The Movement for Black Lives from Oscar Grant to COVID-19, with Dr. Donna Murch, Joana Andoh, and Dr. Nientara Anderson
July 06, 2020- 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.