The Movement for Black Lives from Oscar Grant to COVID-19, with Dr. Donna Murch, Joana Andoh, and Dr. Nientara Anderson

July 06, 2020

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July 1, 2020

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00:00So welcome everybody to tonight's
00:03event featuring professor Donna
00:05Merch from Rutgers speaking on
00:07the movement for black lives
00:09from Oscar Grant to COVID-19.
00:12This talk will be followed by
00:14comments from our discussants Joanna
00:17and Owen Doctorin Antara Anderson.
00:20My name is Anna Rees,
00:21men I direct the program
00:22for Humanities in medicine at the Yale School
00:25of Medicine, and I am thrilled to
00:27be Co hosting this evening's event,
00:28along with my colleague and friend,
00:30Doctor Helena Hanson.
00:32Doctor Hanson is an associate
00:33professor of psychiatry
00:34and anthropology at in my yuan
00:36for several years she has been
00:38running the wonderful and amazing
00:40social medicine and action series
00:42here at the School of Medicine.
00:44It was Helen's excellent idea for our
00:46two programs to collaborate on an event,
00:48focusing on the history of black lives,
00:51matter and related movements and especially
00:52to invite the splendid done emerge.
00:54And with that I will turn
00:56over the mic to alma.
01:00Thank you so much. Talk to respond.
01:02So, um, it's really a pleasure
01:05to introduce Don emerge.
01:06I had the pleasure of meeting her Seven
01:09years ago as part of a conference on the
01:12war on drugs that she organized in the
01:16profoundly shaped my own scholarship.
01:18Since then, she's a powerful voice, both
01:21in academia and also a public intellectual.
01:23She writes widely cited articles
01:25for the popular press,
01:27as well as academic presses,
01:29and that's kind of a rare combination.
01:31I couldn't think of anyone better
01:34to give us a rich her story and she
01:37would put it as opposed to history
01:39of the black lives matter movement
01:42and the international outpouring
01:44of protests and support for ending
01:46police violence in black and Brown
01:48neighborhoods and also defending the
01:50police and re directing the billions
01:53of dollars that have been spent on
01:55law enforcement in black and Brown
01:58neighborhoods towards things that
01:59actually are promoting of human welfare.
02:02And particularly,
02:02in those neighborhoods that are
02:04deserving of so many reparations
02:06for the injustices of the war on
02:08drugs and other police actions,
02:10there she's associate professor of history,
02:12Anna.
02:12She would put her story at
02:15Rutgers University.
02:15She's currently completing a new trade
02:17press book entitled crack in Los Angeles,
02:20policing the crisis and the war on drugs.
02:23So for those of you who might not know,
02:26trade press means that she's going to be
02:29publishing a book for a popular audience,
02:31as opposed to.
02:32An academic audience which
02:34is impressive feat.
02:35It actually is not easy for
02:37academics to cross over that way,
02:39so I can't wait to see what
02:41she does with that book.
02:43She has a forthcoming Book of essays
02:45that will be published later this year,
02:48entitled, Asada taught me state violence,
02:50mass incarceration,
02:50and the movement for black lives.
02:52In October of 2010,
02:54she published the award winning
02:56monograph living for the city.
02:58Migration, education and the rise of
03:00the Black Panther Party in Oakland,
03:02CA with the University of North
03:04Carolina crests in that one,
03:06the Phillis Wheatley Prize.
03:07In December 2011,
03:08she's written for the Sunday Washington Post,
03:11New Republic Nation, Boston review,
03:12the Chronicle for higher education,
03:14black scholar,
03:15and the Journal of American history,
03:17as well as appearing and Stanley
03:19Nelson's documentary,
03:20Black Panthers,
03:20Vanguard of the revolution.
03:22So with no further do I'm going
03:24to hand this over to Donna Murch,
03:26and at the end of her talk.
03:29We'll also hear about her discussants
03:31uhm and have an opportunity
03:32here from her discuss.
03:34Instant have an opportunity
03:35for questions and answers,
03:37which will require you to use
03:39the Q&A Button on the bottom
03:41right hand corner of your screen.
03:43Thank you so much Dana Merch for joining us.
03:49I'm going to unmute you. Um, thank
03:52you so much for that very generous
03:55introduction and thank you so much.
03:57Elena, for inviting me.
03:58Your work has also deeply influenced
04:00my work and the work that you've done
04:02on white opioids, harm reduction,
04:04and this, interpreting it
04:05through a racial capitalist lens.
04:07It has deeply influenced me
04:08not only in my writing,
04:10but also in my teaching.
04:12Um, so today I'm gonna talk about
04:14the movement for black lives.
04:16And because I am his story and
04:18that means I'm going to talk
04:20about it in a longer trajectory.
04:22And I'm actually going to go back
04:24to think about the parallelisms
04:26between what's going on during the
04:28urban rebellions in the 1960s,
04:30and then the developments of
04:31mass incarceration in 1970s.
04:33So it's a way to think about this
04:35current mobilization being a response,
04:37not just a police violence
04:38and police killings,
04:39but to the real escalation and
04:41production of something that.
04:43A new generation historians
04:44is called the carceral state,
04:46so this movement is so important
04:48because it's not only talking
04:50about state violence and killings,
04:53but linking it to these systems of control,
04:56incarceration, deportation,
04:56an it's a way to open up a question
05:00about state sanctioned violence.
05:04So, uhm,
05:05I wanted to start just with some
05:08images from the protest of.
05:11Of course, George Floyd.
05:14And also up Brianna Taylor,
05:16one of the things that I think is
05:18incredibly important to this history,
05:20is thinking about the way that
05:22gender has operated both in
05:23the contemporary movement,
05:24but also in how the victims of state
05:27sanctioned violence have been understood.
05:29The current urban rebellions are really,
05:31uhm,
05:31I think in some ways they've taken
05:34us all by surprise in their scale.
05:36So one of the things that I think is
05:39important about them is that they've
05:41taken place in over 400 cities,
05:43so the geographic range and then
05:45the temporal range so that these
05:48protests continued to go on.
05:49I live in Philadelphia and they're all
05:52different kinds of Wildcat protests
05:53going on all the time on bicycles,
05:56on foot car caravans,
05:57and I think this is going on in many
06:00cities throughout the United States.
06:02So in total size and Geography,
06:04an in time these rebellions are
06:06larger than the ones. In the 1960s.
06:09Many of the comparisons have
06:10been made to them,
06:12and I'm going to talk about some
06:14of the things that they share,
06:16but also the ways in which they differ.
06:19So the late 60s is a time where
06:21many of the protesters were able
06:24to make claims on the state.
06:26And much of the expansion of funding
06:28the development of the Department
06:30of Housing and Urban Development,
06:32the funding of cities that in
06:34many ways is rebellions.
06:35One major concessions from
06:37the federal government.
06:38Of course,
06:38today we are facing something very different,
06:41so you may hear a little background noise.
06:43I have a very bored Chihuahua as my coworker,
06:46so I apologize right now for the noise.
06:49She she will be making,
06:51um, but one of the big differences,
06:53I think, is that even though we have
06:55this mass scale of protest It's also
06:57a question of what that relationship
06:59is both to electoral politics
07:01to Municipal, County and state,
07:03and then also to the federal government.
07:05So I think it makes perfect sense
07:07to to look to the historical
07:09analogs to what's happening today,
07:11but then also to think about what
07:13the current limitations are and how
07:15those might change in the coming year.
07:17Come here, I have an image of Brianna,
07:20Taylor and so when I talk about
07:21George Floyd and Brianna Taylor,
07:23I want to put them into the same frame
07:26because we've had killings of both black men,
07:28black women, and Nonbinary people,
07:30and I think it's important as we talk
07:32about these mobilizations to think about
07:34how state sanctioned violence effects
07:35all different parts of our community.
07:38Here we have another image of Rihanna
07:41Taylor who was killed by police in
07:44her home in March 2020 after they
07:47broke in with a no knock warrant.
07:49But this is a powerful image that
07:52comes from a memorial in Ireland.
07:54Um also remembering George Floyd.
07:56Another important dimension of what's
07:58waiting in the protest today is
08:00that there are these international
08:02solidarity networks that happened very
08:04much like during Ferguson in 2014.
08:06So we have these master billions
08:08inside the United States.
08:10But then we also have people trying
08:12to construct a solidarity networks
08:15in other parts of the world.
08:17So I want to start just by thinking
08:20about how we place what's happening
08:22right now in a longer trajectory,
08:25and I think the most direct comparison
08:27is with the Watts Rebellion.
08:29So there's a period that happens
08:31in American cities.
08:32It starts really in Birmingham.
08:34In 1963 there was a success of protest
08:37that gets called the Harlem riot.
08:39I actually like to use the word rebellion
08:42because these are in many ways organized.
08:45Protest that about trying to target systems
08:47of power and structures of violence.
08:49So these urban rebellions they begin in 1960,
08:53three 1964, but the largest one.
08:55And it is actually the at that time in 1965.
08:59It is the largest urban rebellion
09:01in American history.
09:03Takes place in Watts,
09:04California and at the time Watts is
09:07roughly between 9095 and 100% black.
09:09It has a police force that is
09:12nearly all white,
09:13but it initiates a civil disturbance
09:16that goes on for four days.
09:18The airport of LAX.
09:20Los Angeles Airport is shut down
09:22and then you have the deaths
09:25of between 50 and 60 people,
09:27overwhelmingly African Americans who were
09:29killed by the police and the National Guard.
09:32But Watts inaugurates in a whole new era,
09:35really in the black freedom struggle.
09:38People often talk about it as being the
09:41transition from civil rights to black power,
09:43but we might also understand it
09:46as its geographical range.
09:47So one of the striking things about Watts
09:50is that it happens after a major victory,
09:53so it happens less than a week after Lyndon
09:56Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act.
09:58And that's important because this
10:01is essentially the legislative
10:02fulfillment of a portion of the
10:04southern civil rights movement,
10:06which is about dismantling
10:07the system of economic.
10:09And political segregation.
10:09It is also the first time that
10:11African Americans on mask and
10:13participate in electoral politics.
10:15and I want to stress that because
10:16it's very recent our participation.
10:18So we talk about the United States
10:20is the oldest democracy in the world.
10:23But actually African Americans have
10:24really only had the vote since 1965.
10:27You had select voting in the North,
10:29but African Americans in the South are
10:31completely shut out and it's really in
10:34the second great migration as people
10:35move from the South to the North that
10:38they gained greater access to voting.
10:40But in terms of the total black population,
10:43we have only been able to vote since 1965,
10:46so it is this moment of accomplishment
10:48for the southern civil rights movement.
10:51But what's striking about Watts is
10:53that it breaks out just a week after
10:56an at the time people talked about it
10:59in terms of the geography of black
11:01struggle that the dismantling of
11:03legal segregation is the focus in
11:05the South an the core mode of protest
11:08is nonviolent civil disobedience.
11:10But the North and the West, I would argue,
11:14is actually the struggle that's
11:16most resonant for today,
11:17which are largely questions
11:19of race and economics.
11:21So it's a question of housing,
11:23education,
11:24and jobs,
11:25so these are really questions
11:27that entail private property.
11:28So distributor redistributed mechanisms
11:30of the state and there are much more
11:33they're much harder to fight for
11:35because they require to some extent
11:38questioning the core of structures
11:39of power in the US so even though
11:42we really celebrate the southern
11:44civil rights movement as a kind of
11:47national way to understand how race
11:49functions in the United States I would
11:52argue that it's actually looking at
11:54the north and West after 1965 that
11:57really speak directly to the kinds
11:59of problems that we're facing today.
12:01Housing, education and jobs.
12:03On the one hand,
12:05and then police,
12:06violence and state sanctioned
12:08violence on the other.
12:09So when the Watts rebellion breaks out,
12:12one of its major effects is that it
12:15makes populations visible that were
12:17previously invisible and one of the
12:20things that's really striking about
12:22thinking about Watts versus today is it.
12:25In the 1960s there was incredibly
12:27vicious backlash against this,
12:29and the racial demographics
12:31of the protest is that.
12:33They were overwhelmingly concentrated
12:34by African American populations,
12:36and often in black parts of the city.
12:40That has a lot to do with the
12:42dynamics of policing also,
12:44and how these rebellions are shaped through
12:46how the National Guard is deployed.
12:48What areas of the city people can protest in,
12:51and which ones they can't.
12:53So the discourse it was often used about
12:55them was that they were irrational.
12:57Ann in the 1980s,
12:59in particular,
12:59when Ronald Reagan expanded II drug
13:01war and defunded American cities,
13:03many people pointed to the urban
13:05rebellions as the reason for urban
13:07decline and divestment is that it
13:09was a product of the rebellions.
13:11But if we go back and we look at them,
13:15it's very clear that they won major
13:17concessions and this is really important.
13:20You have hundreds of thousands of
13:22people that participate in these
13:24urban rebellions in the 1960s,
13:26and as a result, Lyndon Johnson
13:28and his single term is president.
13:30He is a Democratic president who
13:32supports Vietnam but also supports the
13:35expansion of a marginal welfare state,
13:37both of Medicare and of really the
13:40extension of federal provision.
13:42To localities,
13:43so even though Johnson is
13:45so reactionary on Vietnam,
13:47he still is able to make concessions
13:50to the kind.
13:51The scale of protest that we see.
13:55So it's out of the urban rebellions
13:58that the Department of Housing,
14:00the Department of Housing is created.
14:03The Department of Housing and
14:06Urban Development is created,
14:07and that's really important,
14:09so they win concessions
14:11economic concessions about.
14:13Increasing funding to American cities.
14:14So in that sense,
14:16I think the urban rebellions can under
14:18be be understood quite differently
14:20that they were away to call attention
14:23to problems that couldn't be addressed
14:25by the usual electoral process.
14:27So the kind of debate that we're having
14:30right now about what is the language
14:32that we use to talk about protests
14:35other than nonviolent civil disobedience?
14:37Their presidents for this.
14:38Absolutely in the 1960s.
14:40So,
14:40like the dynamic that we've seen today.
14:44These these other forms of protest
14:46that include property destruction,
14:48really did wring concessions from the state,
14:50and I think that that's one of the
14:53biggest questions right now when we're
14:55thinking about protests in the age of Covid,
14:58which is that we have seen an
15:00elimination of so many different
15:01aspects of the redistributed state.
15:04the United States today,
15:05compared to 1968,
15:06has a much stingier welfare state
15:08and so in the 60s people were
15:10able to win concessions and I
15:13think one of the big battles,
15:15longer term not just short term.
15:17Under the Trump Administration
15:18is going to be impossible.
15:20But if we have a Democrat elected into
15:22in N1 of the big questions is going
15:25to be how do we have real economic
15:28commitments made and redistributed
15:30commitments as well as fighting for
15:32things like defunding the police and
15:34then reinvesting that money in community?
15:36This image I have is from 1968 and
15:38it is taken from the protest that
15:41Martin Luther King was visiting
15:43of sanitation workers in Memphis
15:45the night before he was.
15:47Child,
15:47so I wanted to show it because you
15:50will see echoes of this protest in the
15:53in the kinds of demonstrations that
15:55we've seen over the last 10 years.
15:58Um,
15:58another important point about 1968 is that.
16:02You have the first wave of protests.
16:04It begins in the early 60s,
16:06Birmingham New York and then Watts
16:09and Watts really inaugurates
16:10a whole new set of ideas and politics.
16:12So you have the birth of
16:14the Black Panther Party.
16:16A year later, you have the birth of the
16:18US organization in the black student
16:20movement in California and other places.
16:23So in some ways, these urban rebellions
16:25that are so demonized by the media
16:27become really a kind of Dynamo for
16:30creating new types of politics, but.
16:32Are stepping outside the tradition
16:34of just narrow electoral ISM or
16:36nonviolent civil disobedience,
16:37so I think you can see some of the echoes
16:40from 68 and what's happening today,
16:42but I'm also when I get to
16:45the contemporary period,
16:46I'm going to talk about that more.
16:49Another element of 68 that matters
16:51is black power iconography.
16:52So course from the black power
16:55protest in Mexico City.
16:56This becomes one of the dominant
16:58images of the two sprinters.
17:00With a protest organized by Harry Edwards,
17:03it's a powerful image of black power,
17:06but is also a masculinist ideal
17:08and I think one of the things from
17:11the late 60s is that much of the
17:13ways in which this state violence
17:16is understood is through really
17:18its effect on African American men.
17:20And I think that this is also echoed
17:23today and part of it has to do with
17:26this historical moment of the 1960s.
17:28So you have Huey Newton,
17:30who is the founder of the Black
17:33Panther Party,
17:33who is one of the first and most
17:36important political prisoners of this period.
17:38You have the Mexico City protest.
17:40You of course have the leadership
17:42and the assassination of dark
17:44doctor Martin Luther King.
17:46So kind of the iconography of the movement,
17:49often focused on male leaders.
17:51Coming out of the civil rights
17:53movement and the Black Power movement.
17:55Another important element in the 1960s
17:58is that as you had the mobilization of
18:00the black left in the Black Panther Party,
18:03they understood urban rebellions inside
18:05the United States as linked to an
18:08anti colonial movement that's taking
18:10place in Africa and other parts of the world.
18:12So one of the big differences between
18:15then and now is of course this
18:18is at the height of the Cold War,
18:20where the United States is fighting
18:22hot wars throughout the global South.
18:24And of course the war in Vietnam
18:27and Southeast Asia.
18:28So inside the United States,
18:30people that are supporting arm Self
18:32Defense in these other forms of politics,
18:35they linked the violence at
18:38against black people at home.
18:39They initially talk about black
18:42populations inside the United
18:43States as colonies were occupied.
18:45And this,
18:46I think is one of the most
18:48important representations of this.
18:51So you see,
18:52this is a political cartoon from
18:54the Black Panther newspaper.
18:56It shows the linkages between local police.
18:59National Guard and Marines and the Billy
19:01Club that's being carried is napalm,
19:03so this is an argument that the
19:06kinds of domestic violence that we
19:08see at home is related directly to.
19:11The imperialist ambitions and.
19:15Really,
19:16the the methods of warfare so
19:18it's linking the idea
19:20of napalm with CS gas.
19:22So their strong international
19:23dimensions and that's one of the
19:26things that's also powering the late
19:2860s protests that in many ways you
19:31have what radicals consider successes.
19:33You have the Cuban Revolution.
19:36You have these multiple countries
19:38winning their independence.
19:39They're looking also to Ho Chi Minh
19:41and the kinds of mobilizations that
19:44you're seeing an Southeast Asia.
19:46So it's taking place at a time when
19:49also the United States is Imperial.
19:52Ambitions are being attacked,
19:53and in some ways this is the only war
19:56that's really ended by mass mobilization
19:59of the population at home and also of
20:02American members of the American military,
20:04many of whom well,
20:05many of the Black Panthers actually
20:08have Explorer ex military.
20:09So in the 1960s these protests are
20:12very much the domestic United States
20:14is also linked to its foreign policy.
20:17Which is quite different than today.
20:20So 68 is the moment of kind of
20:22the high tide of black power.
20:25Also very important in the antiwar movement.
20:27But it is also a harbringer
20:29of what is to come.
20:30So you have the election of Richard Nixon,
20:33who runs on a platform of law and order.
20:37And it's this vision of law,
20:40in order that really is dominates the last
20:4450 years and it starts with this advocacy.
20:49I'd say that as a kind of political campaign,
20:53as the core of his appeal, it is.
20:56Nixon launches law and order,
20:59but the idea doesn't start with Nixon,
21:02So Lyndon Johnson,
21:03when he runs for president
21:05in 1964 an is elected.
21:07He he starts a war and poverty,
21:10but he also describes the war on
21:13poverty as simultaneously awaran crime.
21:15So the seed beds for what Richard
21:18Nixon calls law and order.
21:21Just start with a Democratic president.
21:23And of course if we were to
21:25go further back in history,
21:27I'm talking about really the immediate
21:29coast war history of the United States.
21:31But this disproportionate
21:32criminalization of black,
21:33Brown,
21:33and indigenous populations
21:34stretches back even before the
21:36formation of the American Republic,
21:38so we could have a longer discussion
21:40about where these ideas come from,
21:42but by the 1960s,
21:43even a liberal like Lyndon Johnson
21:45is important for coining the
21:47term war on crime and seeing it
21:49linked to the war and poverty,
21:51and also state concessions
21:53to the black movement.
21:54So it doesn't this idea lot order.
21:56It does not start with Richard Nixon,
21:58but Richard Nixon really transforms
22:00this into political gold,
22:01as does Nelson Rockefeller.
22:03And it's used as a way to.
22:05Really peel off the white the
22:07white voters in the Democratic
22:09Party who began to leave once
22:11African Americans are being seated
22:13an incorporated into the party,
22:15so 68 is kind of a high tide or
22:18black power but is also hard banger
22:21of the responses to the 1960s,
22:24both to the Black Power Movement or
22:26the black movement and also the real
22:29anger that's generated in the white
22:31population at seeing African Americans
22:33and others winning new rights.
22:35I think that you can't understand
22:37what's happening with trump
22:38without going back to this period.
22:40It's obviously a formative period for
22:42both Donald Trump and his father,
22:44and in many ways the vision of blonde
22:46order politics that he's using.
22:47It's taken from this playbook
22:49of the late 60s, the 1970s,
22:51and then of course, Ronald Reagan.
22:53So it's in this period that we see the
22:56articulation of a silent majority and
22:59without going into the details of it,
23:01what's important about this is it's
23:04an argument that the country needs to
23:06be taken back, that there has been.
23:09Too many, too many games have been
23:11won by these other populations,
23:13and so it is a major moment of
23:16white revanchism.
23:17And it's this spirit of revanchism
23:19that we see is going on right now.
23:22And so you have these mass mobilization
23:25of these protesters that are multiracial
23:27so the composition of the protesters
23:29is different than in the 1960s.
23:31During the 1960s,
23:32overwhelmingly urban belt rebellions
23:34are African Americans.
23:35By the time you get to the urban
23:38rebellions in Los Angeles in 1992.
23:40This so called Rodney King rebellions.
23:42You do have a more racially mixed,
23:45mainly black and Latino,
23:46but also some white protesters.
23:48But one of the big changes is seeing
23:50large numbers of white participants today.
23:53But what's going on along with the
23:55protests we're seeing today is also,
23:57of course a revanchist counter mobilization,
23:59which is the real base even of
24:02the election of Donald Trump.
24:04So This is why this discussion
24:06about the silent majority and the
24:08idea is that the white population
24:09is becoming marginalized.
24:11That the successes of African Americans,
24:13essentially everything that African
24:15Americans gain is considered
24:17a loss for white people.
24:19So it is this 0 sum vision of any
24:23game for others is a loss for them.
24:26This includes Medicaid,
24:28you services, senior citizens,
24:30and then also the increases in the
24:33rights in criminal defendants.
24:35Um,
24:36so in thinking about what people
24:38are protesting against today,
24:39it is this edifice that emerges
24:41in the last half century,
24:43which is really a war on crime,
24:46an included within that larger umbrella
24:48of the war and Crime is the war on drugs.
24:52So Nelson Rockefeller is important
24:54to this story, as is Richard Nixon.
24:56And it's in this period in the
24:59early 1970s that we begin to see
25:01the take off of mass incarceration.
25:04So that period isation um is important
25:09that it is in the aftermath of.
25:13The African American Freedom Struggle.
25:15The winning of the right to vote,
25:17the dismantling of the system of Jim Crow,
25:20the passage of the Civil Rights Act.
25:22It is in this period after that
25:24we begin to see a shift from the
25:27Democrat to the Republican Party.
25:29Essentially white flight into the
25:31Republican Party and what comes
25:33along with that is this popular
25:35campaigning based on crime.
25:37This is important throughout this
25:39period because as we move away
25:42from explicit invocations of racial
25:44discrimination more and more,
25:47there's a color blind language that
25:50doesn't use the language directly of race,
25:53but offers essentially dog whistle politics.
25:56So crime increasingly becomes
25:58a way to actually talk about
26:01black struggle and black rights,
26:04so this really takes of- starting in 68.
26:07And then throughout the 1970s,
26:09so a generation historians have begun to
26:12write this history of the 20th century,
26:15and to think about this kind of
26:17change and shift an state resources.
26:19And they've called this the Carceral state.
26:22So it's a phrase that's taken from fuko
26:24from his discipline and publish punished.
26:27It's published in 1974,
26:28and it's a way to talk about the
26:31really the kind of shifting use of
26:34resources and how to explain why
26:36the United States ends up with the.
26:38Largest prison system in the world.
26:41The most people that have ever
26:43been incarcerated an essentially a
26:45scale of commitment to punishment.
26:47That is unlike any other country
26:49in the world.
26:50The important thing about this is
26:52that it is so linked to the political
26:55developments so it emerges at the
26:58tail end of the African American
27:00movement in the 1960s and 1970s.
27:03John Ehrlichman.
27:04Um, who worked for Nixon,
27:06talked explicitly about the utilization
27:08of the war on drugs as a way to
27:11respond to political protests,
27:12and essentially what he says is that
27:15you couldn't make it illegal to be black,
27:18and you couldn't make it
27:20illegal to oppose the war.
27:22But what you could do was target
27:25these populations who are seen as
27:27the real agents of change in this society,
27:30and to criminalize drug use.
27:32So in many ways,
27:33the discourse of drugs.
27:35Consumption becomes a very important
27:37tool of political repression.
27:39An airlock man who was interviewed by the
27:42brilliant journalist Dan Baum in the 1990s.
27:45Those 30 years later just
27:47readily admits to this,
27:49that there was a portion of the war on
27:52drugs that was explicitly political,
27:55and it was about targeting
27:57specific populations.
27:58I would also add that one of the major.
28:02Tools that's used by Ronald
28:04Reagan when he runs for governor.
28:06So in many ways,
28:07Ronald Reagan's candidacy for Governor,
28:09Governor of California in the 1960
28:11is an anticipation of what's going to
28:14happen in national politics in 1980,
28:16and he runs on a platform
28:19against beat Nixon rioters.
28:20Those are his words,
28:21and those words are really a way
28:24of creating a cultural war in
28:26which he's making appeal to a white
28:28population against people that
28:30participate in urban rebellions
28:32and people that oppose the war.
28:34What's disturbing about this at
28:36is that it has a kind of echo
28:39not only through the 1980s,
28:41but straight to today.
28:42The majority of union households in
28:45California vote for Ronald Reagan
28:47for governor even though he opposes
28:49unions and things that California
28:51should be a right to work state.
28:54So this kind of demonization of Anti War,
28:57anti Imperial protest and then
28:58black people not only in the sense
29:01of racism against black people
29:03but also against
29:04their political action. And there, um.
29:07Their centrality as fighting for expansion
29:10of rights not only for themselves,
29:13but also for a broader welfare state.
29:16Uhm, for in many ways a more just
29:19an re distributive government.
29:22So they pay a very hard, very high price.
29:25So here you can see the justice statistics
29:28statistics on mass incarceration.
29:31You can see the rising numbers
29:33by 1968 and then really that take
29:36off in between 1982 and 1986 when
29:39Ronald Reagan comes into office.
29:41This piece is important because
29:43although punishment and we'll call it,
29:46racialized incarceration has been
29:48a marker of US history all the
29:51way back to its origins.
29:52It vastly increases in scale in
29:55the 1970s up through really today.
29:57I mean, you see the numbers are
30:00still rising and there's a slight
30:02leveling off only around 2014,
30:04which is the period when we have
30:07the Ferguson protests and some of
30:09the Obama Obama administration
30:11implements criminal justice reforms.
30:13So I want to emphasize this because
30:15I think that the current movement
30:17for black lives is really it is the
30:19protest movement and the organized
30:21political movement to try to fight
30:23this enormous system of punishment
30:25that has come to be one of the
30:27issues that I've had as a historian.
30:29My first book is on the Black Panther Party,
30:32but I'm writing this current book
30:34about crack in the war on drugs,
30:36and one of the things I was really
30:39struck by was the difficulty in
30:41people mounting a resistance to the
30:43war on drugs and the war in gangs
30:45in the 1980s and 1990s.
30:47You had groups of,
30:48especially in places like Los Angeles.
30:50You had former Panthers and black
30:52radicals in a kind of coalition
30:54of people fighting this,
30:56but it was very hard to get
30:58popular attraction,
30:59and one of the things that has
31:01been incredible to see in my own
31:04lifetime is that it takes awhile
31:05for people to figure out exactly
31:08what these systems of violence are.
31:10So what's being rolled out from,
31:12let's say, the late 60s,
31:14early 70s through today?
31:15It has elements to it that are
31:18different than what had come before.
31:20So I think that that's the first major
31:23point that I want to make is that
31:26this is a movement that has found
31:28a language in order to express the
31:31scale of violence against black people.
31:34So it starts with police killings.
31:36But it is also a way to shine a
31:38light on this entire punishment
31:40apparatus that includes harassment.
31:43You know, extraction through fines and fees,
31:45jailing incarceration,
31:46and the regimes of islands that
31:49exist within that so.
31:50The Movement for black lives I think
31:53has created a very powerful lens,
31:55an way to mobilize against this.
31:59Here we have our statistics on
32:01racing incarceration so you can see
32:04the profound differences and it's
32:05in this period that also that is
32:08essentially producing the kinds of
32:10structures that have resulted in
32:12one and for African American men
32:14under some form of Correctional Control
32:16and black women having exponentially higher
32:19rates of incarceration than white women.
32:22One of the really disheartening things
32:24about talking about this is that
32:27it has been a bipartisan project.
32:29So in that sense, even though
32:31African Americans are incorporated
32:32into the Democratic Party,
32:34after six really, after 68,
32:36they really don't fully have
32:38voting power until 1968 and after.
32:40But both Republican and the Democratic
32:42Party have been important to building,
32:44essentially the apparatus of mass
32:46incarceration.
32:47So Ronald Reagan is incredibly
32:49important in this story.
32:50He creates the second war on drugs.
32:53You have the Lyndon Johnson who creates a
32:55law enforcement assistance administration,
32:58but then it's vastly expanded by
33:00Nixon and you have a relationship
33:02really between Ronald Reagan,
33:05George HW Bush and Bill Clinton that.
33:08There is a kind of continuing
33:10escalation of the war on crime plot,
33:13especially through the war on drugs,
33:16but not only that,
33:17through the use of mandatory minimums,
33:20an federal funding for state and municipal,
33:23State, County, and municipal police,
33:25as well as providing funny for
33:27building more jails and more prison.
33:29So the war and Crime is lead
33:32at the executive level.
33:34So the federal government gives away
33:36incredible amounts of money too.
33:38Local jurisdictions,
33:39another important piece of this
33:41is that starting in the 70s.
33:43But really,
33:43I'd say the Clinton administration
33:45is most important.
33:46This we begin to see the dismantling of
33:49what had been the new deal welfare state.
33:51So in the last 50 years,
33:53one of the only ways for local
33:55municipalities to get money is often
33:57through crime prevention money.
33:59So it's a kind of double whammy.
34:01Where in the Reagan era you see the
34:04defunding of the monies that had been
34:06one in the 1960s and the only way
34:09for a locality is really to recoup.
34:11This money is.
34:12Often to participate in federally
34:14funded crime prevention strategies
34:16and essentially carceral policies.
34:18UM Bill Clinton is very important
34:21in this is under Bill Clinton in
34:24the 1990s that we see the single
34:27biggest expansion of the numbers of
34:30people in state and federal prison.
34:33I wanted to show a map of Ronald
34:36Reagan's election in 1984 in
34:38order to really explain the shift
34:41towards this carceral policy.
34:43So in 1984,
34:44Ronald Reagan was elected with every
34:46single state except for Minnesota,
34:48and Minnesota is actually
34:50Walter Mondale's home state,
34:51which is why it is the only blue state.
34:55But it's this wind by Reagan in 1984
34:57that really convinces the Democrats
34:59that they have to out Republican the
35:02Republicans and it's in this period.
35:05They have development.
35:06Of the New Democrats,
35:08which Clinton is a very important one
35:10and really the attempt to steal the
35:13kinds of propaganda and that had been
35:16so successful for the Republican Party
35:18and one of the biggest ones is Jetta.
35:22Saying politicians like Michael
35:23Dukakis that oppose the death penalty,
35:26an embracing this new.
35:28Um,
35:29even more intensified regime
35:31of law and order.
35:33So it's in this moment in this response to
35:37the kinds of victories of Arnold Reagan,
35:41not only his deregulation of.
35:44Really do regulation of businesses his
35:46cutting away of the regulatory state
35:49and you see of course Bill Clinton,
35:51who learns from this an becomes a
35:54New Democrat and not only does he
35:57vastly expand mass incarceration,
35:59he also eliminates the glass Steagall
36:01Act that had been passed during the
36:0419th or 1930s in order to prevent the
36:08kind of crisis that we saw in 2008.
36:10So the kinds of.
36:12Structural violence and institutional
36:14racism that we're seeing the
36:16movements mobilized against today.
36:18This has come from both political
36:20parties and one of the big
36:22questions is what do we do now?
36:25We are all.
36:26Well, I shouldn't say we can't
36:28make assumptions for everyone,
36:30but many of us feel that it is essential to
36:33vote for a Democrat against Donald Trump.
36:37But we are also faced with the
36:39truth from our recent past,
36:41but the Democratic Party has also
36:44supported these incredibly repressive
36:46policies and I think that that is one
36:48of the reasons that we're seeing much
36:50broader and wide set brought widespread
36:52support not only for criminal justice reform,
36:55but also for prison abolition,
36:57which I will be talking about in a minute.
37:00This is just an image from no talk is
37:03complete without an image from Banksy,
37:05the street artist,
37:06but this is.
37:07Hum, I think a really powerful
37:10argument about the 1980s,
37:12both about the use of crack as a
37:15justification for the war on drugs and
37:17linking it to the financial crisis and
37:20deregulation so that combination of
37:23Financialization and and punishment.
37:26So in talking about bipartisan
37:28support for the war on crime,
37:32Joe Biden unfortunately,
37:33is an essential part of this story.
37:36He is the Co sponsor of the Clinton
37:40crime bill that's introduced in 1994,
37:43which vastly expands mandatory minimums.
37:46It actually allows for the death penalty.
37:49It calls for the death penalty
37:52for drug trafficking kingpins
37:54for particular kinds of offenses.
37:57And it is some of the very worst anticrime
38:00legislation that we have ever seen.
38:02Joe Biden introduces his legend,
38:04legislation lobbies for it an he
38:06is quoted as saying at the time
38:09that when we look back in history,
38:12the Democratic Party will look like
38:14J Edgar Hoover and the Republican
38:17Party will look like Abby Hoffman.
38:19So I think that it's worth thinking about
38:22this history given the choices today.
38:24Both were massive grassroots protest and.
38:27It's important,
38:28given the electoral history about
38:31fighting war on crime in this parcel
38:34apparatus that emerges in the last 50 years.
38:38So I wanted to lay that out is kind of
38:41the general structure for thinking about.
38:45What these protest movements
38:47are responding to?
38:48And now I'd actually like to talk about the
38:51protest movements themselves themselves.
38:54This is a beautiful mural of Oscar Grant,
38:57who was a young man from Oakland
39:00who was killed in 2009.
39:02In Fruitvale Station,
39:03by Johannes Messer Lang,
39:05and this is a mural that was
39:07a convened in his memory.
39:09I think that I start my story with
39:12Oscar Grant rather than Trayvon Martin
39:14because one I'm a historian of Oakland,
39:17and so I was intimately aware of
39:19this protest movement before it
39:21received any national media coverage,
39:23and I think that there are
39:25other precedents for this.
39:26There's of course,
39:27organizing against Eleanor Bumpers,
39:29killing in the 1980s there
39:30whole series of police killings.
39:32It take place before 2009.
39:34But I remember witnessing the scale
39:36of mobilization around Oscar Grant,
39:38where you had these new coalitions
39:40being built,
39:41and for the first time that
39:43we're using social media.
39:44First time I became aware of it.
39:47They were using social media in order
39:49to really broadcast and create this
39:52alternative media to talk about OO
39:54brands killing his mother also played
39:56very much like Emmitt Tills Mother,
39:58Mamie till played a really important role in.
40:02Maintaining his memory and
40:05that political work of.
40:09Um,
40:09broadcasting what happened to her son
40:12and working with different groups
40:15of people to mobilize against it so
40:18it's in Oakland that you have this?
40:21This ongoing mobilization of people
40:24sharing through social media that
40:27killing because it was caught
40:29on in cellphone footage and?
40:32Calling for the firing of Johannes Mr.
40:34Lang and also for reparations.
40:36And it was interesting about this
40:38coalition is it brought together
40:40a lot of different people in it.
40:42There were people that I knew that
40:44came from the Panther party that
40:46kind of 1960s generation of radicals.
40:48The nation Islam became involved.
40:50And then you also had the not
40:52for profits and NGOs.
40:54An grassroots organizers who
40:55become important in founding
40:57the black lives matter network.
40:58So it was really the scale
41:00of protest and push back.
41:02And this is the first time that
41:04I saw this kind of model being
41:07used about using a police,
41:09killing and fighting for justice
41:11for the family as a way also to
41:14talk about systemic and structural
41:16violence of police and prisons.
41:18Here we have a picture of Oscar
41:20Grant with his mother and the
41:22family 10 years later.
41:24So I would like to move forward to talk
41:26about the organizing around Trayvon Martin.
41:30Because I think that the formation
41:31of the the black lives matter
41:33network comes out of direct protests
41:35from Trayvon Martin.
41:37and I also want to introduce some groups
41:39that aren't talked about as much,
41:41including the Dream Defenders who got
41:43a lot of coverage at the time when
41:46they held a protest inside the State House.
41:49But they have continued organizing
41:51and remain really important to this
41:53kind of grassroots mobilization.
41:54On February 26, 2012, Trayvon Martin,
41:56a 17 year old boy with a slight build,
41:59an easy smile left his father's fiance
42:01is gated residential community in
42:03Sanford FL to purchase Skittles and
42:05Arizona iced tea from a local 711.
42:07That night,
42:07Martin happened to be wearing a
42:09khaki khaki slacks cuff at the
42:11ankle and a dark hooded sweatshirt,
42:13a deal. A detail that would be entirely
42:16unremarkable were it not for the
42:18meta narratives of brought that were
42:19brought to bear in the months to come.
42:22On the way back from the store.
42:24George Zimmerman.
42:25A 28 year old insurance under writer who
42:27had a history of reporting black boys
42:30as young as Seven to the police began
42:32stocking Martin with a 9 millimeter handgun.
42:34Local authorities.
42:35New Zimmerman.
42:36Well, he had repeatedly called 911
42:37as a self appointed neighborhood Watchman.
42:40He also had a record as a criminal
42:42defendant that included school suspension.
42:44By contrast,
42:44Trayvon Martin had no history of priors,
42:47Zimmerman's own racial status
42:48was somewhat ambiguous.
42:49He identified as Hispanic on census forms.
42:51His mother was born in Peru.
42:53His father was a night.
42:55Was a native born former army Sergeant and
42:57an important piece about this story is,
43:00of course, the Florida stand.
43:01Your ground laws empowered by
43:03Florida stand your ground laws.
43:05Zimmerman had taken it upon
43:06himself to track people he viewed
43:08as potential intruders to the
43:10majority white housing development.
43:11This section of Florida's criminal
43:13statute on the use of deadly force and
43:15home defense states explains quote a
43:17person who is not engaged in unlawful
43:20activity and was attacked in any other
43:22place where he or she has a right to be,
43:25has no duty to retreat.
43:27It has the right to stand his
43:29ground and meet force with force,
43:31including deadly force if she or he
43:33reasonably believes it is necessary to
43:36do so to prevent death or bodily harm.
43:38While Zimmerman never directly
43:40invoked this law in his defense,
43:42his entire case and actions that
43:44evening drew upon it suppositions,
43:47as did the national deluge of racial
43:50violence against black people that bridge
43:52both autonomous vigilante acts like.
43:55Law enforcement and private security firms.
43:57Strikingly,
43:57the stand your ground laws elaborated
43:59an older set of common law doctrine's
44:02known as the Castle doctrine,
44:03but extended them in key ways
44:05beyond the actual president.
44:07Protection of once home to once.
44:09Physical self one's personal properties
44:10such as wallets or automobiles.
44:12As indicated above,
44:13law expanded the right to use
44:15deadly force in quote any other
44:17place where he or she has a right
44:20to be so the stand your ground law.
44:22This is probably history that
44:24many of you know.
44:25They are supported by Alec
44:27and they become essential,
44:29so it's a place where you have this
44:32intersection of vigilant white vigilante
44:34violence with legislative changes that
44:36have been made by organized lobbying.
44:39So the important thing that I would
44:42say about thinking about Trayvon
44:44Martin is that the way that he becomes
44:48a political symbol that people
44:50mobilize around and it is in response
44:53to the killing of Trayvon Martin.
44:56And then the acquittal of Zimmerman
44:58that we see the mobilization of
45:01the black lives matter at network.
45:04Most observers of what has come to
45:06be known as the black lives matter
45:09movement trace its origins back to
45:11Martin's murder, and Zimmerman's acquittal.
45:13in July, 2013, the spontaneous
45:15mobilisation of black youth across the
45:17country needed together through bonds
45:19of social media represented aborning
45:21moment in what civil rights leader
45:23Bernice Regan Johnson has described.
45:26You also had not only the
45:28black lives matter network,
45:29but also the founding of the Florida based
45:32Dream Defenders and Black Youth Project 100.
45:36In a story that has become political legend,
45:39the founders of black lives matter coined
45:41the phrase that journey from hashtag
45:44to political network and ultimately to
45:46an expensive umbrella term for black
45:49youth protest of the early 21st century.
45:51in July 2013, during the
45:53disorienting aftermath of Georgism,
45:55Zimmerman's acquittal,
45:56in which his defense team tried
45:58tried Trayvon Martin posthumously by
46:00accusing him of drug use and thuggery,
46:03Alicia Garza posted a powerful
46:05impromptu commentary on Facebook.
46:06Quote, the sad part is,
46:08there's a section of America who is
46:10cheering and celebrating right now
46:12and that makes me sick to my stomach.
46:14We gotta get it together, y'all.
46:17She continued on to saying quote,
46:19stop saying, we're not surprised.
46:21That's a damn shame.
46:22I continue to be surprised at how little
46:25black lives matter and I will continue that.
46:28Stop giving up on life.
46:30Garza concluded.
46:31Black people. I love you.
46:33I love us.
46:34Our lives matter.
46:35Fellow Los Angeles organizer
46:37Patrice colors recognize the
46:38transcendent phrasing and shorten
46:40Garzas Post into a Twitter hashtag.
46:42Black lives matter soon.
46:44Garza and colors reach out to Opal Tometi.
46:47Who set up Twitter and Tumblr
46:49accounts under the new phrase we use?
46:52Who's use steadily grew over the next year,
46:55is peeking in the aftermath
46:56of Ferguson St protests,
46:58while the collaborative hashtag activism
47:00of black lives matter quickly went viral,
47:02it mattered that Garza colors until
47:04Medi all had extensive experience
47:06in the world of progressive,
47:08not for profits and substantial
47:10social media followings.
47:11And 2012 Garza worked as executive
47:13director of people organized
47:15to win employment rights power
47:17before assuming a position.
47:18As the project coordinator for the
47:20Oakland Office of the national
47:22domestic workers alliance,
47:23patrisse colors headed up dignity and power.
47:25Now a small not for profit group that
47:28advocated reform of Los Angeles Sheriff's
47:30Department and Opal Tometi Services,
47:32executive director of Black
47:34Alliance for adjust immigration.
47:35In 2014,
47:36two years after the founding
47:38of the black lives matter,
47:40hashtag Alicia Garza describe the
47:42political vision of the organization.
47:43Quote Black lives matter is a unique
47:46contribution that goes beyond extradition.
47:48Extrajudicial killings of black
47:49people by police and vigilantes.
47:51It goes beyond the narrow
47:53nationalism that can be prevalent.
47:55Looked in some black communities
47:57which merely calling black
47:58people to love black live black.
48:00And by black keeping straight
48:02sis black men in the front of
48:04the movement while our sisters.
48:06We're in trans and disabled folk take up
48:09roles in the background or not at all.
48:12Black lives matter affirms the lives
48:14of black, Queer and trans folks.
48:16Disabled folks.
48:16Black undocumented folks folks with records,
48:18women an All Black lives
48:20along the gender spectrum.
48:21If centers, those that have been marginalized
48:24within Black Liberation Movements,
48:25it is a tactic to rebuild the
48:28Black Liberation Movement.
48:29So this is part of the black
48:32lives matter per story.
48:34Uhm, let doctor Hanson was
48:36referring to so there was,
48:38it's incredibly important that this
48:41movement really came out of a female
48:44where feminist lens And it it was.
48:47I'd say there are many different kinds
48:49of protests going on around the country,
48:52but it is around this network of
48:54experience organizers that we really have
48:56almost the invention of a new way to
48:58understand and make visible struggles,
49:00and it had been taken for granted,
49:02and I think that that's one of the
49:04most important insights that the
49:06killing of black people by police is
49:08so common that it had become taken
49:10for granted and the question was
49:12how do you get people to no longer
49:14assume that this will happen and to
49:16shine a light on it and to mobilize?
49:19Anger and my argument would be
49:20that it's actually the combination
49:22of organizing and the development
49:24of this new lens.
49:25This is the only way to
49:27understand these master billions.
49:29Now these had an incredible
49:30impact on the whole generation of
49:32young people and organizers,
49:33but also the people behind them who are
49:36participating now in the urban rebellions.
49:39So this imagery.
49:40This is where my book title comes from,
49:43and it was very common in 2000 between 2012,
49:47but especially like 2014 to 2016 to see
49:50people using the slogan Asada taught me,
49:53and Asada is a Black Panther and member,
49:56the Black Liberation Army.
49:57She was a rank and file Panther
50:00Black Panther who came from the
50:02New York area with family who
50:05originally from the Carolinas.
50:07What's striking about this is just
50:09the continuity of historical memory.
50:11That the invocation of Assata
50:13Shakur as a New York Panther that
50:16she's the one who will shape the
50:19imagination of this movement.
50:21The reason that I think that
50:23she was so important is that she
50:25was a political prisoner who had
50:28five separate trials who had been
50:30incarcerated in the late 70s,
50:33was broken out of prison in 1984,
50:35became a fugitive,
50:37and currently lives in Cuba.
50:39So she became really important
50:41as an example of.
50:42Huge activity and literal Black
50:44Liberation and it is the idea of Asada.
50:47And also her words that is used in
50:49many of the different organizations
50:51that I mentioned in the black
50:53lives matter network and BYP.
50:55100 the Dream Defenders.
50:56So this is an example of the continuity
50:59from the late 1960s through today,
51:01not through the leaders and founders of the
51:03two men who started the Black Panther Party,
51:06but actually through a rank and file
51:09party member from the New York chapter.
51:12A big part of I think,
51:15how come this network was able to
51:18mobilize large numbers of people was
51:20to talk about the killings of black
51:23children and to place this killing
51:26of Trayvon Martin within a longer
51:29history against all black people,
51:31but also against black children.
51:35The combination I would say of this network
51:38really takes place in Ferguson and 2014,
51:41so these are some famous images that
51:43come from the use of military hardware.
51:47So we see the use of Kevlar of tanks
51:50of CS gas and you know this image,
51:53essentially of the American War machine
51:56being turned in on its own people.
52:01Again, this image of seeing the
52:04most vulnerable of children and
52:07others and everyone subjected to
52:11this became incredibly important.
52:13Um, in terms of talking about the
52:17militarization of police that use
52:19of military Sir plus and also the
52:22training of the police in military
52:25techniques and the recruitment of
52:28ex military into the police was an
52:31essential part of this movement. It.
52:34Ferguson was the moment that brought all
52:37of these different groups and networks
52:40forged as far back as Oscar Grant,
52:44but really vastly accelerating
52:45under Trayvon Martin.
52:46and I went to Ferguson during this period
52:50to observe to participate and to document.
52:53And.
52:55All of the people who became active in the
52:58subsequent movement were all in Ferguson,
53:00so it became a convening point.
53:02It also became very important for
53:04the black lives matter, networked,
53:05because up until that point you
53:07had the individual organizers.
53:09You know two in California,
53:10one in New York who are working
53:13for their own,
53:14not for profits,
53:15but it's when it's with the convergence
53:17on Ferguson that we actually see the
53:19development not only of having a hashtag,
53:21but having direct organizing.
53:23So Alicia Garza,
53:24Patrice Cullors, Opal Tometi,
53:25and others they.
53:26Organized freedom rides so that what they
53:28did is from their own individual locations.
53:31They set up bus ride so people could
53:33come from all over the country into
53:36Ferguson and This is why you saw this scale.
53:39Invisibility of protest an important
53:41thing to note about this is that the
53:43Ferguson protest went on for years,
53:45so you have this period that's in
53:47August and then later with Ferguson
53:49October where you see lots of outsiders
53:52coming in and and participating.
53:54But it's important to note and
53:55this is one of the ways that the
53:58urban rebellions are different
53:59from the national campaigns.
54:01The people that really maintained and
54:03staff these protests every day there
54:06were protests in front of the police
54:08station in Ferguson in the place
54:10where Michael Brown had been killed,
54:12but this was.
54:13Literally,
54:14you had networks of protesters from
54:16the local area who came every day
54:18that created their own transportation
54:20where they would pick each other up
54:22and people would protest the police.
54:24You know, 20 hours a day,
54:26so it's that on the ground.
54:28Grassroots organizing that has always
54:30been core to these to this movement.
54:32Um,
54:33another important thing about that was,
54:35I thought was really important
54:36for Ferguson when I was there.
54:38I was really struck by how many
54:41people were formerly incarcerated.
54:43And part of the way the carceral
54:45state in this parser regime worked
54:47was to instill people with shame
54:49about having been incarcerated.
54:51An these protests provided an
54:53opportunity for people to come out
54:56and talk about what the experience of
54:58prison was like and to really view it
55:01as something not that was inherently,
55:03um, about their mistakes.
55:04But to think about the.
55:07Extraction of fees and fines,
55:09the criminalization.
55:09So the protest themselves became
55:11a way for
55:12people to think more broadly about
55:15how their experience intersected
55:16with that of Michael Brown and
55:18other people killed by the police.
55:20So those protests themselves became really,
55:22really important incubators for
55:23a new generation of activists.
55:25One of the things that I'm thrilled by
55:28to see is that we're only six years
55:30later and from the things that I've seen
55:33of the current contemporary protests,
55:35we're seeing a similar dynamic, so we have.
55:38A generation of people,
55:40in this case a generation,
55:41is only six years,
55:43but you know a generation in
55:44the sense of this foundational
55:46moment of the Ferguson protests.
55:49Also, of course,
55:50in Baltimore and Charlotte,
55:51really, really important,
55:52and then the core organizing going on
55:55in places like Chicago and Florida.
55:57How long can you tell me how
55:58much time I have left?
56:03Sorry, took me awhile to unmute.
56:07So this this is so important that we were
56:10about 9 minutes over what we estimated,
56:13but I want you to take the time you
56:16need to wrap up. OK, thank you.
56:18I just wanted to show you these
56:21images because they're so important.
56:23You know one of the things that happened
56:25in Ferguson was collective punishment
56:27and what this is is this is the complex.
56:30It's called Canfield Green where
56:32Michael Brown lived and the thing
56:35about Canfield Green is that it
56:37is actually it was actually.
56:38My beautiful it was covered in
56:40this like gorgeous tree cover,
56:42you know, Saint Louis is just like
56:44rich and green and lush.
56:45No, it's right on the Mississippi
56:47River and one of the things that
56:49the police did is they came in and
56:52they cut down all of the trees
56:54ostensibly to allow the helicopters
56:55were flying over to be able to see
56:58into peoples houses for weapons.
56:59But I just wanted to show you those
57:02images because the scale of violence
57:04that was directed at Ferguson an longer
57:06term is really a very painful piece of this.
57:09History here I have a picture of
57:11the black lives matter her story,
57:13so obviously Alicia Garza or to
57:15the left Opal Tometi in the center
57:18and then Patrice colors.
57:20This is a another mural.
57:22Their series of powerful murals that
57:24have been painted about Assata Shakur.
57:27This one is actually in the Sandberg
57:30Fernando Valley in Los Angeles.
57:32An Asada remains this living symbol
57:34that is essential to the movement.
57:37So the poem that I mentioned there's
57:39a poem that USADA publishes its end.
57:43I think the late 1980s,
57:45and it is essentially incantation that
57:47is used to open the movement for black.
57:50Lives and it is.
57:52It is our duty to fight for freedom.
57:54It is our duty to win.
57:56We have nothing to lose but our chains.
57:59We must love and protect one another.
58:03And I wanted to show you this image
58:05from Ferguson and what's striking
58:07about this is that there was a self
58:09consciousness also about that history.
58:12Anna memory about the sanitation
58:13workers strike in Memphis.
58:15This was a very common site in many
58:17of the protests and people are
58:19speaking directly to this question
58:21of what is the role of women?
58:23Not only what is the role of
58:25women in leading the movement,
58:27but also inserting as Kimberly Crenshaw
58:29has in her say her name campaign
58:32about the killings of black women.
58:34An indigenous women,
58:35as also being important to mobilize
58:38around so one of the single most important
58:41things about the movement in I'd say 2012.
58:44Maybe through the election of Trump,
58:46was the strengthen the power
58:48of the Queer feminist lens,
58:50and I think that it is in dialogue.
58:53In many ways.
58:54Rhymes with the 1960s,
58:56but this is a difference.
58:58You always have large numbers of women
59:00participating in the organizations,
59:02both civil rights and black
59:04power organizations.
59:05But women were not always
59:07the upfront leadership,
59:08whereas one of the really exciting
59:11things about the movement for black
59:14lives is it's Queer feminist lens.
59:16This is an image from a Ferguson protester,
59:19now long-term organizer,
59:20but
59:20I wanted to show you this image because
59:23in some ways this is the beauty and
59:26the contradictions of this moment.
59:27So if you'll notice, she has a list of
59:30all of the people that have been killed
59:33by the police and they're all men,
59:36and one of the interesting things
59:38to see was the kind of evolution of
59:40how people began to understand this,
59:43where you have a protest movement,
59:45largely staffed and run by women.
59:47But yet still dealing with that
59:49question about why the killings
59:50of women don't receive the same
59:53attention as the killings of men.
59:55And that is why I opened an also
59:57nonbinary people like Tony Mcdade.
59:59So that's also why I opened
01:00:01first with an image of Rihanna,
01:00:03Taylor and then with an image of
01:00:05George Floyd so that we're thinking
01:00:07about how people mobilize with
01:00:09these killings are taking place,
01:00:10but it still remains an open question why
01:00:13we haven't seen the same mobilization
01:00:15around women's killings as men,
01:00:17especially since this is a movement.
01:00:19That has so much been led and and
01:00:21really the kind of intellectual work
01:00:24of the movement has been done by women,
01:00:27many of them clear women.
01:00:29Here we have a another image of Asada.
01:00:32This is a beautiful mural from Detroit
01:00:34that is actually inside a building.
01:00:37So the animating spirit of Assad
01:00:39is incredibly important.
01:00:40I want to call people's attention to
01:00:43this document that was produced in 2017,
01:00:45and I think this is a kind of Central
01:00:48Clearinghouse for the convergence
01:00:50between the idea of prison abolition.
01:00:52So not only fighting for a
01:00:54criminal justice reform,
01:00:56the kind that we saw in the first step act,
01:00:59but. Asking core questions.
01:01:01What is the function of a police force?
01:01:04Why do we need a police force?
01:01:07Why are police forces taking on
01:01:09work that would be much better
01:01:11done by social workers and by?
01:01:13By the state providing people with
01:01:16the resources they need to live so
01:01:19that the vision for black lives is
01:01:23released in 2017 and it is a an amazing
01:01:27clearinghouse of hundreds of pages of policy,
01:01:31prescriptions of organizing techniques,
01:01:33drafts of legislation to center
01:01:35around ending the war on black people,
01:01:39and also thinking of strategies of defunding
01:01:42the carceral apparatus of the state.
01:01:45And then reinvesting in community.
01:01:47So it's not only the ending of the punitive,
01:01:50but it is also about ways to think
01:01:53about providing communities with
01:01:54the resources that they need.
01:01:59And I just wanted to end with
01:02:01this image of Brianna Taylor too,
01:02:04so that we hold her in the same frame.
01:02:07Is George Floyd and also make sure that
01:02:11the killings of all black and indigenous
01:02:13people that we think of both women,
01:02:16men and gender non Binary people.
01:02:19And I would like to conclude just by
01:02:22talking about where do we go from here.
01:02:25So the first is the question
01:02:27of 2020 versus 2014,
01:02:29and this explains also the title of my talk.
01:02:33Um? I think one of the big differences
01:02:37with 2014 is that there are several.
01:02:39The first is that because of
01:02:41the sheltering in place orders,
01:02:42the composition of the protest is
01:02:44very different than it was in 2014.
01:02:46That protesters tend to be much younger.
01:02:49And I know there were many people,
01:02:52myself included.
01:02:52In many people I know that were
01:02:55involved not only in our local protest
01:02:57that actually went to major places
01:02:59of protest to support into document.
01:03:01Much of this was made impossible by COVID-19,
01:03:04so I think that the actual the
01:03:06sheltering in place has affected
01:03:07the demographics of the protests.
01:03:09That's the first thing the second thing is.
01:03:12The structural disparity and health outcomes,
01:03:14I think,
01:03:15is a major driving piece of these protests.
01:03:17So in some cases it's being directly
01:03:20addressed. In many cases it isn't.
01:03:22But the scale of pain and and.
01:03:27Um,
01:03:27the scale of suffering that made people
01:03:30in the middle of a pandemic go out to
01:03:34protest another pandemic of state violence.
01:03:37So I want to underline that because I think
01:03:40that there are enormous opportunities to
01:03:43think about how to talk about health.
01:03:46An state violence in new ways,
01:03:49and I think that the display the
01:03:52disparate outcomes with two to
01:03:54three times the death rates among
01:03:57African Americans and Latinos.
01:03:59Both because of structural health disparities
01:04:00but also their role is essential workers.
01:04:02So these poor economics about who gets to
01:04:05who has to go to work and who has to go,
01:04:08who has who can stay home so you have court
01:04:11coercive measures that were put in place,
01:04:13particularly in the Republican
01:04:15states that opened up early.
01:04:16That essentially by opening up,
01:04:18they made it possible for whole swathes of
01:04:20workers not receive unemployment insurance,
01:04:22so that was its own form of
01:04:24of compelling people to work,
01:04:25so I would love to.
01:04:27I'm very excited to hear the Discussants.
01:04:29Discussion I saw there going to
01:04:31talk also about the kind of protest
01:04:32that you saw at Yale,
01:04:34but that question of where does public
01:04:35health disparity fit into this mobilization?
01:04:37It's really important that it needs
01:04:39analysis and it is different than 2014.
01:04:41The second thing is claims on the state.
01:04:43One of the real problems we have right now,
01:04:46certainly with Donald Trump in
01:04:48the White House.
01:04:49But this will also be an issue if
01:04:51we elect Joe Biden as a Democrat
01:04:53is how do we make real claims on
01:04:56the state two at a time when
01:04:58the American economy is so precarious?
01:05:00Arguably we are more precarious than
01:05:02the aftermath of 2008 were in the worst
01:05:04financial shape since the Great Depression.
01:05:07Um, how do we make claims on the state?
01:05:09The federal government, in many ways,
01:05:11is completely left out.
01:05:12Not only have covid planning,
01:05:14but the utter in permeability of the
01:05:16federal government because one of the
01:05:18big successes of the 1960s that is too
01:05:20little talked about is that it wrong?
01:05:22These major concessions from the state?
01:05:25Um and I'd say.
01:05:27The final point is thinking
01:05:29about prison abolition,
01:05:31defunding the police.
01:05:32So when I talked about
01:05:34that moment in the 1990s,
01:05:35where will our Bill Clinton and
01:05:38Hillary Clinton or appropriating the
01:05:40strategies of the Republican Party
01:05:42is also out of this period that
01:05:44we see the real birth and growth
01:05:46of the prison abolition movement?
01:05:48So, Ruthie Gilmore holds a conference
01:05:50at UC Berkeley in 1998 and Angela
01:05:53Davis and a series of largely
01:05:55women in Northern California and
01:05:57other parts of the country.
01:05:59Really started a dialogue that was going
01:06:00to launch the prison abolition movement.
01:06:03Its roots go back to Angela Davis.
01:06:05Is writing about abolition in the
01:06:06early 70s and there is a larger
01:06:09Queer feminist history that needs
01:06:10to be written in the earlier period,
01:06:12but certainly the 1990s or the explicit
01:06:14founding of critical resistance.
01:06:16One of the most exciting things
01:06:17about this moment is that we are now
01:06:20talking about abolitionist strategies.
01:06:21Even in the corporate media,
01:06:23so the power in the success of
01:06:24this movement has been remarkable,
01:06:26and I think to understand it,
01:06:28we have to trace it back.
01:06:30Going at least to the 1990s with the
01:06:32development prison abolition but also
01:06:34the beginning of these campaigns,
01:06:36and 2009 with Oscar Grant.
01:06:37Thank you.
01:06:40Thank you so much, professor
01:06:42merch that was amazing and thought
01:06:45provoking and just really really fantastic.
01:06:48I will now introduce our two discussants,
01:06:51who will speak each for about 10 minutes
01:06:54and then we'll have opportunities
01:06:56to hear your questions for
01:06:58the remainder of the event.
01:07:01and I realized we are a little
01:07:04bit off schedule, which is fine.
01:07:06We can stay on a little
01:07:09bit after 8:00 o'clock.
01:07:11For your questions,
01:07:12so our first discussant
01:07:14is Joanna and Yoohoos,
01:07:15a fourth year Yale medical student.
01:07:18She is the former Co
01:07:20president of SM ES, an MSA
01:07:22to student organizations, and she
01:07:24was a student organizer with next
01:07:27Yale. In 2015, and
01:07:29she's going to tell you more about all
01:07:32of that work are second discussant.
01:07:34Will be Nick Doctor Neon,
01:07:36Tara Anderson, who graduated from
01:07:38Yale School of Medicine this may.
01:07:40She's currently an intern in the
01:07:42Yale Department, psychiatry.
01:07:43She's a co-founder of next. Why SM?
01:07:46The Co leader of the history health
01:07:48in Humanities Working Group and Co.
01:07:50Founder and executive committee member
01:07:52of rebellious psychiatry,
01:07:53also known as reps Ike.
01:07:55So again, please use the question and
01:07:57answer function to pose your questions.
01:08:00And we will get back to you
01:08:02after these two have spoken.
01:08:04So thank you so much.
01:08:07Hello can anyone hear me OK?
01:08:15OK, I'm just trying to turn on my video.
01:08:20OK, perfect. OK hi everyone,
01:08:26uhm I First off want to say thank you
01:08:28to Anna for that wonderful introduction
01:08:31and thank you to Professor Merge for
01:08:34such a thorough and thoughtful timeline.
01:08:36About again kind of evolution of the
01:08:38movement of black lives and how in
01:08:41some ways it's more of a deja vu.
01:08:44And it's more of an evolution
01:08:46of what has been going on.
01:08:48So it's been beautiful to see that.
01:08:50and I love the historical perspective
01:08:52at the medical historian as well.
01:08:54But I've been invited to do.
01:08:56Today is introduced and kind of
01:08:58share a little bit of my experience
01:09:01as a young medical student,
01:09:03but also in the llama VL college,
01:09:05particularly during the major
01:09:06protests of November of 2015,
01:09:08and I had a few points from Professor
01:09:11Merch is talk that I wanted to speak
01:09:13to in terms of my experience with
01:09:16student activism with the organizing
01:09:18an evolving as there's been a growing
01:09:20list of names and how even for myself.
01:09:23I remember where I was
01:09:25when I first learned about Trayvon Martin.
01:09:27Who was born in the same year as
01:09:30me was in the same grade as me
01:09:33and how my sense of activism has
01:09:36evolved as I've become more entwined
01:09:38with educational institutions.
01:09:39So I guess the main three points
01:09:41that I want to touch on our again.
01:09:44What professor merge mentioned as
01:09:46questioning structures of power
01:09:48and how particularly in the 60s,
01:09:50to particularly with the rise of
01:09:52Civil Rights Act and this kind of
01:09:552nd reconstruction in this almost
01:09:56trying to reclaim the right.
01:09:58That had that were never instilled
01:10:01among the black population.
01:10:02Well after the Civil War,
01:10:04and I also want to talk and turn.
01:10:08My second point is this idea
01:10:10of visibility in this idea of
01:10:12minority groups or one silence
01:10:14group becoming more visible in the
01:10:17state of activism and talking?
01:10:19Advocating for the rights?
01:10:21And the Third Point,
01:10:22I want to mention is the incubation
01:10:25for new protesters in this timeline,
01:10:28particularly in the 2000s.
01:10:29Up until now,
01:10:30so I'm going to share my screen
01:10:32'cause I have a few pictures that
01:10:34I want to show. OK, and can everyone see that
01:10:39OK? Is that good? OK, great.
01:10:41So um, like many things that begin,
01:10:44I wanted to show this picture from the 60s.
01:10:47Just do this right here.
01:10:49So this is an image actually from
01:10:52San Francisco State College in 1968
01:10:54and it was a large movement of
01:10:57protest that it happened among the
01:10:59largest cohort of minority students
01:11:02that were accepted at the time,
01:11:04which was a predominantly
01:11:05white institution and.
01:11:07Um, largely influenced by the Black
01:11:09Panthers as well as activists such
01:11:11as Stokely Carmichael Carmichael.
01:11:13There were students who saw
01:11:15it fit to protests.
01:11:16Both the eurocentric curriculum on campus,
01:11:18the lack of Black Studies,
01:11:20as well as lack of diversity,
01:11:23and so in terms of talking about
01:11:25the presidents of student activism,
01:11:27I wanted to show this image as well as
01:11:31another image to show how I think a
01:11:34lot of students who have progressed in
01:11:36terms of organizing at institutional.
01:11:38Institutional spaces use these pictures
01:11:41and use these experiences as jumping
01:11:44off point and asks for inspiration.
01:11:47This is another image.
01:11:48This is actually a Pulitzer Prize
01:11:51winning photo and was students or
01:11:53Cornell who had taken over in Willard
01:11:55straight Hall at Cornell University.
01:11:57And this was actually 36 hour
01:11:59takeover on students in 1969
01:12:01were again protesting racism,
01:12:03protesting inadequacy's other
01:12:04institutions in demanding change
01:12:06in a way that they saw fit.
01:12:08Given the rise of all the turmoil
01:12:10in the 60s and again,
01:12:12this was more so for the establishment
01:12:15of Black Studies program.
01:12:16'cause much of this time there was a Co
01:12:20Board of minority students who are made.
01:12:22But not necessarily the infrastructure
01:12:24for students who wanted to
01:12:26learn about their history.
01:12:27Learn about,
01:12:28learn about their place
01:12:29in terms of these institutions.
01:12:32So I wanted to show just a few these
01:12:35news clippings because as we talk,
01:12:38I think a big part in the
01:12:40movement back black lives now.
01:12:42It's been centering on the
01:12:44naming of spaces and statues,
01:12:46and I think a lot of the protests
01:12:48that happened in 2015 touched it,
01:12:51started to touch and skim a
01:12:53lot of these different issues,
01:12:55particularly with Calvin College,
01:12:56so Calvin College.
01:12:57It was a former residential
01:12:59college on Yale University.
01:13:01It was erected in 1930.
01:13:02A man was named after John C.
01:13:05Calhoun was who was the vice president
01:13:08during John Quincy Adams and he
01:13:10was an avid proponent of slavery.
01:13:13He protested it and or, sorry,
01:13:15he advocated for it on the
01:13:17Congress numerous times,
01:13:19and this college had been built
01:13:21in 1930s and was named after him,
01:13:24and there have been waves of protests
01:13:27or expression of student dissent
01:13:29as to how why was problematic
01:13:31to have a college named after.
01:13:33A white supremacist,
01:13:35but it wasn't until 2015 and a
01:13:37series of serendipitous events that
01:13:39caused this to become something on
01:13:42the national stage and something
01:13:44that was worth debating and so just
01:13:47looking at this skim of newspapers,
01:13:49there were a few catalytic events
01:13:52that had put the issue of John C.
01:13:55Calhoun as well as other issues
01:13:57to the forefront at Yale as well
01:14:00as well as other universities.
01:14:02So there was the.
01:14:03Hum issue of free speech as well as a
01:14:07controversy around Halloween costumes,
01:14:09particularly in an email that was sent
01:14:12by the Inter Cultural Affairs Committee.
01:14:14Just advocating for students to consider
01:14:17the costumes you may wear before you
01:14:20set off on your Halloween festivities,
01:14:22questioning if it might be offensive.
01:14:25Maybe reconsider wearing it in response.
01:14:27Then, assistant master of Stillman College,
01:14:30my residential college airport kostakis.
01:14:32At the time he was a professor.
01:14:35Affiliated with the yellow
01:14:37child study center.
01:14:39Had sent email response.
01:14:41Questioning the bounds for that email,
01:14:44questioning whether students should need that
01:14:47type of censorship and just in a short quote,
01:14:51she said.
01:14:52Nicholas,
01:14:52her husband,
01:14:53who was the Master College of
01:14:55Master Salman College,
01:14:56says if you don't like a cost
01:14:58and someone is wearing look away
01:15:00or tell them You are offended.
01:15:03Talk to each other.
01:15:04Free speech in the ability to
01:15:06tolerate offense are the hallmarks
01:15:08of a free and open society,
01:15:10so the discussion around.
01:15:12Um,
01:15:12considering if your Halloween
01:15:13costume might be offensive,
01:15:15transition to more of a free speech debate
01:15:17and the idea of the right to be offensive,
01:15:21to be provocative and.
01:15:22At what, at what cost?
01:15:24Uhm,
01:15:24or I guess what space does
01:15:27that have on a college campus?
01:15:29So that was an entirely other
01:15:31conversation that was happening.
01:15:33And then at the same time there was
01:15:36an article that had been published
01:15:38in the Washington Post about student
01:15:41approaching a Yale fraternity and
01:15:43being told that the party was only
01:15:45permitted to white girls only.
01:15:47And so this had kind of been
01:15:49catapulted to the
01:15:50national stage and overall just
01:15:52inside the idea that there were
01:15:55racial tensions that there were.
01:15:57That there were issues in conversations
01:15:59of race at Yale and many people kind of
01:16:02wider Birds Eye view as to what were the
01:16:05inciting vents and why was this happening.
01:16:07So again, these are various newspaper
01:16:10clippings that were going on at the time,
01:16:12but it was very catalytic in that way
01:16:15and Meanwhile there was a critical
01:16:17critical group of students who would
01:16:19then be known as next Yale and started to
01:16:22create a list of demands and started to
01:16:25corroborate their own stories of racism of.
01:16:27Prejudice that at a predominantly
01:16:29white institution they hadn't
01:16:31necessarily had the space to describe,
01:16:34and at this time with all these events,
01:16:37minority students,
01:16:38low income students,
01:16:40indigenous students started to realize that
01:16:42their experiences were not a coincidence,
01:16:45their experiences.
01:16:46Uh, we're not something to be ignored,
01:16:49but were rather representation of
01:16:51how institutions such as Yale play
01:16:54a part in dismantling or upholding
01:16:56structures of anti blackness and racism.
01:16:59So a lot of that had culminated
01:17:01into the March of resilience that
01:17:03it happened in November.
01:17:05And as you can see again
01:17:07professor merchant mentioned two,
01:17:08there were a lot of young students.
01:17:10All our young people,
01:17:12a lot of students,
01:17:13and this was very serendipitous at the time.
01:17:16You know,
01:17:17in the age of social media we had
01:17:20been meeting offline.
01:17:22We'd be meeting in classrooms.
01:17:24We were communicating through email chats,
01:17:26and it was all towards the efforts of trying
01:17:30to create a coherent voice as to what are.
01:17:34What we saw is inadequate
01:17:36seas of the University.
01:17:37What we saw as an institution that
01:17:40boasts of inclusion both of diversity
01:17:43but still still housed both structural,
01:17:45implicit and explicit.
01:17:48Forms of hostility or uhm?
01:17:52Yes,
01:17:52I want to say uncomfortable iti so
01:17:54it was amazing to see this group of
01:17:57students that were able to gather around.
01:18:00And again there was a lot of serendipity
01:18:02with it and this is one of the main
01:18:05images on cross campus that it happened.
01:18:08And next,
01:18:09Yale had crafted again morva,
01:18:11a rough list of demands.
01:18:13But one of the main ones was
01:18:16the establishment or trying
01:18:17to establish ethnic studies,
01:18:20which was now,
01:18:21which was known as ethnicity race
01:18:23in migration as a distribution
01:18:25requirement for all students.
01:18:27I'm trying to allow more mental health care
01:18:31professionals on particularly that were,
01:18:33well,
01:18:33act two issues of being a minority student,
01:18:37predominantly white institution another.
01:18:39Demand was increasing the annual
01:18:41budget of each Cultural Center,
01:18:43which prior to these protests had
01:18:45nearly been consolidated as a type
01:18:47of multicultural center over the
01:18:49argument that there somehow wasn't
01:18:51a need for these spaces anymore,
01:18:53and I think one of the fourth demands
01:18:57that cause a lot of attention,
01:18:59was renaming of Calhoun College,
01:19:01which again had been protested in the 80s,
01:19:04having protested in the 60s.
01:19:06But you always seem to be washed away.
01:19:09And at that time there were two new
01:19:12residential colleges that were meant to be
01:19:14erected and the demand was to have those
01:19:17to meaning by people of color as well.
01:19:19#5 include the removal of Nicholas and
01:19:23Erika Christakis from Solomon College,
01:19:25who at the time had poorly managed the head.
01:19:30Poorly managed, the aftermath of.
01:19:33Conversations of free speech and
01:19:35kind of the compilation with the
01:19:37issues had been going on on campus,
01:19:40so an at that point many students had
01:19:42felt uncomfortable and then number
01:19:44six was the allocation of resources
01:19:46overall to support people of color first
01:19:49generation in low income and I just want
01:19:52to just highlight #6 because I think as
01:19:55we talk about the movement black lives,
01:19:57especially when it comes
01:19:59to defending the police.
01:20:00I think that language is evolving
01:20:02in the sense of.
01:20:04Trying to look for a sense of equity.
01:20:07Trying to again reallocate resources
01:20:10that are meant to.
01:20:12They're meant to nourish,
01:20:14historically under represented out of cast
01:20:17aside groups and trying to reallocate
01:20:20those resources in the effect of equity.
01:20:23And I just wanted to show a
01:20:26couple more images.
01:20:30And at that
01:20:32time I wasn't undergraduate,
01:20:34but the medical students that also
01:20:37coalesced and had protest related
01:20:40to white quotes for black lives,
01:20:43again more in solidarity,
01:20:45but also creating representation.
01:20:49And so overall, I just
01:20:51want to kind of highlight the wider effects
01:20:54of these movements as well as what had been
01:20:57going on a national scale at the time.
01:21:00There were also protests at Princeton who
01:21:02had been notably protesting against on the
01:21:05Woodrow Wilson School of public policy,
01:21:07which in the news was just recently
01:21:09decided to be renamed by Princeton.
01:21:12But at the time students were protesting
01:21:14again the races origins of Woodrow
01:21:17Wilson at Princeton and kind of
01:21:19demand for change that many students
01:21:21had been asking for in the past.
01:21:24In addition, there were protests
01:21:26at the University of Missouri,
01:21:28notably, the football team had gone
01:21:30on a hunger strike, again,
01:21:32joining largely in solidarity
01:21:34of just the races.
01:21:36Events that happened on
01:21:37their campus in particular,
01:21:39Meanwhile being wild by the
01:21:41by this time in November,
01:21:43there were at least 21 college
01:21:45institutions that it cracked it.
01:21:47A list of demands that were presented
01:21:50to their college presidents and
01:21:52other administrative faculty so.
01:21:54This had become kind of widespread,
01:21:56and I think again looking at this as
01:21:59a little over a year at the Ferguson
01:22:02protest and the evolution of looking at
01:22:05police brutality student organizing.
01:22:07I think a lot of this was catalytic
01:22:09in some sense and almost happened
01:22:11in sequence and then looking at
01:22:14Yale in particular,
01:22:15Calhoun College was renamed.
01:22:17At first it was decided
01:22:19for the name to be kept,
01:22:21but about two years from these protests,
01:22:24college was named after Grace Hopper.
01:22:26Who received her pH DI believe
01:22:28in mathematics from Yale and then
01:22:31one of the new colleges was named
01:22:33after Polly Murray,
01:22:34who was a graduate of Yale Law
01:22:37School and a queer black civil
01:22:39rights activist as well as a lawyer.
01:22:42And then in terms of just a few
01:22:44other institutional changes,
01:22:46there was a Yale Center for study
01:22:48of racing engine, indigeneity,
01:22:50and transnational migration,
01:22:51which was just an interdisciplinary
01:22:53Research Center that was that
01:22:55funding funding was allocated.
01:22:56Or but in terms of it ethnic
01:23:00studies distribution requirement
01:23:01that was not billed as well as
01:23:04elevated departmental status so.
01:23:06A lot of times we saw after these protests,
01:23:10too much of the progress was
01:23:12incremental an at times having a
01:23:14public I having having national
01:23:17newspapers having national attention.
01:23:19I think put a lot of pressure on the
01:23:22institution to realize that you know,
01:23:25as in as a national institution,
01:23:27they are or they were showing some type
01:23:30of example example to other institutions.
01:23:33Example to the government example too.
01:23:36Just other people that were looking
01:23:38from the outside in and then I just
01:23:41want to mention one other change.
01:23:43Another point of contention
01:23:44was the title of Master,
01:23:46which was delegated for administrative
01:23:48faculty within the residential
01:23:50colleges and for a long time
01:23:52people of color students had been
01:23:53witnessing their voicing.
01:23:55How in some ways that term was
01:23:57problematic and by the end of these
01:23:59protests that term master was also
01:24:02taken away and replaced with head of
01:24:04college. So this was for me
01:24:06personally my first experience with.
01:24:08Um organizing and activism
01:24:10on more of a larger,
01:24:12broader scale and learning how to
01:24:14articulate in what ways we can demand
01:24:17bridge painter be agents for change
01:24:19and moving into the medical school
01:24:22and working alongside the opposite.
01:24:24Diversity and inclusion as well as older
01:24:27students such as name Tara.
01:24:29I was able to again build more vocabulary
01:24:32and a toolbox for how to be more efficient
01:24:35in demanding for these type of changes.
01:24:39So that is pretty much.
01:24:42Yeah, my main outline as to what is going on.
01:24:46I already see some questions and Q&A,
01:24:48but I think we wanted to transition
01:24:50to the entire to talk a little bit
01:24:53about kind of evolution of next
01:24:55Yale as well as next. Why is 7?
01:24:59I think I need permission to start my
01:25:04video. OK, OK, I'm going to stop.
01:25:09Hi everyone,
01:25:10I'm gonna try and share my screen.
01:25:13Uhm so bear with me while I try to do that.
01:25:17Um, hopefully everyone can see this. Um?
01:25:22So I want to begin by just mentioning
01:25:24some friends from medical school who work
01:25:27closely with me as part of this activism
01:25:29that I'm going to highlight briefly.
01:25:32So that's Robert Rock, Amber Anders,
01:25:34Sidney Green, Herb Castillo,
01:25:35Marco Ramos, Carrie Flynn,
01:25:37Max Jordan, Biondo, Alama due and,
01:25:39of course, Joanna.
01:25:40Uhm, I want to recognize the work
01:25:42of medical students currently on the
01:25:44committee for diversity in inclusion and
01:25:46social justice at the School of Medicine.
01:25:49Before I get into that history,
01:25:51I just want to jump off joann's.
01:25:53Wayne and draw a line even further
01:25:55back from the San Francisco state
01:25:57protest all the way back to black
01:25:59students protest against racist
01:26:01white administrators patronizing and
01:26:03racialized student codes of conduct,
01:26:06an eurocentric curricula that took
01:26:08place at HBC use such as Howard and
01:26:10Fisk as early as the 1920s and 30s.
01:26:13So I just want to take a moment to
01:26:16hold up this really long and often
01:26:18overlooked history of on campus.
01:26:20Black student activism.
01:26:22I'm going to try and fly through.
01:26:24The parts about activism at the Med
01:26:26school 'cause I really want to respond
01:26:29to some of professor merges points.
01:26:31So here you see in the first slide,
01:26:33some of the students who were
01:26:35here before I matriculate.
01:26:37Eed add, add Yale School of Medicine,
01:26:39which I'll refer to as why SM from
01:26:41here on out day. This is in 2014.
01:26:44The white coats for black lives
01:26:46organization and you can see I want
01:26:49to just draw your attention to this
01:26:52is protesting police brutality and
01:26:55I just want to draw your attention
01:26:58to the police who are lingering in
01:27:01the back of the protest right there.
01:27:03I don't know how they got there.
01:27:06That's Robert Rock.
01:27:06Um,
01:27:07an I don't know who called them
01:27:08because we kept the organizing
01:27:10of this purchase very secret,
01:27:12but they were there and it's
01:27:14interesting that they felt they had
01:27:15to be there for a peaceful protest
01:27:17of medical students who are unarmed.
01:27:19Yeah, there they are and I think you should.
01:27:22It's worth taking notice 'cause I
01:27:24think I'll return to this point about
01:27:27the police being there protests later.
01:27:29I also just by contrast,
01:27:31I want to show this picture of a
01:27:33white student to organize a protest,
01:27:36not against police violence but in
01:27:38support of the Affordable Care Act
01:27:40and the notable lack of policemen
01:27:41at this particular protest.
01:27:43So just to point that out.
01:27:45So then in 2015,
01:27:47the white codes for black lives protests.
01:27:49Continued at the Yale School of Medicine.
01:27:52This is when I matriculate.
01:27:53Eed here in the fall.
01:27:55And while these protest movements
01:27:57are going on, as Joanna mentioned,
01:27:59there was a movement on the undergrad
01:28:02campus in response to the Christakis
01:28:04is racist Halloween comments,
01:28:06and given that there was momentum for white
01:28:09coats for black lives in the Med school
01:28:12already when this one next yield started,
01:28:15it was incredibly important to us and
01:28:17made it kind of galvanized everybody to
01:28:20do something more specific to Yale to
01:28:23address the problems right here at Yale.
01:28:26And what happened was we started a
01:28:28group called next wise them UM next.
01:28:31My son was a kind of ad hoc group of
01:28:35students, both black and people of color,
01:28:38but also white allies,
01:28:39and they organized to write a
01:28:42set of demands for the Dean,
01:28:44Administration of Yale School of Medicine,
01:28:46and we we distributed the demands
01:28:49by disrupting a Deans townhall.
01:28:51We read the demands out loud and
01:28:53then the people at the townhall
01:28:56engage in a discussion about them.
01:28:58We then posted demands online and collected
01:29:02signatures in support of them and.
01:29:05You know, be.
01:29:06Kind of staged repeated protests
01:29:08over the ensuing weeks until
01:29:10the administration met with us.
01:29:12We had teachings we had organizing
01:29:14committees. All of this.
01:29:15I just want to point out that doing
01:29:18this kind of work was not without
01:29:20consequences at the institution.
01:29:22I'm just I'm sharing an email that
01:29:24I received from a fellow white
01:29:27medical student who, you know,
01:29:28is kind of pointing up the animosity
01:29:30and isolation that white students
01:29:32are feeling in this moment.
01:29:34Here's another email.
01:29:35Wear a white student wrote to us.
01:29:38Personally,
01:29:38in our personal emails and you know,
01:29:41cited the fact that they felt
01:29:42they were going to be targeted,
01:29:45they were going to be able to
01:29:47discriminate Tori and how you know
01:29:49they felt like they were putting their
01:29:51heads out on the chopping block,
01:29:53which I thought was a really
01:29:55interesting analogy here.
01:29:56Some reactions from the administration.
01:29:58They had a panel.
01:29:59Uh,
01:30:00titled should I wear my white coat
01:30:02to the rally and I didn't attend
01:30:04this panel 'cause I knew the answer
01:30:06was going to be a resounding no.
01:30:08And the people who went confirmed
01:30:10my suspicion. So.
01:30:13Um, so then we move to a 2020 um.
01:30:17In light, we made some progress since next,
01:30:20why some 2015,
01:30:21but we hired a Dean of diversity.
01:30:24We restructured the curriculum,
01:30:26we commissioned portraits of the
01:30:28first 3 black women to graduate
01:30:31from the oil spill medicine,
01:30:32and we reform the office of student research.
01:30:36But there was the faculty at Yale
01:30:38remained overwhelmingly white
01:30:40students grew tired of laboring
01:30:42thanklessly on committees that.
01:30:43Seem to sort of drag their feet
01:30:46and the atmosphere of hostility and
01:30:48discrimination towards people of color.
01:30:51The meds will just persist.
01:30:53If anything,
01:30:54it Morrison and So what happened
01:30:56is we got the XY.
01:30:58Some reconvened in 2020 and
01:31:00crafted another set of demands,
01:31:02and these demands also expressly
01:31:04address the rails relationship
01:31:06with the police and the yellow
01:31:08and the yellow Police Department,
01:31:10and also armed security on campus.
01:31:12And this is.
01:31:14Basically we we we tried to set up a um zoom,
01:31:17protest 'cause we could not do it in
01:31:20person 'cause the Deans Town Hall
01:31:22in 2022 address the protests around
01:31:24the country and around the world.
01:31:26Really, for black lives.
01:31:27Matter was a zoom protest Zoom Conference.
01:31:29So we had to sort of think about
01:31:32what a zoom protest would look like
01:31:34and essentially we came up with this
01:31:37idea that we would go to the town
01:31:39Hall in about 15 minutes into it.
01:31:42We would start reading the demands.
01:31:44Then asked everybody in the town
01:31:46Hall if they supported the demands to
01:31:48change their profile picture to this
01:31:50image of a fish with a stethoscope,
01:31:53which is actually the same image we
01:31:55used back in 2015 when we stage the
01:31:57next wissen protest and then just sort
01:32:00of flood the comments with the line.
01:32:02Why some demands.org we demand action.
01:32:04So this is a couple of Screenshots
01:32:07from the zoom protest if anyone wants
01:32:09to sort of see what that looks like
01:32:12and this is what some of the screens
01:32:15on the zoom protest look like.
01:32:17Um, I'm not going to get into the uh,
01:32:20demands in detail here,
01:32:21but you can access them online again.
01:32:24They they address some of the longstanding
01:32:26complaints that we've had about Yale,
01:32:28and it also very,
01:32:30very explicitly ask TL to sever
01:32:32ties with the New Haven Police
01:32:34Department with end to abolish the
01:32:36El Police Department and then just
01:32:38sort of terminate any and all armed
01:32:41security on the Yale campus.
01:32:42So just a little plug for the demands
01:32:45that why some demands.org Hopefully
01:32:47you'll read them and consider signing.
01:32:50But I'm kind of spread through that
01:32:52because I want to respond to some
01:32:54of the things that doctor Merced,
01:32:56and before I do so.
01:32:57I want to share a little bit about
01:32:59my positionality as an individual,
01:33:01'cause I think it helps frame the reaction.
01:33:03I had.
01:33:04The doctor merges comments,
01:33:05so I did not grow up in the United States.
01:33:08I was born and I was raised in Sri Lanka,
01:33:11formerly colonized nation and I
01:33:12came to the US when I was 13.
01:33:15I mentioned this again because it
01:33:17informs the comments I'm going to make.
01:33:19The land of the US was founded on has
01:33:21not been returned to the native people,
01:33:24from whom it was stolen,
01:33:25and it remains largely under the
01:33:27control of the descendants of
01:33:28European settler colonisers,
01:33:29and I think this is something
01:33:31that we can all agree with.
01:33:33And so given that.
01:33:35Given that reality,
01:33:37it is from my vantage point,
01:33:39the US is still a European
01:33:41colony in people who know me,
01:33:43know that I say it's all the
01:33:45time and hence I consider its
01:33:48institutions such as medicine,
01:33:49universities,
01:33:50prisons and police to be colonial
01:33:52and colonizing institutions,
01:33:53and so to return to a point that
01:33:56professor merge brought up earlier
01:33:58the fact that the Black Panthers
01:34:00framing of US is a colonized space,
01:34:02I want to focus a little bit on.
01:34:06The US police as a set,
01:34:08look colonial apparatus right 'cause?
01:34:11The main task of a settler,
01:34:14colonial police force and in the USA,
01:34:17a settler colonial police
01:34:18force in a Slave Society.
01:34:21Its job is just, sub,
01:34:23do and subjugate its colonial,
01:34:25an enslaved subjects and maintain
01:34:28the colonial hierarchy and.
01:34:30It does this through violence,
01:34:32visibility and vigilance, right?
01:34:34Violence that is the police exerts
01:34:37unpredictable violence on colonized
01:34:39and enslaved people that usually goes
01:34:42unpunished and keeps colonized and
01:34:44enslaved people in a state of terror.
01:34:47Visibility that is,
01:34:49the police are constant visual
01:34:51reminder of potential threat to
01:34:53colonize and enslave subjects,
01:34:56whether they're in their own
01:34:58native orders or if they wander
01:35:01into the colonizers neighborhoods.
01:35:03And vigilance,
01:35:04which is the police,
01:35:07is constant patrolling and surveilling of
01:35:10colonized of colonizers lives and properties,
01:35:14and the colonized.
01:35:16Bodies, culture,
01:35:18homes an organizations,
01:35:19and in particular vigilance and
01:35:22surveillance over revolutionary
01:35:24anti colonial organizations that
01:35:26threaten the colonial state.
01:35:28So in this framework,
01:35:30the settler colonial police is
01:35:32essentially the civilian phase
01:35:34of a colonial paramilitary rule.
01:35:37And when I think about that,
01:35:39it seems to me that the US police
01:35:42operates in precisely this manner,
01:35:45and that's perfectly illustrated by a
01:35:47lot of professor merges scholarship
01:35:49that traces the militarization
01:35:51of the police in response,
01:35:53the racial justice rebellions
01:35:55of the 1960s and 70s,
01:35:57so by responding to resistance
01:35:59with police hyper militarization,
01:36:00the US behaved less like a democracy,
01:36:03responding to citizens needs
01:36:05and more like a white settler.
01:36:08Colonial state tightening its grip
01:36:10on its colonize and or enslave
01:36:13black and Brown subjects.
01:36:15And This is why I appreciated a
01:36:17professor merchants use of the
01:36:19term rebellion earlier,
01:36:20because that term is often has
01:36:22often been used to describe the
01:36:25uprisings of colonial colonies,
01:36:26people throughout the global South Ann.
01:36:29Her image of the deforestation
01:36:31in Ferguson is also uncannily
01:36:33reminiscent of the defoliation in
01:36:34the form of the forests of Vietnam,
01:36:37so these I think these parallels
01:36:40are actually very obvious.
01:36:41And although it may have evolved fino,
01:36:45typically the US polices.
01:36:47Core DNA remains that of a cent.
01:36:51Local Oneal police force in a slave
01:36:54economy is a direct descendant
01:36:56of the US nation states policing
01:36:58and caging of Native Americans.
01:37:01It is the air of the southern slave patrols,
01:37:05and it is a brother in arms of the KKK,
01:37:09and it continues to be an admiring
01:37:11cousin of white vigilanteism,
01:37:13both past and present. And.
01:37:18As my only work,
01:37:19how asserts in her book the
01:37:21first civil right,
01:37:22the primary civil right that
01:37:24black people in America fought
01:37:26for as citizens in the early
01:37:2820th century was protection from
01:37:30lawless racial violence right of
01:37:31white Lynch mobs and police.
01:37:33And then again,
01:37:34to Professor Merchants point
01:37:36about the government reacting to a
01:37:39racial uprisings in the 1940s after
01:37:42World War Two and black rebellion,
01:37:44such as in 1943 Detroit Riots.
01:37:47Northern Liberals again to Professor
01:37:49merges point that liberals have
01:37:51a bigger and Democrats a bigger role
01:37:54to play in this then we might want to
01:37:57acknowledge northern liberals like Truman
01:37:59clean to be reforming the American police
01:38:02in order to protect black people from.
01:38:05White violence such as lynchings.
01:38:08But they were in fact laying the
01:38:11foundations of the modern carceral state,
01:38:13because the way they wanted to
01:38:16protect against white violence was
01:38:18not by reforming white citizens,
01:38:20but was like criminalizing violence and
01:38:23giving the police the ability to respond
01:38:26to violence with violence in doing so.
01:38:29Although the post World War II liberals
01:38:32criminalize Lawless Lynch mobs,
01:38:33they simultaneously empowered the
01:38:35US police to become the new lawful.
01:38:38Agents of terror and racial
01:38:40violence against black people.
01:38:42And so, and so I think that is why
01:38:44I think it's because there's such a
01:38:47Direct Line between the temporary US
01:38:50police force and the various sort
01:38:53of militarized methods of subjugate
01:38:55ING and oppressing native native and
01:38:57black people in the United States.
01:38:59I think that is why because of
01:39:02this direct connection,
01:39:03because the because the well
01:39:05is poisoned at the source.
01:39:07I think that is why people believe that
01:39:09abolishing the police is necessary.
01:39:12It's not sufficient.
01:39:13But it isn't necessary step in the
01:39:15continued fight to dismantle the
01:39:17United States, white supremacists,
01:39:18settler,
01:39:19colonial society that we still live in today.
01:39:21I think that was the main kind of
01:39:24reaction that I had to Professor
01:39:26Emerges Talk,
01:39:27which was this idea of drawing
01:39:29a pair of returning to the.
01:39:31The idea from the 1960s and 70s that we
01:39:34of the US state as a colonial power.
01:39:37And so it can be fought with
01:39:40decolonizing tactics and methods.
01:39:41So that's it from me up.
01:39:44I'm going to stop the share.
01:39:47So, uh,
01:39:48yeah.
01:39:48Thank you so much and thank you
01:39:50professor merge.
01:39:56So Anna Grace men and I were going to
01:40:00trade off the questions and answers,
01:40:03so I'll hop in and and I just
01:40:06wanna say that was so amazing.
01:40:09All three of you I just have to say
01:40:13I learned an immense amount uhm,
01:40:16and so we do have a number of
01:40:19questions here in the queue in a box.
01:40:23I know that we are beyond
01:40:26the time that we had.
01:40:28Estimated some people may need to leave,
01:40:31but I sense that there are a lot
01:40:33of people would like to hear
01:40:36answers to these questions.
01:40:37I'm gonna go in reverse order and,
01:40:40um, doctor reesman please China
01:40:42it if you have any any comments
01:40:45on this but there is a a comment.
01:40:48Uh, from Steven Weisman.
01:40:50The killing of George Floyd spark
01:40:52protests not only in the USA
01:40:54also internationally from.
01:40:55I can't breathe murals in the ruins
01:40:57of Syria to the demonstrations of 10s
01:40:59of thousands of cities in Munich,
01:41:02from Munich to London.
01:41:03Of course,
01:41:04part of these protests were aimed at
01:41:06addressing racism and discrimination
01:41:07in the respective countries.
01:41:09However,
01:41:09not only the slogans of language uhm.
01:41:12Science,
01:41:12writing and science written in
01:41:14English appeared to be more
01:41:16common than those written in the
01:41:18countries official language,
01:41:19and the content demands address.
01:41:21Demands to address police
01:41:22brutality and racism in the US.
01:41:25So the question is, I wonder.
01:41:27What you predict,
01:41:28if any,
01:41:29about the effects of international
01:41:31protests on domestic policy in the US,
01:41:34and I this is a question I've
01:41:36been carrying around too.
01:41:38I'm very curious about the international
01:41:40nature of protests these days and
01:41:42the significance for us in the US,
01:41:45but it's become international,
01:41:47but also the significance in
01:41:49other parts of the world,
01:41:50so maybe I'll direct that
01:41:52question to begin to Donna Murch.
01:41:55And then if the Antara Anderson or
01:41:58join a under have comments also.
01:42:01Uhm, I can start and then maybe
01:42:03we antara angina can help me out.
01:42:05Um, you know the the mural that
01:42:06I showed up George Floyd is from
01:42:09Ireland and that's really important.
01:42:10I think that it's hard to say 'cause
01:42:13I haven't had a chance to research it.
01:42:15You know, there's that part of me.
01:42:17That's his story.
01:42:18And that's always hesitant to comment
01:42:19on something I've watched happen without
01:42:21really researching it more deeply.
01:42:23But I can say, with my impressions,
01:42:25are it really does matter that Donald
01:42:27Trump is president and that we have this
01:42:29global movement of the authoritarian right?
01:42:31That I think that that is also crucial
01:42:33to understanding the multiracial
01:42:35protest inside the United States.
01:42:37The dynamic is very different.
01:42:38I didn't talk about this,
01:42:40but it's implicit in what I was saying.
01:42:43So when this movement takes off,
01:42:45of course, Barack Obama is president,
01:42:47and there's the possible sympathetic
01:42:49ear of having a Democrat,
01:42:50but also, as candy Imada.
01:42:52Taylor argues this election.
01:42:53Barack Obama raises the sense
01:42:55of hope and possibility,
01:42:56and initially the Obama administration
01:42:58continues the same war on drugs policy.
01:43:01I mean,
01:43:01Eric Holder is not is by no means
01:43:03a progressive prosecutor.
01:43:05Or as our other people that we might
01:43:07talk about her in positions of power
01:43:10during the Obama administration.
01:43:11But the hand is forced by the
01:43:13Ferguson protesters,
01:43:14so it is another people as well.
01:43:16So it is this grassroots organization
01:43:18that the Department of Justice responds to.
01:43:20And that's when you begin to see
01:43:22the elimination of federal asset
01:43:23forfeiture and consent decrees
01:43:25for local Police Department.
01:43:26So to say,
01:43:27I think the fact that Trump is
01:43:29president is really, really important,
01:43:31because in some ways he's become a
01:43:33global symbol symbol for racism,
01:43:35white supremacy and authoritarian white.
01:43:36Right,
01:43:36so of course there are the connections
01:43:39as much as Trump is capable of even
01:43:41establishing a connection with
01:43:43any other human being.
01:43:44But you know,
01:43:45of course with Bolsonaro in Brazil,
01:43:47and you know the head of hungry and these
01:43:49other authoritarian right wing leaders.
01:43:51So I think that partially what's being
01:43:54articulated as anti racist is also a
01:43:56push back against the kind of Anti semitic,
01:43:58deeply racist,
01:43:59authoritarian right.
01:44:00and I think that that is true
01:44:02within the US and outside that
01:44:04might be where I would start.
01:44:10Thank you wonder if the discussants
01:44:12have anything to add to that.
01:44:15Yeah, I guess I have one thing to add.
01:44:18Um, just that question,
01:44:19kind of, UM, highlights to me.
01:44:21It was actually a tweet.
01:44:23Some of you guys might see it,
01:44:25but it's by Javad Zarif who was an
01:44:28action Iranian diplomat in academic
01:44:30and he it was basically outlining a
01:44:32letter that was originally written by
01:44:34the Secretary of State Mike Pompeyo.
01:44:36In regards to injustices happening in Iran.
01:44:39And there was little twist on in which he
01:44:42cancelled out many parts in terms of Iran.
01:44:45Basically, basically committing active
01:44:47acts of injustice and unfinished to
01:44:49their people and crossing out and
01:44:52putting the US and kind of inserting
01:44:54racism as a kind of look or a
01:44:56mirror shining upon the US an kind
01:44:58of demanding a larger conversation
01:45:00about the world against racism.
01:45:02So I just wanted to tie that in
01:45:04terms of this international aspect,
01:45:07and I think again,
01:45:08the way that the world has been watching
01:45:11and also responding to this in both
01:45:13protests and demonstrations form.
01:45:15I think is going to shine a mirror
01:45:18on how domestic policy is is further
01:45:20carried out as well as international
01:45:22policy in the idea of enacting.
01:45:25Policy on other countries.
01:45:26So I just wanted to speak to that.
01:45:30Hum, why Kristen Me is again
01:45:32to return back to this moment,
01:45:34right in the 70s where there was
01:45:36this sense or people really aware
01:45:38of this sort of commonality's that
01:45:41they had as well as the differences.
01:45:43And again, we're thinking about this
01:45:45in the lens of the global South,
01:45:48kind of as a whole.
01:45:50So that's what it that's what it
01:45:52kind of reminds me of seeing these
01:45:55protests all around the globe.
01:45:57You know, in 60s and 70s there
01:45:59was even something called.
01:46:00It was dull.
01:46:01It solidarity with the Black Panthers,
01:46:04which are the the untouchable class in India.
01:46:06There was a whole organization that was
01:46:09called The Bullet Panthers who organized
01:46:11under that symbol who openly voice
01:46:13their support for the Black Panthers.
01:46:15and I think that right now we're seeing
01:46:18similar kinds of recognition across and over.
01:46:21The sort of white European Colonial
01:46:23Nation state boundaries and all
01:46:25the technologies that are designed
01:46:27to keep people from coordinating,
01:46:29and I'm thinking about people like
01:46:31Trump in Bolsonaro an of reflecting
01:46:34on doctor merges, points about race,
01:46:36race, race, liberals.
01:46:37I sometimes worry that figures
01:46:39like that will become foils.
01:46:42To distract from the ways in
01:46:44which white liberals,
01:46:45white moderates and also you know
01:46:48black and POC respectability,
01:46:49politics is actually is not not the.
01:46:52Only buddies are really important engine
01:46:54in terms of perpetuating whites of premises.
01:46:57Flowing hierarchies in countries
01:46:58around the world.
01:46:59So that's I think sort of attention is that.
01:47:03I do think that these extreme figures
01:47:06have been galvanizing forces,
01:47:07but I also worry that they are smoke
01:47:10screens in some ways. Or decoys.
01:47:16Thank you, um, so just looking at the
01:47:18time I want to consult with the speakers
01:47:21and also with Anna Reesman about
01:47:24should we maybe combine the remaining
01:47:27questions into one and a half and allow?
01:47:31Each of our speakers to have some
01:47:35parting thoughts on them. Yeah.
01:47:37Yeah, so uh, there is a question.
01:47:41Um, from Louise McConnell.
01:47:43Within the realm of your profession,
01:47:46how do you ensure your continual
01:47:47mitigation of overt and covert
01:47:49discrimination and oppression of
01:47:51free black thinking and success?
01:47:53So that's one question.
01:47:54And also how do we begin to address
01:47:56the racist legacies of revered
01:47:57figures like George Washington,
01:47:59Thomas Jefferson, you like you, Yale, etc.
01:48:01That's from Chini.
01:48:02Each Eli,
01:48:02how would you say the pronunciation?
01:48:04And then from Paula bro.
01:48:06So in the case of Ferguson protests,
01:48:07thinking discussion of the details
01:48:09of what happened are important.
01:48:10Brown was alleged to have robbed a
01:48:12store identified on Vidian, refused to obey.
01:48:14A police officer, grabbed his gun,
01:48:16was shot in the leg and then ran
01:48:18and then confronted the officer.
01:48:20This should be a part of this discussion.
01:48:22I don't know that there's a question there.
01:48:24But uhm.
01:48:25Three fairly different questions,
01:48:27but if you or comments,
01:48:29uh,
01:48:29if you'd like to give us your
01:48:32parting thoughts on those,
01:48:33maybe starting
01:48:34with Donna Murch. Um?
01:48:39Maybe I'll start with the last, uhm?
01:48:41One of the reasons I wanted to
01:48:44show those images about the trees
01:48:46being chopped down that also entire
01:48:49talked about the scale of collective
01:48:51punishment that was involved in
01:48:53Ferguson is really important.
01:48:55It is also that scale collective
01:48:57punishment led to the kind of
01:48:59mobilization that we see so you know
01:49:02this question about who desert,
01:49:04who is deserving and undeserving.
01:49:06Taken into the realm of who deserves
01:49:08to live and who deserves to die.
01:49:11So one of the most disturbing things
01:49:13about the posthumous prosecution
01:49:14of people that have been killed is
01:49:16that it is literally raising the
01:49:17question of who deserves to live.
01:49:20The representation of Michael Brown is
01:49:22a criminal has largely been debunked,
01:49:24and with each of these killings
01:49:26we see an attack on the memory of
01:49:28the people that have been killed
01:49:31and that in itself is part of.
01:49:33You have the violence,
01:49:34the literal material,
01:49:35violence and killing,
01:49:36and disproportionate death rates.
01:49:37But then you also have the kind of epistemic
01:49:40violence that erases their memory,
01:49:42and so I don't think you can
01:49:44understand one of those without being
01:49:46in conjunction with another one of
01:49:48the things that I am so happy about.
01:49:50And I never thought I would see the
01:49:53scale of this in my lifetime is that
01:49:55we are moving away from questions
01:49:57of innocence and guilt to talk about
01:50:00structural regimes of violence,
01:50:01and we're seeing a broad based
01:50:03mobilization that has really inverted
01:50:05the lens and focus on these large
01:50:07structures of violence rather than wet,
01:50:09rather than the flaws of the individual
01:50:12people that have been used as a
01:50:14justification for their killing.
01:50:15and I think we have to sit with that.
01:50:19Thank you, did you have any responses
01:50:22to the other questions about uhm?
01:50:26About the racist legacies of figures.
01:50:29At places like jail or about in your
01:50:34profession, for example, history.
01:50:36How do you work against, um, oppression
01:50:39and discrimination in your discipline?
01:50:43I mean, one of the things like I feel very,
01:50:46very fortunate in my life that I have
01:50:49landed at a place like Rutgers University.
01:50:51That's a public University that
01:50:53has one of the oldest Africana
01:50:55Studies departments in the country.
01:50:57So there africana studies
01:50:58Department is founded in 1969 and
01:51:00Toni Cade Bambara participated.
01:51:02Amiri Baraka and many of the
01:51:04other black power figures.
01:51:06So I feel as if we stand on.
01:51:08We stand on the shoulders or we rest
01:51:11on the shoulders of our ancestors.
01:51:13And so for me,
01:51:14the joy of being historian is that joy
01:51:17of the reclamation of our own histories,
01:51:19and the use of oral history
01:51:21also to listen and to learn.
01:51:23So I think that.
01:51:25I think I differ from many historians,
01:51:28including the some of the historians were
01:51:30involved in the debate of Calhoun College.
01:51:33I take great joy in seeing these
01:51:36Confederate figures physically pulled
01:51:37off their pedestal pedestals and
01:51:39dragged through the street in a nominee.
01:51:42I think this is incredibly an incredibly
01:51:44important and powerful symbolic,
01:51:46and I actually do not think this
01:51:48is an act of Historical Erasure,
01:51:50particularly since many of these are
01:51:53revisionist accounts of histories
01:51:54that come from the 1950s and 1960s
01:51:57and have more to say about white.
01:51:59Massive resistance to Brown versus
01:52:02the Board of Education than the
01:52:05actual civil war or its
01:52:06aftermath. Thank you.
01:52:10Any parting thoughts?
01:52:12Joanna Endo Anderson.
01:52:17Yeah, I mean. OK,
01:52:21now I just wanted to echo that in terms
01:52:24of I guess I wanted to 1st talk on the
01:52:28races legacies because again I also
01:52:31get joy out of seeing the dismantling
01:52:33of a lot of these structures which,
01:52:36like Calhoun College, was built in 1930,
01:52:39well after the civil war.
01:52:41Uhm, well after his vice presidency and.
01:52:44Having having these structures of
01:52:46figures who actively perpetuate anti
01:52:49racism actively and just like Woodrow
01:52:53Wilson actively reverse reconstruction
01:52:56an re segregated Congress and had
01:52:58this legacy of portraying inferiority?
01:53:01Among black and people of color like,
01:53:04I don't think that there is a space
01:53:06in which they should be honored in
01:53:09such a structural way when it comes
01:53:12to larger figures such as Washington
01:53:14and Jefferson and even Yale,
01:53:16so much people figures who have been so
01:53:19devoid from their complicated histories.
01:53:21And now they represent other structures.
01:53:24I think part of it is first bringing
01:53:26that complex history back and I think
01:53:29reuniting that again, problematic.
01:53:31That problematic aspect of the figure,
01:53:33because I think at these points these
01:53:36names have taken on different faces in
01:53:38different forms that just erasing it is hard.
01:53:41So I think there are two different
01:53:44roles in which we can address.
01:53:46You know,
01:53:47the the perpetuation of Confederate.
01:53:49An anti racist proponents an then large,
01:53:51almost God like figures in the US
01:53:54such as Jefferson in Washington.
01:53:56I think there are two avenues,
01:53:58but I think they're both among the same.
01:54:01Lines of addressing the problem,
01:54:02the problematic aspects?
01:54:03Uhm, yeah. I mean, I want
01:54:05to leave some room for any guitar.
01:54:07If you want to address that
01:54:09question or others, but.
01:54:11I mean so I wanna start like
01:54:14professor merge with the UM,
01:54:16the discussion about Trayvon
01:54:18Martin's like guilt or innocence.
01:54:20Or I just and I wanted, I wouldn't.
01:54:23I want to draw comparison between
01:54:25what happened to him after he was
01:54:28murdered versus what happened to
01:54:30someone like Brock Turner after he
01:54:32like perpetrated a crime right so?
01:54:35You know Michael Brown was killed,
01:54:38shot the victim,
01:54:39and yet after his death he was Villainized.
01:54:42He was besmirched.
01:54:43He was accused.
01:54:45He was made post Hawk like
01:54:47Rationalized as guilty, right?
01:54:48It was sort of a retroactive
01:54:51rationalization of guilt.
01:54:52And on the other hand you have
01:54:55what young white man who was found
01:54:57in the act of committing a crime.
01:55:00Sexually assaulting young woman,
01:55:02a man he was treated like a victim.
01:55:05His innocence was played up.
01:55:07Right, the reason he should be pardoned?
01:55:09And so when people when we're
01:55:11talking about we want to raise the
01:55:13this hot topic of what someone
01:55:15like Michael ground did or did not
01:55:17do that I think we need to apply
01:55:19that standard to everyone and we
01:55:20need to think about why we think
01:55:22about these things when it comes to
01:55:24black victims of state violence.
01:55:26And then why we think of innocence
01:55:28and try to rationalize innocence in
01:55:29the case of white perpetrators of violence.
01:55:32and I just want to end by
01:55:34saying in terms of the statues.
01:55:36Again,
01:55:36I if I will live to see the
01:55:38end of the British monarchy.
01:55:40I'm glad I got to see these statues.
01:55:42Hold into rivers,
01:55:43right and in terms of the history argument.
01:55:47Said I, this is not erasing history.
01:55:50This is history right?
01:55:52Like this,
01:55:52why is it the white men are history,
01:55:55but protesters gathering together to
01:55:57launch a global movement is not also history.
01:56:00If you stop people from doing what
01:56:03they want to do in the time that they
01:56:06are doing it, you are erasing history.
01:56:09You are preventing it from moving forward.
01:56:11So throw him in the River or gather
01:56:14them up and put them in a museum.
01:56:17Uh,
01:56:18take the paintings down,
01:56:19put them in a separate museum
01:56:21where if people want to go
01:56:23and contemplate that history,
01:56:24they can go and do that.
01:56:26But let us live outside the
01:56:28shadow of these racist,
01:56:29murderous,
01:56:29colonizes and rape is like they do not
01:56:32belong in the public sphere anymore,
01:56:34and it's time that they either went
01:56:36into the water or Inter museum so
01:56:38that the rest of us can just live our
01:56:41lives in terms of people like Yale,
01:56:43change the University.
01:56:44Great, I'd be all the happier for it.
01:56:47and I also want to point out that Yale.
01:56:49It's.
01:56:50Gil is a reprehensible colonial
01:56:52institution and one of the things
01:56:54that it did was when Joanna
01:56:57talked about how it named,
01:56:58what two of the new residential college.
01:57:01Need one uhm after Um Grace Hopper.
01:57:03It simultaneously mean the second
01:57:05one after Benjamin Franklin.
01:57:07So it's kind of like you know.
01:57:09Again, I think that these institutions
01:57:12are colonial institutions and I
01:57:14think the way to think about how am
01:57:16I working against the racism that's
01:57:18here is to sort of think about it
01:57:21the way Fred Moten thinks about it.
01:57:24Which is to work.
01:57:26Like a criminal like a fugitive
01:57:28like a decolonizing rebel.
01:57:30And to be to be just fully in
01:57:32opposition to the University and be
01:57:35fully disingenuous to the University
01:57:37and to take what you can and not to
01:57:41Revere it and to be again out for it.
01:57:45Kind of its destruction in
01:57:46a way its abolition.
01:57:54I think we need to stop. So
01:57:57so great it would be fun to just stay on
01:58:00for another 2 hours and have you all keep
01:58:03talking and conversing
01:58:04about these topics that are just. There's
01:58:07so much to say and there's so much to do,
01:58:10and you're all inspiring and brilliant.
01:58:12And thank you so so much for taking part.
01:58:17Thank you and as you can see
01:58:19in the cat box and QA box,
01:58:21people are really deeply moved.
01:58:22So thank you so much for your time.
01:58:25Thank you for inviting us. Yes,
01:58:28thank you and maybe continue
01:58:31the conversation here.
01:58:32Have a great night.
01:58:36Goodnight everyone night.