into foster care since the 1970s.

The truth and reconciliation effort that may most closely mirror what is being proposed in the U.S. is Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission on the legacy of Indian residential schools, which is a result of the largest class-action settlement in Canadian history. Like the U.S., the Canadian government and Christian churches operated assimilationist boarding schools for Indigenous youths in the 19th and 20th centuries.

This commission was not the Canadian government’s first attempt to support boarding school survivors. In 1998, it established the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, which distributed $515 million to Indigenous community initiatives that addressed impacts of residential schools until federal funding was cut in 2010. After the truth and reconciliation lawsuit, the commission interviewed more than 6,500 witnesses between 2007 and 2013. In December 2015, they released a document with 94 calls to action, ranging from adopting the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as a model for reconciliation to providing stable funding for community-based alternatives to incarceration for Indigenous peoples.

However, progress to fulfill these calls to action has been slow. The Yellowhead Institute, which tracked progress of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission over five years, noted that at the rate the Canadian government was moving, it wouldn’t finish implementing the calls to action until 2081.

An unintended consequence of the commission has been the growth of boarding school “denialism” among non-Indigenous people in Canada. In a 2023 interim report from the Office of the Independent Special Interlocutor for Missing Children and Unmarked Graves and Burial Sites associated with Indian Residential Schools, the increase in denialism was identified as a top 12 concern held by boarding school survivors, descendants, and families. For example, after mass graves of 215 children were found at the Kamloops Indian Residential School in 2021, some people, including political commentators, priests, and Danielle Pierce, the premier of the province of Alberta, downplayed the news as a media hoax. Some denialists went so far as to bring shovels to the Kamloops site to “see for themselves” if children were indeed buried there.

Denialism is the final “stage of genocide” in Genocide Watch’s 10 stages of genocide, a widely used policy tool developed by Gregory Stanton, Ph.D. This increase in denialism necessitates the importance of storytelling. Truth and reconciliation — or in the case of the U.S. bill, truth and healing — is not a panacea for the material and psychological impacts on individuals, communities, and families. But allowing people to tell their stories is an important step. If passed, the Truth and Healing Commission on Indian Boarding School Policies Act would establish a commission tasked with investigating the genocidal practices of boarding schools and would require the federal government to hold public hearings with survivors, their families, and communities to help create this document.

The commission would also attempt to make a record of the number of children who attended federal boarding schools; document the number of children who were abused, went missing, or died in federal boarding schools; and outline the ongoing impacts of boarding schools on survivors and their families. As Native communities throughout the country continue to record their stories — and the Truth and Healing bill advances through Congress — many questions remain.

What does it mean for the same government that created these violent policies to lead a so-called “healing” process mere decades later? Does the focus on reconciliation rather than healing focus too much on perpetrators and those who benefit from colonialism “coming together” with those they harmed, versus focusing on support of victims and survivors? Is truth telling inherently beneficial to the truth teller? Or might it be traumatic for people to share their stories without tangible action coming from it?

Boarding school survivors and tribal communities have made one thing clear: A nuanced reckoning of the expansive, intergenerational impacts of boarding schools is absolutely necessary, and tribally driven solutions based on Indigenous healing — not government or church abdication — must be centered.

When my grandmother’s older sister passed away in 2020, my family got access to 30 pages of scanned files from Chemawa Indian School in Salem, Oregon, which they both attended. In these files are report cards, notes on her medical needs, comments from teachers, and other correspondence. One report card includes a “citizenship” section, which lists her “good” behavior (one item, “dragging mattress down hall in dust”) and “poor” behaviors (12 items, including “did not go to church”). Throughout the scanned documents are references to the sisters’ supposedly “unstable life” at home on the reservation.

Further down in the files is a scanned letter from my great-grandparents written on Nov. 10, 1954. On one side is a letter asking that their daughters, my grandmother and her sister, be sent home on the train. They were 14 and 15. “You send them home this week” is the last sentence, written in pencil with each word underlined in blue ink. On the back, they wrote the train schedule from Salem, Oregon, where the boarding school was, to Browning, the main town on the Blackfeet Reservation. They also sent train fare. The next page is the response from the principal of the school. “We are at a loss to understand just what your intention is in the matter,” she wrote. But by Nov. 15, 1954, they were both withdrawn from the school.

Native people have always resisted colonialism and fought to protect our families, communities, cultures, and nations. When my grandmother and her sister were at boarding school, their parents tried to be actively engaged in their children’s lives — and worked proactively to get them back. When tribal religions were illegal, my family continued to practice, pray, and hold ceremonies.

As I am writing this, wild mint, yarrow, bee balm, white sage, and sweet grass that I collected last night with my mother are drying in my room. I’ll use them for medicinal teas and smudging throughout the year, and we’ll gather more next summer. My family continues to gather, prepare, and use Blackfeet plant medicine. Despite policies intentionally trying to obliterate our culture, my relatives still passed down this ancestral knowledge and love.

We are running out of time to capture the vital stories of boarding school survivors. My grandma is the last living boarding school survivor in my family; her parents and her siblings who attended boarding school have passed away. Advocates say the impacts on parenting, family relationships, and tribal communities and economies — both psychological and very material — need to be part of the conversation to truly understand the impacts of boarding schools and the contemporary disparities and injustices still facing Indigenous communities today.

Boarding schools took a lot away from my family. Truth telling is one step toward government and church accountability, public education, and perhaps most importantly, helping families like mine rebuild what was taken from us for future generations. Truth telling can help us rebuild our relationships to each other, strengthen and revitalize our cultural practices, and begin to heal, on our own terms, from the ongoing violence of colonization.

On August 29, 1970, the Chicano Moratorium Against the Vietnam War mobilized the largest Chicano protest and the largest anti-war protest led by a community of color at the time. Combining a critique of US imperialism abroad and racism at home, the Chicano Moratorium was the result of years of organizing and consciousness raising by Chicano liberation activists around the country. Former Brown Beret Bill Gallegos and CSU Northridge professor Theresa Montaño join The Marc Steiner Show for a look back on the Chicano Moratorium and the struggle from which it arose.

Studio: Cameron Granadino
Post-Production: Alina Nehlich

Transcript

Marc Steiner:  Welcome to The Marc Steiner Show here on The Real News. I’m Marc Steiner. It’s great to have you all with us.

54 years ago, on Aug. 29, 1970, the Chicano Moratorium against the Vietnam War took place. More than 25,000 people marched, and at that time, it was the largest Chicano mass action in the history of its resistance, and one of the largest anti-war actions that took place, period. It was a mass peaceful protest that was violently attacked by the Los Angeles police, who killed four people, injured hundreds of others.

People took to the streets because 20% of all the troops killed in Vietnam were Latino and Chicanos, and they bore the brunt of the police brutality working for poverty wages and faced massive discrimination — I shouldn’t say that in the past tense. It still exists.

Today we broadcast the first of a two-part series on the Chicano Movement, then and now. My co-producer who came up with this idea is Bill Gallegos, who’s a long-time activist who worked with the Crusade for Justice in Colorado and was a member of the Brown Berets in California and the author of “The ‘Sunbelt Strategy’ and Chicano liberation”.

And we’re also joined by Theresa Montaño, who’s professor in the Chicana and Chicano studies program at California State University at Northridge, was a leader of the California Teachers Union, a long-time Chicano activist who was also there on Aug. 29 at the Chicano Moratorium against the war.

So welcome to you both. It’s great to have you both for this. I was looking forward to this.

Bill Gallegos:  Thank you, Marc.

Theresa Montaño:  Great to be here.

Marc Steiner:  As I wrote to you earlier, Bill, I’d like to begin by getting a feel for that moment. You wrote a really beautiful poem about the moratorium. Could we start off with that just to give a sense, a poetic sense of that moment in that time?

Bill Gallegos:  Absolutely. This is called [Spanish], “The Chicana Moratorium, The Fire that Never Dies”.

Waves crashing through the streets of a hot and smoggy barrio. Thunder, thunder, pounding along the shoreline of poverty, [Spanish], an ancient sound, a holy sound, [Spanish]. We will die for you no more. Our blood will no longer flow for bankers and crooks. Our flesh will never again rot for the pitiful dreams of stolen wealth.

We will continue to die, but we will die in a noble way. We will die fighting you. 25,000 of us say, “Hell no, we won’t go,” but we will stay and fight you. We will sacrifice our youth, [Spanish] to fight you, to build on your ruins something beautiful, untouched by your corruption. [Spanish] a new prayer, a new song, a new poem, a new dream for our homeland, [Spanish].

Don’t call me wetback. Don’t talk about spics, beaners, and dirty Mexicans. Don’t tell me about my place. This is our place, our barrio, our [Spanish], our [Spanish], racist earth destroyer, dying boss of a dying empire. You better watch yourself here, 25,000 in a moratorium against your war. We will fight you to the death.

The toilers, seekers of knowledge, creators of art, the youthful future of our people, experienced teacher of past generations, all, all, we will all fight you. [Spanish]. You attack. 2,500 cops sent to kill us. Mindless, they shoot, kill, maim, burn, march on the dignity of our [Spanish].

Yes, you did murder four of our sons, Salazar, Ward, Diaz, and Montag, but look how they rise from the grave. Watch their faces in the thousands who throw stones through your cowardice, who torture, ragged inhumanity. Can you see their somber warning as they live again? Can’t you see the outlines of their souls in the flames, which raise bold tongues to heaven? The moratorium, la moratoria, the fire that will never die.

Marc Steiner:  Thank you, Bill. And Theresa, I want to talk about that moment. The moratorium came on the heels of two years before when the Chicano students walked out of high schools across Los Angeles and this massive movement. Paint a picture of that moment for you then for people who have not heard of it, for our listeners who don’t know about it.

Theresa Montaño:  It was a momentous demonstration for many of us. I was very, very young, and coming into a collective consciousness of the importance of becoming Chicana, of Chicano liberation. I actually snuck to the moratorium, telling my mother I was going to go do some shopping [Steiner laughs]. I knew she would never agree to go or to have me go.

It was very hot. There were a number of people that were going to communities outside of East LA. We were taking the bus to the park. And lo and behold, there drives up some members of the Chicano Moratorium committee and asked us if we were going to the moratorium, and we said we were, and they drove us there.

I’d been to a few demonstrations before that, but never in my life have experienced a demonstration of this size, of this many people, of this many people who look like me, who felt like me, who were as angry as I was, who were as conscious about our justice movement in the US, for justice for Chicano people here.

The right to an education, the right to Chicano studies, the right to employment, the right to see our brothers and our sons and our husbands come back here and fight the war against aggression, and the consciousness that it was not an enemy abroad that we had to be fearful for or that we had to fight against, but that we had to really think about who the real enemy was.

It was a tremendous moment. We were all sitting in the park and join the festivities, the [Spanish], the speakers. I had friends who had never had any consciousness, were just curious, so they came with me.

At the moment when the police began to charge the demonstrators, we were towards the front of the program, so the stage. We had no idea what was going on. They were just charging at anybody. One of my friends got hit by a billy club on her left shoulder, and at that point people just kept saying, don’t run, don’t run, walk, walk. And so we went out of the park. People who were not at the demonstration opened their doors and told us to come in, come in, get water, come in [for] safety.

And so we had no idea what was going on outside after that. We had no idea that Ruben Salazar had been killed and that people had been arrested. But I think we did have a renewed idea about who our enemy was and what we were fighting for.

And Bill, I gotta get that poem from you. When you were giving it, it hit me right at my heart. It really brought back memories of that day.

Bill Gallegos:  Thank you, Theresa.

Marc Steiner:  One of the things I think is important for people listening to us to understand at that moment is when people think of the ’60s, when people think of what went on in America, Chicano people are always on the periphery, or never thought of at all.

And even when you look at the anti-war history that took place in the ’60s, we read about the Panthers, we read about SDS, we read about the mostly white movements that took place as well, but the Chicano movements were like given a… Nobody paid attention. It was like the othering, it was like a massive othering.

And this explosion that happened in this demonstration and the students walking out two years earlier from high school in that massive protest against racism against Chicano kids. Let’s talk about that for a minute because I think, Bill, it’s something that we don’t think about often enough, that we don’t dive into the depths of what that means.

Bill Gallegos:  Yeah, Marc, I’m really glad you brought this up. I’m particularly critical of the US left because I know that the power structure, the white power structure is this is how they work, this is how they do. But the US left is also at fault for this.

There’s very little study at all of the historical and political significance of the US annexation of Mexico’s northern territories, which enabled the United States to become a superpower, the superpower that it is today, and what happened to the people, the Indigenous and the Mexican people who were conquered in that annexation, and what was the impact on Mexico, on the United States, and on those peoples.

So that’s why so much I appreciate The Real News Network, because there is a voice for this incredible liberation movement that is over a century-and-a-half old.

And the moratorium was significant in so many ways because there was no other ethnic community, no other oppressed community that had anything like this during the Vietnam War.

There were over 20 moratoriums against the war that reflected our internationalism, connected it to our fight, as Theresa said, to our fight here at home for our national rights and our self-determination and for full equality. There was nothing like this. It’s a very unique and important event in history.

And the Chicano moratorium in Los Angeles at that time, as Theresa said, was the largest mass action we’d ever had. And it was overwhelmingly working class, but organized by revolutionaries. Socialist, communist, revolutionary nationalists, Gloria Arellanes and Las Adelitas De Aztlán, very militant feminist organizations, when their people weren’t even using that term.

And it demonstrated that the ideas of this sector, this revolutionary sector of the Chicano liberation struggle, had resonance among the working class of our communities, because this event was overwhelmingly working class. It brought together all sectors. There were students and academics and professionals, but overwhelmingly it was campesinos and factory workers and domestic workers. That’s who was there at this.

And it demonstrated that the ideas of the left, the ideas of the Crusade for Justice and the Brown Berets and the Communist Party and Los Siete de la Raza and all of that had resonance among our people. It had that strong impact among our people, and that really scared the white power structure.

There’s a book by Seymour Hersh about Henry Kissinger, it’s called The Price of Power. And he talks about how the Nixon White House freaked out when the moratorium happened. They freaked out because they said, we thought we had the Mexicans in line. We thought we had them under control. They all joined the military. They’re all going into the military. And they said, we expect this from Black folks. We didn’t expect it from the Mexicans [Steiner laughs].

So it really, it had an impact, and for a minute, it caught the attention of the world, that we had a freedom struggle, that it was a long-standing freedom struggle, that it was still alive. As Theresa said, people were not out there just against the war and in solidarity with the Vietnamese people, because that was really significant, but also connecting it to the push out rate in our high schools, our lack of political representation, restriction on our voting rights, the loss of our land, police and [Spanish] brutality, the suppression of our language and culture, all of those issues became highlighted as part of our freedom struggle.

And this was really significant. It demonstrated that our movement was not just a kind of liberal movement for integration into the existing order, but it was a national liberation movement. That was very, very significant, in my opinion.

And I fault the US left largely for ignoring this question. They still frame everything in terms of Black and white. And of course, Black folks have had to fight for that recognition, and they should be, that freedom struggle should be acknowledged, but so should ours, so should that of Asian Pacific Islanders and others. So I’m really glad that we’re doing this because there needs to be more of it.

Marc Steiner:  There needs to be a great deal more of it. Theresa, you and your peers, when this happened in LA, what I remember — Not being there then, I was on the East Coast, not the West Coast — But there was also this student movement, the student protest that took place in ’68, where thousands of Chicano students walked out and had these mass demonstrations. And sometimes I felt like there’s an arc between that and the moratorium.

Theresa Montaño:  Definitely there is an arc between that and the moratorium. I think that the idea that we had student walkouts in ’68 and then in the moratorium in 1970 and nothing in between is a fantasy [Steiner laughs]. There was a lot going on. And I link it to some of the issues going on today.

In 1968, what students were demanding was the right to be seen, the right to self-determination, and the right to quality education. So they were actually saying, we have a really messed up educational system on everything from — And I was a part of the walkouts in ’70, so it went all the way through to the moratorium. ’68 —

Marc Steiner:  Can we get back one second? I didn’t mean to interrupt, but so it wasn’t just in ’68 when the high schools [crosstalk]?

Theresa Montaño:  No, absolutely not. It was ’68, ’69. There was a moratorium in February in the rain. In 1970, there was a repeat of the 1968 demonstrations, not only in East LA. I lived in South LA, and there was a walkout at my high school demanding the same thing: We want to be seen, we want the right to determine our real story and our truth in the US history books. We want to be treated with dignity, not punished for speaking Spanish. We want the right to go on to higher education.

These were all political issues that we were fighting for, along with — And I always have to say this — Along with an end to the war in Vietnam. So there was never a break between either of them. Our work for justice was connected directly to the end of the war in Vietnam.

Marc Steiner:  I want to come back to some things you said, but I want to pick up on this last thing you just said, because I think people don’t realize the numbers of Mexican-American men who died in Vietnam. It was huge. It was like 20% of the people killed in Vietnam, way beyond the percentage of people at that moment who were Chicano in this country. People don’t realize the sacrifice, what happened, the working-class kids drafted and killed in Vietnam, who came from your neighborhood.

Theresa Montaño:  Right. My neighborhood, neighborhoods in Texas, neighborhoods in New Mexico, and in Colorado. And that’s not just then. The other day I’m walking through the airport with a friend of mine who does ethnic studies work with me. And we were watching as an airplane was letting… Folks were coming out of the airplane, young men, soldiers. Every single one of them, every single one of them was Brown.

So this is not just something in the past, this is something in the present. And it’s scary. It’s scary because of the role that this country is playing in the world today. I’m afraid that this may happen again.

Marc Steiner:  Bill, I know you’re dying to jump in on that one. Go ahead.

Bill Gallegos:  Well, it’s just, there’s a long history of our people going into the military because there was the illusion — And it’s understandable — That this was a pathway to equality and social mobility; We will be accepted. And it was proven, and the outrageous casualty rate that we suffered in Vietnam was one proof of that.

I just had a primo, a cousin of mine passed who served two tours in Vietnam, and he died because of exposure to asbestos on the ships that took those soldiers out there to Vietnam. And there was no disability payments for that. There’s no recognition by the United States that they murdered all these soldiers who were sent out on those ships.

So this is a consistent theme throughout our history is our effort to really break down all of the structures of oppression that were put in place after annexation: segregation into barrios, segregated schools, lack of voting rights, lack of political representation, loss of our land, all of that after the United States annexed Mexico’s northern territories. Its consolidation for US capitalism was to create all these structures of oppression that continue in some form today.

And so when Mexicanos come over, when they cross the border over here, the overwhelming majority of people that cross the border live in our historic areas of concentration: Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, California. That’s where most people go. And they assimilate right into the barrios, right into the same poor jobs, right into the same poor schools, right into the same problems with mass incarceration and police brutality and [inaudible] brutality. They are assimilated into our reality, the reality that was created after annexation.

And that’s what gave rise to this remarkable resistance struggle that every student should learn about. It’s a struggle for democracy, for equality, for all the values that we hold as human beings, the humanistic values we hold that should be applied to all people. As Theresa said, dignity and respect.

Those sound almost like cliches. But when you’re treated like children, when you’re treated as disposable. Theresa and I, I think I shared this story with you, Marc, about our friend Ivan de Los Santos, who was a child of campesinos in Ventura County, just north of Los Angeles. And when those planes came over and we’re spraying all those herbicides and pesticides, this yellow cloud, the kids didn’t know what it was. They would run outside and chase the clouds, chase the planes. Look mommy, look mommy. They were poisoning us, and they do that to this day, to this day.

So this has given rise to this remarkable resistance struggle to the Crusades for Justice, to the Brown Berets, to the Alianza, to the United Farm Workers Union, to MEChA, to UMAS, to the Chicano Press Association. People don’t know that we… Because the media either ignored us or treated us in the worst, most stereotypical ways, we had to create our own media. And there were over 300 affiliates to the Chicano Press Association, over 300: El Grito del Norte, El Tecolote, El Gallito, all of these remarkable expressions of our reality.

And so I think I see it, as I’m in my golden years, one of the things that I really want to focus my life on is helping people to recognize and honor this remarkable resistance struggle, this remarkable freedom struggle.

And if we look at it just in terms of electoral politics, the Democrats would not win without our votes in California, Arizona, Nevada, Illinois, Colorado, and New Mexico. What would the Congress look like? What would the Senate look like? Who would be in the White House? That is very rarely acknowledged.

Because our resistance struggle, we fight in every arena, whether it’s cultural, or whether it’s strikes, and whether it’s at the level of academia where Theresa’s fighting, has been leading a struggle for the teaching of history in our public schools, an honest and genuine history of ethnic studies in our schools. And she has been fought tooth and nail in this battle even before there was the term, the racist term critical race theory, Theresa was fighting a battle for the true expression of our history in the schools, and the moratorium being one element of that history that’s ignored.

Marc Steiner:  Theresa, I’m going to pick up on that point with you. And as we do that, I want to say the four names of people who were murdered by the police in that moratorium against the war in Vietnam: Lyn Ward, Angel Gilbert Diaz, Gustav Montag, and Ruben Salazar.

Theresa Montaño:  Usually when we do our curriculum, we always add an ancestor acknowledgement. So as you say that, the word that comes to mind is [Spanish]. And Bill is right. I’ve been involved in the struggle. And I don’t think people recognize that the struggle for ethnic studies in California is much more than a struggle for diversity and inclusion. It’s not a diversity and inclusion struggle. It’s a struggle to get the truth told. Like Bill said, to have our story.

And in this particular case, it’s a broad-based coalition of Black, Chicano, Palestinian, Asian American, white, Jewish, and others who are coming together to fight for the authenticity of ethnic studies as a viable and academic discipline, but also to tell our stories.

And from day one, before the curriculum was approved or signed into existence, we received resistance. And resistance on what? Not resistance on teaching food, fiesta and [Spanish] and telling the stories of heroes of astronauts and others, but it was because we dared to talk about settler colonialism, because we dared to talk about — And this was prior to Oct. 7. It’s only gotten worse since then. This was prior to Oct. 7.

When we stood together in that room when our Palestinian sister said, hey, there’s nothing on Arab American studies in here. We need to add it. And we said, there’s nothing on Central American studies. We need to add it. And so we sat in that room the last few days, anxiously putting this in, only to be told that you can’t mention the P-word in K-12.

Marc Steiner:  Told by whom?

Theresa Montaño:  Told by the state, by the state of California. They took it out, they took the lesson plan out. And like I said, to this day, as I sit here today, tomorrow, they will be debating in the Senate Appropriations Committee in Sacramento whether or not they can add teeth to language that will make it easier for teachers to say, let me concentrate on your feelings as you take this ethnic studies course. Let me make sure that you don’t talk about Palestine. Let me make sure that you don’t write settler colonialism into the curriculum.

Now, you heard Bill’s story of our history. As I talk to politicians, they’ll tell me, yeah, that’s true. I don’t understand how you could teach Chicano studies without talking about settler colonialism.

But the fact is they are not worried about how white students will feel. They are worried that white students will wake up along with the other students who take ethnic studies courses and say, whoa, why wasn’t I told this truth?

And that’s why this small movement for ethnic studies is much more than a movement for a course. It’s a movement for the story of people’s struggle for liberation. And for stories to tell the stories of the four people you mentioned, plus hundreds of other martyrs, not Chicano, but Asian and Arab American and Black in this country who fought for their people’s rights as well.

Bill Gallegos:  That’s right. People don’t know, Marc, that the last mass lynching in California took place near Olvera Street in downtown Los Angeles, and I think it was 19 Chinese immigrants that were lynched right there near downtown Los Angeles. So there’s blood and glory in the resistance and in the history of all of the oppressed peoples in this state, and it needs to be told.

Marc Steiner:  There’s so much here. I could spend the next two hours, three hours [laughs] just to talk about all the things you all have just raised. But I’m going to come back to 1970 for a moment to bring us up to where we are. And what you both have just described has been the literal whitewashing of American history, of who we are as a people, as a nation.

Talk a bit about how you see what happened in 1970, the moratorium, and what happened before that in ’68 when all of the Chicano students walked out of those high schools across LA, and how do you think that changed the nature of the movement, the nature of the struggle, and what it led to? Because we don’t talk about those two things, but there were seminal moments in the history of struggle in this country among students.

So Theresa, go ahead.

Theresa Montaño:  Well, I think one is it led to the institution — And I don’t know, it was a great victory, but it was also one of continued struggle — Of Chicano studies in our institutions of higher education developed for and by members of the Chicano community, developed through the Plan de Aztlan, which was, again, a group of revolutionary students and scholars who laid the foundation for Chicano studies. We now have celebrated more than 50 years of the discipline.

I think, again, it was more than just a day. It wasn’t a moment. It wasn’t a moment in history. It was significant for us, but it was a part of a larger movement that created an even bigger movement that led to a number of initial rights in education. We had more students enter colleges and universities because we opened up the doors. We literally knocked down the doors to institutions of higher education for Chicano students.

We changed the course of educational history in the sense we went from being punished for speaking Spanish to demanding the right to have a bilingual education with teachers who look like us and counselors who could counsel us. We fought for the right to representation in political office.

So that particular year, or those years, I have to say, led to a reawakening of the Chicano people that I don’t think we’ve ever seen since then, in the sense that we began to recognize that we were an oppressed and marginalized people, but we were not victims of that oppression, that we were going to stand up, and that we were going to resist that oppression.

And I think that, in a different way, is still something that I know resonates with my students. And I teach Chicano studies, so granted, the student that comes into my course, they’re at the very least curious, at most committed to social justice.

But I think that’s what it led to, an understanding that this is where our struggle is, here in this part of the United States, in the land that was taken from us. This is who we are, this is our legacy, and this is where we’re going to stay and continue to fight.

Marc Steiner:  Bill, I know you had something you want to say to jump into that.

Bill Gallegos:  Well, I just say, I think Theresa really captured it all, but it had such a broad resonance because before the Chicano liberation struggle of the ’60s and ’70s, you could count the number of our academics and intellectuals on one hand. We had no intellectual strata, we had no inteligencia, and it was different from the Black freedom struggle where they created their own colleges and universities. We didn’t have that similar experience.

So we had to knock down the doors of the existing institutions controlled by the white power structure. And that was huge. That was huge for opening up the possibility not only for our young people to learn and to advance, but also to really fight for our history to be told and our reality to be told in those colleges and universities. So that was really significant.

And also, I think the moratorium also created the sense that we are a movement, that it wasn’t just the United Farm Workers, that the United Farm Workers was about workers and about labor rights, but it was about the broader question of Chicano equality and freedom.

The Alianza in their fight for the land rights in Nuevo Mexico, it was about [Spanish] and [Spanish] and all that land that had been taken away. But it wasn’t just about our wanting the land so we could grow some chiles and [Spanish]. It was about really wanting our national rights to be honored and accepted.

My family ended up in the coal mines and the railroads. We were farmers! We ended up in coal mines because our land was taken away. And that happened to hundreds of thousands of us.

So the movement that the farm workers, the blowouts, it was a youth-led movement that blew out of these high schools, but it inspired every generation of the Chicano people, mothers and fathers and grandmothers and grandfathers. It opened up space, so much space for us.

And a lot of this came together in 1972 when there was a national conference of the La Raza Unida Party that brought together the Alianza, the Crusade, La Raza Unida Party, the Brown Berets, the United Farm Workers. It brought together all of these sections of our movement, and they adopted a program. If you ever look at that program that was adopted by La Raza Unida Party in 1972, it was a really far-sighted, progressive program; internationalist, rooted in workers’ rights, women’s rights, the right to our land, the right to democracy.

So I think this particular freedom movement, which now we number almost 40 million people, and we’re situated in critical areas of the US economy and US politics. So I think this is the idea of the spark that history can have on us, it’s still a flame, it’s still there, and it still can resonate.

And I think that’s why Theresa is fighting so hard, because she saw what it did to her. She felt as an individual how it liberated her. I saw how it liberated me, and it liberated my parents, liberated my parents. All of a sudden, the things that were just talked about in four walls became public conversation, big political conversations that were going on about how we were treated, what we had contributed to the development of this country and that was never acknowledged.

So I think this idea of celebrating these kinds of events like the Chicano Moratorium Against the War is so significant. It’s significant for us as a people, but it is significant for all working and oppressed people. This belongs to all of us. This is our collective tradition of resistance and fight for a society that is truly humane, just, democratic, that’s not controlled by 1/10th of 1% of mostly white men. I think that’s the seed of these struggles in events like the Chicano Moratorium. It’s about envisioning, in that fight, envisioning a new world.

Marc Steiner:  And Theresa, as we close out, taking us back to that moment in 1970 and how transformative it was for you and the others in that movement, in that protest, and as Bill was saying, and what it gave root to, what exploded after that in terms of consciousness and the movement.

Theresa Montaño:  Well, again, I have to say that the transformative moment for me were those years. Without a doubt, that Chicano Moratorium probably did the most significant heart work for me in the sense that I was able to witness one of the most historic moments in our history. But I have to say that it was that time during the building of the Chicano Movement that had the most profound impact on me.

And as I teach my students, we always talk about what did Chicano studies do for you? And I think that Chicano studies is living, and I always say that to my students. It’s living, it’s dynamic, it’s the everyday. It’s not what you teach in a classroom or what you read in a book.

And that’s what the Chicano Moratorium was for me. It was Chicano studies in the real. It gave me purpose, and I really have to say, gave me purpose, because from that moment, I knew what I was going to do in life. I was going to go to college, ignoring what everyone ever said about who can enter college and what college you can go to. I knew I was going to enter to teach, and to teach the story of my people in a way that had been ignored and basically suppressed.

And I knew I was going to continue to this day, where I am now, to continue to fight for that for others, for future generations, for the seven generations behind me. It was more than just a day in the hot sun where we stood up and fought against the war in Vietnam. It was an awakening, it was a call to action, and it was a call to the lifetime commitment for social justice.

Marc Steiner:  That’s really powerful. And I think that one of the things that I think about as I was going back through all this stuff, and I remember that moment in 1970 when this happened. I wasn’t there, I was on the East Coast. But I remember it. And I remember that it was deeply significant because, A, it was the explosive nature of the beginning of a Chicano movement that was really critical to ending the war in Vietnam, sitting in solidarity with all the Chicanos who were stuck in Vietnam dying and being hurt, and the horrendous nature of that day.

People I knew who I lived with in Resurrection City who were hurt in that demonstration when the police attacked. And I think that it was one of the greatest acts of absolute, utter racism on the part of the LA police, and a vicious attack on peaceful demonstrators to say no to the war in Vietnam and no to discrimination and racism against Chicanos. I think it was one of the most important days that we don’t even remember.

Bill Gallegos:  Marc, there’s a great film called Requiem-29 about the Chicano martyrs. It’s a great film.

Marc Steiner:  Yes, I watched it last night.

Bill Gallegos:  So this was an army, this was 2,500 police. And they said, well, we heard that there was someone jacking up a liquor store. So you send in 2,500 cops [Steiner laughs] to make sure they don’t grab the Colt 45.

So they murdered those four people, but in the initial assault, people didn’t run. There’s rocks, there’s bottles, there’s sticks, and you see this whole phalanx of cops backing up. And this was everybody. This was abuelitas, this was kids, this was everybody.

So it just gives a sense of the kind of courage, the kind of ethics, the kind of deep-seated anger, really, but also our belief that we are entitled to be treated as human beings. We are entitled to be treated with respect.

And that scene is just amazing because you see all these cops with their shields and their helmets and their clubs and their shotguns just kind of retreating in the face of this counterattack from our people. And I’ve always loved that scene in the film.

Marc Steiner:  Yeah, it is an amazing film that we can attach to. People can watch it. I think it’s important, it’s important for people to see that.

And Theresa, as we close out, it’s a personal political question. Being in the midst of that madness when police are attacking, people are being beaten, it must have been, A, deeply frightening, because I’ve been through that myself, but also transformative politically.

Theresa Montaño:  The other thing that I think helped us is that those of us who were standing in front actually saw that line, Bill, as protecting us as well, because as they were advancing, it gave the rest of us time to try to get away. It was really… We were separated. There were families that were there. I was there with a couple of my friends. As the police moved in, everyone scattered, so you didn’t know… And like I told you, I had friends that were… I saw being hit with billy clubs. I didn’t know whether they made it out of that crowd OK or whether they didn’t because I lost where they went. We all just went in different directions, scattered everywhere.

But I think the transformative part for me was the collective care that came from the community, I mean, like I said, people were… They didn’t know you, they didn’t know who you were. They said, come over here, come over here. This is where you’ll be safe. Open the door. Here’s water to put, because there’s tear gas all over the place. And I knew in my head, intellectually, I understood what police brutality was like. I had never witnessed it in such a massive, destructive, and awful way.

So it opened my eyes to the hatefulness that comes from the state and to the care and the beauty that comes from the community. I don’t know how else to describe it. People let us stay in their houses for hours because you had no clue when it was going to end, when it was going to subside, when it was going to be safe to go outside and not be stopped by the police.

I don’t know how I got home that night. I can’t remember to this day, how did I get home? Someone must have given me a ride somewhere, because I know the people I went with were not the people I went home with. And my mother knew where I went, so she was scared. It’s making me tear up. She was scared to death about what had happened to me, or if anything had happened to me. She didn’t yell at me. She didn’t scold me. She was just glad that I got in.

So I left home curious, awake, I was conscious already by the time I went to the moratorium. That’s why I went. But I came home transformed. And to this day, it is probably the most significant, massive demonstration that I’ve been to in my entire life, and I’ve been to many. I would’ve to say it was one of the demonstrations that made me who I am today.

Marc Steiner:  Powerfully said. And I’m really glad we had a chance to meet and that you joined us for this conversation, Theresa. Theresa Montaño, thank you so much for being with us today. And Bill Gallegos, thank you so much for being with us. And Bill and I will be presenting another conversation in the coming weeks, and we hope you look forward to that. And thank you both so much for being with us and for joining us here at The Real News on The Marc Steiner Show.

Theresa Montaño:  Thank you so much [crosstalk].

Bill Gallegos:  Thank you, Marc. Thank you, Real News. Thanks, Theresa.

Theresa Montaño:  Thanks, Bill.

Marc Steiner:  Once again, thank you to Theresa Montaño and Bill Gallegos for joining us today. And thanks to Cameron Granadino for running the program, audio editor Alina Nehlich, Rosette Sewali for helping to produce The Marc Steiner Show, and the tireless Kayla Rivara for making it all possible behind the scenes, and everyone here at The Real News for making this show possible.

Please let me know what you thought of what you heard today, what you’d like us to cover. Just write to me at mss@therealnews.com and I’ll get right back to you.

Once again, thank you to Theresa Montaño and Bill Gallegos for joining us today. And we’ll be bringing you another installment of this conversation looking at the Chicano Movement today with Bill Gallegos and other guests. So for the crew here at The Real News, I’m Marc Steiner, stay involved, keep listening, and take care.

On Sunday, Aug. 18, one day before the beginning of the Democratic National Convention, protestors rallied in downtown Chicago at a march organized by Bodies Outside of Unjust Laws: Coalition for Reproductive Justice & LGBTQ+ Liberation. As the coalition states on their website, “We demand national legislation to expand access to abortion, support families, and defend the rights of trans and queer people. We demand an end to US funds going to the genocide in Palestine.” TRNN reports on the ground from Sunday’s march as part of our ongoing coverage of the 2024 DNC.

Studio Production / Post Production: Cameron Granadino

Transcript

Music:  My body, my choice. My choice, my body.

It’s not yours, it’s my body, my choice. My choice, my body.

It’s not yours, it’s my body, my choice. My choice, my body.

Maximillian Alvarez:  So we’re here on the ground in downtown Chicago in the shadow of Trump Tower. It’s Sunday, Aug. 18. The Democratic National Convention officially begins tomorrow, but the people’s assembly in Chicago has already begun.

We’re here in front of the Bodies Outside of Unjust Laws March that is currently making its way down Michigan Avenue. People from all over the country have assembled to unite around a message to the Democrats that they will not support the Democrats, Kamala Harris, or Joe Biden if they continue to support Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, if they continue to not do what protesters are saying needs to be done to protect bodily autonomy, abortion rights, to stand up against attacks on trans and LGBTQ folks.

This is an expression of grassroots anger that we are seeing manifest right here on the streets of Chicago. But this is going to be happening throughout the week. The Real News is going to be on the ground covering the protests and covering the events inside the convention.

Speaker 1:  Everyone that will march on the DNC on Monday, on Wednesday, on Thursday, the power of each and every one of us is so much stronger because of this injustice, because of this moment of unforgiving genocide that we’re witnessing right now.

Over the past 10 months, over the past decades, people like me, Jews constantly being told that if we are standing here and screaming, free Palestine, we’re bad Jews. Progressive people are being told that if we are speaking up against genocide, if we are asking the Democratic Party where there were for 50 years since Roe without taking any action on abortion and access to reproductive rights, we’re getting in the way. We’re bad.

There’s enough for us to scream that every single person deserves to be home, not just if you call them a hostage. Even if they’re unjustly detained by the Israeli government, they’re just a well-kept hostage.

Maximillian Alvarez:  As their website says, the coalition’s demands are, “We demand federal action to expand access to abortion and reproductive health care, support families, and defend the rights of trans and queer people. We demand an end to reproductive genocide, an end to US arms exports to Israel, and an immediate and lasting ceasefire in Palestine so all Palestinians can live in freedom and dignity, with bodily autonomy and reproductive justice.”

Cara, Could you say a little bit about where we are right now and the folks that you’re with and what the message is right now?

Cara Mclane:  Yeah, so Abortion Access Front, we are here at the DNC. We’re a nationwide organization, so we have about eight states represented in our group. We came to the DNC to specifically make sure that abortion isn’t a forgotten issue. We know that everyone usually is like, abortion is a state’s issue, but in this election it could be a federal issue. So we came to, one, talk about misinformation out there about medication abortion, and also to bring joy and humor to our activism.

Maximillian Alvarez:  Could you say a little more about what the Democrats and Kamala Harris could do to really secure abortion rights federally rather than just signal that we’re going to reinstate the protections of Roe?

Cara Mclane:  So what I can say is anybody who’s running on a platform of codifying Roe, Roe has always been the floor. That is the least we can do for people who are capable of having pregnancies. We need someone who is going to take abortion, create it, protect it as a right for anybody who needs it or wants it without having to explain.

Maximillian Alvarez:  And could you just say a little bit for folks watching about the real state of abortion access in this country, what people are going through in the post-Roe world right now?

Cara Mclane:  Yeah, so one thing is, depending on your zip code, is whether or not you have access to abortion in a clinic or if you can buy abortion pills outright. You can get abortion pills anywhere in the country, they can be mailed to your home. But it is very hard for people to find that information.

So you have people being turned away at hospitals in states where abortion’s been banned. You also have people who don’t know where to go. The information is not readily available until you need it, and that’s what we do. We say, you may not need this now, but we’re going to tell you where you can get abortion pills and how to do it.

Maximillian Alvarez:  And what can folks out there watching do to get involved in this fight and advance that cause?

Cara Mclane:  The number one thing that takes no money, takes no time, is saying the word “abortion” in the context that it’s a normal medical procedure. Say the word abortion. Really, if everyone did that, this work would be so much easier.

Speaker 2:  We are over 300 days into a US-backed genocide led by Israel. Palestine is a reproductive justice issue. As much as Western feminists try to wipe their hands of American-led violence happening globally, we know that full reproductive justice will never be achieved until we see a fully liberated Palestine where fathers and mothers don’t have to hold their children’s dead bodies in plastic bags, where the rate of miscarriage hasn’t skyrocketed to over 300%, and where Palestinian families can exist and raise children without the constant threat of Israeli violence.

Speaker 3:  What you’re seeing around here, first of all, is just an incredible act of solidarity, with people from every background, every political persuasion, everything you could imagine, united around a pretty self-explanatory cause if you just look at what’s going on, which is that this is just a vicious, explicit, even proud genocide by the people who are doing it. And for some reason, America is both funding it and running cover for it, pretending like there’s some cute face to something purely evil.

I, as a Sikh, we have an obligation to humanity that we’re supposed to feed people universally. Our temples have communal kitchens where anybody of any religion, any background can come to be fed. And even in times of war where we’ve had to fight wars for justice, we even feed the enemy outside of the battlefield.

So there’s absolutely no circumstance in which we would ever be able to accept that starvation is used as a method of war. There’s many methods of war that I’m against going on right now, but the starvation was something that was announced, I think, on Oct. 9 very explicitly. And somehow, when I came out and said that I cannot support this as a Sikh, people told me I must be an antisemite.

Maximillian Alvarez:  This is a very diverse coalition of folks out here. What do you think that says about this cause and the people who are rallying to it?

Speaker 3:  It means you just have to be a human to support it. In fact, the people that I’m seeing here the most are Jewish people that I grew up with growing up in this area. Rabbi of an anti-Zionist congregation, other Jews who have been outspoken for human rights in all ways, even going to the West Bank to defend Palestinians against settler violence.

These are things that anybody could do if you have basic humanity. Doesn’t matter what your identity is. This idea that we have to be a certain fascist way because of however we’re born is just completely false.

Maximillian Alvarez:  And if you could speak directly to the folks inside the DNC right now, what would you want them to know?

Speaker 3:  We see the way that you make everything about yourselves, and it comes across as sadistic. This whole, “I’m speaking,” line from Kamala, for example… I’ve never seen such a display of egotism that’s so blatant and yet, somehow, doesn’t register in their minds.

So I want them to understand these are real humans, and just because their jobs might not seem very real sometimes because it’s a bunch of bullshit, doesn’t mean that it’s a bunch of BS for us. These are real lives that are being messed with.

Maximillian Alvarez:  What’s going on and what brought you out here today?

Crowd:  So we’re here on Michigan Avenue marching for abortion rights, marching for Palestine. And specifically what brought me out here is I’m with If Not Now, which is a national movement of American Jews seeking to end the genocide and apartheid in Gaza.

Maximillian Alvarez:  And what does it say that we have such a diverse range of causes and organizations represented in this one march? It’s been a source of criticism for some saying that, well, what’s the message? But do you think that that diversity represents a strength here?

Crowd:  I think that diversity does represent the strength here. What we’re seeing here is that our main banner is freeing Palestine. We need to get an arms embargo. We need to get a permanent ceasefire. We need to push Kamala Harris to move towards a permanent ceasefire. That’s part of why we’re here.

There’s a Not Another Bomb campaign by the Uncommitted movement we’re in coalition with, working to get an arms embargo for freeing Palestine and ending the genocide, being able to exchange hostages and ending the violence.

One of the things that is really interesting as to why we’re a diverse collective here is that it shows that the base is about ending the genocide in Palestine, about an arms embargo. In fact, if you look at our polling numbers in key states like Pennsylvania, Arizona, if we have an arms embargo from the Biden-Harris administration, it actually pushes Kamala’s ticket up in those crucial swing states.

Maximillian Alvarez:  What’s the latest on the Uncommitted campaign and the strategy moving forward?

Crowd:  So the strategy moving forward is the Not Another Bomb campaign. It’s asking for Biden and Harris, but also Harris, to make an arms embargo a priority and a policy. Rather than just giving us rhetoric, she needs to put policy into action, a policy that is popular among American Jews, among Americans, among Democrats. It shows that, across the country, if she agrees to an arms embargo, her numbers go up.

Speaker 2:  And in this moment of absolute disaster, of crisis, the American ruling class, the people descending on this city for the Democratic National Convention tomorrow, have seen fit to spend our money, my money, your money, on killing children in Gaza [crowd boos].

They’ve provided an infinite supply of bombs to destroy Gaza’s homes, its schools, its hospitals, its playgrounds, its mosques, its churches, its croplands, and its infrastructure. At the head of the most powerful country on earth, they have bullied the rest of the world in the name of protecting a far-right government openly committing a genocide.

And now, now they want our votes. They say they’ve earned them by showing a little more empathy towards poor Palestinians they happen to kill. Vice President Harris, we hear your shift in tone, but I’m here to tell you your tone will not resurrect the dead. Your tone will not shelter the living. Your tone will not pull bombs out of the sky. Your tone is not enough.

And now, you’re telling us that “Not the other guy” is a platform. We are telling you that you have to actually earn our votes [crowd cheers], and we are telling you exactly how to earn them. We are telling you we want a weapons embargo [crowd cheers]. We are telling you we want a permanent ceasefire [crowd cheers]. And we’re telling you that we want them now [crowd cheers]. When do we want them?

Crowd:  Now!

Speaker 2:  When do we want them?

Crowd:  Now!

Speaker 2:  Chicago, when do we want them?

Crowd:  Now!

Speaker 2:  You keep telling us that democracy itself is on the line. You keep telling us that fascism is knocking at the door. You keep telling us that Trump would be worse. But the majority of Americans, in poll after poll, say they disapprove of Israel’s actions in Gaza.

Study after study shows that a weapons embargo would earn you more votes, would secure you this election. So Vice President, why are you risking the end of democracy, the rise of fascism, the return of Trump, to protect Netanyahu’s war on children [crowd cheers]? You are not the protector of democracy. We are the protectors of democracy [crowd cheers].

If you want to see Democracy, look to Chicago’s streets this week [crowd cheers]. We are democracy speaking back to power, saying we will not be ignored. We want to house our unhoused [crowd cheers]. We want to feed our hungry [crowd cheers]. We want to heal our sick [crowd cheers]. We want to guard our planet [crowd cheers]. We want to build our future, not rob Gaza’s children of theirs [crowd cheers].

You might think that the people at the United Center today are the ones who get to shape the future of this country. That is not true — We make the future of this country [crowd cheers]. We make it like we’ve always made it. We make it right here in the streets [crowd cheers].

Vice President, you have a choice. You could join a movement for justice. You could make a place for yourself in history. You could be a leader who chose to listen to her people rather than the interests of the war manufacturers. Or you could become a war criminal. Ms. Harris, if you want Donald Trump to win, then say that. Otherwise, we are speaking [crowd cheers]. Hear us. We will not be placated by your tone. We need you to act, and we will not leave the streets until you do [crowd cheers].

This story was co-published with in In These Times on Aug. 14, 2024.

The explosion happened on Dec. 30, 2021, in the working-class South Baltimore neighborhood of Curtis Bay. At the coal plant building owned and operated by rail giant CSX Transportation, no more than a city block away from residents’ homes and local businesses, a buildup of methane gas inside one of CSX’s coal silo towers led to the thundering explosion. 

“The explosion occurred at the coal transfer tower of the CSX Curtis Bay Pier in Curtis Bay, but the effects of the explosion were felt all over the city of Baltimore,” wrote Nicole Fabricant, a professor at Towson University and organizer with the South Baltimore Community Land Trust. ​“Windows exploded and glass shattered into the streets. Some residents described it as feeling like a ​‘bomb’; others compared it to an ​‘earthquake.’”

Angela ​“Angie” Shaneyfelt, a Curtis Bay resident who lives just a few blocks from where the explosion happened, was quarantining in her home with COVID at the time, standing in the living room, when she felt the blast. ​“You could feel it like a sonic boom,” she told me. Still in a bit of shock from the explosion, she quickly began to assess the situation: ​“I’m just looking around [and] I’m like, ​‘Okay, the electric’s on. That’s fine. There’s no busted windows. That’s fine. There’s nobody shooting outside of my house…’” 

Then she turned to her daughters, and her life changed: 

I look at my kids and my one daughters is looking at me, she doesn’t know, she’s like looking for direction without saying anything. My other daughter mentally checked out. … She doesn’t do fireworks very well, even before this. She doesn’t do balloons very well. I had to tap her on her chin three times to say, ​‘It’s okay, it’s okay.’ And when I looked in her eyes, she was not there. That’s the scariest thing that I’ve ever experienced in my life. I’ll take anything over that.

That, Shaneyfelt said, was when she decided to join other members of her community and get involved in the fight to hold CSX accountable—not just for the 2021 explosion but for decades of toxic pollution that have contributed to turning South Baltimore into an industrial ​“sacrifice zone.” And that’s what brought her and one of her daughters out on Monday, June 10, to join more than 50 of her neighbors and supporters from all over the city in a community-led march through the streets of Curtis Bay. ​“Hey, hey! Ho, ho! CSX has got to go!” marchers chanted. 

HAPPENING NOW: Residents of South Baltimore & supporters from around the city are marching to the @CSX rail terminal in Curtis Bay to deliver an eviction notice to the rail giant polluting their homes, community, & bodies with coal dust. "CSX has got to go!" @TheRealNews pic.twitter.com/3KbnQJdhqH

— Maximillian Alvarez (@maximillian_alv) June 10, 2024

With other locals watching from their porches, sidewalks and storefronts, the crowd moved steadily and purposefully from the Curtis Bay Recreation Center all the way up to the gates of the CSX terminal. There, they signed and delivered a giant eviction notice to CSX, a company that recorded more than $10 billion in gross profits last year. 

“CSX,” the eviction notice read, ​“you are hereby required to vacate the premises. … Failure to vacate the premises will result in community backlash.” 

Long before the 2021 coal pier explosion pushed her to get actively involved in the fight to detoxify her community and hold polluters like CSX accountable, Shaneyfelt had still been dealing with the daily indignities of living in a sacrifice zone. For instance, she told me, ​“I have not opened my windows in 16 years.”

Like many of her neighbors, Shaneyfelt and her husband moved to Curtis Bay and stayed because that’s what they could afford. ​“We moved here because this is where our money took us.” But they quickly learned about all the other costs that come with living in an area poisoned by heavy industry and systematized government undersight (i.e., deregulation in practice). ​“We opened our windows the first year we were here,” she said. ​“That’s what you do on a nice day, no matter where you live in America or wherever. And then we realized that we [kept] having this black dust in our house on everything — on the carpet, on upholstery, all of it. You get tired of cleaning everything on a daily basis and wiping down everything. So it came down to just…we don’t open the windows anymore.”

But for the past two months, Shaneyfelt said, ​“the air felt different. It wasn’t as heavy as it had been for so long.” And she and her family did something they hadn’t done in 16 years: They opened the windows. 

You could hear the genuine note of relief in her voice talking about it, quickly followed by a frustrated chuckle, because that relief was already gone — and the reason for it was kind of morbid to begin with. There’s been less coal dust in the air these past two months, because there’s been less coal traffic on the rails, because there’s been less coal traffic through the port, because the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed. In working-class America, Shaneyfelt and I somberly joked, one has to hope for something like a deadly, catastrophic bridge collapse to have the chance to open the windows and (cautiously) enjoy a breeze.

A soothing wind kicked up right about then as Shaneyfelt and I stood in the shade outside the recreation center before the press conference and march led by members of the community coalition Coal Free Curtis Bay and the South Baltimore Community Land Trust. It was a sunny, beautiful day, but there was something in the air. There’s always something in the air here. I watched Shaneyfelt squint mistrustfully at the invisible breeze, her daughter by her side. 

I saw in Shaneyfelt and felt in myself the same eerie disquiet I’ve also seen in the faces of the chemically exposed residents of East Palestine, Ohio. And I was reminded of how impossible it is to quantify and articulate all the peace, happiness and security that is stolen from people when they can no longer trust the air they breathe or the water coming out of their faucets. 

The physical toll that living in a sacrifice zone takes on people is perhaps only outweighed by the psychological toll of knowing you’re being sacrificed. When you and your family are feeling the daily effects of toxic exposure and no one appears to be doing anything about it, your circumstances don’t change, and only you and your neighbors are treating it like the emergency it is, you hit a breaking point. More accurately, you hit breaking point after breaking point. People living in and around East Palestine are there now, and they’ve been dealing with the toxic fallout from the Norfolk Southern train derailment since February 2023. South Baltimore residents are there now, too, and they’ve been dealing with this their whole lives. 

David Jones, a resident who has lived in Curtis Bay for more than 35 years, recently told me on my podcast Working People about hitting one of those breaking points. ​“We were at a meeting the other night for the association,” he said, ​“and I’m not a very emotional guy, I really don’t try to show my emotions, but I lost it. I’m dealing with health issues for the first time in my life. I had COVID, and I have long COVID. Because of that, I just got shingles, and I’ve never been an unhealthy person. So to walk out into my neighborhood to get fresh air, and when I take a deep breath in, I’m choking and I’m wanting to throw up, and I can’t get that. … It’s disgusting.” 

"Hey hey, ho ho, fossil fuels have got to go!" shout South Baltimore residents, who say they've had enough of rail giant @CSX polluting their community, homes, & bodies with toxic coal dust. @BaltimoreSouth @CoalFreeCurtis @TheRealNews pic.twitter.com/3swHmlPgJ0

— Maximillian Alvarez (@maximillian_alv) June 10, 2024

Still, Jones and his neighbors keep showing up, keep fighting. What other choice do they have? The only other options are sit and accept the unacceptable or move away from your home, and more are leaving — or seriously considering it — every year. Even if they do have to move away, Jones, Shaneyfelt and other residents all said, they would keep coming back to South Baltimore and keep fighting this fight. But you can see and hear that they are tired and frustrated.

“We’re tired of saying the same thing time and time again and no one doing nothing about it,” Jones said through a megaphone at the June 10 rally. He spoke to the crowd along with a group of his South Baltimore neighbors, including Shaneyfelt. ​“I want to be able to breathe clean air. I want my grandson to be able to breathe clean air. I want everybody in this community to be able to breathe clean air, and it’s time to say enough’s enough.” 

Angela Smothers, a lifelong resident of Mt. Winans in South Baltimore, gave a speech during the march. ​“I didn’t take my medication today on purpose,” said Smothers to the cameras, ​“because I want you guys to hear what I sound like. …It’s as if I’m having to get an extra wind to be able to speak, to breathe.” 

Like Smothers, like Jones, the human beings living and dying here are the ​“evidence” of industrial pollution in South Baltimore — it’s etched on their bodies, plodding through their bloodstreams, caked in their lungs. And virtually everyone has stories of family, friends, and neighbors who have been affected. 

"I have a friend that I grew up with who's dying now in hospice from cancer, from living in the community that I share" – South Baltimore resident Angela Smothers shared her testimony at yesterday's community-led action in Curtis Bay @TheRealNews @CoalFreeCurtis @BaltimoreSouth pic.twitter.com/CTMRNeh8Fx

— Maximillian Alvarez (@maximillian_alv) June 11, 2024

“You are walking around wondering why everybody has breathing issues,” Tiffany Thompson, a Curtis Bay resident who was born and raised in Cherry Hill, told me on Working People, ​“wondering why these children are coming up with asthma when it’s not a family trait. …It’s sad to say, I know so many people walking around with oxygen tanks.” 

While the situation residents in South Baltimore face is different from the one in and around East Palestine, there are some devastating similarities. The most glaring connection, of course, is that both of these public health emergencies have a railroad running right through them.

In their voracious pursuit to lower their operating ratios year after year, rail companies have cut costs and cut corners wherever they could, from routine layoffs to automation to reduced crew sizes — all while drastically expanding the length and tonnage of the trains. These changes have piled more work onto fewer workers who are given less time to do their jobs and bullied into silent submission by punitive managers and draconian attendance policies. Rail companies have invested tens of billions of dollars more over the past decade in stock buybacks and shareholder dividends than in rail maintenance. And while they’ve moved less freight, companies have jacked up prices and fees on captive shippers who rely on trains to transport their goods. 

Workers warned this was untenable. It was a miracle that a catastrophic rail disaster, like the one that killed 47 people in Quebec in 2011, hadn’t happened here in the United States, they said. But something was going to give if the greed of these rail companies and their Wall Street shareholders wasn’t reined in. Then, in late November and early December of 2022, President Joe Biden and both parties in Congress conspired to prevent railroad workers from striking and forced a contract down their throats — a contract that did not, in any meaningful way, rein in the greedy practices that workers warned were putting them, the public and our supply chain at grave risk. It was never just about paid sick days for overworked railroaders. Two months later, Norfolk Southern’s ​“bomb train” derailed in East Palestine.

“Those of us who work in the rail industry knew it was only a matter of time before a disaster like this happened,” one veteran carman wrote for TRNN. ​“Unfortunately, we were ignored, and the people of East Palestine…are the ones paying for it.”

In interview after interview, like I’ve done with railroad workers, I also spoke with East Palestine residents about the unbearable pain inflicted on them and their families by these rail companies and the hell they’ve lived through since the train derailed in their backyard on Feb 3, 2023. They’ve told me about children scarred from the night of the derailment, suffering from PTSD when they hear fire engines pass; about the financially devastating situation they, their families and their contaminated town have been left in; about the medical bills piling up as they continue to suffer negative health effects from the toxins they were exposed to after Norfolk Southern made the catastrophic and unnecessary decision to ​“vent and burn” five carloads of hazardous chemicals. They have told me, like the residents of South Baltimore have, about the soul-scraping fear they feel watching their kids play outside and wondering if they will develop cancer from whatever is in the air, grass, and water. 

“There’s not a night that I don’t go to bed and wonder, ​‘Are my grandkids going to be able to have kids?” Stella Gamble explained on an episode of Working People that commemorated the one-year anniversary of the derailment. ​“When they’re 16 years old and they should be going to the prom and homecoming, are they going to be getting chemo for the cancer that they’re going to get from this?”

This is the cost of corporate greed, these are prices working people pay for Wall Street’s profits. ​“CSX and the other big Class One railroads have been making record profits now for a quarter century,” Ron Kaminkow of Railroad Workers United told In These Times. ​“They have done this by running roughshod over their workforce, their shippers, passengers, and trackside communities like Curtis Bay and East Palestine. It is time for rail unions to unite with community organizations, environmental groups, passenger advocates and others in order to counter these extremely powerful Fortune 500 corporations.”

Residents in East Palestine need help from organized labor, environmental justice groups, community organizations, etc., because they are fighting against impossible odds as so many have forgotten them and Norfolk Southern has tried to shut them up with a measly settlement and move on. And, like residents in other sacrifice zones who are fighting that fight, residents of East Palestine have come to the dismal conclusion that the conditions that have led to the sacrifice of their community are symptomatic of a problem that is much bigger than any one community or any one industrial catastrophe. ​“We now recognize this issue isn’t unique or solitary,” said Jess Conard, an East Palestine resident who has been thrust into the role of community advocate and now works as Appalachian director for Beyond Plastics, a project aimed at ending plastic pollution. ​“It’s systemic and vast.” 

That is why, even though they’re exhausted and sick, South Baltimore residents like Jones, Smothers and Shaneyfelt marched in the streets earlier this summer along with supporters from around the city, all the way to the CSX coal terminal, a Baltimore PD chopper stalking overhead. 

Quite a shot: BPD chopper flies overhead as Curtis Bay residents & South Baltimore neighbors march to the CSX rail terminal—massive coal piles visible to the left—to demand the multi-billion-dollar rail giant stop polluting their community w/ coal dust. @TheRealNews pic.twitter.com/qfmecXH7BX

— Maximillian Alvarez (@maximillian_alv) June 14, 2024

That is why coalitions of labor unions, railroad workers, environmental justice groups, community organizations, residents of other sacrifice zones, residents living near other rail lines and concerned citizens of all stripes are coming together in common struggle, to forge bonds of solidarity and mutual support between forgotten and downtrodden communities, from South Baltimore to East Palestine and beyond. 

Working people living in sacrifice zones aren’t just fighting one polluter in their communities (and in areas like South Baltimore, there are many polluters). They are fighting against a vast state-business system that allows the pollution to happen, that protects Wall Street and corporate profits over people’s lives. They are fighting against a system that has normalized the sacrifice of whole communities, abandoned to live in conditions that threaten life itself; a system that issues operational permits to polluters and permits the polluters themselves to influence and shape the policies that are supposed to regulate them; a system that always puts the burden of proof on the people who are being harmed and places the largest financial, political and practical burdens on those same people when they try to prove they’re being poisoned, get legal recourse, or shape policy; and a system that inherently favors the rich and powerful over the rest of us, which is why companies like CSX can deny fault for decades while residents cry for help, deny the validity of any study saying otherwise, and force journalists like me to include statements like the one from CSX at the bottom of this article denying that there are any problems and affirming that they are, actually, the best of corporate citizens (even though I’ve seen with my own eyes the black swirling dust blowing off the uncovered CSX coal cars driving into Curtis Bay).

This is what sacrificed people like the residents of East Palestine and South Baltimore are up against, and they are not alone. And they cannot win these fights on their own either. They need help.

“We’re 4,500 poor people,” Gamble from East Palestine stated bluntly, ​“and we’re going to fight [a]…railroad” company worth billions of dollars? ​“Not gonna happen. It was a battle that was lost before we started it, but some of us still have to keep the fight on.” 

Below is an excerpt from a statement sent to In These Times by the CSX media team: 

CSX is committed to environmental compliance and strives to protect the environment and the safety and health of the public, our customers, and employees in all aspects of our operations. 

CSX is proud of its nearly 200-year history in Baltimore and the Curtis Bay area. Our coal pier operations adhere to strict regulatory standards, and we regularly invest in technologies and practices that go above and beyond those standards set by federal and state governments, and maintain our own operational standards for environmental management, including those found in our environmental policy.

The data from Collaborative Investigation by MDE and others as analyzed by third-party experts indicates the community is in attainment with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for PM2.5 and PM10.

Further as required by our air permit, we installed a fence line air monitoring system along the perimeter of the property. Data from the fence line air monitoring is shared quarterly with the MDE and shows that the Curtis Bay facility is in compliance with the NAAQS for PM2.5 and PM10.

It’s our focus to continue constructive discussions with the Maryland Department of the Environment that can lead to a better understanding of our commitment to sustainability as well as collaborative efforts to address community concerns.

On Aug. 9, 2014, Officer Darren Wilson shot and killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO. Police left Brown’s lifeless body in the hot sun for four hours, plainly demonstrating the contempt of law enforcement for the local community. The righteous rebellion that followed in Ferguson shook the nation and the world, turning the Black Lives Matter movement that had begun following the earlier murder of Trayvon Martin into a global mass movement. Ten years later, some things have changed, but most things have not. Reforms have been passed at various levels concerning the power and accountability of the police. Yet the culture of impunity and the reality of racialized police violence as a daily occurrence in the US continues. In this special episode of Rattling the Bars, Taya Graham and Stephen Janis of Police Accountability Report join Mansa Musa for a look back on the past decade of attempts to stop police violence, and a discussion on why justice for Michael Brown and so many others continues to elude us.

Studio / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino
Audio Post-Production: Alina Nehlich

Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Mansa Musa:

Welcome to this edition of Rattling Bars. I’m your host, Mansa Musa. We’re in a period of Olympics. If we was to deal with the Olympic analysis of my guests today and we had an event, the event would be watching the police run around the track and see who cheat and get a medal for exposing them. That would be the medal we would get, the medal for exposing police corruption and police brutality and fascism as it relates to the police department. Here, welcome Jan and Taya of the police accountability.

Stephen Janis:

Thank you.

Mansa Musa:

They’re on the dream team at The Real News Network, and I’m honored to have y’all here. When we was talking about doing something about Michael Brown and I said, “Yeah, it’s Michael Brown’s anniversary,” and we was talking about it. I said, “Maybe we can get Jan and Taya to come in,” because it’s like the highlight of my doing this is working with y’all and talking to y’all because y’all-

Stephen Janis:

Thank you.

Taya Graham:

Thank you.

Stephen Janis:

Thank you.

Mansa Musa:

One, y’all got depth. Now, y’all real cool people.

Stephen Janis:

Thank you.

Taya Graham:

Thank you.

Stephen Janis:

Well, thank you.

Taya Graham:

[inaudible 00:01:18].

Mansa Musa:

Let’s start. This is the 10th year anniversary of Michael Brown.

Taya Graham:

Yes.

Mansa Musa:

All right. We know that what came out of Michael Brown was a civil upheaval of demonstrations all around the country and all around the world.

Stephen Janis:

True.

Mansa Musa:

But more importantly, the way it was looking in Washington, DC, and the way it was looking in the United States, the fact that it was consistent and it was long. People came out, and people made it known that they was tired of police running them up.

All right. Let’s talk about where was y’all at and how did y’all cover that?

Stephen Janis:

Yeah. Well, it’s interesting because I was still part of the mainstream media sort of, as you know, at a mainstream media television, actually Sinclair Broadcasting, when the uprising around Michael Brown. So I wasn’t able to cover it, but we did end up starting to work here, both of us, when Freddie Gray died in police custody. So we were thinking about it because you had mentioned to us you wanted to talk about how things had evolved over 10 years.

One of the things that we both thought about when we discussed it was there has been, since Michael Brown and since the subsequent George Floyd and Freddie Gray, there has been tremendous amount of reform on the civilian side. In other words, even in Maryland for example, you used to have the Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights, which give police special privileges in the legal system when they do something wrong. That was repealed. So there have been things that have happened.

We have a consent decree in Baltimore. Many things that have happened. But I think on the side of policing, in terms of the culture of policing, I don’t think that has changed as rapidly as the civilian side of expectations. In other words, for a long time, the idea of police brutality was buried and not covered. I know, as a reporter when I covered it in the aughts, it was just my word against the police. Now that there had been body camera and things and there’s evidence, and Taya will talk about that in some specific cases, that makes a different type of way to process it and to push back against it.

However, I think still at this point in the actual bastion of policing, I think some of the same attitudes that create the sort of horrible situations we witnessed still persist. I think police are still trained to be very violent, to be very suspicious, especially with people of color, and to act out violently, preemptively, not as a last resort. Or I don’t think any of this talk about being able to deescalate, I don’t think that’s true.

In fact, there was just an article written by Samantha Simon in The Atlantic where she went to four different police academy trainings and what she talked about was how the police were trained to view us, and I mean the people-

Mansa Musa:

People, right.

Stephen Janis:

… as violent, possible murderers at any second and how that has persisted. So I think one of the things Taya and I talked about was you can’t say there have not been attempts and there have not been some real substantive changes. But I think police are still in this back and forth war with us that has been precipitated by the culture of policing.

Mansa Musa:

Before I go to you, Taya, let’s talk about a point you made, and I think our audience need to really understand this, is the fact that there has been some changes on the civil side. That’s the society looking for a place where the police represent their motto, serve and protect.

Stephen Janis:

Exactly.

Mansa Musa:

With the culture being what it is, how do we make inroads into that?

Stephen Janis:

I mean I think that’s very difficult because, so for example, Taya and I attended the Republican National Convention, and there was a sign, Back the Blue. The conventioneers were touting these signs, I think, because police have become a part of the political process. I mean one of the things in this country, we try to separate the military from politics because we know that people with guns and badges enforcing political ideologies can be an extremely fraught authoritarian experience.

But when you’re down in the convention, you turn around and you see all these signs, Back the Blue, it just makes policing feel like it’s in a different realm than where it really should be, which is municipal service. I think that’s a political battle, unfortunately, that is still being fought because Republicans are using it as a kind of wedge issue. You still hear this silly, and I would say extremely silly, Defund the Police mantra, which anyone who knows anything about municipal budgeting, covered cities and policing, police departments have excess funding many times.

You still hear this. They’re still throwing out, “Well, you said, ‘Defund the police,’ without ever thinking about can a municipal agency be held accountable?” So the problem is that it’s become so political that I think it’s going to be hard to change that culture because the police see the support from the right side, from our more authoritarian side, and they say, “Well, we need to just embrace this and ratchet up, and we don’t need to respond to what the civilian side wants.” So I think it’s going to be very difficult.

Mansa Musa:

Tay? Go ahead.

Taya Graham:

Can I add to that? Because you brought up something really interesting in relation to the way policing is politicized, and it’s something that we always joke. So if somebody from the DPW was supposed to-

Stephen Janis:

The Department of Public works.

Taya Graham:

… for the Department of Public Works was supposed to recycle and instead of recycling, they took all our recycling and just dumped it somewhere, would we be wrong to criticize them? Would we be attacking the very fabric of society to say, “Hey, they’re supposed to do their job this way and they didn’t?” No, of course not. That person who took all our recycling and did whatever they wanted with it would probably get reprimanded, if not fired.

But if we say, “Hey, Baltimore City Police Department has been shooting unarmed people. We have a problem with it,” suddenly, the politics are involved. Suddenly, we are anti-American. Suddenly, we’re not being patriotic. We’re not supporting our boys in blue. Well, wait a second. They are paid by us, the taxpayers. They are supposed to protect and serve. That police culture that we’re talking about, unfortunately, really hasn’t changed.

I think we have some really strong signs of that. I mean I think what we covered with Sergeant Ethan Newberg, that’s a Baltimore City police officer, one who was making $239,000 a year-

Mansa Musa:

Right. Of taxpayers’ money.

Taya Graham:

… of taxpayer dollars. But thanks to this body-worn camera program that was started in SAO Mosby’s office, they were reviewing the body camera video. They looked at about six months’ worth of it, just six months, and they found nine occasions in which he committed 32 counts of misconduct in office, 32 counts, just nine occasions in six months. Can you imagine what that man was doing before there was a body-worn camera program?

Mansa Musa:

That’s right. Yeah, yeah.

Taya Graham:

Can you imagine all of the crimes he committed against our community that we don’t even know about? Guess how much time he spent in jail?

Mansa Musa:

How much?

Stephen Janis:

Six months?

Taya Graham:

No, no. He got six months probation that he could spend at home.

Stephen Janis:

Home detention.

Taya Graham:

Home detention.

Mansa Musa:

Home detention.

Taya Graham:

Home detention. He didn’t even spend a night in jail for terrorizing our community-

Stephen Janis:

I mean it’s really kind of-

Mansa Musa:

Yeah, exactly.

Stephen Janis:

It’s really kind of interesting because I was just looking at the community report. There’s a report, State Senator Jill Carter passed a law that required a certain type of reporting mechanisms for the police department. What’s really interesting about it is right now the Baltimore Police Department in the latest survey has about 2,100 sworn officers, which is about 700 or 800 officers short of their capacity and what they normally are staffed at.

However, we are in a year of record … We probably will have a record low homicide rate, and we did last year under the kind of circumstances where there’s low police staffing. So what does that tell you? That tells you that this idea of this equation that underlies the whole political argument of police-

Mansa Musa:

Come on.

Stephen Janis:

… that more police make us safer is absolutely false. But it doesn’t really get into the political equation. Now, in Baltimore, people had a choice. They could have elected Sheila Dixon, who was more the pro-police, or they could have gone with Brandon Scott, who had a more … What was it called? GVSR? A gun-

Taya Graham:

Oh, it was a gun violence reduction safety-

Stephen Janis:

Which was a complete community program, which is what he created with this. They chose the community program because we’ve seen this up close. But really, I think on the broader scale of American politics, this hasn’t been digested by people that, you know what, your main argument for more police and giving police the powers to do things that are unconstitutional is that we’ll be safer. There’s no proof of it, and Baltimore is an perfect exemplar of the fact that that’s just not true.

We have less police and less crime. So to the police partisans, I say, “Explain that to me. Why has that happened?”

Taya Graham:

Exactly.

Stephen Janis:

So it’s just a very interesting dynamic because it-

Mansa Musa:

Really, the issue it underlies is this, is that, one, the police never have been put together as representative of the community. So that’s the beginning. There’s always been there to serve and protect the property interest of corporate America and capitalists. Here we come along and we say, “Okay, but that’s not what your mandate say. That’s not what your oath say.” So we try to hold you accountable to the things that you’re supposed to be doing.

Let’s walk back. So we had Rodney King. The response to Rodney King was a spontaneous Riot, looting, killing, whatever. That was the response because of what people seen, the visual aid of what people seen-

Stephen Janis:

Yes. Absolutely.

Mansa Musa:

… more importantly, and it was in California. They showed you how the relationship between the police and Californians. They acquitted OJ because they said the police. When they interjected the police in this case, it don’t make no difference what you did, in their mind, we got empirical evidence and examples of the police being bad. So can’t nobody be worser than them in the situation. All right. All right. We got Trayvon Martin. Then we got-

Stephen Janis:

Michael Brown.

Mansa Musa:

Michael Brown. Then we get Freddie Gray-

Stephen Janis:

Freddie Gray.

Taya Graham:

Eric Garner.

Stephen Janis:

Eric Garner.

Mansa Musa:

Right. Eric Garner, Freddie Gray, and then George Floyd. Not talking about what’s happening in between that.

Stephen Janis:

Because there are a lot of cases on top of that.

Mansa Musa:

Right.

Taya Graham:

Sandra Bland-

Stephen Janis:

Sandra Bland.

Taya Graham:

… in 2015, all of that recorded by the dash camera. It was absolutely heart-breaking.

Mansa Musa:

And in each case, the cry from the public and the masses has been, “Change the police,” whatever we say that is. We Come up with terminology like defund, when we saying defund, better training. We come up with a whole host of things that we want to see done around the police, and the system and the capitalist response is, okay, we’re going to take what you say and we’re going to interpret it the way that advances our narrative-

Taya Graham:

Absolutely.

Mansa Musa:

… ergo Cop City. They saying what they offering in Cop City is that, “Oh, we’re training police to better serve and protect.” Okay. But going back to your point, Jan, why do you need military-style training? Why do you-

Stephen Janis:

Right. Well, you know-

Mansa Musa:

Go ahead.

Stephen Janis:

One thing that Taya and I always not laugh about, but we covered very extensively the consent decree between the Baltimore City Police Department and the Department of Justice, which was the result of the uprising after Freddie Gray. But what was amazing about it is we both looked at each other and they announced $70 million in new funding for the police department.

So the police department literally wreaks havoc in the community, creates the conditions in which people felt the need to literally rise up, and their response was, “Let’s give police more money and training.” Right, Taya?

Mansa Musa:

Money.

Taya Graham:

Absolutely. You know what? When you brought up Cop City, you took the thought right out of my mind because when you said capitalism, you said policing, and you said, “What is the real comparative policing?” The Cop City that they want to create, guess who’s funding it?

Stephen Janis:

Yeah. Corporations.

Taya Graham:

Coca-Cola, Home Depot, Wells Fargo.

Stephen Janis:

Private companies. The Atlanta Police Foundation.

Taya Graham:

I mean if this doesn’t show you the tie between capitalism, the protection of property, and what police are really there to do, I don’t know what will.

Stephen Janis:

Yeah. So it always is, in these situations, more money doesn’t flow to the community, even though community programs are shown to be really more effective. Instead, more money flows to police. No matter what happens, it’s like heads, I win, tails, you lose. The more money comes to them in the form of this police reform infrastructure you’re talking about. It becomes almost a business opportunity-

Mansa Musa:

It is.

Stephen Janis:

… because there’s just so much money available to people who will say, “Oh, I can help reform the police.” I forget the police, the thing that there’s-

Taya Graham:

Like the ROCA?

Stephen Janis:

Yeah, ROCA. Not ROCA per se, but there’s just so many organizations and people who can take advantage of the funding that flows to policing. Go ahead.

Mansa Musa:

And the Fraternal Order of Police in everywhere, they’re like a lobby beyond a lobby because-

Taya Graham:

Because they have the power.

Mansa Musa:

… no matter what goes on, they always going to paint the narrative that we’re here to serve and protect, and you taking our ability to do that. Bump the fact that we’re killing people indiscriminate. Bump the fact that we fabricating cases against. Bump the fact that we taking and manufacturing evidence against people or like in the case that you talk about all the misconduct.

The connection is that you’re doing this with impunity. So you can take and say, “Oh, well, I’m going to cook the books or I’m going to misappropriate money and I’m doing it with impunity. But in the interim of me doing that, I was out on the street shaking down people. I got numerous of people arrested. I locked up and swore an oath that what I say they did, they did, and you take me at my word because I’m the police.” But the person that’s the real victim of it is the person that you supposed to serve and protect.

But let’s talk about the reactions from each one of these periods because, like I said, in the era of King, the beating, it was rioters. People literally was outraged because of what they seen, and it was more the visual than anything else and what they seen. And then when you had Trayvon and you had the other one, you didn’t have as much of a reaction in terms of when you got to Michael Brown. Why do you think that Michael Brown had that type of impact?

Stephen Janis:

Well, I think because I just saw from a reporter covering police brutality prior to the cell phone camera and the visuals that you would see, that it was very difficult sometimes. You’d write about really what you knew were horrible police shootings where someone would get shot in the back and you just knew it was wrong, but you didn’t have visuals.

I think in the case of Freddie Gray, you saw Freddie Gray being taken into the van. Michael Brown, you saw his body lying on-

Mansa Musa:

Just laying out there.

Stephen Janis:

Eric Garner, you saw him being in the chokehold.

Taya Graham:

Being put in that chokehold, all those officers on top of him.

Stephen Janis:

I honestly think it’s like the civil rights movement of the ’60s where-

Mansa Musa:

Right. Edmund Pettus Bridge.

Stephen Janis:

… video finally could show people and when people could finally see it, even if it wasn’t always directly what happened. I mean everyone saw Freddie Gray being put in the van on the second stop when he was hogtied. I’d say he was hogtied with handcuffs and thrown into the back like a piece of trash. And then he ended up hitting his head, but whatever. Everyone could see that. When you can see it, I think it has a bigger effect. The cell phone cameras were instrumental just as much as a body camera.

Taya Graham:

Absolutely. Cell phone cameras, CCTV footage, and now finally, body-worn camera are one of the most important tools that this civil rights movement has because just like you were talking about the Fraternal Order of Police, they’re often arguing, “The Constitution is getting in the way of our cops doing good policing. It’s getting in the way of it.”

Mansa Musa:

That’s an oxymoron.

Stephen Janis:

Yeah.

Taya Graham:

It’s ironic, that idea, well, you’re going to have to bend or even break the law to be able to uphold it and be able to serve it. When you were talking about in Ferguson, I think that moment where you saw him. He had his hands up, and he said, “Don’t shoot.” We saw that he had nothing in either hand, and that officer still gunned him down anyway. I think the visual of that, the visual of seeing Eric Garner have six officers on him with one in a chokehold-

Mansa Musa:

Chokehold.

Taya Graham:

… and knowing that all he was doing was selling some loose cigarettes, and they’re on top of him like that. You could tell he’s a big man. He’s got breathing issues. You could tell that they were harming him. You could tell that. He’s saying, “I can’t breathe.” So I think seeing those moments on camera in the same way that you mentioned with the ’60s civil rights movement, I think it’s when those images from Vietnam came home-

Mansa Musa:

That’s right.

Taya Graham:

… and they saw little children being harmed, being devastated by war, when they saw those images, that really helped motivate people in the same way. Seeing those images of African Americans being unarmed and being harmed and gunned down, people really started to understand that what we had been saying all along was true, that these officers were killing our people.

Stephen Janis:

To your point, I mean the one case that really influenced Maryland’s legislation, where most of the legislative action was not actually Freddie Gray, but George Floyd, because, visually speaking, George Floyd was so direct and graphic and so unambiguous. I mean it ended up actually exposing our corrupt medical examiner ruling in favor of police, Dr. David Fowler, because he ended up testifying that George Floyd did not die from positional asphyxiation, but rather the tailpipe that was next to him.

Taya Graham:

Yes, it was carbon monoxide. This is what our medical examiner-

Stephen Janis:

Yeah, who had been ruling controversial.

Taya Graham:

… the medical examiner that we had over 20 years, the one we had here, the same one who ruled that the death of Tawanda Jones’ brother-

Stephen Janis:

Tyrone.

Taya Graham:

… Tyrone West was accidental and due to him having a heart condition. It had nothing to do with the police officers that body-slammed him on the ground.

Stephen Janis:

And Anton Black.

Taya Graham:

The death of Anton Black down in Greensboro, Maryland, a 19-year-old young man that was a track star, and you can see in the body camera video, these big officers-

Stephen Janis:

Just sitting on top of him.

Taya Graham:

… sitting on top of him.

Stephen Janis:

Positional asphyxiation.

Taya Graham:

They said, “Oh, he died because he had a heart abnormality.” That’s the type of rulings that Dr. David Fowler gave.

Stephen Janis:

So-

Taya Graham:

So when he went in front of the entire country in that courtroom-

Stephen Janis:

And testified.

Taya Graham:

… and testified that it wasn’t positional asphyxiation, the police officers were not a contributing factor, that the fact that he had drugs in his system and that the car tailpipe was near him, that was most likely carbon monoxide poisoning that contributed to his death. Literally, over 400 Pathologists and medical examiners around the country said, “You need to audit this guy. You need to audit him.” They signed a petition.

Stephen Janis:

I guess my point was that George Floyd, I think, from our perspective of covering policing, had the greatest impact on legislation and just change. So that’s why I would say it’s the visual component that makes the difference.

Mansa Musa:

The thing about George Floyd, unlike the other ones, was like you said, the visual aid, but it went national and worldwide. But this was the issue with it. The only way you wasn’t affected by it, you ain’t had no conscience. I don’t care what station in life, where you at in your politics, I don’t care who you like, “Yeah, I’m all for Trump, but I can’t be for that,” because it was so graphic.

Stephen Janis:

Yes.

Mansa Musa:

That’s what caused the reaction because, in that reaction, and I want y’all to speak to this, in that reaction, you had the movement, Black Lives Matter. You had a more strategic push which led to legislation or led to people who was conscious trying to talk about this more so than anywhere else.

So why do you think that at this stage right now? We know we had that. We know we seen that. We know we seen the upheaval. But at this stage right now, the problem hasn’t changed.

Stephen Janis:

No.

Mansa Musa:

They just shot is boy in the back in Baltimore City. Go back to I think what you say, Taya, or you, Jan, where they say the training was to look at us as us as being-

Stephen Janis:

Yeah, you know-

Mansa Musa:

… look as that first. It ain’t a matter of me what I’m doing. It’s a matter of you in my view, running with your back away from me. But in my training say you a threat or I got to subdue you to stop you from being a potential threat, and the way I do that is I kill you.

Stephen Janis:

Yeah. I mean so there’s a couple things because, for example, just so people understand, despite all these reforms, in 2017, 981 civilians were shot and killed by police. In 2023, it was 1,161. So it has continued to increase, unfortunately. I think what we have to understand, there’s this idea that Taya and I wrestle with all the time about police corruption because the idea being that there’s this police force that if you just reform them to a certain extent, they will suddenly be good or whatever.

But I think what’s more important to understand is that policing just reflects the underlying problems with the society that it purports to serve. In other words, Baltimore City, the way Baltimore City’s economically and racially constituted, the way Baltimore City violated the rights of African Americans, all those things were reflected in the policing. So unless you reform society’s corrupt … As you pointed out, the idea that property is more important than human life-

Mansa Musa:

Right, than human life, really.

Stephen Janis:

Unless you reform those elements, policing is always going to be responsive to the power and the corrupt power of the society in which it is situated. So I think that’s what is very difficult about this reform problem because you really can’t just say you’re going to be able to, in isolation, reform police.

If the society or the city or the county or the country in which this policing is situated is not reformed first, I think policing will continue to be memetically reflecting what is going on in that society. What perverse incentives there are, what racial problems there are will always be reflected in policing.

Taya Graham:

This conversation’s got me thinking about so many different things. We’re talking about these lethal uses of force, and I was thinking of Sonya Massey, 36-year-old woman, Springfield, Illinois.

Mansa Musa:

Come on now. Come on. Come on.

Taya Graham:

You see her. She calls police because she believes there’s been an intruder around her home. She calls 911 for help. Officers go take a look around. They see a car that’s had its windows broken into. So perhaps she was right. Perhaps there had been an intruder around her home. She comes to the door, and she’s just wearing a bathrobe. You can tell that she has no armaments on her whatsoever. The officer goes very close to her and speaks to her, but then insists that he needs to see a form of ID. So that’s when she’s like, “Well, I have to go in the house and look for it.”

When we get to the point where he says to her, “Turn that pot of hot water off. I don’t want a fire,” she says, “Okay.” She goes over there. Until that moment, they had been somewhat laughing and joking together. She goes over there, and she makes a comment. He’s like, “Get that hot water.” She’s like, “Oh, I rebuke you in the name of Jesus.” And he’s like, “I will shoot you. I shoot you in your effing face,” and he immediately pulls the gun up.

I reported on this, and I had people say, “Well, it’s possible she threw that water in his direction.” I was looking at the distance. There was a counter between her and them. I was like, “No one said, at any point, they could have left. They could have backed away.” What happened to de-escalation?

Mansa Musa:

Yeah. What happened to all that? Yeah, what happened to all that? Yeah.

Taya Graham:

Although personally, from what I saw of the body camera video, I do not believe at any point she was genuinely threatening either one of those officers with that pot of hot water, if they truly believed that what was occurring, they should have retreated. There was no reason to shoot an unarmed woman in her face three times and then not give medical aid. It’s absolutely incredible.

Mansa Musa:

See, that go back to something you said earlier is they’re being trained to be assassins. They’re occupying forces in our community. They’re being trained. De-escalation is like a no de-escalation in their mind is problematic for them because I can gain control by de-escalating, but that’s not control for them. Control for them is I kill somebody and the threat of me will shoot you and kill you. It’ll help you de-escalate, get out my face. Because, like you say with Sonya Massey, it was no threat there.

When you running away from the police, when you running away, it’s only in the movie where somebody running from the police and shooting back like this here and the police get hit. That’s only in the movie. I don’t care what you got. When you run away from the police, the very act of running away is saying I’m trying to get away. So, in your mind, what do that mean? That mean that you’re trying to, what, hurt me?

But let’s talk about the reforms and how they’re not being implemented or how they’re being played because we know right now, the George Floyd Bill hasn’t been passed.

Stephen Janis:

Right. The George Floyd Act, yes, it has not.

Mansa Musa:

George Floyd Act. Every time something come up with the woman, Sonya Massey, “Oh, look, we need to sign the George Floyd.”

Taya Graham:

Oh, that bill died in 2021. It died in Congress. You know what? That bill was so reasonable. They’re saying, “Hey, let’s codify that there should be no chokeholds. Hey, let’s codify that there shouldn’t be no-knock warrants. Hey, you know what? Let’s stop the 1033 Program and stop giving small-town police officers BearCats and literal tanks to police their communities with.” There was not a thing in there that would be considered radical, just some really reasonable reforms, and it died.

So with all the public outcry, with all the pressure, the organizing, the activism, and like you said, we have the body camera that shows exactly what happened, they still couldn’t get that bill passed.

Stephen Janis:

One program that strikes me as very interesting that it’s worth thinking about in the context of this discussion is the Safe Streets Program in Baltimore because I’ve watched it evolve from having absolutely no dedicated funding to growing and getting some state-dedicated funding. But throughout that process, there’s been this pushback from police partisans specifically through our local Sinclair Broadcasting affiliate, which has continually questioned and continually pushed back and questioned the spending, which is minuscule compared to the police department.

But the main component that I think that the police partisans don’t like and is revealing, I think is the fact that Safe Streets is not an armed force. It is supposed to be de-escalation. It is people in the community who are trained and who have knowledge of the community to simply de-escalate, not shoot anybody, not put anybody in handcuffs. It’s really supposed to be a community mediation program.

I don’t know how you feel about it, but with the people that I interviewed who participated in the program struck me as extremely courageous and dealing with very difficult circumstances, and I thought it was really interesting that a program that was really saying, “We don’t need guns and badges and arrests. We need members of the community who are empowered to mediate,” I always thought it was interesting that places like FOX45, Sinclair, the people who have been very police-focused, found it to be threatening. What is threatening about mediation exactly?

Mansa Musa:

The person that started it, Leon Faruq, we was locked up together. When he got out, he created that concept-

Stephen Janis:

That’s amazing.

Mansa Musa:

… for the purpose of making the community safe and educating the community how to interact with the police, and more importantly, to get the police involved in the community and understanding the community. So what they did over the years, like you said, you get this pushback, and then you vilify some of the people that’s in it.

Stephen Janis:

You vilify people. They definitely did that.

Mansa Musa:

So now you’re saying you shift the focus off of the work that they’re to the individuals that’s involved in the group. But going forward, how do y’all see this playing out in terms of because we know that right now it’s shifting? I know in DC, when they passed their last bill, Safe Street or whatever, she put in there about chokeholds. They passed a policy about you can choke them, but you just can’t put this on them. You can put this on them.

It’s a different hand gesture. You can’t choke them with an L, just choke them with both of your hands, and it’s not lethal. But I guarantee you when you look back over all these cities that, mainly with the uptick of what they call crime, that they have went back and undid a lot of the common sense reforms.

Stephen Janis:

I agree. But I mean I think there needs to be a reckoning with what is evolving in Baltimore where you have a large reduction in violent crime, like police shootings and homicides, and yet you have fewer and fewer police. We, as media, need to force people to reconcile with that, to answer the questions about that because the narrative that has driven the excesses and abuse of police that we have seen is the narrative that more policing somehow means more safety or, as Taya mentioned, allowing police to ignore constitutional rights. Or constitutional rights are a barrier to good policing and safety and all these things.

All these things are absolutely hinged upon the fact that somehow unleashing a militarized force in a civilian society can somehow make it safer. We, as media, have to really, really push that question and question that underlying assumption. It is so important, and it really frustrates me because no one’s asked that question. It’s right there in black and white. The Baltimore Police Department is staffed at historically low levels. Why are homicides going down?

Well, it’s because Mayor Scott, and I’ll give him credit for that, invested in community-oriented violence intervention programs, not because of the police. If we can dislodge policing from that idea that somehow they’re the barrier between civilization and chaos, I think we’ll go a long way to getting real police reform.

Mansa Musa:

Yeah, I agree. Taya?

Taya Graham:

But the other part of the discussion about how media should handle this is that when we report on police misconduct, we can’t have the public or the government come out to kill the messenger.

Stephen Janis:

That’s a good point.

Taya Graham:

The example I would want to give of that is when we were covering Sergeant Ethan Newberg. He’s the officer I mentioned earlier, making over a quarter million dollars a year for literally terrorizing our community. We sat in that courtroom and watched him read, I would say, what was a less than heartfelt apology to the victims of his criminal misconduct against them. During that speech, he was looking over at us, and he mentioned, “I don’t think I would be standing here today if it wasn’t for certain members of social media.” He looked over at us a couple times.

Stephen said, “He’s looking at us.” And I’m like, “No, he’s not. You’re just being paranoid.” He’s like, “No, he’s looking at us.” After he was told that he was going to get just six months home detention, another reporter came up to us and was like, “Well, what did you do? Kick his dog? Why did he keep looking at you like that?” The thing I realized is that he blamed us. It was our coverage that put him in that position, not his unconstitutional behavior.

Stephen Janis:

That’s a good point.

Taya Graham:

There are members of the public that feel that way, that if we highlight a police officer doing harm against the community, that we’re creating a problem. No, it’s the officers who are breaking the law-

Mansa Musa:

The law, yeah.

Taya Graham:

… who are harming the community that are causing the problem. So that’s the other thing that when you are a member of the media and you do step out and you do say the truth and you speak it out and you show the body camera footage and you give the victim side of the story, people turn on us and say, “You’re making it worse.” We’re saying, “No, you guys need to clean this up.”

Mansa Musa:

As we close out, y’all got the last word. We’ll start with you, Jan.

Stephen Janis:

Well, no, I mean, again, I think police reform will not really occur unless you see fundamental shifts in the way we discuss things like violence and poverty and unless we address those underlying issues. Police is a really simple solution for late-stage capitalism to suppress people’s political efficacy and suppress their ability to say, “This is wrong. I shouldn’t be going broke because I can’t pay my medical bills.” All those things are intertwined.

I think if we recognize that, that is where the real reform will occur. Recognizing police role that we talk about a lot in our show in the inequality equation and enforcing racial boundaries, that has to be discussed and fleshed out in order for real reform to occur.

Taya Graham:

The only thing I would add to that is the fact that the culture of policing is a serious problem. And it’s not just Dave Grossman’s Warrior Cop training or his Killology training or the New Jersey Street Cop training, which I would suggest anyone look up what those events look like. That Street Cop training was absolutely insane. You can understand why police would go out and just be terrible to the community after attending an event like that.

But that the culture of policing, I think the best way to think of it is what we saw with George Floyd, that veteran officer kneeling on Floyd’s neck and the two other officers just going along with it, just going along with it, not one of them spoke up and said, “Well, maybe we should render some aid now. Maybe we should stop.” They went along with it.

So as long as the veteran cops keep on replicating this unconstitutional, to say the least, style of policing, we’re going to continue to get it. So we have to attack the heart of this police culture or we will continue to get the same results.

Mansa Musa:

There you have it, Rattling the Bars, Real News. We have to attack the culture. As Jan said, you have low homicide incidents in Baltimore City and a low police force. That mean that whatever the alternatives they’re doing, they’re working in terms of making the community safe. So why are we not investing in that? Or why do we continue to invest in a police force as an occupying force in our community? We need to ask these questions.

As this is the 10th year anniversary of Michael Brown, we recognize that some changes have been made, but more importantly, the biggest change that’s being made is the consciousness of the community and people becoming more and more aware of police. This is because of people like Taya and Jan and the Police Accountability Report. Thank y’all for-

Taya Graham:

Thank you so much for having us.

Stephen Janis:

Thanks for having me. It was great.

Taya Graham:

We really appreciate it.

Stephen Janis:

For having us.

A 42-year-old Black woman, Adrienne Boulware, has died in the custody of the California Department of Corrections at the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla. On July 4, prison guards exposed Boulware to extreme temperatures outdoors during a heatwave for 15 minutes, leaving her with just a small glass of water in the over 110 F heat. Boulware began to exhibit symptoms of heat exhaustion almost immediately after returning indoors. Two days later, she passed away while receiving medical care. Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura of the California Coalition for Women’s Prisoners joins Rattling the Bars to discuss Boulware’s tragic death, and what it reveals about the dangers prisons place incarcerated people in as the climate crisis intensifies. 

Studio / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino
Audio Post-Production: Alina Nehlich

Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Mansa Musa:

Welcome to this edition of Rallying the Bars. I’m your host, Mansa Musa. It’d be unimaginable to think that if I left a dog in the car with the windows rolled up under these heating conditions that I would not be held accountable by the animal and Humane Society. But the same thing is taking place right now in California with the women in Central California Women’s Facility. The same thing is taking place right now where women are being held in environments where the heat has reached a temperature of 110. As a result, a woman has died, and not to say how many more will die or what the state of these women are at this current time. Joining me today is Elizabeth Nomura. Welcome, Nomura. Tell us a little bit about yourself and what organization you’re representing at this juncture.

Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:

Again, my name is Leesa Nomura. I am the statewide membership organizer for the California Coalition for Women Prisoners. We are a organization that’s been around for almost just shy of 30 years, and I have been a statewide organizer for close to three years, but have been connected with CCWP since I was incarcerated. And I’ve been home in January, it will be five years I have been released from prison. I am of Pacific Islander descent and I am very grateful to be here calling from Tonga Land, or commonly known as Los Angeles. Thank you for having me.

Mansa Musa:

Okay. Yeah. And thank you for that. Okay, so let’s get right into it. According to a report that just came out on July 6th, a woman died from heat exhaustion in Central California Women’s Facility. Talk about what’s going on with them conditions right now as we walk back through what happened with this system.

Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:

Yeah. Tragically, a 42-year-old black woman, a very good friend of mine, of our sisterhood inside, Adrienne Boulware, just shy of coming home next year. It was 4th of July and she was being released for her meds and the institution was locked down because of course, on the holidays, there’s a lack of staff. And so because of that, on those days, the institution will be locked down because of lack of staff. And so it was med time. She was popped out for her meds. And in the configuration of the institution, the meds are not distributed to the cells like in some of the men’s joints. They have to leave their room, walk out of the unit and walk across the yard to the medical unit, stand in line with all of the other folks from the yard, and then wait in line for their turn to go up to the med window and then get their meds and then walk back to the door and then wait for whenever the housing staff in their air-conditioned cop shop is to walk to the door and unlock it and let them in.

And so apparently what the story is from our folks inside who we have direct communication with and tell us that Adrienne was out there in addition to the time it took for her to stand out there, wait out there and be exposed to above 111 degrees, I believe it was that day. What the temperature is and what the feels like temperature is always different, right, especially in the armpit of California, which is central California. And so Adrienne is standing out there and they said about 15 minutes. She’s waiting, she’s looking at the CO, he’s seeing her, she’s seeing him, and he is leaving her out there. And the whole time, there’s no water, there’s nothing out there for her to drink. And the only water she’s had the whole entire time is a little cup.

Mansa Musa:

Right, they give you water with your meds.

Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:

They give you water, and that’s all she’s had that whole entire time. And so by the time she went inside, she was let in, went inside, she was suffering from heat exhaustion, she was sweating, her roommates were concerned for her, helped her into the room. She was shaking. In the configuration of these units, the rooms hold up to eight people and there’s a shower, a toilet, and two sinks in there so they have access to shower anytime in those cells. Her roommates helped her into the shower. She went in and once she went in there to try to cool off, she collapsed. And she collapsed and she became incoherent.

They said that her legs were shaking uncontrollably and they then called out for medical help, in which case the call-out for medical emergency is 222. So if you can imagine that scene, all of the roommates pounding on the door screaming [inaudible 00:06:37]. So it was very frantic, and they’re just trying to do the best they could because of course they’re the first responders.

Mansa Musa:

Right. You’re exactly right.

Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:

They’re doing the best they can to keep her coherent, to keep her there and to monitor her health at that time and see how she’s doing. And so finally, medical comes and takes her away and they don’t hear anything until they receive the word Saturday morning that she had passed.

Mansa Musa:

How long did it take? Okay, because like I said, I’ve been in this space. I did 48 years prior to being released. I got five years coming up. I’ll be out five years December the 5th, but I did 48 years. When I first went in the ’70s, you had fans on the wall. It was these steel cells. It’d be so hot that the paint would literally be peeling off the wall and we ain’t get no ice. Back then, you ain’t get no ice.

But talk about how long, first of all, how long did it take for them to respond before we go into unpacking the conditions? Because it’s my understanding this is not new to this environment. How long did it take for them to respond to her, to get to her before they was able to get her to a unit where she would get treated properly to your knowledge?

Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:

They said the total amount of time, it was about 12 minutes. So it took about three minutes for the CO to get down the hallway, unlock the door, assist the situation, hit the button, and then go to the door, let wait for the medical staff, bring the gurney, walk to them, and-

Mansa Musa:

Take another 15 minutes to get across to y’all.

Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:

Yeah, to get across the yard.

Mansa Musa:

So all together is a total of 35 to 40 minutes.

Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:

No, no, actually it wasn’t that long because remember, each yard has their own medical unit, has their own medical thing, so the nurses there came with a gurney. It was about 13 minutes.

Mansa Musa:

Yeah, it’s 13 minutes too long.

Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:

It’s 13 minutes too long. She’s already suffering.

Mansa Musa:

And the reality is, the reality is that, okay, we recognized and this is in the United States of America, this is not isolated to this California prison, we recognized that the heat wave was going across this country. We recognized… I was in Vegas and it was 115 and I went outside and I did something every three minutes and came back in. That’s how burned the heat was. But it wasn’t so much the heat, it was just like the lack of air. It was just like not told. So I know from experience, but more importantly, I know from experience from being in that space.

Talk about now… My understanding is that this is not the first time that this institution or the California prisons has been cited for not being prepared to deal with the heat or elements, period. Talk about, to your knowledge, has it changed? How long did you do before you was released?

Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:

I did 10 years.

Mansa Musa:

All right, so you can walk us back. So has the conditions staying there, have they gotten any better during the course of your incarceration?

Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:

No, they’ve only progressively gotten worse because of course the equipment is becoming more and more dilapidated and over time and it hasn’t been replaced. And I worked on those maintenance crews that did the preventative maintenance that’s supposed to happen every winter in preparation for the summer. So I know what those preventative maintenance procedures look like. They’re just walkthroughs and just procedural and just checkoffs as opposed to actually things being really done to actually prepare. And so those cooling units or those swamp coolers actually are not doing the jobs that they’re doing.

Mansa Musa:

So what exactly are they for our audience? Because I know they got… I told you, the women at the correction at the county, the detention center in Baltimore City, they had got an injunction. They brought coolers, what you see on the football fields. They grown a cooling station. They grown and ran these pipes and ran these conduits all through the prison was popping in air the whole entire time because it got so hot that they didn’t have the amenities that modern prison have in terms of fans or air or be able to cool down the [inaudible 00:12:08], So they was able to get that done. So talk about what they got compared to what they should have.

Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:

So they have swamp cooler systems that sit at the top of the roofs of every unit. However, those units, those units are connected to piping systems that pump water because of course swamp coolers need a flow of water in order for them to work. So what’s happened is that each of those units, when you run them, now the water leaks into the ceilings and now they leak into the buildings when they run them and cause more problems. And now you have leaking into the day rooms, leaking into the rooms, and so they’re causing more issues where the ceilings are falling in.

So what they end up doing is they end up not running them because of the fact that they know they’re going to cause more problems in the end and then they don’t have the people to come in or they don’t want to repair them and so they just don’t run it. And so they refuse to run or they run the air but not the water or the cut off the water line and just run the air but what ends up happening is the air will run, but after a while because the water’s not running, the engine will run hot and then it’ll pump out hot air.

Mansa Musa:

Hot air.

Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:

And so that’s what happened on Friday.

Mansa Musa:

Right. I see. Yeah.

Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:

That’s what ended up happening on Friday afternoon when we started Friday morning to get desperate pleas and cries for help. In the early morning hours of a lockdown status, we were getting… No, it was Saturday morning. Everyone had found out that Adrienne had passed away and they were all distraught about the passing, but then they were also all locked down and they were calling out to us and they were just getting ahold of all of us advocates saying, “We are locked down and the vents are pumping out hot air and we can’t breathe,” and they were saying, “We can’t breathe,” and then women were throwing up, they were having headaches, leg pain.

Mansa Musa:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Heat exhaustion.

Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:

And already it’s 113 that day, so the pipes were all running hot. They had no ice water because all of the ice machines in the institution except for one were all broke down. So they had no access to ice water, lack of staff, so nobody was out there trying to-

Mansa Musa:

Get ice.

Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:

… solve the problem or get ice or make any phone calls outside to get any ice shipped in. And so nobody cared. And so everyone’s locked in their cells, up to eight people in a room, and then to add insult to injury, they’re pumping in hot air-

Mansa Musa:

Hot air.

Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:

… from these things and they’re not even popping the doors open so that people can breathe. And half of the staff there that doesn’t give a crap is ignoring the women asking and begging to at least be let out a hallway by hallway to breathe in the day room. They’re not going to stab them. This is not the men’s joint. This is the women’s institution. All they want to do is just come out hallway by hallway.

Mansa Musa:

Breathe, so they can breathe.

Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:

Let them get some reprieve out of these ovens, I mean, these practical death chambers that are… I mean, it’s just crazy because not only… I mean, it would be better to be outside in 113 degree weather where you can actually breathe air and to be confined in a space that has no windows, no ventilation and then you’re pumping in hot air on top of that on top of breathing the air from your friend that’s-

Mansa Musa:

Everybody, all air being sucked up.

Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:

… pressed up against you.

Mansa Musa:

Yeah. Let me ask you this, Elizabeth. Okay, you just outlined that this been going on for a minute, right? Why haven’t they fixed this? Because we’re talking about at least it’s been in existence for at least five years, this system of cooling, air, water, cold air. Hot summer, California, always going to be hot. The environment ain’t going to change. You ain’t going to put no windows in it, you ain’t going to knock no windows off. You ain’t going to do none of that. You ain’t going to bring no air conditioning. Why haven’t this changed? What is the reason why the state of California has not invested money into changing this situation?

Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:

They don’t care. They don’t care.

Mansa Musa:

All right. What’s the status of the environment now? Since now we got death and potential deaths on the way or potential irreversible injuries because of heat exhaustion, what is being done now by the California State Prison system, the Department of Correction in California? Because this ain’t only… If they got this attitude towards women prison, and this is a general attitude towards prisoners in general, women prisoners, men prisoners, juvenile prisoners, kid prisoners, prisoners in general, you going to die, well, so be it.

Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:

Right? I mean, so in terms of California Department of Corrections, or specifically for what has happened following our advocacy at CCWF, we had immediately after these cries for help, we immediately put out a press release in response to Adrienne’s passing or Adrienne’s death, and also too, putting out specifically the cries for help, and we did it quoting folks and quoting the emails and text messages we were receiving with their permission. And we put it out to every news agency that would listen to us and all of our social media, all of our social media platforms so that folks could see and we could get as much support that we could in the general public.

And the response was overwhelming. We went viral within the hour of placing that out. And so I spent the good part of the rest of that day and the following next day doing interviews and talking with people and sharing just the stories of my folks on the inside, what they were going through and how it consistently continues to be this way year after year, summer after summer, and they’re burning them up in the summer and freezing them out in the winter.

Mansa Musa:

Yeah, freezing them out in the winter.

Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:

That’s how it is. And it never changes. And so in response to our advocacy, our ongoing pressure that we were putting on CDCR and the administration there at the institution, they had immediately went to work on getting those ice machines back online. They immediately went to work on purchasing additional igloos so that each unit could have two igloos at all times. And then they immediately started to open up each of the trailers that have a AC units in those trailers that they usually have like NA, AA classes.

Mansa Musa:

I got you, I got you.

Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:

So they open those up as cooling stations when the temperatures go up, when they go up to above 90 degrees. So these things have aggressively gotten better. However, in order for those igloos to be filled with ice and filled with water, to get those in there, you have to have staff that want to do it. So then we’re getting those staff members that are petty, and so then we’re finding out, oh, we’re getting staff that will fill the ice chest with 80% water and only a small scoop of ice and then by the time you get the igloo from the kitchen to the unit, that thing is already melted, so that’s the kind of attitude you get from inside from people from those, I’m sorry, from those pigs, that don’t give a crap-

Mansa Musa:

Yes, yes, they are.

Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:

… that don’t give a crap and they’re retaliating against for what? For people, all they’re trying to do is stay alive and they don’t want to give people that right to advocate for their own lives. They’re not asking for much, they’re just asking [inaudible 00:22:26]-

Mansa Musa:

Let me ask you this, what’s the security status of that particular concentration camp?

Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:

Well, women’s prisons… Well, this particular women’s prison is the highest security women’s prison.

Mansa Musa:

So it’s max? It’s max medium?

Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:

Yeah, because actually, CCWF was the only institution in the state that housed death row.

Mansa Musa:

Okay, so it’s max medium.

Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:

So you had everyone from death row to level ones.

Mansa Musa:

Right, right. Let me offer this though, for clarity, right? The sister that passed away, her name was Adrienne?

Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:

Adrienne Boulware.

Mansa Musa:

Well, Adrienne was murdered. That wasn’t-

Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:

Yes, yes.

Mansa Musa:

That’s murder. There’s no way you can describe that but when you take [inaudible 00:23:15]-

Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:

Let me be clear that the institution and CDCRs went on the record to state that she had passed away from a preexisting health condition.

Mansa Musa:

Yeah. The preexisting health condition was neglect of taking care of me and providing me with the adequate medical attention that I need. That’s neglect, neglect turned into murder. But okay, going forward.

Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:

In any heat advisory in the free world that comes up on every billboard, on every [inaudible 00:23:48], when they tell you to be aware or be careful, they tell you to be careful in this heat of your family members and your elderly who have what? Preexisting health conditions.

Mansa Musa:

Right, and-

Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:

They’re at risk.

Mansa Musa:

And then we not confused by this because we recognize that if she was in society and left in a car by anybody under the same conditions and died, they would lock them up for a homicide or involuntary manslaughter. So the fact that she was held on a plantation, under the new form of plantation, prison industrial complex, the fact that she was in that environment, they tend to minimize her existence and her being a human being, but we here to tell them right now that this is murder.

And I’m imploring y’all to at some point in time come to that place where y’all try to get some redress around that, around why did she have to die, because as you said earlier, okay, they’re putting these things into place, which is good, but the fact of the matter is if you don’t change the attitude of the pigs, if you don’t change the attitude of the institution, then somebody else is waiting in the wings to die and they justify it by saying, “Oh, they died because they had preexisting conditions and it wasn’t the fact that we was neglectful in getting them treatment or putting them in an environment that did not exasperate these preexisting conditions. That ain’t had nothing to do with it. It was just the fact that they wasn’t healthy and their health contributed to them dying.” But going forward, what do you want our audience to know?

Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:

So basically what I would like your audience to know is that California Coalition for Women Prisoners is not done with this fight. We are going to take this fight to the legislative level and we are going to take specific asks to the legislation and these asks are going to look like short-term asks, but also some long-term asks. At the short-term level, we want every person inside every institution in California to be given state-issued cooling rags. Such an easy thing. Just cooling rags, just something that could provide immediate relief that you and I and the free world no big deal could get at the 99 Cent Store.

Also, too, is that we want also state-issued fans issued to every person that’s incarcerated. That is not a hard ask because a fan that’s issued is cheap. They are not expensive compared to the medical expense to deal with heat-related issues that come up because of the heat, extreme heat. Issuing a fan upon a person’s intake or person being booked into the prison is actually a cheap ask. If any legislator wants to push back on that because of budget, that is one of our asks.

The other thing is we want cold water dispensers accessible in every unit and not cheaply. We want it always to stay cold. So we want that to be accessible and we don’t want it held back from anyone in any lockdown situation. If someone needs that water, there needs to be a protocol in a way that that person, whether they’re in their cell or outside, be able to access that water or get that-

Mansa Musa:

Yeah, water. We talking about water, cold water.

Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:

[inaudible 00:27:38] at any time they need.

Mansa Musa:

That’s all. Yeah. Cold water. That’s all. Cold water.

Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:

Cold water and not tepid water. They can get that from the [inaudible 00:27:46]-

Mansa Musa:

Yeah, we asking them for cold water. Cold water, that’s all.

Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:

Cold ice water.

Mansa Musa:

We didn’t ask for you to go melt the ice glacier to bring it in there and import it from Alaska. We just asking you to make the water cold and give us access to it as we need it. Come on.

Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:

So long-term asks, we would like AC, not swamp coolers.

Mansa Musa:

Yeah, we want the same thing they getting cool with. Same thing they getting cool with. We want the same thing.

Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:

We want two units installed because the inclement weather is not getting any better. Climate change is causing it to get worse. And so it’s unavoidable. AC units must be installed in every unit in every prison, and I’m just saying starting with the Central Valley, because the weather there is more clocked 100 degree weather, simultaneous 100 degree weather in the Central Valley than any area of California statistically. So that’s a great place to start.

And I will say this. I received Intel that a year ago the institution had purchased brand new chillers and signed a contract to have those installed and installed one in one unit in the institution and somehow ran out of the funds to install any chillers.

Mansa Musa:

Yeah, what happened to the money? What happened to the money? Yeah.

Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:

All of those chillers are sitting in the warehouse.

Mansa Musa:

Yeah. What happened to that money? Yeah. What happened to that money?

Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:

What happened to that money? Who misappropriated those funds to complete the installation project and why did Adrienne have to die because of it?

Mansa Musa:

Yeah. And also, I think that y’all need to ask that they do an internal investigation on that right there because this been going on far too long.

Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:

Don’t you worry about the thing, brother. I got that.

Mansa Musa:

See, one thing, I just recently became aware of it but this been going on for a while and then Adrienne was murdered. Her murder should be the reason why they should feel like they should be hard-pressed to resolve it. But how can our audience get in touch with you and support what y’all are doing?

Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:

Well, right now, the Adrienne Boulware family is asking for support to help them not only with funeral expenses, but they would like to fund their own independent autopsy. And so we are assisting them in supporting their GoFundMe fundraiser. And so I do have a link for that. I will forward that to you if you don’t already have it already, and also to an ongoing support of the work that CCWP has. CCWP, California Coalition for Women Prisoners dot org, is our webpage and you can connect with us or you can also connect with us on our Instagram @ccwp and that’s our Instagram handle.

Mansa Musa:

Thank you, Liz. And there you have it, real news rattling the bars. This is not a big ask. Just imagine somebody asking you say, “Listen, just give me a wet rag, cool wet rag to put on my head to lower my temperature.” That’s not a big ask. Just imagine somebody ask, you say, “Can I just get a cold drink of water?” That’s not a big ask. All the women in California ask to be treated like human beings. And as a result of being treated inhuman, someone has been murdered, not died from preexisting conditions, but died from the fact that they was neglected. We ask that you look into this. We ask that you evaluate this report and support the women in the California prison system, but more importantly, we ask that you write your congressmen or get involved with this because this is a problem. There you have it. Rattling the bars, the real news. Thank you.

Elizabeth “Leesa” Nomura:

Thank you.

The modern prison system’s origins in slavery can be seen in telltale signs throughout the system. The system of chattel slavery had no incentive to keep Black families together—in fact, separation was deliberately used to punish the enslaved. Today, the prison system mirrors this in its treatment of families of the incarcerated. Prisoners are denied the opportunity to be fully present parents by the nature of their condition, and further separation from family through visitation denial, relocation, and other means are used as a way to punish and torture inmates. Ernest Boykin, a father of seven, speaks on his personal experience as a formerly incarcerated parent—and everything he did to ensure that he would remain in his children’s lives despite the system’s efforts to deny him that right.

Studio / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino
Audio Post-Production: Alina Nehlich

Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Mansa Musa:

Welcome to this edition of Rattling the Bars. I’m your host, Mansa Musa.

Today, we’ll be doing a series on Father’s Day. And more importantly, we’ll be doing a series on the impact the criminal injustice system has on incarcerated parents, or more importantly, on the family overall.

Joining me today is an extraordinary individual to talk about being a parent, being a Justice Impact parent. More importantly, being a upright, standup Black man. Ernest, welcome to Rattling the Bars.

Ernest Boykin:

Hey, I’m sorry I do call you Mr. Hopkins. But yeah, Mansa, thank you. You made me feel like I was on a Shannon Sharpe Show, man, with that introduction.

Mansa Musa:

Yeah, we a little better than Shannon Sharpe. Plus, we not trying to get the ratings.

Ernest Boykin:

Exactly.

Mansa Musa:

We trying to get the story out, The Real News. But let’s talk about Father’s Day.

Now, in full disclosure, me and Ernest was in a program called Georgetown Pivot. That’s where I first met Ernest at.

We was either doing something about telling something about ourselves. We was going around; this was our first introduction to everybody coming on in that space together. We had seen each other when we was registered up at the school. But this was during the time of COVID, so we was on Zoom.

And when they got to you, this is what impressed me the most about everything that you said. But then once I got to know you, I really realized that you are an extraordinary individual.

Ernest Boykin:

Well, thank you.

Mansa Musa:

You might not present yourself like that all the time, but in terms of who you are as a person, I recognize that.

But this is what stuck out with me on something you said, when you talked about your children. I’m going to let you tell our audience, first of all, a little bit about yourself and some of the things that you’re doing. Then, we’ll get into that.

Ernest Boykin:

Okay. Well thanks, Mansa. Yeah. My name’s Ernest Boykin. I’m a father of seven. I have probably every age child that you could think of. No, I’m sorry. I have two in college. I have two under two years old right now, I have a couple in the middle, and I’m proud of them. They’re all the lights of my life.

When I was away, that’s what kept me grounded. Looking at their pictures or talking to them on the phone and things like that.

Currently I’m the part owner of a Straight Route Trucking. We’re a trucking company out of Washington, DC. We move cargo from point to point all across the United States of America. I started that with my life partner, Brisa, and we’ve been in business since 2022.

Mansa Musa:

Okay. Now let’s talk about your children. How much time did you serve prior to being released?

Ernest Boykin:

I served approximately six-and-a-half years.

Mansa Musa:

Okay, in the six-and-a-half years you had, how many children did you have when you left the street?

Ernest Boykin:

I had five children. And I’m not just talking about biological.

Mansa Musa:

I know, yeah. We talking about children.

Ernest Boykin:

Children, yeah, people that I was responsible for. Five individuals.

Mansa Musa:

All right. And in terms of when you got arrested and ultimately sentenced, who was responsible for taking care of your children?

Ernest Boykin:

Well, their mom; it fell all on their mom. It fell on my parents too, because my kids’ mom and I really weren’t getting along.

So during the school year, the court had awarded me custody and guardianship over the children, because I was sending my kids to private school. When the kids were living with their mom, she tried to put them in public school. But the court felt like they were getting a better education in private school. So they sided with me and let me control that.

Mansa Musa:

While you was incarcerated?

Ernest Boykin:

No, no, before I was in prison.

Mansa Musa:

Before you got in. Okay, go ahead.

Ernest Boykin:

Before I went to prison. So it was a situation where my parents kept them until school let out, and then they went with their mom. So my parents shared in some of the responsibility, and my kid’s mom. It was pretty much her responsibility to deal with all the children herself.

Mansa Musa:

Because this is important for our audience to understand that when a parent is incarcerated, the impact that incarceration has on the family. But more importantly, when the parent has children, men or women.

How did you maintain your relationship with your children, and then maintain that relationship? What type of impact can you say you had on them that you can look at today and say, “Because of this, they’re like this”?

Ernest Boykin:

Yes, it was very difficult to maintain that relationship. But the reason why I was able to do it was because I wanted to do it.

Mansa Musa:

Come on.

Ernest Boykin:

Anytime I tell myself I want to do something, I do it. And it didn’t matter that I was in prison versus being free.

Mansa Musa:

Right.

Ernest Boykin:

I felt like I was still going to be a parent to my children. I didn’t feel like the walls could stop me from being a parent to my children. So where there was opportunities for me to talk to them on the phone multiple times a day, I would do that.

If I had to write them multiple times a day, or multiple times a week or once a day, whatever I felt was necessary at that time for me to keep a connection and bond with them, I did it.

Mansa Musa:

In that regard, because that’s the thing I’m going to flesh out. Because that’s the thing that I think that society in general don’t recognize how impactful that is.

I’ve been in spaces where I’ve seen men, biological children, or not biological children, would raise them from behind the door, behind the wall, behind the fence. And they come to them for all the advice. They come to them for guidance, they come to them from a direction.

How did that play out in your relationship with your children? How did your children respond to you in terms of, 1), being incarcerated, and 2), respond to you in terms of recognizing that regardless of your location, that is my father and I’m going to listen to what my father say? Or was they defying, like, “Well, you ain’t here, man. Why you going to tell me what to do?”

Ernest Boykin:

It is funny you say that because it does happen. If your kids’ mom shows you respect to the kids-

Mansa Musa:

Come on.

Ernest Boykin:

… then it makes it easy for the kids to show respect to you. But if they see conflict between the kids’ mom and yourself, then the kids are forced to choose a side between parents.

And that’s where the difficulty comes in to parent your children: especially if you have girls and you’re a man, they’re going to naturally side with their mom.

And then also if you have boys, boys are going to feel protective of their mother, so they’re going to side with their mom. So you’re kind of in a lose-lose situation a lot of times. And you can’t get aggressive with them because if you get aggressive with your children while you’re away, it doesn’t hit home the same way you might think it would.

Mansa Musa:

Right.

Ernest Boykin:

When you’re face-to-face with your child, you may have to discipline them by talking to them more stern or whatever you have to do to discipline your children. It does not hit the same over the phone, because they definitely know that you’re not there.

But it’s up to Mom or Grandma or Grandpa or uncles to reinforce things that you say. And say, “Hey, don’t forget your dad said that, or your dad said this. I’m going to tell your dad when your report card gets here.”

Or, “Yeah, your dad said that if you do good in school, he’s going to send you some money.” Things like that, it helps out a lot.

Mansa Musa:

And you know what? That right there, how much of a strain was that on you in terms of maintaining your mentality? Because we looking at prison and then okay, you trying to be a parent. This is the foremost thing on your mind: getting out so you can take care of your children.

But at the same time, you in the gladiator school. You in a joint where at any given day, like on lockdown: something that happen lockdown. How was you able to stay focused, and not get caught up in the environment because of frustration from not being able to hug, hold, or console your children in time of need?

Ernest Boykin:

I think I was, I mean, for lack of a better word, lucky. I just think that I was blessed, fortunate to get through that because I’ve seen people get hurt for less, for nothing.

Mansa Musa:

Yeah.

Ernest Boykin:

People just get beat up or abused by the staff or the officers for nothing.

Mansa Musa:

Right.

Ernest Boykin:

So fortunately enough, the way that I maneuvered my way through it was just to mind my business, focus on me, and invest every minute of the day and to try to better myself. So that when I got another shot, because I knew I was going to get another shot.

Mansa Musa:

Right, right.

Ernest Boykin:

It was all about when I would get another shot.

Mansa Musa:

That’s right.

Ernest Boykin:

It was like, “Just be ready so that when I get my next shot, I can do everything that I need to do to win.”

Mansa Musa:

Right. Let’s unpack some of what you spoke about about the prison environment.

Why you think the system, the prison industrial complex, the new plantation, why you think they don’t encourage or they don’t promote or they don’t support building a family unit? Or aid and assisting the parents in maintaining some type of connection with their children? Why you think that’s not on the radar?

Because I know for a fact, and you know this yourself, every program that exists in the prison system, if it deal with anything relative to family, if it deal with anything relative to counseling, if it deal with anything relative to networking with society, prisoners came up with ideas in them laboratories, in them thinking tanks, and put them things into effect.

Why do you think this is not something that the Bureau of Prisons or any institution doesn’t try to perpetuate?

Ernest Boykin:

Yeah, it’s funny you asked that question. Because I remember these guys in the law library said that in the prison handbook, it says it’s the responsibility of the prison to maintain family ties.

Mansa Musa:

Come on.

Ernest Boykin:

It says that in the handbook. And we would use that line right there when they try to justify sending you far away from your family, or when they try to justify leaving you in the hole without phone calls or without visits and things like that.

Just like you said, man, the prison industrial complex is a direct reflection of slavery. If you’ve ever watched Roots or did any research about slavery, you’ve seen how families were split up and divided. That was a way that they used to discipline people, and they continue to do that through the BOP.

They split up families and send you far away to make it hard for your family to come visit you as a way to discipline you if they don’t like you. And that’s not right.

Also, anything that you can see on a slavery movie or documentary or anything, when you think about it, it’s kind of the same thing.

Mansa Musa:

Yeah, yeah.

Ernest Boykin:

You got people working for nothing.

Mansa Musa:

Right, right.

Ernest Boykin:

If you in prison, you got people working for nothing.

Mansa Musa:

Come on.

Ernest Boykin:

You got people for years and years and years. They can’t leave this one little-

Mansa Musa:

Plot of land.

Ernest Boykin:

… spot of land.

Mansa Musa:

Yeah. Come on.

Ernest Boykin:

And you got people in prison doing the same thing, walking around in a circle.

Mansa Musa:

That’s right.

Ernest Boykin:

All day long.

Mansa Musa:

Yeah.

Ernest Boykin:

You know?

Mansa Musa:

Yeah, come on.

Ernest Boykin:

And then when you get mad for people for sticking up for themselves, you beat them. You give them diesel therapy.

Mansa Musa:

Yeah, yeah.

Ernest Boykin:

Or you [inaudible 00:14:17]

Mansa Musa:

Tell them about diesel, because our audience don’t know know diesel therapy.

Ernest Boykin:

Diesel therapy; I’ve been through it; is when they put you on that bus for weeks and weeks at a time. And you’re just eating out of a bag; you’re only eating bag lunches. You’re not getting a hot meal ever. Your mail doesn’t catch up with you.

Mansa Musa:

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that’s torture.

Ernest Boykin:

You can’t get a visit, you can’t use the phone. You waking up in a different city every day, and you’re sleeping in the hole of every jail every time you stop. It’s a lot.

Mansa Musa:

Let’s talk about this here. Okay, because we recognize that the prison industrial complex is the new form of slavery. 13th Amendment justifies that.

We recognize also that when it comes to family unification, and that’s not even on the radar when it comes to the prison industrial complex. Why why do you think this system right here as it exists now continue to stay in this space?

Like you say, 1), like in the District of Columbia, if you’re under federal jurisdiction, you might wind up in wherever United States territory. Wherever it’s United States territory, that’s where you could wind up at.

Ernest Boykin:

Mm-hmm.

Mansa Musa:

2), in terms of allow you to have access to your family.

Ernest Boykin:

[inaudible 00:15:55] Excuse me.

Mansa Musa:

They don’t. And lastly, what impact does that have, from your perspective, on the general population? How did you see that plan out in the general population?

‘Cause we know when they had Lorton, and Lorton was the prison that was in under the District of Columbia’s government. We know when they had Lorton, that it was a correlation between the community and Lorton.

When people got out, came out of Lorton, they went back to the District of Columbia. And they did progressive things in the community, because that was their town. That’s where they was from.

But now you have a situation where you in Walla Walla, Washington. Next time you look up, you in Florida. Next time you look up, you in South Carolina. Next time you look up, you on your way out. Now you in Ohio.

From your experience and your insight, how did that play on the mentality of the prison population?

Ernest Boykin:

Well, most people don’t have to experience going outside of their boundaries. But the people who usually have to experience that are the Washington DC inmates.

Mansa Musa:

Come on.

Ernest Boykin:

And if you’re a 007 inmate or 016 inmate or 000 or something like that, then nine times out of 10, the BOP will send you out of boundaries because they had a label on guys from Washington DC.

They tried to take it out on the DC guys by sending us far away from home, so that we couldn’t get visits. Because they felt like if we got visits, then that would just empower us more. Or it just would be too much like right.

Mansa Musa:

Yeah, yeah.

Ernest Boykin:

So just because guys from Washington probably were a little more aggressive or more joking about doing the time because of the culture; people coming from Lorton, they was doing time. And they wasn’t doing time like that in every other prison across the country.

Mansa Musa:

Right, right.

Ernest Boykin:

So the people’s attitude was totally different.

Mansa Musa:

Let me ask you this here. All right, so now you get out.

Ernest Boykin:

Yes sir.

Mansa Musa:

Right? Now you get out of prison and you got the opportunity to be with your children.

What was that like? When you got out, and now not only do you got the opportunity to be with them, but now in your mind, what?

Ernest Boykin:

When I got home and saw my kids for the first time without having a CO or a window, a partition or some chains on or something, that was a magical feeling. It was great.

They all hugged me and they didn’t want to let go, every last one of them. I mean, when I got home, my kids was grown, most of them. Well, not most of them, they were older teenagers.

Mansa Musa:

Right, right, right.

Ernest Boykin:

I had one that was 20. And he hugged me probably for 10 minutes before letting go, crying like a baby.

Then I had my baby boy at the time, he tried to slide $30 in my pocket. He said, “Hey Dad, I was cutting grass because I wanted you to have some money in your pocket when you came home.”

Mansa Musa:

Yeah, yeah.

Ernest Boykin:

And that really touched me. Then my other son, he fired up the grill. And he was cooking some hot dogs and burgers on the grill for me. So I really felt great in that moment.

My daughter, I was just shocked to see how mature she had gotten. I felt like she didn’t have enough clothes on, and I tried to say something to her about it. I just wasn’t ready.

Mansa Musa:

Yeah. Right, right.

Ernest Boykin:

She was not the little girl that I left.

Mansa Musa:

Right.

Ernest Boykin:

And just to let you know, my first day was magical. But every day after that was very hard, because I had expected the kids to be one way and feel one way about me coming home. And the kids that had expected me to be another way, and they thought that I owed them something.

I was like, “Hey man, you guys, don’t you remember everything I’ve done for y’all? And don’t you remember when Dad was home, we had good times? And there are going to be good times again.”

And it had been so long that they really had forgotten the stability that a father brings to their family and their household. So they were really not trusting. They were really damaged.

Mansa Musa:

That’s the part that this prison industrial complex plays on. Like you say, it’s designed to create an atmosphere in the families that there’s no trust. It’s designed to create a thing where there’s no unity. It’s designed to create a situation where there’s no respect.

So if I’m getting visits, I’m taking care of my children and I’m trying to do things with my child over the phone and in the Visitors Room. But once I get out, because I didn’t have the opportunity to do that, or they didn’t create a mechanism within the prison industrial complex for me to have that kind of opportunity and access. Now, like you say, when you get out, it’s an expectation on everybody’s part.

But looking forward, because you said that it’s a struggle. And I think all parents coming out of the system are confronted with the [inaudible 00:22:16].

A friend of mine, he talking about he’d be struggling with his eldest son. They respect him, but at the same token, he had to be stern with him sometimes to try to get their attention. Like, “Look, I’m your father, no matter what. And I will put hands on you if that’s what it come to.” Right?

Ernest Boykin:

Right.

Mansa Musa:

But that’s the reality. But that don’t change. It’s no love, it’s lots of love there.

But looking now as we get ready to close out, looking ahead and looking where you at right now, what would your children say?

First off, what would your children say if I say, “Your father Ernest, how is your father? What’s your father like? What do you think they would say?

Ernest Boykin:

Oh, they imitate me all the time. They probably think I’m burnt out for real. Honestly, that time would burn you out a little bit, because it’s like I have so many stories from there. I always reference that period of my life when I’m trying to teach them a lesson.

Mansa Musa:

Right, right, right, right.

Ernest Boykin:

It could be anything. It could be like, “Yeah, don’t cut the line. Because if you cut the line in some places, man, some people might go upside the head.”

Mansa Musa:

You feel some kind of way about it, right?

Ernest Boykin:

“They’re not going to like it, and they might try to put the knife in you for that.”

And they be like, “For real dude, for cutting the line?”

And I’m like, “Yeah, it’s that serious.”

Mansa Musa:

Yeah.

Ernest Boykin:

So they probably might say that they definitely respect me. They’ve seen me start over from nothing, and actually build our family back up to better than it was before I went away.

Mansa Musa:

And what would somebody say like, “Man, what’s up with your kids, man?” What would you say about your kids? How would you identify?

Ernest Boykin:

I have great children. They’re very intelligent. They are all handsome and beautiful in my eyes. They’re generous people. They’re stand-up individuals. They don’t condone none of the things that society is making okay.

Mansa Musa:

Yeah, that’s right.

Ernest Boykin:

They’re not on none of that. Right?

Mansa Musa:

Right.

Ernest Boykin:

They definitely understand that people who tell on people ruin people’s lives a lot of times. So they’re living in that culture where now they having to see, “Okay, what’s the difference between people snitching and what’s the difference between people trying to have a nice community?” You know what I’m saying?

Mansa Musa:

Right. I got you. I got you.

Ernest Boykin:

My kids are growing up now, and I don’t try to influence them to do anything other than to be good people and to be financially responsible.

Mansa Musa:

Let me ask you this here as we close out. How can people get in touch with you? And what are some of the things you’re doing now that you think people should be made aware of?

Ernest Boykin:

Yes. Oh, thank you. Well, you can always reach me at straightroutetrucking@gmail.com in reference to trucking, and in reference to just if you wanted to talk to me about justice reform or have me come out and speak or write, because I am an author. I should be publishing a book about re-entry in the end of this summer.

Also, I write for FAMM. I write articles about people who are over-sentenced or wrongfully accused and things like that.

But yeah, you can reach me at ernestboykiniii@gmail.com. That’s E-R-N-E-S-T B-O-Y-K-I-N I-I-I @gmail.com. You can even call me at 202-285-1153.

I really appreciate this opportunity, Mansa Musa. I really love what you guys are doing here. And I love this platform that you’ve built up, because you’re really, really giving a voice to the voiceless. And I’m big on that.

Mansa Musa:

You heard it, there you have it. Real dude Rattling the Bars. This is Ernest Boykin. You would never believe that after hearing this conversation, that this man was one time justice-involved, raised his children to be what he, by his own definition, responsible children, responsible members in society.

In the face of all the problems that our children are being confronted with, his children has risen above. And it’s because of his influence. And we can’t take this lightly.

We implore you to think about this. You can listen to what Ernest say. And it’s millions of other people like Ernest in the criminal injustice system: fathers, mothers that are raising their children from behind the walls and behind the fence.

Whereas you continue to support Rattling the Bars and The Real News. Because guess what? We really are the news.

This story originally appeared in In These Times on July 02, 2024. It is shared here with permission.

I had the privilege of teaching a course at UCLA on ​“Nonviolence and Social Movements” with Rev. James Lawson, Jr. for more than 20 years. The course analyzed contemporary social movements that embrace the philosophy of nonviolence, and encouraged students to apply nonviolence in their own lives.

Thousands of students over those two decades have been motivated by the course to pursue paths of peace and justice. 

Rev. Lawson drew energy from teaching. He enjoyed engaging our students, challenging them, inspiring them to use their talents to be a force for change. He took a genuine interest in their hopes, aspirations and dreams. The students who benefited most from the class were those who tried to practice the philosophy of nonviolence in their own work and in their own lives.

The class was yet another consistent engine of Rev. Lawson’s life and legacy, which has advanced a ​“school-to-movement” pipeline that has inspired generations of leaders and transformed justice movements everywhere. From the 1960 Nashville sit-in movement to the 1968 Memphis Sanitation Workers Strike to the recent organizing among undocumented immigrant students at UCLA, the vision of Rev. Lawson and his teachings on nonviolence have been a source of unparalleled impact.

A little more than a year ago, on May 17, 2023, Rev. Lawson and I accompanied our students to a rally on UCLA’s campus to support job opportunities for undocumented immigrant students. When he rose to speak, he reminded the audience that on that very day in 1954, the historic Brown vs. Board of Education decision was announced by the U.S. Supreme Court, and yet seven decades later we are still contesting a separate and unequal educational system. 

Lawson, an iconic leader of the Civil Rights Movement who changed the course of U.S. history and made extraordinary contributions to advance the theory and practice of nonviolence, passed away on June 9. He was 95.

I first worked closely with Rev. Lawson in the 1980s when I was staff attorney for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). A network of young activists approached Rev. Lawson to learn from his vast experience helping shape the Civil Rights Movement and to see if we could apply those lessons to labor organizing in Los Angeles. He agreed to meet with us and challenged us to apply nonviolence as a living and breathing science — and as a way of life. He explained that during the course of our lives, the majority of social justice campaigns we will work on will not succeed the first time or perhaps for years, and yet we must persevere. We went on to meet for years on a monthly basis at the Holman United Methodist Church.

We called ourselves the ​“Holman Group,” and our small network included California State Sen. María Elena Durazo, who was then a union organizer for the hotel workers, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass of the ​“Free South Africa” committee, former Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa who was then an organizer for United Teachers Los Angeles and former Councilmember Gilbert Cedillo who was then a representative for SEIU. We would never have imagined the collective impact Holman Group members would have on social and political change in Los Angeles in the years to come.

One of the goals of our Holman Group was to represent a continuation of Rev. Lawson’s work teaching and mentoring others around justice work, a process that he began decades before in the South.

Fittingly, this Saturday, July 6, 2024, there will be a memorial service for Rev. Lawson at Holman United Methodist Church on West Adams Boulevard in Los Angeles at 11 a.m. PST.

Rev. Lawson was a good friend and comrade of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and they first met when Rev. Lawson was a student at Oberlin College’s School of Theology. Both were second-generation ministers, and both were deeply immersed in the study and practice of nonviolence. When Dr. King learned that Rev. Lawson had recently returned from India where he studied the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, he recruited Rev. Lawson to join him in the South to educate a new generation of civil rights activists about the philosophy and practice of nonviolence. 

Dr. King referred to Rev. Lawson as ​“the greatest teacher of nonviolence in America.”

Rev. Lawson launched the Nashville sit-in movement to challenge Jim Crow and segregation. The leaders of the Nashville sit-in movement, including the late Congressman John Lewis, Diane Nash, James Bevel, C.T. Vivian and Bernard Lafayette, went on to spread the gospel of nonviolence through Freedom Rides, Freedom Schools, and lunch-counter sit-in campaigns across the South. Rev. Lawson was expelled from Vanderbilt University Divinity School for his activism, yet decades later he was invited to return as a visiting professor, and Vanderbilt recently named an Institute in his honor. 

In 1968, Rev. Lawson helped lead the Memphis Sanitation Workers’ Strike, where the slogan ​“I Am a Man” emerged as a national rallying cry for racial and economic justice. Rev. Lawson called on Dr. King to join him in Memphis to support the sanitation workers and it was there, on April 4, 1968, that Dr. King was assassinated. It is noteworthy that Dr. King drew a strong connection between racial justice and economic justice, and his final days were spent in solidarity with striking union workers.

Rev. Lawson was born in Pennsylvania in 1928 and raised in Ohio. He officially became a minister when he was a senior in high school in 1947. He was imprisoned for more than a year for refusing to serve with the U.S. military and later joined the Fellowship of Reconciliation and CORE (Congress of Racial Equality).

In 1974, Rev. Lawson moved to Los Angeles and became pastor of Holman United Methodist Church and I initially met him during campaigns for nuclear disarmament, opposing the U.S.-backed wars in Central America, and to end the apartheid regime in South Africa. Under his leadership for 25 years, Holman emerged as a center for social activism, linking local community issues for racial justice with global campaigns for peace. Rev. Lawson continued to hold nonviolence workshops for members of his congregation, as well as other labor and community leaders.

His work to advance nonviolence in the labor movement set the foundation for the emergence of Los Angeles as a national focal point for union transformation.

When María Elena Durazo was elected to lead the hotel workers union in Los Angeles in 1989, she called upon Rev. Lawson to teach union staff and leaders about nonviolence. Together, Rev. Lawson and María Elena began organizing and mobilizing a series of direct-action campaigns that inspired a historic breakthrough in Latino immigrant worker organizing. 

During a campaign to support hotel workers on USC’s campus, Rev. Lawson led a civil disobedience action on graduation day, where dozens of hotel workers and supporters were arrested. Before being taken away in police vans, he handed each one a ​“diploma for justice,” acknowledging their act of conscience.

Rev. Lawson also worked with the famously transformative ​“Justice for Janitors” campaign to successfully reorganize the janitorial industry and its Latino immigrant workforce. After the janitors’ organizing victory, Rev. Lawson assisted the union in expanding their membership of predominantly Latino janitors to successfully organize the predominantly Black security officer workforce. This represented a huge breakthrough in promoting Black and brown unity. 

Rev. Lawson also supported the launch of the campaign to organize home care workers in Los Angeles. This 12-year campaign led by Black women resulted in the single largest unionization victory in decades when 74,000 home care workers joined SEIU in Los Angeles in 1999. Today, more than 500,000 home care workers, the vast majority women of color, are represented by unions in California.

Rev. Lawson was also an advisor and active supporter of the Los Angeles Black Worker Center, which has served as a national model for Black Workers Centers across the country. Black Worker Centers have been at the forefront of addressing the crises around jobs for Black workers.

He often spoke of the pernicious nature of what he termed ​“plantation capitalism,” a form of capitalism in the United States that is grounded in the legacy of slavery and systemic racial inequality. Rev. Lawson understood the critical links between class and racial exploitation, and the necessity of building multi-racial unity among workers of all colors. 

He would teach the power of love over hate, the power of compassion over intolerance, and the power of nonviolence over violence. Rev. Lawson shared the vision of a ​“beloved community” that his good friend Dr. King embraced throughout his life.

It was in 2002 that Rev. Lawson began to teach our UCLA course on nonviolence. We later published two path-breaking books, Nonviolence and Social Movements: The Teachings of Rev. James Lawson Jr. and Revolutionary Nonviolence: Organizing for Freedom, for the first time capturing in print Rev. Lawson’s teachings on the ​“four steps of a nonviolent campaign” that he had taught for decades. 

In 2018, Rev. Lawson received the UCLA Medal, its highest honor. A year later, he was nominated by Gov. Gavin Newsom and inducted into the California Hall of Fame. In 2021, the UCLA Labor Center dedicated the UCLA James Lawson Jr. Worker Justice Center in Los Angeles, the first UCLA institution serving the needs of working class communities of color.

Durazo introduced a Senate Resolution last year, inspired by Rev. Lawson’s teachings, to support nonviolence education in California’s public schools, a first-in-the-nation effort that passed unanimously.

The UCLA Labor Center has also launched the Rev. James Lawson Jr./Dolores Huerta Nonviolence Project, which will engage California Community College and high school students in the study of nonviolence. The curriculum uses Rev. Lawson’s books, workshop materials, videos and his teachings on how to advance a nonviolent campaign. In the coming years, we will engage community college and high school teachers throughout California to use this curriculum to celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in January and Cesar Chavez Day in March. There could be no better way to celebrate legendary leaders who have embraced the philosophy of nonviolence throughout their lives.

I will always be grateful for having Rev. Lawson as my teacher, my co-teacher, my mentor and my friend. Several years ago, I suffered from life-threatening endocarditis that required open heart surgery and a heart valve replacement. A week after my surgery, I was allowed to return home. Rev. Lawson insisted on visiting me, in spite of my protestations. He explained, ​“I am a pastor. This is my work.”

When he joined me for tea in my living room, his tone and message were somber. Rev. Lawson challenged me as he had many times during the course of our friendship. He told me that I had to reach into my inner being and come to terms with my purpose in life. He assured me that my time was not yet up, and that there was other important work I had to do. 

His words were powerful, and he helped me focus on my recovery. As always, he was right. I still had more work to do.

A highlight of my career and my life has been to have the honor to teach with Rev. Lawson, to publish books featuring his life and work, and to work side by side with him on numerous campaigns for economic and racial justice. Those of us who have had the privilege to learn from Rev. Lawson are better human beings as a result, and we will pledge to continue his lifelong work to create a beloved community. 

The lived reality of the racist prison system can get lost in the swirl of facts and figures surrounding mass incarceration. Frigid cells in winters and sweltering conditions in summers; the volatility and capriciousness of hostile guards and correctional staff; food barely fit for human consumption; isolation from one’s community and deprivation from the routines and small freedoms that made up one’s identity prior to incarceration. The trauma of such an experience is undeniable, and extends far beyond prison walls—from overpoliced communities subjected to the constant presence of police surveillance and terror, to the families and relationships put under the strain of separation. Dr. Da’Mond Holt returns to Rattling the Bars for the final installment of a two-part interview, this time speaking with host Mansa Musa and his friend Lonnell Sligh, about their respective experiences behind bars, and the implications of the prison system as a deliberate system of mass trauma affecting Black and other working class communities of color.

Studio Production: David Hebden, Cameron Granadino
Post-Production: Cameron Granadino, Alina Nehlich

Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Mansa Musa:

Welcome to this edition of Rattling The Bars. I’m your host, Mansa Musa. Joining me today is Dr. Da’Mond Holt from Trauma… Where are you from?

Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:

The Trauma Center of Hope, from Tucson, Arizona.

Mansa Musa:

Trauma Center of Hope from Tucson, Arizona. And my good friend Lonnell Sligh, say hi to our audience Lonnell.

Lonnell Sligh:

Hello everybody. Thank you for having me. I’m Lonnell Sligh.

Mansa Musa:

Today we are talking about black trauma, what happened to us. We have Dr. Holt here as a referee between me and Sligh. Me and Sligh been beefing forever. I want you to mediate this beef, right Doc, since you a traumatologist. Because he got the Golden Gloves Award and all that. So I’m thinking about just hitting him and running, not to have no more Trump, but I jest.

Today we going to be talking about, both me and Lonnell together, have served almost a hundred years in prison. So today we’re going to be talking about, not only how we process the trauma that we undergone, but our views on it as it relates to the prison system. But more importantly, we want you Doc, Dr. Holt, to contextualize a lot of this stuff for the benefit of our audience. Because we’re of the opinion that we need to build a movement around trauma.

Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:

Yes.

Mansa Musa:

We’ve been having this conversation off camera. But more importantly, we wanted to talk about, as it relate to the prison industrial complex, when should we start addressing it? Should we wait to post-release or pre-release, or when they first go in the system?

Lonnell, talk about yourself, aight. How much time was you initially serving?

Lonnell Sligh:

Two life sentences plus a hundred years.

Mansa Musa:

Okay.

How much time have you done thus far?

Lonnell Sligh:

33.

Mansa Musa:

All right.

Full disclosure, Lonnell was sent out state. He’ll talk about that a little bit. We had just got him back to the state of Maryland where he’s presently, his family lives, his children live. He got a wonderful loving family. Talk about your journey. Let’s talk about how you wind up in Kansas.

Lonnell Sligh:

Okay. As he stated, we long-time time friends, we were in Jessup Correctional Center together. And at the time it was a killing field. In Jessup, we seen the need that we had to do something if we wanted to move forward and not be locked down or shut down.

Mansa Musa:

Yeah.

Lonnell Sligh:

So we started a program called the Rebuilding Our Youth program, and it became highly successful. We had gangs and people from all different walks in the program. Just like I said, it became successful. So in success when you in the midst of the belly of the beast, you have jealousy, envy, which we here to talk about now. Trauma. A lot of traumatized people.

Mansa Musa:

Yeah.

Lonnell Sligh:

Even myself. As we know, when you traumatize, you don’t know how to deal with situations or things that you might want to do, so you take the low road.

Mansa Musa:

Yeah.

Lonnell Sligh:

So anyway, in the midst of that, I ended up getting sent out of a state to Kansas. That was most definitely traumatizing because I was sent away from my family.

Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:

Right.

Mansa Musa:

Yeah.

Lonnell Sligh:

In the midst of me doing something that we thought was great and we thought was good. So anyway, I went to Kansas, and this is a whole new process and a whole new journey. In my past way of thinking, when you go into a new environment, you got to set a tone. Because that’s that trauma, that’s that way of thinking. But I had fortunately moved in my journey, whereas though I was more comfortable with myself and I was on a positive movement, whereas though I was bettering myself. Because that’s one of the things that we were fortunate to do; a lot of people don’t get that opportunity.

So when I got to Kansas, it was a nightmare. And just like I say, it was traumatizing. But I took that opportunity to say, okay, I’m mad and I’m in a new environment, but I’m going to continue my journey because this is who I am now. This is what I built myself to be. This is what I believe and this is my passion.

Mansa Musa:

Yeah.

Lonnell Sligh:

So I went to Kansas and seen the lay of that land and seen that they were a hundred years behind the time, I use that as a terminology, but they were behind the time. So I was able to bring the same mindset that I had in Jessup that I left him with, to there.

Mansa Musa:

Dr. Holt, let’s unpack that, right, because we talked early about the different types of trauma and fight or flight.

Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:

Yeah.

Mansa Musa:

In your analysis, because you put in the book, you got in there about the prison industrial complex and the impact of that particular institution on people of color, black people, African-Americans. Talk about that right there. How do we deal with that industry? Because now we’re talking about an industry, prison industrial complex. As he just said, it’s arbitrary and it’s capricious that is designed primarily to punish.

Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:

Yes.

Mansa Musa:

So in that environment, how do you look at what needs to be done? When do we need to address the trauma? Trauma led us in there and when we get out, trauma’s going to get us back in there if we don’t address it. Talk about your analysis when you talk about the prison industrial in your book.

Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:

So not only the industry, but I believe the system itself, the justice system period is a traumatizing environment and a traumatizing system.

Mansa Musa:

Right.

Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:

Not just on the back end when you’re incarcerated, but on the front end when you are overly policed in our community, where traffic stops is a deadly experiences for black and brown people, where indictments and the way that processing is done for black and brown people on just the front end. We haven’t even got to the prison system yet. We’re talking about how we are prosecuted, how juries are selected.

Mansa Musa:

Right.

Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:

We don’t really pierce through a lot of those layers of how traumatizing that is for black and brown people. I mean the fact of the matter is we just incarcerate too many people. We incarcerate more black and brown people than anywhere in the world. And the system is designed on purpose. People say it’s a broken system. It’s not a broken system.

Mansa Musa:

Yeah. Right.

Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:

That system has been designed and architect to do what it do.

Mansa Musa:

It’s highly functional.

Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:

Yeah. It’s highly functional and, believe it or not, very profitable.

Mansa Musa:

Come on.

Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:

The justice system is also a billion-dollar industry where different subcontracts all got their hands out to make money on people who have been incarcerated, even to the bail system that needs to be reformed. We have a lot of people who have not even been adjudicated sitting in county jails for months, and they lose their home, they lose their job, they lose their families. All of those different things. That’s nothing but trauma my friend. Then we get to the prisons; when now you are convicted, many people that are black and brown have wrongfully been convicted, have not been exonerated, and they’re sitting in prison innocent.

Mansa Musa:

Right.

Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:

So prison is a traumatizing experience; being confined as an animal, treated as an animal, institutionalized, mentally, abused by prison guards, gangs all over the place, sexual assaults, rapes and murders and shanks, all of that stuff. The violence impacts the brain in such an overwhelming condition. And if you’re in that environment for a 24-hour experience, the brain that the [inaudible 00:08:57] is overwhelmed, the HPA is releasing so much cortisol that your first several days of the introduction of being in prison, being fresh meat, coming into that environment, makes the brain so overwhelmingly traumatized and on high alert to where your brain can’t relax. It can’t sleep. Insomnia is real. You can’t sleep because you don’t know if it’s life and death.

Mansa Musa:

Right.

Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:

Depending on what beef you have, going to sleep might be death for you.

Mansa Musa:

Right.

Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:

So imagine, just sleep deprivation. Being cold and not comfortable, no real soft mattress. All of those things plays a part on the traumatization of incarceration. The paranoia begins to develop. Then because of the fact that the environment is so animal-like in behavior, you have to start turning off your natural senses and emotions, just to survive the night.

And the treatment, the dehumanizing experience, the demonizing experience, the stigmatization experience, the marginalizing experience of being in a prison environment does severe damage to the brain. It doesn’t just impact the brain. I believe that your brain starts being rewired starting day one. And it stays stuck in that rewired frame, not even when you get out. And that’s when it gets dangerous. Because when you’re released, your brain stays in a rewired state. And this is the reason why when people and my brothers and sisters come out of prison, they are not the same. They are not the same. Your children know it, your spouse know it, your family know it. You have been almost unhinged and rewired to live in a animal-like condition. But the question is when you’re back released in society and normalcy, how do you shift abnormal-like behavior for 30 years of conditioning to normalcy? The switch doesn’t just happen like that.

Mansa Musa:

Let me pick up on that right there.

Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:

Yeah.

Mansa Musa:

All right. And I’m going to come to you next, Sligh. All right, I’m going to give a situation.

Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:

Yeah.

Mansa Musa:

All right. They killed the police in the Maryland Penitentiary, [inaudible 00:11:44]. So naturally the state respond by, they’re going to do a fact-finding mission. So they had the previous attorney general, Stephen Sacks; they had the speaker of the house, the general assembly; and they had the house, the delegate. They came into what this place was called South Wing. Now I did a lot of time on South Wing. They came in there. When they left, they was on the front porch of the penitentiary like they was shaking, visually shaking, and this is where they say they came from. They say they came from the innermost circle of hell. Man, I did anywhere between three, four and five years in that spot. I didn’t feel like I was in hell. Talk about that, Sligh. Talk about when did you start? Because you ain’t come in the system the Lonnell Sligh you see today.

Lonnell Sligh:

Absolutely.

Mansa Musa:

You know what I mean? You come in the system, the Lonnell Sligh that was ready to, anybody say the wrong thing…

Lonnell Sligh:

I’m going to deal with it.

Mansa Musa:

You want to deal with it. Where did you make that shift at? When did you come to that shift? Because what he just outlined is something that both Carlisle or a horror movie; if you was to take and not speak on trauma and say this is a script for the next horror movie, Freddy Krueger. Then you could take everything he said, said and say, okay, just put Freddy Krueger in the character. Talk about that Sligh.

Lonnell Sligh:

Just like you stated to how they came out of the South Wing, for me, I consider myself not a monster, but I was ready to deal with whatever came to me. Because that’s just the mentality that I had when I first came to prison. I was living a lifestyle in the streets that had me in that mind frame. But for me, once I got to prison, it took some years, it took some time. It took me, like he said, going to the lockup, sitting on that shelf. But I had a lot of people in my ear that always asked me, “What is your problem? Even though you say you never getting out of prison, you still have a lot of things that people would love to have.” Through that I just started thinking and analyzing it.

Then it dawned on me how my way of thinking was that my way of thinking was crazy and insane. So once I got that in my mind, then that’s when I started making the transition into trying to re-educate myself. Because I knew something was wrong, and that’s why I said I didn’t know nothing about the trauma until later on. But that right there was the spark for me, and thirty-something years later, I’m here today.

Mansa Musa:

Hey doctor, talk about that right there. Because that’s something that is common in prison. That’s a commonality in prison. We come in one way; in the midst of being in there, the light come on, what they call the aha moment. But peel that back. Is that that junction? Have I processed, have I come to the realization that I got trauma? Or am I just, now I’m rewiring myself to say, “I got to change my thinking in order to get out of prison. Because if I stay where I’m at, I’m not going to get out.”

Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:

Yeah.

Mansa Musa:

You understand what I’m saying?

Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:

I understand what you’re saying. Before you can change your thinking, there’s a process. The process is number one, you have core beliefs. Once you have your core beliefs, then you have your thoughts, which is your thinking. Your thinking is in charge of your actions, and if you continue to have a certain level of actions for a certain amount of days, it turns into behavior. And then once you have a set behaviors, it turns into habits. You can’t get over here and impact your habits when you have not shifted your core beliefs.

Lonnell Sligh:

Absolutely.

Mansa Musa:

Okay.

Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:

Your core beliefs is your reality. It’s what’s real to you. Now I can think all kinds of things about you, but if you don’t believe it in your core reality, it doesn’t matter about what I think. Now I’m even talking about it as a doctor. I can believe I see hope in you, but if your core beliefs is so dark you can’t even see a glimpse of light, then it doesn’t matter how much light I see in you. Your core beliefs have been damaged. So in order to really shift your thinking, and a lot of times coming out of prison, we have stinking thinking.

Mansa Musa:

Come on.

Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:

So your life can’t change until you shift your stinking thinking. How you do that? Number one, you got to shift how you believe.

Lonnell Sligh:

Absolutely.

Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:

You got to believe in a higher power more than you, whether that’s God or whatever. And you also got to believe in yourself. Now in my perspective, I believe in the power of God. Two, then your core beliefs have to impact how you think. Thinking has everything to do with who you are. As the scripture says, “As a man thinketh in his heart,” holy, “So is he.” You are the product of your thoughts. Your life cannot change until, number one, you change your belief system. Your belief system impacts your thoughts, then thoughts impact your behavior. Behavior impact your actions. Actions impact your habits. You can’t change your bad habits until you go push that rewind back and go back through those steps, one by one, and start shifting those things in the right direction.

So it is very important that when we’re talking about people coming out of prison, it is not as simple, from my per perspective, to just give an inmate a job and give them a house. Well, you can give them a job and a house, but if you ain’t healed the brain, it doesn’t matter how many resources that you give them, they will relapse and go back into recidivism. So we have to go back to that root cause of healing the brain. My other book is called Get Your Mind Right. You can’t change your life till you heal your brain. You want a better life, we got to heal that brain, get that brain functional at the level that it needs to be in order to impact people’s lives. So my last point is what I was alluding to is when we go into prison, the prison is designed not only just to punish, but the prison is designed to create monsters.

Mansa Musa:

That’s what it is. That’s what it is. That’s right.

Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:

It’s to create monsters.

Mansa Musa:

That’s right.

Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:

It’s really you going on Nightmare on Elm Street.

Mansa Musa:

That’s where you’re at.

Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:

Whether if it’s 20, 30, 40 years. And you stay there with Freddy Krueger until you’re like Freddy Krueger. And then when you come out, we wondering why recidivism is high. Well first of all, I always say too, the prison industry need to stop false advertising. They need to stop lying. What do you mean by that, Dr. Holt? Hold on, I’m glad you’re asking me. I’m going to tell you for free. What I mean by that is they have been lying to us for years calling prison, the Department of Corrections. They don’t correct nothing. It’s really the Department of Punishment, not Correction. Because if it was correction, then you’d be getting education. If it was correction, you’d be getting mental health support. If it was correction, you’d be getting rehabilitated from addictions and substance abuse. It does not correct. So we need to change it from DOC to DOP, because it’s more about punishment than it is correction. So Dr. Holt is on record on your show saying they need to stop all this doggone lying, talking about they correcting.

When you’re correcting you should leave better than the way that you were. What we are doing is we leaving men bitter than better. So when you coming out of prison, we got more bitter people than we have better people. And when bitterness sets in without correction, it turns into a mental and spiritual cancer and it begins to erode on the inside. This is also what we call suicide ideation, where people are hanging themselves in prison because they have lost all light hope and they have no future to change.

Mansa Musa:

There you go. Dr. Holt, you got me getting ready to say amen. Hello.

According to Dr. Holt, we got no authority. We got no authority. Stop that doggone lying.

Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:

Stop that lying.

Mansa Musa:

Sligh, talk about in your transition. Because mind you audience, this is gladiator school. The JCI Jessup Correctional Institution. I’m going on record, Dr. Holt; JCI is the only institution that I know of that was founded on the knife. When you came to JCI, you ain’t ask for no clothes, no change of underwear. You ain’t ask for no a bed roll, you asked for a knife. The first thing you asked for, “Give me a knife.” And then you proceeded to, “Where I’m going to sleep at? Give me something to sleep on. Give me a pillow,” if I wanted one. Or, “Who I’m in the cell with.” But prior to that, when you came into the system, if you knew somebody, if I knew Lonnell, if me and Sligh was homeboys and I knew him; when I came in the joint, I ain’t got to ask for a knife. He going to say, “Look, here, you need this right here.” So in terms of trauma, the first thing I would think is, “Okay, who do I got a problem with?”

Lonnell Sligh:

Yeah.

Mansa Musa:

Because you giving me something to protect myself with, there’s obvious that I got a problem with somebody. Now talk about that. Because you was down in JCI at the inception of it, when they started, when it was, they were flying the helicopter in there. Talk about how you was able to navigate that and not get caught up. Or not get caught beating nobody up.

Lonnell Sligh:

Yeah, I heard that. You didn’t have to say that. But nah, you absolutely right. When I first got to JCI, it was at the beginning stages, and it was a killing field. The helicopter land there weekly, regularly. And it wasn’t just for inmates, the residents, it was for the staff as well. But the thing that helped me was the people that was around me that I knew when I got there. I had a few good brothers there that just gave me the lay of the land. Because when, just like he said, when it opened up, they was closing down the penitentiary because of a whole bunch of shenanigans. So it was built on, like he said, the knife.

But for me, it wasn’t a thing of how I’m going to survive. The thing for me was how was I not going to kill somebody? You know what I mean? Because that’s what type of place it was. So for me, because let me remind you, I didn’t say this earlier, but I had a double life sentence plus a hundred years. So I was never supposed to get out of prison. That was supposed to have been my resting place. So when you have that kind of sentence, a lot of times we had that mindset that we going go in there and we going to make examples so that people know to stay out my way. But just like I said, fortunately I had a few people that was there that knew me from Lorton or from other places that gave me some guidance. And from that my mindset was, because I was never getting out, I was trying to get into a space where I’m going to figure a way to better myself and the people around me. Even though, just like I said, I knew I was never getting out of prison.

Mansa Musa:

Dr. Holt, talk about that. Because Angela Davis said in her book If They Come in the Morning, about political prisoners, by her and other political prisoners, she talked about that part of the prison industrial complex, where in that environment you foster a family. And in that environment, when you foster a family, that family in that environment, it becomes more than just to protect you. It becomes a place where you can get legitimate advice. Like you said, he had people saying things to him about like, “Man, look, you got to change your way of thinking, man.” Even though he had double life and a gazillion years, he chose to listen to them because he looked at him as being family and people that had legitimate interest. We talked about that earlier, we talked about people getting ready. Can you find that environment, people that can help you, encourage you, to get ready to do a self-examination?

Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:

Most definitely. And I think what he had found, the brother had found, was a sense of community. Because another thing about the prison industry and incarceration is not only does it try to create and produce monsters, but it does it by the power of isolation. And it is to break you. Isolation is that breaking down process. It is to break you down mentally, emotionally, spiritually, to even where you feel your soul is dying. The spirit man is dying through the power of isolation. Because once now I isolate you, now the prison guard can perpetuate pain and punishment, belittling, and kill your soul. And that’s what a monster is.

Mansa Musa:

Soulless.

Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:

A soulless person.

Mansa Musa:

Is that making sense?

Lonnell Sligh:

Absolutely.

Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:

It’s a soulless person. That’s a scary situation. That’s why they need you in the cage, is because they’re making you a soulless human walking on that campus. And anything can happen. So they create it, but they’re scared of what they created and don’t know what to do with it.

But at the end of the day, if you don’t have a permanent life sentence, that means one day you’re going to get released to society. And what we are doing is we are releasing those type of individuals in the community, and they’re not mentally, emotionally and spiritually ready. So you asked the question, and we talked about in our first segment, readiness have everything to do with you wanting to go to the next level. Believe it or not, you ask her what does readiness look like? Believe it or not, that’s not an easy answer. It’s a very complex answer. But I can say in my experience and expertise, readiness has had everything to do with circumstances and situations. Sometimes a loved one have to pass away.

Mansa Musa:

Right. You got it, you got it, you got it.

Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:

Unfortunately.

Mansa Musa:

Right.

Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:

Unfortunately, maybe a loved one might have to have passed away, and you didn’t get that relationship right. Let’s say for example, you got a brother, y’all been beefing and you was the black sheep of the family, and that person was jealous of you. Y’all been beefing all since your childhood and adulthood, and that person died, and you never got a chance to rectify that relationship, but you got four other siblings. Sometimes it takes losing that person, that loved one, and realizing I got four others. I need to take life serious and get it right before I finally get that light to show up and say, “You know what? I need to be ready.” Maybe it means you had to lose the relationship of your kids for you to finally recognize your temper is out of control, and you are burning every relationship that you have today. Every bridge now is burnt, you can’t even go back and walk no more. Maybe that may force you to say, “I need to do something about myself and get ready.” So it looks different for every circumstances, but it is all associated with the circumstances about readiness.

Mansa Musa:

You know what? I like that. Because when we look at the landscape, the prison industrial complex, it might just be as benign as, “I got to change the way I am. I don’t want to be seen like this no more. I’m a sleazy, slimy dopefiend, and every time somebody references me, they reference me with an adjective that’s descriptive of somebody less than human.” That can put me in a state of mind where I got I do self-examination. But at the end of the day I agree that it’s circumstantial, readiness is circumstantial.

As we close out, Lonnell, talk about what you’re doing now.

Lonnell Sligh:

Well, right now I’m not fully out. I still have some conditions, but I made sure that I put myself in the space to continue what we started in JCI. And as we talked earlier about this movement for this trauma, because for myself and for Brother Mansa Musa, I think I could speak, we most definitely need a movement. And like he said earlier, when do you start in the prison complex? Because for us, we tried to start at the beginning and give people something to latch hold to from day one, even if they not ready. We was a firm believer. We always told guys, “Hey, if you come in here, we don’t care what you in here for, but you’re going to be respectful.”

Mansa Musa:

That’s right.

Lonnell Sligh:

Eventually some of those guys he had in here interviewing because they in spaces now where they leaders and they have their own programs. But for me right now I’m involved in a program called Evil Life Givers, Ditto House. I’m currently looking for employment as a peer counselor so that I can continue on the things that we started.

And I have a team of guys that we are doing our own thing. We networking with Kansas, to go to Kansas, because I started something in Kansas that now is taking off and it’s big. The people in Kansas has invited me back to Kansas to go inside the prison that I was incarcerated, the one that they sent me from Maryland to punish me to. They invited me.

Mansa Musa:

To come in and heal.

Lonnell Sligh:

To come in and heal. I meet with them weekly on Thursday with my team, and I also Zoom in on the program that not only did I found, but other programs as well that I was involved in.

Mansa Musa:

Dr. Holt?

Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:

Yes.

Mansa Musa:

Going forward, what do you want to tell our audience and the world at large when it comes to how we should address trauma?

Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:

I always say that trauma may not be your fault, but it is your responsibility to heal from trauma. Because if you don’t, we gonna bleed on people that didn’t cut us. And not only people that cut us, but sometimes we also bleed on ourselves. It’s important that we identify where we are hemorrhaging and we’re bleeding from our trauma so that we, number one, can be in recovery and restoration for ourselves. And then two, we can go and promote and help somebody else recover as well. It’s very important that we understand that there is hope and there is a light.

In my work of treatment, I always, number one, promote love. I don’t start anything without love. Tina Turner said, “What’s love got to do with it?”

Mansa Musa:

Come on.

Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:

Love has everything to do with it. And one of the thing about prison, it abstracts love from us and we have to get that love back. Men, sometimes we don’t know how to love. We’ve had some rough experiences before prison and in prison; and then we come out, we don’t know how to build those attachments. But everything starts out with love because it’s the most powerful force in the universe. Nothing is more powerful than love because I believe God is love. And that’s where we start out with. So we also got to be, when we talk about readiness, do you love yourself?

Mansa Musa:

Come on.

Dr. Da’Mond T. Holt:

And how much do you love yourself? What are you willing to do to show that you really love yourself? Because it’s hard to love others without you having your own self-love.

There’s hope. That’s why I call it not just the trauma center, I said the Trauma Center of Hope. That tells people that no matter what has happened to them, you can heal. Rather you have been sexually assaulted, whether you’ve been molested, whether your father walked away from you, rather your mother left you at the fire station and now you went through foster care through foster care. I’m telling you what’s love got to do with it, and that’s why we start out with love.

And then there has to have light. You start out with love, then everybody needs a beacon of light. We got to be able, despite the darkness that is happening to our lives and the nightmares we still have, that we are walking in the light. The light have to shine through the mist of darkness. That is what gives us hope; that no matter what has happened to us, I can heal and I can be the best version of myself. The quicker you become the best version of yourself of healing from trauma, the by-product is you can get your marriage back, you can get your children back, you can get your careers back. You can get all those things back when everything starts with the inner healing of you.

Energy can never be destroyed. It is only transferred. So it is time for us to create a movement of healing and releasing a powerful energy of healing throughout our nation. What the world needs now is love, sweet love.

Mansa Musa:

There you have it. What Dr. Holt just told us, say, “Don’t believe the hype.” It’s not fatal. Your injury is not fatal. It’s irreversible, it’s not. You can be healed if you believe. It’s not a hands-on moment, it’s not a hallelujah moment. This is a real movement. This is a real moment, this is the real news, giving you information about trauma.

Thank you Dr. Holt, thank you Lonnell for joining me. There you have, the real news surrounding the bar. We ask you to continue to support us, because we are actually the real news.

The oppression of Black people is more than just a historical or political question. The accumulated harms of centuries of slavery, segregation, mass incarceration, and racism in all forms have a psychological and medical effect, in addition to political and economic ones. Trauma, after all, describes the physical injury of the brain as a result of harmful experiences. At the scale of communities and generations, such trauma can be passed down and reproduced for decades, and even centuries. In the first of a two-part conversation, traumatologist Dr. Da’Mond Holt explains the medical reality of Black historical trauma, and what kinds of interventions and solutions are required to promote healing as a form of justice.

Studio Production: David Hebden, Cameron Granadino
Post-Production: Cameron Granadino, Alina Nehlich

Transcript

Mansa Musa:  This is part one of a two-part interview with Dr. Da’Mond Holt. He’s an author, researcher, clinician, and national trauma expert, certified traumatologist through the Traumatology Institute; and a certified mental health specialist, trauma crisis specialist through the American School Council Association; and is a licensed restorative practice justice trainer. In his book, Black Trauma: What Happens to Us, he says that trauma is real, but more importantly, Black trauma is real.

Welcome to Rattling the Bars, Dr. Holt.

Dr. Da’Mond Holt:  Thank you, sir.

Mansa Musa:  And for the sake of our audience, Dr. Holt is from Arizona, University of Arizona, and it’s our honor and pleasure to have him come down this way to talk about trauma and all things relative to trauma.

Dr. Holt, first let’s pull back some of the things. So in your opening chapter, titled “Black Trauma”, you first explain what trauma is and then explain why you say Black trauma. Because as soon as somebody say trauma and then you say, oh, trauma, Native American trauma, European trauma, certain certain trauma. Explain what trauma is, and then is there a disconnect between that and Black trauma?

Dr. Da’Mond Holt:  So again, thank you for having me on your show. Trauma is very, very important, and it’s most important to be able to fix trauma, understand trauma, you need to be able to properly define what trauma is.

And right now we are in a society where people are using the word trauma or, I’ve been traumatized, or, I have PTSD, and these are buzzwords to a lot of people, but they really don’t understand what that means.

So to define it from our perspective as a traumatologist and trauma expert is, according to the American Psychological Association, trauma is a traumatic experience that’s based on something mentally, emotionally, physically, or sexually.

But to make it more important, more in detail, it’s based on wounds and injuries. The root word of trauma means an injury. So when we say trauma or someone’s been traumatized, from a neurological or a psychological perspective that means the brain has been traumatized, or the brain has been wounded or injured because of life’s circumstances, as far as the brain can be injured because of a life-threatening situation or a life-devastating situation. It actually brings injury and wounds to different regions of the brain, and that impacts brain functioning.

And so when these injuries and wounds have been impacted because… The brain has been impacted by wounds and injuries because of trauma, when it’s untreated, it is symptoms like having an infection. And this is where we began to have symptoms like mental illness, like depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder, paranoia, all those things. It’s because it has come from an injury that has been untreated.

So if you continue to have injuries that’s untreated, it becomes maladaptive and you begin to have these symptoms.

Two, why Black trauma? Black trauma is really what we would consider, in the traumatology world, it’s historical trauma. Historical trauma is a trauma that is associated with minority groups. African Americans are certainly part of the minority group, and a disenfranchised and marginalized community, and we have our own specific traumas.

Pretty much every ethnic type of population in our country have a historical trauma. Jewish people have a historical trauma because of the Holocaust. Latinos and Latinx and Hispanics have their traumas because of border issues and things of that nature. Native Americans have their type of trauma because white America came and Europeans came and took their country and took their land and language and whitewashed, exactly, right? So that would be our Native type of trauma.

But there is something called Black trauma as well. And it goes back 400 years ago, going back to the 1600s, all the way in slavery when Africans came into the Americas. And all of the concerns that happened to them, far as lynchings, far as tortures, far as amputations, far as rapes that took place, all that was traumatizing.

And what makes it dangerous is we didn’t heal from that 400 years ago. Every decade in every century, that trauma of our Black people matriculated all the way through generations up to today. So all of that stuff that our ancestors went through, we are still being impacted in our brain and in our bodies.

So the question is, though, if I had the technology of reading CAT scans and MRIs 400 years ago, what would the brains of slaves look like?

Mansa Musa:  Right. Okay, you set it up in terms of identifying that each ethnic group has trauma.

Dr. Da’Mond Holt:  Yeah.

Mansa Musa:  And you set it up, and you identify those things that would be relative to why they would be traumatic.

Dr. Da’Mond Holt:  Yeah, most definitely.

Mansa Musa:  Right. But initially you said that trauma equals injury, that when you say the brain, when you say trauma, I’m [traumatized], I’m suffering from trauma, I’m suffering from some kind of injury.

Dr. Da’Mond Holt:  Yes.

Mansa Musa:  Okay. How is it that when you say Black trauma, what is the injury that Black people are suffering from, to say we will keep it in that context, as opposed, to simplify, we’re injured?

Dr. Da’Mond Holt:  Yes. Yes, we’ve been injured, and I speak into that space. So trauma, the root, trauma, means an injury or wound. And when you’ve been traumatized, it does impact the brain. Sometimes it even rewires the brain where the person is really not the person who they used to be.

In the African American community, we know for a fact that trauma impacts different regions of the brain. It impacts your thalamus, which is very important because that’s what uses sensory perception to sense the room for danger. We know it impacts your amygdala, which is your fear center. We know it impacts your frontal lobe and the prefrontal cortex area where you make decisions, choices, and all of that.

People that have been through a lot of trauma, that most definitely impacts that. We know it impacts your hippocampus when it comes to your episodic memory, your emotional memory, short-term, long-term memory, all of that comes from your hippocampus region of your brain. Your hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis that releases all of the cortisol in the body along with the HPA, that all is impacted.

So we know that trauma does that, certainly African American, Black Americans, regions of the brain have been impacted in those areas. And those things are very, very important. This is the reason why, because of our traumas and because of our wounds and scars that we did not heal from, we pass it on to the next generation.

So perhaps what I’m struggling with, maybe my great-great-grandfather went through it, and my great-great-grandfather went through it. And my great-grandfather, my grandfather, my father, has all now been passed on to me through generational trauma and also something we call epigenetics, where we pass it on through our genes and how our genes express in our DNA. So it’s very important. These are the things that we are going through.

And then also cultural. In a Black family, Black communities, we don’t talk about things. We don’t go to the doctor, we don’t see counselors, we don’t go to therapists, we don’t like talking about what we issue. So we have a lot of family secrets in Black families.

All of that is like a pressure cooker brewing, just waiting for that opportunity for an explosion. And so when we don’t heal from our traumas and we allow these things to happen and exacerbate the outcomes for African Americans without the right love, without the right treatment, without the support network and building those types of support networks, can be very maladaptive for our community.

Mansa Musa:  Okay. So how do we process this trauma? Because, okay, you outlined some of the things that goes on into, when you say epigenetics, it impacts our DNA.

Dr. Da’Mond Holt:  Yes, it does.

Mansa Musa:  Okay, I want to try to get a perspective on relating it to what we see today, in terms of, okay, is this the result of this, what we see today with our kids? Or is this the result of when we see in the Black community where a little kid — I’ll give you an example.

Like a child, her little friend get killed, four-year-old friend get killed. And her four-year-old friend get killed, and the parents, the innocent Black community parents, tell the kid that she gone with Jesus. But at the same time, when the parents talking to their adult friends and saying the no-good father created the problem, and the kid’s sitting there listening to this.

How do we process it? How do we get to a space where as far as the normalcy, everything, you can go anywhere in the world in the Black community and you can fit in. If you’re Black, it is no problem making an adjustment to fit in. Is that the normalcy that’s come from the trauma, or what?

Dr. Da’Mond Holt:  Well, a lot of times…

Mansa Musa:  If you can understand my point.

Dr. Da’Mond Holt:  I understand your point. So really ask for more application of how people can really understand what does it look like, right?

Mansa Musa:  Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Dr. Da’Mond Holt:  So one, you have different types of trauma. You have acute traumas, that’s kind of like a one-hit wonder that happened one time but have long-term effects. Then there’s something called complex trauma, where it’s more long-term, like a person living in poverty or have been abused for several years and never told anybody.

Or you have complex trauma where you have people who have been through four different traumatic experiences and they’re living with those four different traumatic experiences every single day, from someone having a parent that have a mental illness, or having a parent that’s on drugs or substance abuse and addictions, or a family member has been incarcerated, or someone who’s been sexually abused.

All those things, that’s what we call complex trauma. And so it can be from abandonment, it can be from rejection, it can be from all kinds of different things, from going from foster care to foster care.

We see it in the classrooms. A lot of kids, most of the schools are failing right now because of trauma, because the frontal lobe can’t process information that the teacher is teaching. Because if you haven’t eaten in three days, you’re not paying attention to algebra.

Mansa Musa:  Right, right, right.

Dr. Da’Mond Holt:  So that’s how I’m breaking it down to where people can get it. So when people’s like, well, why was I struggling? And a lot of these kids don’t have learning disorders like we’re just pushing out. A lot of kids have early childhood trauma that impacts the brain, the process to learn. And if you don’t understand that that’s early childhood trauma, it’s easy to misdiagnose kids and over-medicate kids from symptoms that they really don’t have because the root cause is really trauma.

So I always say even as practitioners, clinicians, therapists, school psychologists, speech pathologists, we need to slow down on a diagnosis and really understand what type of traumas that these kids are having. Because a lot of times we are overly medicating kids, and we are certainly misdiagnosing too many kids when we don’t understand trauma is a factor.

Mansa Musa:  Okay. Then, in your book, you speak of coming face-to-face with adverse child experiences. This is a good way to move into that. Walk us through that, walk us through what that looked like, and try to contextualize what needs to be done.

Because you just spoke on if I’m in school and I’m smart, but I can’t get it, and they diagnosed me as having a learning disability. And so I have a learning disability, they put me in a low class. And then I’m in a low class, now I’ve got these complexes about being here because I know I know the material, but I can’t process it.

Dr. Da’Mond Holt:  Yeah, your brain can’t process as long as you’re in a fight or flight. When you’re in survival mode and you’re in a fight or flight. And God created our bodies to be like that, because if you are in danger and a bear is chasing you, you don’t need to know algebra, how to get out the equation, right? Is that kind of making sense? So it’s hard to process that curriculum when the frontal lobe is offline because the survival mode of the brain is taking over to survive.

So what happens is, when you are in survival mode all the time because you’re in the hood — Let’s go, let’s make it real practical. You’re in the hood, you’ve seen your homie get blasted, that’s a traumatic experience. You’re in the hood and you’re trying to study your homework and you hear gunshots throughout the night, that has you hyper vigilant. When you’re in the hood and you see your mom get beat up by a lover, domestic violence, all of that impacts the brain. And that child goes to school with those traumatic experiences.

And we be wondering why kids can’t learn. Kids are not learning because they’re dumb and stupid and ignorant. No, that’s not the case. It’s because the frontal lobe has been hijacked because of all of the trauma, because they’re in survival mode. So when we want kids to be learning, we have to get them out of that fight or flight.

So to your question, ACEs, adverse childhood experiences, is what it means, it’s an assessment on how practitioners and doctors such as myself assess and evaluate the ramifications of early childhood traumas. And it’s a 10-questionnaire, and you check one for each box of the question that pertains to you and your trauma.

If you’re over four more in your score, then you’re more likely to get into substance abuse, get into addictions, for young kids to be having risky behavior far as being promiscuous and having too many… All kinds of different stuff. So we see all of that because of the early childhood traumas, and that is what impacts us.

And then another thing we need to see, a lot of people, early childhood trauma we see through technology is the brains are smaller. You have smaller brains, you have compromised neurodevelopment, which is going to probably be some signs that this person’s going to have issues far as with AD, ADD, ADHD, can’t pay attention, have issues with readiness, language delays, all of that is coming from trauma.

So this is the reason why, as a traumatologist, I want to be advocating that we need to bring healing. Today’s data, 80% to 90% of Americans have experienced at least one traumatic experience. Can you imagine that? That’s a very high number. 80% to 90% of Americans have experienced at least one traumatic experience in their life. So trauma is extremely high, and our bodies are not designed for that.

So let me throw in something that is probably not in your questionnaire. So not only am I a traumatologist, but I’m an integrative medicine provider. So that also means I treat the body. And so what I do, I see in the body outside of the brain, is that when people have a lot of trauma, a lot of chronic stress, it creates something called chronic and cellular inflammation, which makes us sick.

So people, say you start having earlier development of rheumatoid arthritis and you start having early development of back pain and chronic pain, swollen feet, all of these different things. And you’d be saying, what’s going on in my brain from all of that trauma and stress could really give me swollen feet where I can barely walk, or I can barely stand up straight because of back pain and chronic pain? Yes, because that turns into chronic inflammation.

If you don’t address chronic inflammation, it turns into autoimmune disease. If you don’t deal with the autoimmune disease, then it turns into metabolic disease.

Mansa Musa:  Come on now, you’re telling me that pork, you’re telling me that swine ain’t giving me hypertension, that the pork ain’t the reason why?

Dr. Da’Mond Holt:  It can, yeah, most definitely, too much of it.

Mansa Musa:  The fact that I looked up, they’ve been lynching everybody in my neighborhood and I’m scared of that.

But let me push back on this right here, because I’ve got serious issues with this. Okay, so you say that — And it’s not in reflection to what you’re saying, this is a reflection of how society does things.

Okay, so I codify behavior. I say, okay, I’m going to give you a list of 10 things. If you get scored high on these things, you’re all right. If you score low on these things, something’s wrong with you.

Now, what if a person… Okay, I’m in this space and you tell me you’re doing this assessment on me. And I say, okay, I’m intentionally manipulating the score. All right, so how do you gel with that in terms of saying, well, you’re going to treat me when I already know that. I said, I’m in here for the purpose of manipulating this mechanism. So how you…

Dr. Da’Mond Holt:  So you make a great point. So I’m just going to flat out and be very bold and raw and say everything has to do with readiness. You can have the best doctor, you have a team of doctors. If the patient is not ready, nothing is happening.

So if you’re manipulating, that’s a sign of unreadiness. That’s a sign you’re in denial and you’re not ready. So one of the things before I take on a patient or a client is that person have to have a level of readiness. If a person is not ready, it doesn’t matter how…

Mansa Musa:  Okay, not to cut you off, how do you get that? Because this is where I’m saying I’m drawing the line in the sand, saying the problem lies in the system, saying I identify and I can get money for it. I’m identifying, I can get a grant for it. I’m identified, I can do a paper on it.

Dr. Da’Mond Holt:  Yes.

Mansa Musa:  So I’m saying I’m drawing the line in this. Okay, you’re saying that in your practice that you have a mechanism to identify or get them to be comfortable or developing into getting ready?

Dr. Da’Mond Holt:  I can help them to show where they are, but the readiness comes from the patient. It can never come from me.

Mansa Musa:  Okay.

Dr. Da’Mond Holt:  Actually, we’re not even… We are healers in certain ways, but the real healing comes from the inside of the person. So the person have to really have a level of readiness, no matter who that practitioner, clinician, or that doctor is, is that the patient have to really want it, and they have to be committed to putting in that work. I cannot do that for them.

So that’s another thing also in my field of work, is getting people who pretend that they’re just ready to put in that work, then they’re not showing up to appointments. You know what I’m saying? They’re not following up, they’re not taking any medicine, they’re not doing the treatment. You’re not ready.

Mansa Musa:  Right.

Dr. Da’Mond Holt:  So that’s another thing we have to really put emphasis on when we’re talking about people healing, is that a lot of that has to do with them on the inside of really being ready, coming out of denial, stop blaming because your father wasn’t there. I’m not saying your father wasn’t there, I’m just saying your daddy can’t continue to be the excuse why you’re not being the best version of yourself.

Mansa Musa:  Right, right, right.

Dr. Da’Mond Holt:  Is that kind of making sense?

Mansa Musa:  That makes good sense.

Dr. Da’Mond Holt:  So readiness is a big issue in this work. Not just as a patient, but also as a community, that we have to support our Black men. Black men, far as being able to have a space and talk about our Black masculinity, talk about our anger issues, and talk about getting in touch with our feelings.

Because you know how we were raised. I know I was in the hood, you showed emotion, you’re getting beat up, you’re getting punked, you’re getting bullied, you were soft. You cry, cry in front of us and see what happened, right? And so what happens is we got molded with that mindset that wasn’t healthy.

And now we are 30, 40, 50, 60 years old and we don’t know how to build attachments with our own children with our emotions because we were taught and trained from our environment to cut that stuff off. That’s trauma as well.

So one of the things I say in one of my books is, hurting people hurt people. Stop bleeding on people that didn’t cut us. If you don’t heal from your trauma, you’re going to continue to bleed on others. You’re going to bleed on your marriage, bleed on your children, bleed on your friendships, bleed even in your church.

I don’t even think we talk enough also about the Black church’s trauma as well and how we need to prepare to be able to bring healing and facilitate healing even in the body of Christ.

Mansa Musa:  Okay, let’s go here then, all right, because you’re saying, okay, we are going to accept the perspective that readiness is on the individual. And I’m not putting the onus on you to say to make me ready. I’m saying …

Dr. Da’Mond Holt:  But how I can assess it?

Mansa Musa:  Ah.

Dr. Da’Mond Holt:  How do I assess it, that’s good. Assessment. That’s assessment, right? So I’ve got to evaluate and assess you and come with a rubric and a score to be able to say, okay, based on what I’m saying is, based on what I’m looking at, you’re not ready yet. Or, based on what I’m seeing, let’s make your first appointment.

That’s pretty much how it’s going to go. Or you’re in the middle range. Let’s take care of some things first and let’s revisit and have these conversations to see, can we get you ready for that next appointment.

So readiness is going to be huge in regards to helping people heal. And that can never be all on your doctor, that can never be all on your therapist. That’s not even fair for us. But we do have the skill sets to help you navigate through your issues and through your challenges to help you get to the next level. I think we also underestimate the power of life coaches as well.

Not only do you need a doctor and a therapist, because we help you with your deficits. With you bleeding, we need to sew you up so you can stop hemorrhaging. Once we get you stabilized and get you to stop bleeding and hemorrhaging, I also think life coaches is very important too. Because now life coaches start giving you, pushing you in that right direction far as purpose, far as strategies and goals and targets. That’s where that coach come in.

So you need coaching, you need counseling from the therapist, the psychological world. You need care from your doctors in the medicine world. But you also need coaching. It’s the three Cs. And I ain’t put that in the book so I’m going off the cuff, so you’re getting some free stuff today.

But that’s how I look at it. It’s a community, it’s layered, it’s a holistic approach. You need care, you need counseling, and you need coaching to really steer this thing in regards to helping people heal from their trauma.

And you need everything, you need all of that, your doctor, your therapist, your priest, your rabbi, your pastor to bring that spiritual component as well.

Mansa Musa:  So basically it takes a village.

Dr. Da’Mond Holt:  It takes a village.

Mansa Musa:  All right, so as we close out, you say Black Trauma: What Happens To Us? So Black trauma, how do we change what’s happened to us?

Dr. Da’Mond Holt:  How do we change? I think we may even have to, and I’m probably going to make a bold statement as a traumatologist, and say I think, at some point, I think we are going to have to go back and revisit post-traumatic stress disorder.

Because the word “post” suggests that it was the past, and I think that we may have to be looking at our trauma as constantly being present. A lot of people’s trauma is a present situation. And if it’s a present situation, how in the world could it ever be post, right?

So that’s one of the things that we may have to start considering, a new term of PPTTSD, which is present and post-traumatic stress disorder, in the future in regards to a future thing.

But let’s get to the resilience piece since we’re closing. The good thing is, you can heal. And that’s the powerful thing, and that’s really the opportunity to shout, is because no matter what has happened to you, you can heal. I always say that trauma may be your history, but it doesn’t have to determine your destiny.

And you can heal. There’s something called neuroplasticity that we talk about in the neurology and psychological world. It’s that the brain can be rewired to learn and adapt to new things. So no matter what has happened to the brain, the brain can regenerate and create healing for the individual with the right steps in place and the right methodologies in place. Their outcomes of life can be very, very promising. This is now what we call trauma resilience.

So I am the architect of a new model in our schools called trauma resilient schools, where we actually help people come into these schools to heal in the classrooms.

And that’s where we’ve got to be. We’ve got to shift from just surviving to thriving. So yes, I am on record saying that trauma-informed may be a good start for people who have never been introduced to trauma training, but trauma-informed is not enough. So everybody’s still going around talking about trauma-informed training. That’s nice. But after COVID, it is not enough. You’ve got to have something more.

So in my trainings I do four trainings: You get your first training called trauma-informed. Then trauma two is trauma-sensitive. Training three is trauma responsiveness, and then training four is trauma resilience. So there’s four steps that get you to that place of resilience.

And pretty much defining resilience really means it’s a person who can bounce back from a setback, people who don’t allow difficulties to be the big issue why they can’t achieve. In other words, in short, surviving to thriving.

And so I just wanted to tell all your listeners today that I don’t care what traumas or experiences that they’ve been through. Dr. Holt is saying you can heal. If you’re committed, if you’re ready and you’re tired of living the life you have, and sometimes you’ve got to get sick and tired of being sick and tired. Sometimes that light don’t come on until you’re really being sick and tired of being sick and tired. But if you are able and ready and committed to put in that work, I’m telling you right now, you can heal and live the best version of your life.

Mansa Musa:  There you have it, The Real News, Rattling the Bars. Dr. Holt, he ain’t laying hands on you, he’s laying a plan on you.

Dr. Da’Mond Holt:  Yeah, I like that.

Mansa Musa:  We want to make sure that you understand that when we talk about trauma and he’s talking about Black trauma, we’re talking about healing. At the end of the day, we’ve been able to identify two things: one, we suffer from an injury, and two, we can heal from that injury.

Dr. Da’Mond Holt:  That’s right.

Mansa Musa:  So just like any medicine, when you go somewhere to get sewed up, they put a band-aid on it, they tell you take the prescription, this is the prescription that Dr. Holt is telling you to take. Take the prescription of focusing on your problem and then healing from your problem.

Dr. Holt, we appreciate you very much.

Dr. Da’Mond Holt:  Thank you for having us. It’s been a pleasure.

Mansa Musa:  And we want to remind all our listeners that The Real News of Rattling the Bars, you’ve got to continue to support The Real News of Rattling the Bars. We’re in this space primarily to bring people like Dr. Holt in, to give it to you raw, to give it to you the way it is and the way it should be. And you can question whether or not he has any validity. I’m quite sure he can represent his point of view wholeheartedly.

But at the end of the day, we ask that you continue to support us, continue to support Rattling the Bars. And there you have it, The Real News of Rattling the Bars. Because guess what? We actually are the real news.