Bear Witness, Take Action 2 – Continuing the Conversation on Racial Injustice [Video]

By YouTube Originals
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The conversation has begun – and now its headed for the next level. More artists and activists than ever are joining in to discuss and confront the issue of race in America. #BearWitnessTakeAction 2: Continuing the Movement, hosted by Common & Keke Palmer.
Transcript provided by YouTube:
Barack Obama: We have seen in the last few months,
the kinds of changes and events in our country
that are as profound as anything that I’ve seen
( echoing ) in my lifetime.
Various Newscasters: George Floyd’s death sparking protests across the country.
Crowd: I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe!
Breonna Taylor was shot and killed.
– ( shouting on bullhorn ) – Nationwide unrest.
The hundredth straight day of street protests.
Doc Rivers: We keep loving this country,
and this country does not love us back.
We don’t want to loot. We want equality.
Black lives matter! Black lives matter!
Chants of “Black lives matter” in cities around the world.
There were a lot of celebrities who were in the crowd.
We saw the players leave the floor, go back to their respective locker room.
There’s a lot of people that can’t speak for themselves in this country.
New York City council voting today
to pass a sweeping set of police reforms.
Many black Americans are at higher risk for COVID.
Traffic outside a food bank in Dallas.
I thank God that I was able to get in the line.
Hundreds gather for the Shed The Mask rally.
All lives matter! All lives matter!
Fire Fauci! Fire Fauci! Fire Fauci!
New announcements of events being cancelled
and young athletes robbed of their chances to shine.
It hurts not having the opportunity to just go out and compete.
People are now campaigning to remove statues confronting their colonial past.
Beloved Civil Rights icon John Lewis has died.
NASCAR’s earlier statement to ban Confederate flags…
That was a huge pivotal moment for the sport.
Justice Ginsburg, who was… Supreme Court Justice has died.
Tear gas was used to remove peaceful protestors for a photo op.
Are you willing to condemn white supremacists–
Proud Boys, stand back and stand by.
The number of voters has exploded since 2013.
Biden is elected the 46th President.
Kamala Harris, the first person of color to be the Vice-President.
– I’m Keke Palmer. – Peace. I’m Common.
And this is “Bear Witness: Take Action 2,”
a follow-up to our first special in June
which addressed the challenges we as a people and country are facing
due to a different but no less deadly pandemic,
one that no vaccine can prevent– that of systemic racism.
That initial “Bear Witness: Take Action”
featured some of America’s most powerful voices
addressing racial inequities, possible solutions,
and actions that move us forward.
And now with 2021 almost here,
it’s important to ensure the what we witnessed back then
was not merely a moment, but part of an enduring and sustainable movement.
One of the things that was a catalyst
for the continued growth of the movement
was the anticipation of the presidential election.
The joy so many people felt on November 3rd was real and was cathartic.
But a new administration in Washington, D.C. is not the end.
It is just one small step on our journey
Tonight’s “Bear Witness: Take Action 2”
consists of four distinct chapters,
each with its own theme and goal.
The first we call the state of the movement.
The second is about moving from ideas into action.
The third is focused on elevating those ideas for the fight ahead.
And the final chapter is to remind us that everyone
has a part to play in the cause.
And that of course is the true goal of this event,
to give people concrete actions
that they can follow through on.
in addition to sharing those actions we can all take.
We will examine the advances, setbacks, ideas,
and strategies that have defined the past six months.
And we will hear from a wide range of voices–
activists, athletes, experts,
celebrities, members of the YouTube community,
and YouTube content creators
giving a deeper dive into the issues that matter
one that you won’t find anywhere else.
Plus, there will be highlights from YouTube creators,
commentary from our musical guests,
and a series of one-on-one and group conversations
examining a range of racial justice issues.
As a part of this first chapter on the state of the movement,
we’ll feature a discussion of the recent election results
and the future political landscape with two political experts–
author, TV host, and analyst Zerlina Maxwell,
and author, analyst, and political commentator Bakari Sellers.
But before that, let’s take a moment to celebrate
some people already brought about some much-needed change–
2020’s first-time voters.
The reason I didn’t vote before 2020 was because
I really didn’t think my voted mattered.
I decided to vote for the first time this year
because I saw everything that happened in the past four years
and I’ve had a lot of time to educate myself this year and ask a lot of questions.
I never knew I could be so passionate about politics.
I didn’t vote before the 2020 election just off of pure laziness.
It can’t get any more plain than that.
I was 18. I didn’t think that it would be
that big of a difference if I voted.
I was born in 1966, in Montgomery, Alabama.
I know what racism looks like.
I saw America going in a direction that I didn’t like.
What really motivated me to vote
this year was probably fear.
Fear for democracy, fear for freedom of speech, freedom of protest.
If I can alleviate that in some way
by using my voice to vote for the proper candidate
or the proper propositions, that is why our voice matters.
That is why your voice matters.
I wanted change in my community.
And, you know, the government gave us a a chance
to have someone do it with our country’s future
So I just wanted to participate in that.
This year showed me to vote and I have to be more involved.
I believe my vote helped kind of further that along
and not pull us back to where we were.
We got a better chance at a better life.
We’re the new generation! We have to get out there.
You’re speaking up for your community.
You’re speaking up for yourself.
And you’re really speaking up for the whole country.
Because at the end of the day, you’re the one
that has to sit with you before you go to bed
and be cool with the decisions you made.
And that’s why I really voted.
How are you feeling post-election
with Joe Biden clearly the winter
with the same amount of electoral votes
that Donald trump got in 2016?
I feel better than I did before the election.
But I do think that we have to at least acknowledge
79 million people voted for Joe Biden,
but still, over 70 million people voted for Donald trump.
And I think that you would acknowledge, if I’m not mistaken,
that black women are the reason we do have a Joe Biden
as being President of the United States.
Absolutely. It is always black women that come through and save the day.
I was told by the media that suburban women–
which they mean white women– were going to save us
because they were so horrified by Donald Trump’s tweets
and they were so horrified by his conduct and the way he behaved.
That’s not what happened.
Black women deserve the credit,
but also, we’ve always been doing this.
We’ve been saving the Democratic party forever.
Black and brown voters, they’re going to be the majority
of the electorate in the future.
So what black women organizers did,
like Stacy Abrams and LaTosha Brown and others,
They engaged black people and brown people
and indigenous people wherever they were.
Joe Biden also got the benefit of the Obama halo.
I think if you were to look back 20 years,
probably even 15 years, if I were to tell you
that Joe Biden would have been the most transcendent figure
in Democratic party politics
when it comes to the issue of race,
a white man from Delaware who’s 78 years old
who is now served as vice-president to the first black president
and also ushered in the first black female president–
I just think we have to take a step back and acknowledge
that transcendent nature of the political moment that we are in.
But also just about the election that we just witnessed,
Georgia and Arizona being the two states the flipped,
– I was totally shocked. – Well, it’s complicated right?
Because I think, on the one hand–
Is that our relationship status?
– We need to start a show. – Yes, it’s complicated.
It’s called “It’s Complicated.”
There was a lot of misinformation in this election.
we are going to learn more about the disinformation
and misinformation that was targeted
towards specific communities in specific places.
That’s what we saw in Florida.
Right. I don’t think we can base Joe Biden’s
Latinx support on how Cuban voters in Florida
how they voted for Donald Trump.
But I do think that obviously there are
vulnerabilities for Democrats when they are tarred
with a label “socialist” without explanation.
And I don’t even think that we need to be defensive about those kinds of labels.
I think you just have to be vigilant in explaining what you are about.
Both political parties have succumbed to this narrative
that it’s a lot easier to tell people what they’re voting against
than to give them a reason to come out and vote for something.
Even the pundits, even you and I,
we have to do a better job of disaggregating
the Hispanic community when it comes to voters.
Because we think that Venezuelan voters and Cuban voters
and Mexican-American voters all vote the same,
and that’s simply not the case.
Our real problem the media,
and I hold myself accountable for this as well,
is we don’t the disaggregate anything that isn’t white.
The media also has to sort of cover things
that are not only centrally located
in sort of New York, L.A., D.C.
I think that even through COVID, I’ve noticed that.
I’m interested to see and hear your thoughts
when you talk about the issue of COVID.
The first black female Vice-President of the United States–
Kamala has to have a portfolio.
I hope that she’s able to take on a portfolio
that includes not just the public health,
but the economic relief that’s associated with COVID.
Because one of the things that we’ve seen with COVID,
and I will tell you, it played a huge role in this election,
just the purely disproportionate way that’s affected people of color,
particular black folk and Native Americans in this country.
That’s why hope that Kamala Harris is able
to actually steer us in the right direction,
and I hope Joe Biden is willing to let her run with it.
Do you think black people are going to take this vaccine?
The answer is I pray to God that they do.
Black folk have a healthy distrust of vaccinations.
and give value to it and I understand it.
It goes all the way back beyond Tuskegee, all right?
And for the white folk watching, just google “Tuskegee,”
and you will understand where some of that–
some of our distrust comes from.
But as the parent of an immunosuppressed child,
you don’t get vaccinated for yourself.
You get vaccinated for the larger,
more vulnerable community around you.
Going to need to be a major, like, black-specific PSA
educating people on what they do,
also just what a vaccine is and is not.
I think the education piece is going to be critical.
Do finally think that we will get to the point
where we will get some of the tangible policy things that our communities need,
not to survive, because black folk are tired of surviving,
– but to thrive? – I would say this.
If you have somebody in there that is from
an underrepresented demographic group
that’s not normally in the room,
first of all, the picture does matter.
However, the lived experience
they’ve had before entering that room matters.
– That is a big deal. – It’s a big deal.
You don’t have to spend time showing the reports
and the data and the charts
to convince the white elected official that racism is a thing.
You’re talking to a black person.
You’re talking to a person of color.
You’re talking to a marginalized person
who’s actually lived the experience themselves.
I always love when white men criticize identity politics.
They’re like, “Oh, you know, I don’t like identity politics.
You just want black people to vote for black people because they are black.”
And I’m like, first of all, you should have noticed
that none of the presidents we’ve had before Barack Obama were black.
So you’re just going to say that of all the people in the United States,
only white men are good enough to be in charge of some things?
And also, like, look around. It’s not going great.
Where do you think we will end up in terms of our global standing?
I think if we get through this period
without a major foreign-policy catastrophe,
that can then set up a nice entry point
for Joe Biden to come in and sort of fix
our relationships around the world.
He’s not going to be at the G20
pushing people to get a better position for the photo.
and definitely something that makes me sleep easier at night
knowing that you have somebody who has a breadth of experience.
I think that what Joe Biden and Kamala are trying to do
is trying to appeal to what to Abraham Lincoln called
the better angels of our nature,
and say that while that is a loud contingent,
while that is a loud bunch,
and while there are people who enable that and embolden that,
there still is a middle 50% of this country
that we can bring together and bring about positive change.
Now, is that naive? Is that politically prudent?
Is that something that can happen? I don’t know.
I’m pretty cool with giving it a shot,
because I have these twins that I don’t really know what I’m doing with,
and they deserve a better country than this one.
So I’m all on board with trying to make it better.
As part of this second installment
of “Bear Witness: Take Action,”
we’ve added a new element.
We call them mini documentaries,
which are a platform for the black creator community
to tell their own powerful stories
designed to inspire change.
These mini documentaries from influential black voices
were released throughout the week
leading up to this livestream
on each creator’s YouTube channel.
These short films focus on their personal thoughts,
experiences, and actions around the racial justice movement.
Tonight’s livestream can only give you a taste
of these incredibly creative short films.
To see them in their entirety,
we encourage you to go to the creators’ channels.
Our first mini documentary
is from YouTube content creator Team2Moms.
– Hey, guys. I’m Ebony. – And I’m Denise.
– And we are… – Team Two Moms.
Denise and I are married and we are a two-mom family.
Growing up, the ideal family was the nuclear family,
where you had the working father,
the homemaker mom and wife, the kids, the house,
And it was like this idea of,
“This is what a family is supposed to look like.”
It’s very different in our household as far as the structure.
But I think the value of what a family is
is still very much the same.
A lot of people have always asked,
like, what does our family think?
I wanted you to have a husband,
but it don’t matter, though, like, now.
It’s, like, the most amazing thing in the world.
You know, our family has been very accepting
of the structure of our family
being one mom and a second mom and having kids.
I drew you, Mommy, me, Jayden, and Lulu.
Mama is, like, a lighter color than Mommy,
Ebony: Everybody saw the video of George Floyd,
and there are countless other incidents.
And now we find ourselves having to have conversations
that we weren’t planning on having so soon.
With everything that’s going on,
how does that make you feel?
I just wish that people wouldn’t judge people,
off the color of their skin.
I understand why people are marching through the streets,
because they just want everybody to be treated equally
and that’s how you get your voice heard sometimes.
All right, baby. I love the passion that you feel
in wanting people to be treated equally,
and you’re an amazing person for that.
And don’t worry, we’re gonna all work together to get it better.
Let’s continue to focus on the important racial justice issue.
To lead the conversation about the racial justice movement
as it relates to people of color in the LGTBQ+ community,
we are joined by three activists.
Here are television host and author Karamo,
the executive director of the National LGTBQ+ Task Force Kierra Johnson,
and YouTube content creator Arrows.
Kierra and Arrow, I mean, this is a conversation
I have been wanting and needing
because when we talk about the social justice movement,
sometimes we never talk about what it is to be LGBTQ+, but also people of color.
First let’s talk about what intersectionality means.
Okay, imagine a Venn diagram, and each part of your identity is a circle.
Now I’m black, I’m queer, I’m trans, I’m non-binary,
and all of those connect, and I’m right at the center.
I can’t get rid of the fact that I’m trans.
I can’t get rid of the fact that I’m black.
I walk in as all of those, as with all my circles.
One thing that I really want us to start to talk about a little bit more
is how when we’re thinking about these movements,
how we’re making sure that people don’t lose their circles within the movement.
Come on. How do people not lose their circles?
– Let’s not lose our circles. – That really– that’s deep. And it’s really important.
What should we be doing? Like, you know, that’s just– I really want to know from y’all.
I mean, I think part of it is, you know, at least as a–
as a black woman, right? Like, we are known to be, you know,
– masters of code-switching. Like, we know how to– – Okay.
Right? We’ve learned to, like, be able to speak
in the all-white male boardroom, right?
And we know how to, like, throw down at the fish fry
at the Southern church that we grew up at.
And I think part of it is for us,
it’s to be unapologetically all of who we are all the time.
– Yes. – You need to be yourself
so everyone else that’s watching you
can know that they can be themselves as well.
‘Cause I worked in social services before I got in television.
And I would work with LGBTQIA+ indentified youth.
And literally seeing my babies constantly locked up
or accused of engaging in sex work just because they were–
– Loitering. – Loitering. They were congregating.
And it was this thing of, like, they knew, like, okay,
we gotta call Karamo because Karamo can run around the corner
and he has a suit and tie on, going back to that respectability.
– Yeah. Yeah. – And now all of a sudden, it’s like the police was like,
“Oh, you got them? Okay, great. We’re not gonna take them in for no reason,
lock them up, misgender them, throw them in the wrong–,”
you know, like all these different things.
– And I do think representation still matters, right? – Yeah.
Like, when I think about–
so, my ex-wife was a police officer here in D.C.
When she used to walk out into the streets of D.C.
and a whole bunch of, like, black people were being loud,
she didn’t assume they were fighting,
she knew black people just are loud in the street.
Oh, yeah, we can be loud sometimes, and it’s fine, okay?
Right? And the queer woman, right, you know,
to be first on the scene, if there was violence against a trans woman
or queer folks, right, the way she handled that was gonna look differently
than if a straight cis white dude from Kansas who may not have that experience
was gonna act showing up on the scene.
And the reality is is that, you know,
police or state-sanctioned violence is an LGBTQ issue.
40% of the women sitting in prison right now
identify as bi, lesbian, trans, and queer.
– 40%. That’s not a solidarity issue. – Yeah.
That’s our people. And the same goes with housing, right?
Like, the majority of youth on the street are queer.
– Yep. – And they are subject to police violence,
and they’re getting put into detention centers.
And they’re putting– they’re right in that cycle of violence and incarceration.
We, as queer people, unfortunately are carrying the burden
of disenfranchisement and oppression,
health disparities in ways that, you know, are killing us.
– Yeah. Especially queer trans and queer women. – Yeah.
– Heck, yeah. – Let’s be real. Like, that’s who’s really carrying
the burden even more. And I think back to all my little babies
when I worked in social services that the people responding
were never– looked like them.
Like, one of the things going on in cities across the nation
is that fewer and fewer first responders
are from the community that they’re responding in.
They’re stepping into the street with implicit bias
and a fear of a community that they don’t know.
– That’s it. That’s it. – They’re starting there. It doesn’t get better from there.
– Yeah. – Yeah. I think you should definitely live
– where you’re policing. Like, that just makes sense. – Yeah, yeah.
Like, I should be able to see you at the bodega.
– Live where you’re protecting. – Yeah.
Going into your thing about how communities can protect themselves,
I think, like, taking away their language of you being– live where you police,
no, you’re not policing me. We’re protecting each other.
– And I think that came from your own language. – Hello. Yes, yes.
– Thank you, thank you. – You know what I mean? Live where you protect.
So I wonder within the social justice movement,
how much– how much work do straight folks need to be paying attention right now?
– I have a few things to say to that. – Yeah.
I think the first thing, the first thing is–
and this is– this goes to, like, dating, too.
Sorry, but this is like– this is personal, y’all.
I am so tired of all of my circles making it seem as if
I’m like, “You have to do me a favor.”
– Mm. – I am so ( bleep ) pretty.
You do not have to do me any kinds of favors.
What I need is for you to recognize that me and all my circles exist.
– Yeah. – I don’t like the perception that, like,
– straight people help us. – You know, these black straight folks,
you internalize these– a lot of these messages of privilege.
– Yes. – And, like, you’ve been hurt, so now you want to hurt me
– and put me down. And it just cannot. – Yes.
– And so it affects– – All to get closer to whiteness, bro…
– All to get closer to whiteness. Yeah. – …which, like, why?
Just be– just, like, don’t even– un-uh. No, we’re not gonna do that ( bleep ).
– I think if people said that to them– – I’m gonna hashtag you
– “all to get closer to whiteness,” bro. – Whiteness.
– That’s what I was about to say. – I need that t-shirt right now.
If more black folks said that to themselves,
more black and brown people said to themselves,
“Am I– I’m doing this to get closer to whiteness,”
– I promise you it would stop so many of us… – Bro.
from making choices that we make in the social justice movement.
– Oh, my God. Your homophobia… – That’s right. That’s real.
your transphobia is your– you trying to feel better and bigger
and closer to white supremacy and whiteness.
Why do people feel so threatened honoring the humanity of other people?
Like, I just– I don’t get it.
Like, I don’t need to be an immigrant standing on the other side of the wall
– to be able to, like, to feel what the right thing to do is. – Yeah. To empathize with them.
My oldest– well, my middle kid,
I was gonna say “came out,” but they don’t really talk about it as coming out.
They just talk about it as who they are.
– Shout out to them. – We were talking– I know, right?
They were talking the other day
and we were making a new Gmail profile,
and they were trying– you know how they ask you demographic information.
Your race, your gender, and they go,
“Well, I don’t want to put male or female. It says other.”
And I was like, “Okay.” And so they check other,
and then they ask like, “What pronouns?” I was–
and then they go, “They, them.” And I was like, “Right.”
Right? So I’ve got this non-binary ten-year-old,
who feels– didn’t feel the need to come out,
but felt comfortable enough to just have a conversation with me
as they were trying to figure out, like,
of these choices and boxes, like, what feels right to me.
And I don’t understand why anyone would be threatened by that.
And how anyone wouldn’t feel empowered.
– What I will say– – But a ten-year-old being like,
“I see myself here and I own all of that.”
I think it’s the most beautiful thing.
I think we’re all in agreeance to that.
This entire conversation, we have hit on
so many important things, and I think
we should always leave with like, “What’s the solution here?”
You know, social justice is so big, how do we move this forward?
– What do you think, Arrow? – I– really simple.
I think that a lot of these organizations that are doing such great work
in kind of pushing a lot of the legislation that we need to see.
Like, they’re pushing a lot of the protests that we need to see.
I want to see the leadership of these organizations
reflect the populations that are the most marginalized.
I think one thing we can all do regardless of where you are
and what profession you’re in, ask yourself the question,
“How are LGBTQ people uniquely impacted?” Right?
What are– what are the unique challenges and barriers?
Whether you are a cashier at McDonald’s
and you are the first person to welcome
a trans Spanish-speaking woman at your counter,
or you’re a health care provider.
And then I would say if you are a queer person,
– run for office. Just do it. – Yes. Do it.
Run for office. Go– like, apply for the biggest, baddest job in your company
or in your organization. Because we need to see you, right, in those places.
Yeah. I think that’s the thing for me of, like,
we get to this place where we’ve convinced ourselves certain narratives.
We start to buy in these narratives.
And for me, what I’m taking away from this conversation
is a solution I’m gonna do in the social justice movement
as I try to dismantle the systemic issues with all of our help and support
is I’m gonna continue just to love myself more…
– Yes. – …and my personal circles,
– but also loving these type of circles. – Yes.
Karamo, that was gorgeous of your– to love yourself. That was really good.
– Thank you. I took it from y’all. – It’s real.
Like, I’m telling you, I just felt inspired.
Like, it was like loving your circle. I’m telling you, that’s staying with me.
In a few moments, we’ll get to enjoy
the Grammy-nominated and very talented artist Rapsody perform.
But first, let’s listen to her thoughts on the movement.
Peace, y’all, this is Rapsody,
and you are tuned into YouTube’s “Bear Witness,”
and today we’d like to shed light and show support
and to make sure that we shout out all the women of 2020 who saved the day.
It’s been a hard, turbulent, trying time,
but the silver lining is we got to stand up,
find our power, and find our purpose.
And we’d like to shed light again on so many women
who found their voice and made sure they showed up for all of us.
From Stacey Abrams in Atlanta who got 800,000 plus
registered to vote in this year’s election
to our very first vice president who happens to be our first woman
and black woman Kamala Harris,
as well as the whole WNBA,
who made the biggest stance of all sports I think this year.
Yara Shahidi, Cardi B, Megan Thee Stallion,
who’s been at the forefront of Protect the Black Women,
to all the ladies across the world
who are from a long line of so many others,
like Coretta Scott King, Betty Shabazz, Rosa Parks.
I could go on and on. We champion you for standing up
and continuing the legacy of being a strong woman today.
So 2020, we’re gonna do a special performance
in celebration of you, our true winners.
One, two, one, two, one, two.
To my ladies, this is dedicated to you,
our ebony women, our queens,
Momma’s boys, y’all ready? Let’s go.
I see your hair, looking so precious and fly.
Celebrate yourself. We made it through.
We kept it true, yeah. Sister.
Again, this ladies’ night here.
This is you, too. Come on, hey.
Rock it, rock it, rock it.
I hope you and yours at home getting down right now.
You’re bearing witness to greatness.
You bearing witness to greatness all year.
You, too. Thank you for pulling up with us today
and helping us celebrate the true champions of 2020,
the ladies that held it down.
I am Rapsody. This is Momma’s Boys band.
Jam the records, rock nation.
To the ladies, we love you.
Thank you so much. Peace.
The twin pandemics of COVID and racism
have been devastating for people of color.
Whether the lives and jobs, and opportunities lost from the ravages of the disease
or the trauma of America’s systemic racism,
these crises have intensified the challenges of our friends
and family members with mental health issues.
Our next conversation features eminent psychologist
Dr. Mariel Bouquè and Dr. Joy Harden Bradford
and YouTube content creator Tarek Ali.
Their focus is on that rise of mental health problems
and how racial injustice and the inequitable distribution
of resources have affected us.
And as part of the discussion, these three will talk about actions to take
and then help available when this problem hits home.
But before that, let’s take a look
at our second in the series of mini documentaries
you’ll be seeing tonight.
This one created by Tarek Ali.
What’s up? It’s your boy, Tarek Ali. How you doing?
I hope you’re feeling good. I hope you’re feeling empowered, happy, beautiful.
I hope that you complimented yourself today because self love is the best love.
Today, I want to talk about breaking old habits.
I want to talk about breaking old cycles, or even better…
Generational curses are when our families’ or our ancestors’ history or baggage
impacts who we are as people.
I want to talk about the importance of mental health.
I want to talk about the importance of breathing,
the importance of taking a break.
Because I feel like in our community,
there’s this curse of, like, just suck it up. Be strong and keep pushing.
I’m just like, yeah, we will keep pushing and we will keep fighting,
but it’s important that we breathe in the process.
Breathing can look a lot of different ways for different people.
We all have different ways in which we take care of ourselves.
Like for me, I like to be in nature. I like to touch grass.
I like to hear birds. I like to read a book.
I like to eat fruit, and I like to just hear the trees move.
That makes me feel so centered.
I’ve had this conversation with my grandfather a couple of days ago.
But of course, he’s not familiar with the term or phrase “self care.”
Like, to him, he’s like, “Huh? What? What is that?”
He even called it self medication at some point,
and I’m like, “Granddad, no. Not self medication. No.”
Granddad: Self medication. I guess that’s something new to me.
Mostly I work in my garden, work in my yard.
I go fishing. Anything to take my mind off of what’s happening today
and gives you a peace of mind.
Self care and mental health is very important.
And it’s something that I want to be normalized.
And I want it to be praised.
I want it to be esteemed in the black community.
And that’s why I will continue having this conversation with my black people,
with my people, okay? I love you guys.
Take that nap. Take that break.
Take what you need. I love you.
Take care of yourself and have a great day.
Hello, I am Tarek Ali. I am a creator and conversationalist.
I’m excited about this conversation we’re about to have
on well-being and mental health with Dr. Joy and Dr. Buquè.
I’m Dr. Mariel Buquè, and I’m a trauma-informed psychologist,
and I spearhead a healing collective called the Soul Healing Collective.
I am Dr. Joy Harden Bradford. I’m also a licensed psychologist.
I’m also the founder of Therapy for Black Girls,
which is an organization dedicated to the mental health
and wellness of black women and girls.
So, I’m curious. What would you say got you into this line of work?
I ascribe lots of it to kind of growing up on the porch in Louisiana
with my grandmother, just kinda watching people pass
and figuring out what’s happening with people, right?
Yeah, well, for me, I mean, it was definitely my lived experiences.
Being six years old and seeing how much my people were suffering
and I really wanted to do something about that,
but I didn’t really know what that meant.
I simply wanted to help my people.
I’m no professional. I don’t have a doctor degree in psychology or anything,
but I got into my– how can I say,
interest in human behavior and psychology on accident.
I just have gone through a lot of trauma in my own life.
And my first time going to therapy,
I remember asking my therapist, “How am I okay?”
Like, “How am I happy?” Like, “How am I okay?”
She didn’t have an answer, and I think just ever since then,
I wanted to understand why I was okay with where I was at
and how I was able to grow and how I could make myself better.
And that’s how I actually started making content about it on YouTube.
But you know, Tarek, in your questioning of, “How am I okay?”
I really feel like that has been a large question I have been asking much of this year.
Right? Like, how are people okay
given everything that we have been experiencing,
and I think it’s really poignant that you pulled that question
because I think when we have had early experiences with things like trauma,
much of what has happened in 2020 I think can resurface, lots of that stuff, right?
I feel like a lot of what’s been happening this year
has just been one huge lesson in grief, right?
Like, kinda life as we knew it really kinda got upended very quickly.
We are in the midst of a pandemic related to COVID-19
and still very active police brutality,
continuing acts of racism.
You know, we have to be very careful, I think,
about protecting the little bit of energy we sometimes have.
So I’ve been thinking a lot about how are people okay right now?
I think that we are people that thrive, right?
It has been something that has been inherent in us for generations, right?
We have this internal resiliency.
I starting to realize that a black okay
is not the same as a regular okay.
Because, like, we are okay.
But, like, what does that okay really mean?
So, as a people, we kinda have historically
had to just kinda keep going and keep going.
And so for a lot of us, our stress tolerance is really high right?
And so what might really flatten someone else out
and they might be out of work for two to three weeks,
we kind of keep pushing past that, often to our detriment.
Yeah, and I think, you know, like, an extension of that
is also, you know, people aren’t necessarily wanting to hear that.
Because we’re still operating in a big stigma bubble, right?
Where people are like, “Yeah, no, it’s not mental health.
I’m not even going to attend to that. That’s not what it is, you know?
You know, Tarek, I would really love to hear from you in terms of the stigma, right.
Because you just graduated college.
I graduated college 20 years ago.
And so I would love to hear kinda like among your peers,
what kinds of conversations are happening related to mental health?
Do you feel like there is a decrease in that stigma at all?
Just in my lifetime, I have seen a 180.
when I was growing up, you know,
mental health was for white people. Like, you know?
In my house till this day I’m not really able to say I’m depressed
or able to say I’m anxious.
‘Cause it’s like don’t speak that out. Don’t– you know–
’cause when you speak it, it’s actually that.
If you said you was tired, your momma said, “What you tired for?”
You know, like, so, that’s how was for me growing up.
So it didn’t really seem like a luxury
That we could have as black people.
But I will say now in today’s time,
people my age are literally talking about it.
Like, it’s really normal now.
I’m curious to hear from you all
what kinds of things you have heard people
or maybe that you participate in yourself
or maybe suggested to clients
that have helped them to partake their mental health
and really help them to focus on mental wellness?
What I try to do is help people with things that you can do right now
at home before you get to that next step of going to therapy.
So it’s like complimenting yourself.
It’s taking a bubble bath. It’s saying no.
And, like, not just telling people to say no
and being mean, but, like, explaining how your perspective
and saying no and putting yourself first is so important.
A lot of it has to do with definitely, like,
creating a routine around mental wellness, right?
And making sure that that routine, like,
literally have that on your calendar.
Then have it 9AM as a calendar invite to yourself
to start engaging in all of the things that you need to do
in order to, you know, balance yourself out
before you get out into the world.
There people that are healers that are providing ways
that people can be in community and do writing workshops.
Like Alex Elle does that.
And then there’s, like, a lot of organizations
that have, you know, the opportunity for people to access therapy.
This is the way that it’s been constructed.
And we’re doing a lot of policy work around it.
But it’s slow rolling right?
And so there’s organizations like the Loveland Foundation
that provide scholarships for black women.
That is an organization that people that can actually, like, look into
if, you know, maybe going to therapy, you know,
is something that you want to do, but financially, it’s just not accessible.
And I think that’s the thing that I’ve been so encouraged by this year
is just seeing how many people and organizations
have really been stepping up to provide resources
and support for the black community.
I think the BEAM community is doing a amazing job
of, like, sharing resources for the community
Depressed While Black is another great organization
that does lots of great work.
Another place to be able to find therapists
is the National Queer and Trans Therapist of Color Network,
which does a lot, of course, with the GLBTQ community.
Inclusive Therapist is another place where people can find therapists.
You know, you can build, like, your own mini-healing community.
Like, pick one or two people, right,
and, like, meet, like, once a week, once a month, you know.
Like, chat through Zoom if that’s the only medium that we have.
And being able to just like talk it out and, you know,
Have a healing community that doesn’t necessarily need to be
in a healing space or a part of therapy, right?
You know, we’ve had some great conversations around therapy
and accessibility and those kind of things.
But I think it’s important to note that mental health doesn’t start there, right.
We have to have conversations about homelessness and poverty.
And, you know, sexism and racism and discrimination.
Like, all of those things impact mental health.
And so I would love for us to continue
to have a holistic approach to mental health and wellness.
I’m really inspired by you guys. Thank you guys so much.
– Thank you. – I’m inspired by you.
Thank you for all that you do.
It’s really courageous and necessary.
– Bye, everybody. – Bye, bye.
On the first segment of “Bear Witness: Take Action 2,”
we reflected upon the state of the movement
and focused on where we’ve been.
And now, we turn our attention to what comes next.
What we and others need to do now
and perhaps most important,
how we turn the ideas of our innovators,
original thinkers, and activists into action?
Let’s take a look at the third in our series of mini documentaries.
This one from digital storyteller
and YouTube content creator Hallease.
What is it you want me to reconcile myself to?
I was born here almost 60 years ago.
I’m not going to live another 60 years.
You always told me it take time.
It’s taken my father’s time, my mother’s time.
My brothers’ and my sisters’ time.
My nieces’ and my nephews’ time.
How much time do you want for your progress?
Hallease: So I want to explore what James Baldwin is talking about.
And show you the amount of time it’s taken
for us to get to… whatever this year is.
Let’s start with my grandparents’ time.
My grandparents were born smack dab
in the middle of the Great Depression.
So somehow they were born into that
and survived all of that.
But remember, we’re now in 1950s Portsmouth, Virginia.
Woman: And it was a segregated hospital over there at Maryview.
The blacks was going in one section, and the white was in another.
Had to cut my stomach to take Johnny out.
– Hallease: Back then? – Yeah.
And you only did it at certain hospitals.
Catholic hospitals would not do it.
And I made a mistake and went over there.
And I almost died. I thought I had died and went to heaven.
‘ Cause, you know, the nuns came in. They were looking down.
My God, I done died and gone to heaven.
Hallease: And so, keeping all of that in mind,
I decided to quite literally catch up with my mom and dad.
They lived through Brown versus the Board of Education,
the desegregation of public schools,
and the Civil Rights Movement.
They decided to put me in ungraded, special ed.
Ms. Griffin from up north. She’s from New York area.
Would have been special ed specialist.
And she turned around and told them,
He’s learn by doer, but he’s not special ed.
There’s nothing wrong with this kid.”
And there were like, “No, he’s going to special ed.”
And she– she fought for me.
She said, “There’s nothing wrong with him.”
My dad joins the Air Force in 1979.
Mary’s my mom, who was now a nurse.
They have my sister, and that brings us to my time.
So y’all pretty much know what happens during my time.
9/11, Barack Obama becomes the first
black president of the United States.
My whole family was shook about it.
I don’t know about yours, but mine was shook.
Because I never thought I’d see one.
I don’t think nobody black ever thought they would see one.
Then Trayvon Martin happens, Michael Brown happens.
Tamir Rice happens. Sandra Bland happens.
These people, they become household names for all the wrong reasons.
Especially when I think about the next generation.
I don’t know if my family is where it is today
because of this country or in spite of it,
( railroad crossing bell ringing )
and we will continue to push and move forward,
whether you get on or not.
Because I don’t have time to waste waiting for you.
I’ve been here for 30 years.
I hope to be granted at least another 30 more.
So it is irrelevant to me
to consider how much time
you want for my progress.
The role of the modern athlete
in the racial justice movement has evolved.
This generation of athlete activists
possesses incredible reach and power.
And most important, they’re willing to exercise that power
for the good of the community.
In doing so, they are standing on the shoulders
of the bold athletes of past generations.
Trailblazing activists like Muhammad Ali,
John Carlos and Tommie Smith.
Wilma Rudolph, and Earlene Brown.
Today’s athletes are unafraid to take a stand, to make a statement,
and at times to personally risk so much for the good of so many.
They have used their platforms to start needed conversations in the locker rooms
and in public forums across the country,
and to make fans of all colors and backgrounds
take notice of the need for racial justice.
We have two amazing conversations on this.
In a few minutes we’ll hear from the Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban.
and New Orleans Saints safety Malcolm Jenkins.
But first, to speak about how athletes have become agents of change,
here are Jemele Hill, Skylar Diggins,
I am joined by two incredible people who are critical thinkers,
very thoughtful about an issue that is dominant,
and, really, if you look at the history of it,
always has been dominant.
We’re talk about athletes and activism.
Skylar Diggins, WNBA superstar, college superstar,
but a lot more to her than that.
She certainly has made her opinions and thoughts known,
has is not shied away from this moment at all.
And of course, none other than the very esteemed Dr. Harry Edwards,
who have seen activism in athletes from an origination point
that we all discuss all the time from historical standpoint.
So, I’ve been a professional journalist for over 20 years,
and when I came in it was sort of the tail end of Michael Jordan’s dominance.
And there was a different kind of blueprint then
for how professional athletes
were supposed to conduct themselves
in terms of activism and protest,
Colin has certainly helped usher that in,
but we also remember before Colin Kaepernick
there was the Minnesota Lakes, who did their protest
regarding Philando Castile and spoke out about
a Minneapolis police department that would later kill George Floyd.
So I ask you to put this moment of athlete activism
in historical context and what it means currently.
There’s a whole history that got us here.
Athletes where in the forefront of the struggle.
In fact, Jackie Robinson was our Ghandi.
He literally asked community organizers and clergy
to train black fans on how to act in the stands
when they heard the slurs and saw people
sliding into second with their spikes up
and pitchers throwing at his head,
because he knew that if they got into a fight in the stands,
it could spill over into a street, into a race riot
and nobody would want the Dodgers to come to town and put Jackie on the field.
You can look at Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf,
who made the simple statement along the lines of Muhammad Ali,
“My religion dictates that I behave in a certain way
in terms of morality and validity,
and I cannot sit here and put my hand over my heart,
sing ‘Land of the free and home of the brave’
when my people are not free.
What that brought him was the end of his career.
And that people don’t even remember in many instances
the circumstances under which these individual struggled.
It was most certainly was picked up and got full force
when it went viral with Colin Kaepernick.
So Colin led that fight, and now it’s ongoing full-scale.
With that, I want a pivot to you Skylar.
This moment seems to be so much different
than the moments that I have seen across my journalism career.
Where is this desire coming from
from professional athletes of your generation to be more politically engaged?
As a league full of moms and athletes,
you can’t be protected by what car you drive.
I’m not protected by my occupation.
Class doesn’t protect me, how big my house is.
I don’t get to turn it on and off like a light switch.
I just think we realized our power.
We’re not only going to be used for entertainment anymore.
Men and women in sports are beginning to understand
that the only reason that it was George Floyd laying there
with that cop’s knee on his neck,
that was Breonna Taylor who was shot in her own home
not LeBron James, not you–
was that you were not there.
As a black woman in a prominent position,
I’m wondering what the weight of that feels like.
On one end, you’re fighting for liberation.
On the other end, there’s your only invisibility
that you also have to reconcile with.
How do you handle the weight of both of those?
That’s a great question, Jamele, and I don’t even–
I think I try to achieve that balance every day.
I don’t know if I achieve that balance, you know?
I stand on the shoulders of, like, so many people.
I stand on my mother’s shoulders.
I stand on my grandmother’s shoulders who was born
in Starkville, Mississippi in 1935
and picked cotton in Mississippi.
I’m still fighting for the same things that she was fighting for.
that it may not happen for me in my generation.
But I want to fight for so it could be
in my son’s generation, so he can feel freedom,
so he can feel like it will never be
“the first black” anything.
None of us are going to win the final victory,
but we have an obligation to fight the battles of our generation.
who are enslaved for 250 years,
We know the struggle is real.
We know the battles we have to fight.
But we know fighting these battles, it comes with a cost.
I certainly paid a cost when I spoke out against the president.
Did you know going into it that that’s what could be?
Or you were just like, “This is how I feel”?
I had no idea that tweet was going to cause
all the disruption that it did.
I think if I’d had known,
I might have thought twice about actually sending it, you know?
Honestly, I thought everybody in America knew
But turns out it was breaking news for some people.
There’s always been a price to pay
when you got out of your place.
It comes with a cost for sure, but I think it’s worth it.
Because it comes with a cost if I don’t do anything.
I really thought that once the games started,
that athletes would lose a little focus because results become more centered.
And then you’re insulated from a lot of the things
that are happening in the real world.
And it was really amazing to see
that every time Chris Paul was asked about his performance,
he started talking about voter registration and voter suppression.
Instead of talking about the game that night,
the Milwaukee players were talking about what was happening with Jacob Blake
and about criminal justice reform and police brutality.
And, so of course, since we’ve had this great conversation, you know,
we can’t leave people without any takeaways
or any ways to proceed forward.
We can’t be collaborators. We gotta be disruptors.
We’ve to go in there willing to break this whole thing down.
And critically burn it to the ground. Not literally.
Critically we have to be willing to do that.
I hope the black athletes start putting–
or continue, I should say, to put pressure on these systems.
Skylar, what are some of your final thoughts?
Jemele, I would just like to continue empowering, you know,
women and other people to just speak up.
It doesn’t matter how big your platform is, use it.
It’s something that you could be doing.
You are part of this kind of
social justice ecosystem that we kinda have.
We cannot afford to sit down.
We cannot afford to assume as we did,
as so many people did under Barack Obama,
that now that he’s elected we can sit down and let Barack do it.
The revolution will not be televised
because it will be happening in the boardrooms
and in the conference rooms.
The revolution will not be online.
The revolution will not be in an Instagram or an email.
The revolution will not come about as a result of us electing Biden and Harris.
The resolution will come about in activities
that go on day in, day out in our regular course of living.
takes a hand in bringing about the progress that is necessary.
I want to thank you both for this conversation.
It certainly fortified my spirit.
You know, I guess to use a sports analogy,
we have to act like we’re the favorite team,
but we’re down by couple touchdowns, right?
That’s how– urgency we need to have with this.
Crystal: Imagine working twice as hard for half as much.
Or risking your career to fight for what’s right.
Or lining somebody else’s pockets
while they say your life doesn’t matter.
Imagine having to just take the L
when they purged your chances of winning.
Erosion of our democracy is not right.
Imagine building the foundation of a movement
only want to watch them try and tear it down.
What was the message you got?
Imagine being told it’ll never happen,
so you have to go out and make it happen.
Imagine all of that because you have to.
I mean, it’s not like you’ve been watching.
You know what it feels like? We have every right to be here!
But you know what? You’re still going to feel our power out here.
You’re still staying silent. Part of the problem.
And here and definitely in here.
We’re used to building our power in the shadows.
So you’ll never see us coming.
We’ll just keep on filling up arenas.
If you won’t put us on your back,
that won’t stop us from putting you on ours.
We have a vast potential which can and must be put to constructive use
in getting this great nation together.
So go ahead and celebrate our victories.
Because legacies aren’t built when the lights shine brightest.
They’re built when no one is watching.
The interesting thing about what’s happening now
and what we’re seeing now with athletes is not necessarily unique,
In terms of athletes stepping to the podium
to draw attention to social issues.
it’s been done before. We are not the first generation to do that.
Yeah, I think you’re exactly right, Malcolm.
I mean, if you go back to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar,
you know, he was very outspoken.
He very much was into solving social societies ills
and trying to have an impact.
But there are always gatekeepers in media.
I don’t think that athletes really truly know
how much power that they have and influence that they have.
But it is encouraging to see
athletes really start to explore the boundaries
and limitations that have been perceived around them.
As a professional athlete, I am a privileged individual.
But I wasn’t born with the privilege
and to gain the privilege, I had to be the best in the world at what I did.
You know, I first got in the league, I had my foundation,
and we’re doing things. We have great programs. We’re giving opportunities.
But I realize we’re sending those kids–
Once they leave our program, we’re sending him right back
to the same neighborhoods that they came from.
We’re not really changing their environments.
We can give people a boost,
but what are things that are holding people back? And it’s policy.
And we’re starting to realize,
okay, these politicians are all elected officials.
In most times, they make decisions that affect our day-to-day lives.
And we don’t even know who their names are.
I stay away from those guys, you know?
I don’t get involved with politicians at all.
I’ve always thought that it’s better to work from the ground up, right?
So, to go out where people are, to meet people where they’re at.
To be part of what they’re facing.
To mentor, to invest in businesses
that are in underprivileged communities.
Which do you think– which have you seen work better?
When a strong locker room really challenged team owners to get behind local policies.
And to sign on to letters that they were writing to local officials
or going directly to those elected officials
and speaking to them about policy
that needed to get changed or was on the docket.
We really saw laws change.
And so I think that is the role of players and athletes
is to make sure that these issues become
part of the priority of our society.
You know, fighting racism and standing up against racism is not politics.
You know, the American ideal was liberty and justice for all.
And so I was proud of our guys.
I was proud to stand with them. I was proud to be part of it.
The power is in the hands of the players,
and that’s not a bad thing.
Because anything that allows our players to connect to society
and have an impact, that’s good.
This is the first generation that has
the amount of leverage that athletes have today.
And I think there’s been a revelation of that leverage.
And I think it started with guys like LeBron James
and Colin Kaepernick and just how far they were able to
move the needle when they dared to test the boundaries
of their leverage and influence
and the social capital that they have.
Did you see the result of all of that effort in this latest election?
I mean, did you see people come out and vote
and really name those people and not vote for them
or vote for the people that can make a change?
Well, I started the players coalition, and that’s been our strategy,
is to really focus on state and local level.
And we’ve had a lot of success doing that in multiple places.
there are whole campaigns to restore people’s voting rights
that were taking away through felonies.
In Pennsylvania we changed laws
that got people’s records expunged for nonviolent misdemeanors after ten years.
Normally I’m really good as a businessperson saying,
“Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, here’s what we have do to solve this problem.”
But it’s difficult for me to connect
because I kinda feel like an imposter.
It’s white people that have created this problem
and need to solve it. It’s just not–
I’m not going to lie. It’s not an easy thing just to say, “Okay, let’s go all in,
and I know exactly what to do,” ’cause I don’t.
Yeah, I think we got– if we really care,
and I’m going to set the foundation for this.
If we really care about the things that we say we do in this country,
if we say we want justice and equality and all of these things,
and we really care about that,
then we all have to engage in the fight for that.
Meaning that we all have to be willing to uncomfortable.
I don’t disagree, yeah. I don’t disagree with you at all.
But white people don’t talk about race at all.
And in trying to get my peers to talk about race
and the issues and understand the issues is hard, right?
Because it’s not something that we’ve grown up with having to deal with.
And particularly when you hear the term “white privilege”
and you’ve seen it too when people talk about black lives matter.
They don’t understand the change they’re trying to create.
I think the shift has to be that we have to see ourselves first as Americans.
And then from that same point,
if we both share the same citizenship,
then I should be able to look at you no matter what color,
race or background, creed you come from,
and say that that’s– nope. That’s not up to the standard of how we treat our citizens.
It’s about creating those spaces for us
that allow us to grow and empower each other
that make us less reliant on the government,
that makes us less reliant on all of these other things around us,
but create sustainability and growth.
I’ve invested more than $50 million over the past four years in people of color.
Because to me, if I can help those businesses grow,
then people can hire people that look like them
And create jobs and create momentum
that get people out of that risk profile of being incarcerated.
It took a few years, but I think what we see now
is this awareness of not only how much leverage
I have as an individual, but collectively.
How much leverage we have as athletes and influencers,
not only over our particular sports, but just in society.
We’re starting to get real success stories.
It’s a great step forward and there’s a lot more room to grow.
And I think what African-Americans have always shown in this country
is that when we are allowed to participate fully,
we make this country better.
I want to show them that they can achieve anything
they set their minds to if they work hard,
even if their path is not a normal straight-up path to success.
Nobody’s path is that way. So, I told these boys
strap they cleats on, meet me out on the field,
and if one of them beat me or any of them beat me
during these one-on-one/ king of the fields,
then they’ll be walking out of here with a freaking scholarship
that hopefully will help them play football at the next level.
So let’s see what these boys built of, man.
– Think about a– – Fake– fake hitch. Hitching roll.
A fake hitch. A was gonna just hit ’em with a hitch.
Hit ’em with a fake. Go on in and just drop a hitch on them.
You seen how Jerry Jeudy put his hand upon that route?
– Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like that. – Let me try something.
– I like that. Yes, sir. – Let’s go.
– Hey! – We playing first of seven.
I already got one point. If you make the catch, you stay on.
If you get the broken up, DB goes receiver.
Y’all know the vibe. I know he’s slow, but something just run and go like that.
That was a beautiful ball, though. It was literally right there.
– ( indistinct chatter ) – I like that, I like that, I like that.
I want to make this game fair. We just gonna switch up after three.
If not, I’m gonna just streak up all the way.
Trying to give these boys something at the end,
so we need to have a– a close competitor.
Our next segment focuses on criminal justice reform,
an issue my cohost has been a leader on.
Common, tell us about your commitment.
Well, criminal justice reform is so much of what we’ve been discussing here.
that really is saying, “Hey,
let’s keep black and brown people in a certain position.”
It’s been part of America’s history,
and it has to be resolved
because the healing can only take place
when we start thinking about those who often get overlooked
or those who are deemed to put under the category of criminals
without being treated as human beings.
So my work has been about humanizing people who have committed crimes,
whether they’re incarcerated for a long time.
Just imagine a lot of people that go to prisons and jails
will be released and we want them to come back better human beings.
To be reformed and changed.
So when we talk about the criminal justice reform system,
we’re saying we’re thinking about it from a perspective of healing
and improving people’s lives
so they can come back to society and better society.
And that’s what my commitment has been.
It’s for those inside and for us that are outside.
I can listen to you talk for days.
I love everything you said.
The idea of criminal justice reform
has long been a priority in our community.
What that reform means today,
what its impact could be and how we bring it about
is the subject of our next conversation.
It features award-winning broadcast journalist
the founder and executive director
of the Essie Justice Group,
and the president and CEO of the NAACP,
To help ground that conversation,
let’s take a look at a video
that deals with the question
that is perhaps the most salient
as we look back at the past few months
and look ahead to what we can do next.
Anthony: America, a nation with two systems of justice.
– Separate… – Get the ( bleep ) off!
– …and unequal. – Officers taking a man in a wheelchair to the ground…
Countless incidents of racism
and inequality hidden by those in charge.
But even in high-profile incendiary events,
where we all know the names of victims,
justice is far from guaranteed.
And now, six months since the first “Bear Witness: Take Action,”
we update these cases and ask…
Earlier this year, we ran in the memory of Ahmaud Arbery.
The details of his murder were hidden for weeks.
The case moved from DA to DA,
while the suspects avoided charges for over two months.
They were only arrested after a video of the killing surfaced,
and special prosecutors have shown evidence
that at least one of the suspects used racial slurs when attacking Ahmaud.
Arbery was on the ground.
That he heard Travis Michael make the statement, “( bleep ).”
But while the details appeared damning,
we still await more hearings and a trial.
Through Ahmaud, we are reminded of just how many forces we fight against
in the process of trying to bring truth to light.
Put your hands in the air and get down on your knees!
We stay in pursuit of that truth and justice for Breonna Taylor,
whose death ignited a movement
that reverberated across the nation.
the police changed their stories
and made every effort to vilify her,
insisting she was involved with drug trafficking
and attempting to coerce an ex-boyfriend
into taking a plea to falsely testify
that Breonna was a part of his drug dealing operations.
The recklessness and falsehoods that led to Breonna ‘s death
remained consistent in the investigation and prosecution of the officers involved.
Only one police officer has been charged.
And it wasn’t for killing Breonna.
It was for endangering the lives of her neighbors.
That’s right, for the shots he missed.
I was reassured Wednesday
of why I have no faith in the legal system
and the police and the law.
They are not made to protect us black or brown people.
Breonna was overlooked, invisible,
like so many other black women
who face violence at the hands of police.
Jacob Blake, shot seven times in the back
in front of his children.
As Jacob remained in recovery paralyzed,
the three officers involved in the shooting
have merely been put on leave.
The union representing the Kenosha police officers
claimed Jacob Blake forcefully resisted arrest
and ignored orders to drop a knife he held in his left hand.
Meanwhile, the police officers are still on leave
while the Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation
continues to investigate the shooting.
One thing about old Floyd, man, I love the world.
I ain’t putting on. Ask anybody that knows me. Then they know me.
Perhaps no event was a catalyst for action
like the killing of George Floyd.
One officer has been charged with second-degree murder,
while the three others who failed to intervene faced lesser charges.
They’ve all been fired from the Minneapolis Police Department,
but all remain free on bail.
No trial of the four will be held until spring of 2021.
And the Floyd family has sued for civil damages
to force the city to ensure
proper training of its police officers.
Floyd might not be here, but I’m here to get justice,
and we’re gonna get justice for my brother.
Anthony: Arbery, Breonna,
Say their names over and over.
And remember the names of all those who came before them
We’re talking about criminal justice with Derrick Johnson
and also Gina Clayton-Johnson. Nice to see you both.
Thank you for talking with me. Wow, we’ve got a lot to cover
because we’re at a moment of transition in this country.
And I’m curious, what do you think would further criminal justice reform?
I’d like to say that incidents result in momentary change,
but infrastructure results in lasting change.
And what we have seen is actually that.
There was coordinated infrastructure that was able to produce
an opportunity for people to organize.
What we have now is a situation of sustainable victory.
And that is because of the infrastructure,
that black organizing, that organizing that has been–
been led by formerly incarcerated people,
directly impacted people, women, trans communities, indigenous communities
have created to create the conditions of success.
And you guys are well aware of this debate, you know, defund the police.
When I would interview people, they would say to me, “Oh, that sounds so scary.”
Other people would say, “Oh, I think that means not giving funds for things
that should be going to social services,
like police officers interacting with people who are mentally ill.”
So there’s a kind of wide spectrum of understanding some of this messaging.
How do you build a coalition?
So when we use phrases like “defund the police,”
that’s not about building coalitions
because sometimes people outside our community
don’t know how to interpret it.
So we have to look at all these tools that’s in front of us
to get to the question of power, however we define power in our particular community.
So I run an organization in California called Essie Justice Group,
and we’re a loving and powerful community of women
who have lost loved ones to mass incarceration.
They are the ones who are seeing firsthand
the ways in which our systems and our budgetary priorities
have really failed to prioritize the health and safety
and wholeness of our communities and our people.
What I think needs to be clear is that their values are our values, right?
That, like, in the broadest sense of the word, “our.”
That we all want the same thing.
Then do you think, Derrick, that using that phrase
“defund the police” was a mistake?
Because there are certainly, as you know well,
Democrats who said, “Hey, I narrowly, you know,
squeaked by in my election because defund the police
was a phrase that my constituents didn’t read.
They read it as there should be no police in your neighborhood.”
Status quo is a powerful gravitational pull for individuals.
Change is something that a majority of the population have never run to.
When you look at change in this nation,
there’s always the few leading the majority.
It’s never the majority leading the few.
So it’s common upon people like Gina
and many other people across the landscape
to be comfortable with being the leading guard for the change,
and over time, people will follow.
I mean, I just– Derrick, I appreciate you.
That was– it was just so right on.
And you know, sometimes it’s just the encouragement
that you need to hear at times just to feel like
despite the fact that we are working in different places, in different states,
we are all part of the same movement.
I think that one of the things that I really appreciated this year
was having the opportunity to write together
and to actually publish about a piece of federal legislation
that we both really believe in called the Breathe Act.
And the Breathe Act is one of those solutions
that lays out a plan for safety
and for justice with– in very concrete terms.
Universal basic income, universal health care,
all of the things that we know work to actually keep our community safe
and whole and healthy and free.
Those are the things that are– that exist in this– in this bill
that comes directly from the movement for black lives.
And so I think that, you know, we need to really take a step back
and look at the substance of what it is
that our elected leaders, as Derrick so well pointed out,
are really really pushing for.
What do you guys think are the priorities?
I mean, when I look at this list, right,
you could say, “Okay. End mandatory minimums
or end private prisons or restore voting rights.”
I grew up in the city of Detroit.
I was pulled over by the same two officers every day for seven days.
It was less than 18 months later on my block,
there was a person killed by these two police officers
because they were standing on a corner, Malice Green,
on 23rd and Warren Avenue.
The fact that individuals can commit crimes against this individuals
and hide behind the badge is unconscionable.
Now the opportunity in front of us is to insure those policy makers
stay consistent with the value proposition that black lives matter.
We begin to see systemic public policy changes
to address decade, century-long structural racism.
So you think change comes from the top down or the bottom up,
or does change come sort of both directions and meets in the middle somewhere?
Who do you think is paying the bail agents?
Who’s paying– who’s paying to get people out?
It’s all women, it’s all mothers who are getting those phone calls.
It’s grandmothers, it’s aunties, it’s, you know,
we’re the ones scraping up the money.
It is women who are doing that work every single day
and can tell you very quickly and clearly, like,
what they need is some reminders, an address.
If they don’t have an address, you know, someone to wellness check,
to go check on them, some resources.
And these were all the solutions that our community was coming up with.
And that is straight– that is an example of, like, the bottom up solution.
Not just stories, but solutions being driven from the bottom up.
As well as, of course, the movement.
What advice would you each give about how an individual
can help impact the system? Derrick, I’ll start with you,
and then, Gina, I’ll have you wrap up for us. Derrick?
Well, when you look at the dominant culture,
our problems are often times their solution.
So we have to right size how we see one another in community
and as neighbors so one would not create a solution
that’s causing a community a problem.
Identify those individuals like district attorneys
if you have one who are pushing for restorative justice,
and own your agency an appreciate that you are important to this conversation
around system reform and the elimination of mass incarceration.
The thing that we have to confront
That we actually have not just a pandemic now,
but an entire infrastructure at work.
Mass incarceration is a perfect example of this, right?
To separate individuals from their communities
by distance and bars and concrete,
stigma, marginalization, and so forth.
To stay connected because that is our biggest power
against kind of all of the debilitating
and the feeling of hopelessness and overwhelm
that we can often feel when looking at kind of the world problem.
So, stay connected, get organized,
connect to your ancestors, connect to your people,
and know that– that big change is possible when we–
when we embark on it together.
I’m DeRay McKesson, civil rights activist,
and one of the cofounders of Campaign Zero.
I’m here to talk about three big ideas in criminal justice.
The first is police violence.
As of today, there are only 16 days
where a police officer did not kill someone in the United States.
The police kill 11,000 people a year,
disproportionately killing people of color.
Black people are three times more likely to be killed
by police than white people.
Members of the Latino community are two times more likely
to be killed by the police.
There are eight cities in the United States
where a black man is more likely to be killed by a police officer
than anyone is likely to be killed by anyone else.
11 officers have ever been convicted in one year for those killings,
and those officers aren’t even convicted for murder.
Imagine if you had a job where it was impossible to be fired.
It doesn’t matter how many cameras you put up
if they know it is impossible for there to be any accountability.
There are a lot of misconceptions about what a felony is.
And one of the biggest ones for me has always been felony theft.
In the public imagination, when people hear “felony,”
they often hear “murder.” That is like a proxy for people.
And I think, you know, I blame much of the storytelling
that happens in Hollywood for that.
Here’s the rub. In New Jersey today,
theft over $200 is a felony.
In Kentucky, Illinois, and New Mexico,
the threshold is $500 for felony theft.
In New York today, theft over $1,000 is a felony.
Then imagine getting a decade long sentence
There’s no world where that makes sense.
Most people know about no-knock raids
because of the killing of Breonna Taylor.
The Louisville Police Department killed Breonna Taylor
based on faulty information, shoddy policing,
and just a callousness towards people’s lives.
About 60,000 no-knock raids happen in a given year.
There’s research that shows that judges spend about three minutes
approving these warrants to just go into people’s homes and to search their property.
But what’s interesting is about 90% of them are assigned for drugs.
And this is much closer to people than they think.
There’s a case in Missouri where the police executed a search warrant,
a no-knock warrant for an unpaid utility bill.
Now, I don’t know about you, but I didn’t even know
you could get a search warrant for a unpaid utility bill.
That’s wild. And here’s really the thing.
The police will say that this is our tool to, like,
get drugs off the street, da-da-da.
The police actually don’t do raids of drug kingpins,
and you might be like, “Why wouldn’t the police do a no-knock raid
of, like, a drug kingpin’s house?”
They don’t do it ’cause they don’t think it’s safe.
They’re arresting drug kingpins at the corner store,
at church, at the parking lot.
So the police will tell you that they’re trying to do it
to take out these big quantities. They know that’s a lie.
There are 35 cities and states that are working to ban no-knock raids today.
About 59% of American voters say that we should just end no-knock raids.
And there is bipartisan support.
We gotta let this tactic go. It’ll save people’s lives.
We’ll be able to move that money to something else
that actually helps people out instead of harms them.
And we know that the war on drugs is racist.
And we should dismantle it every step of the way.
We have a chance to make sure
that we put an end to this practice once and for all.
Freedom is not only the absence of oppression,
but the presence of justice and joy.
This year the movement lost a true giant–
He would never be truly replaced,
but his legacy of creating good trouble lives on
in the new faces leading the movement
and new voices leading the charge
on climate and environmental issues
Here are Brittany Packnett Cunningham,
and 13-year-old Mari Copeny.
Hey, everyone, I’m Brittany Packnett Cunningham.
I am an activist and an educator.
I’m the host of the podcast “Undistracted.”
I’m an MSNBC news contributor.
And most importantly. I am a huge fan
of the young women that I get to talk to today.
If you don’t know them, you should
We’ve got the incredible, the incomparable,
the indomitable Mari Copeny, also known as Little Miss Flint,
an activist from Flint, Michigan,
on everything from climate change to environmental justice.
And you should know her from the incredible speech she gave at March For Our Lives
and all the work she’s continued to do since then, Naomi Wadler.
Hey, little sisters, how you doing?
– I’m doing well. – Yeah?
I know we were talking about not loving school being on camera recently,
but you been making it through all right.
– How about you, Mari? – Struggling.
– Struggling, yeah. – Well, at least you’re honest about it.
That’s what we’re hear to have is real talk, right?
You all have been leading struggles.
You’ve been leading entire movements.
What I love about the both of you is that you do not wait
for people to give you permission.
You said, no, the work is right now.
So, Naomi, I’ll start with you,
and, Mari, I want to come to you.
what is really at the role and responsibility
of your generation in the movement?
I think younger generation
are leading a lot of the movements
that are prominent in today’s society.
I think that we really offer a fresh perspective
because being able to think of more ways to protest and lead
and to give fresh opportunities to younger kids
to be able to bring what they have to the table.
Is that same way you feel, Mari?
I agree with Naomi a lot.
We’re just here to change the world
and be kids at the same time.
Because we should be able to do both, right?
You should be able to live your life,
That’s what the whole fight is about.
But I know that probably some of folks you go to school with
or some of your peers don’t necessarily agree with you.
They haven’t signed up for the struggle in the same way you have.
Do you try to convince them to join the cause?
Yes, I try to convince as many of my friends as possible.
I don’t force them to do it. If they don’t want to do it,
but most of them do want to do it.
So, let’s talk about it. What are you trying to get done?
What are the goals you want to see accomplished?
I want to get my water filter out to–
I want to get my water filter out to as many people as I can.
It’s not just Flint that has a water crisis.
It’s America that has a water crisis.
– Everybody deserves clean water. – That’s right.
There is, unfortunately, lead in water and unclean water in a lot of our communities.
And a lot of young people like you are suffering without those water filters
you’re working to get out to people.
Because if the government isn’t going to fix it,
we got to fix it ourselves.
So, you’re working on the water crisis.
Naomi, a lot of people came to know you
through your work handling gun violence in March For Our Lives.
What do you want people to better understand
about how gun violence actually shows up in our communities?
When I think of gun violence committed
against black and brown communities,
I specifically think of police brutality.
And watching George Floyd’s video
and hearing about Breonna Taylor and watching that case unfold,
I felt like it was all of our people
who were going through that.
I didn’t think it was just a select few of us.
I think we’re connected and we need to band together in order
to fight the violence that happened against women of color
and black girls specifically.
I hear that, because so often
the conversation about gun violence
is when there’s a mass shooting in an affluent community,
we hear the news non-stop talking about that.
And those things are a preventable tragedy.
Those are things we should have laws and regulations set up
to make sure do not happen. But also to your point,
there’s violence happening every single day
in communities of color that nobody is talking about.
I’m so, so glad that you are making sure that we’re getting the story right.
And that actually leads me to my very last question for both of you.
And this is the most important one.
What is everyone’s homework? What do we do now?
How does everyone start where they are
and take action on the things that matter?
Okay, listen up. So, first,
put your money where your mouth is.
Three don’t just retweet or repost.
Even if it’s just– only if it’s–
it’s still helping towards good causes.
We want your voices to be heard.
Six, post about it. Keep on posting about it.
Hijack– actually, that’s number seven.
That’s what I did, and look where I am now.
What can people do right now?
What action can people take to affect change?
I agree with absolutely everything Mari said.
– I would just add one more thing. – Of course you do!
You all are like old friends. You’re sisters. We know.
– But keeping going. – I would just add one more thing on to that,
which is educate yourself and go out of your way
to learn more about the communities with which your actions affect.
I think ignorance is bliss in today’s society
and a lot of people weren’t under threat during this year’s election,
whereas a lot of us feared for our safety.
But how would you get your voice out there
or start speaking out about issues with which you don’t know a lot about?
That is such important advice
because a lot of time people are picking up causes,
that they’re not really educated on.
It’s okay to stop and read,
ask the important questions, and make sure that
you’re fully informed as you’re taking action.
What do you think our homework should be
as beginners, really, in the world of activism?
Well, you’re not really beginners.
You’re veterans at this game at this point.
I really think my homework for you is two things.
I remember December 1st, 2015,
I and about seven other activists had been asked
to come and meet with President Obama
in the White House in the Oval Office.
And one of the things that he told us
as he walked us around the office was from Dr. Martin Luther King,
where he said that the arc of the moral universe is long
but it bends towards justice.
And I think a lot of people hear that and they think,
okay, it bends towards justice. We should have hope.
But what he was reminding us was it’s long,
that the work is going to take some time.
So my first piece of homework for you all would be to pace yourselves.
The other thing that I would say is your homework,
which fits in with that is to let yourselves be young people.
The fact of the matter is one of the most revolutionary
things black girls can do is to be children.
That in a society, in schooling systems
that want to age us and adultify us,
that literally want to see us as older than we are,
it is so important that you don’t rush those years,
because everybody deserves to live a full life.
I’m so, so grateful for the both of you.
I love talking to you every single time.
And more important than that,
I love everything you’re doing in the world.
Thank you for making the world better,
for being the heroes of our lifetime,
and for everything you do.
Talk to you soon, little sisters.
– Thank you. – Bye, y’all.
Now to share his perspective and a performance,
here is a winner of an NAACP Image award,
a BET award, and two Soul Train Music awards,
plus my new favorite guy.
I could tell you a thousand stories
about my incidents with cops.
Black kid from Brooklyn, it’s the same story.
It’s not like it’s abnormal.
I hear the sirens when I’m in my car,
no matter what time of day, time of night it is, and my PTSD sinks in.
All the afflictions you get from being around overly aggressive–
the nature of overly aggressive police enforcement
over a lengthy period of time your whole life,
it just causes a certain ripple effect.
So those fears still live with me.
Now I’m in an opportunity space where I can say something.
But I think it’s our responsibility.
If you a musician and you came from an environment
that you now talk about, that you now represent,
you’re the ambassador of an environment that people look to
for a source of inspiration and new information,
even if it comes from suffering and poverty.
Man, your responsibility is to make sure that they’re informed.
Your responsibility is to make sure you raised your hand
and you stand firm for them. That’s your job.
That’s the job. I’m supposed to represent them.
Well, I’m not in government or politics.
I’m just in people. I’m a person in the belief system of people.
People matter. Wow. What my hope is for 2021?
What is my hope for 2021?
I look forward to more cops being trialed for their tragic behaviors.
I look forward to a police force across the country that’s more tolerable.
I look forward to less pat-downs and random searches for people of color.
I look forward to people seeing the effects
of the wrong they’re doing and changing their behaviors.
The real superheroes are the people that don’t wear the capes.
The real superheroes were the people that weren’t afraid to march when COVID started.
The people that were protesting that were actively using their platform
for things that mattered. In 2020, my song “Roses” is becoming a huge hit record.
And I had the opportunity to shoot the music video for it.
My song is the number four record in the country,
and I can’t be more excited, but at the same time,
the balloon pops ’cause outside they’re protesting.
I couldn’t clap for myself ’cause people were struggling.
And as much as I wanted to go running to a protest,
that wasn’t the right thing to do at that time either,
so I thought what’s the best way to utilize my resources?
And I donated it to bail relief to bail protesters out,
to support people who have to defend themselves in court.
And I think inspiring people to have a voice,
inspiring people to raise their hand to take action,
Empowerment begins with critical thinking.
As we mobilize towards liberation,
we honor a long-standing tradition of resistance
that is rooted in radical thought.
In this segment, elevating our thoughts for the fight ahead,
we will highlight emerging perspectives in the movement,
watch more powerful mini documentaries from YouTube content creators,
and hear bold approaches and solutions
to the inequalities that we face,
plus meet the new vanguard of thinkers and doers advancing the cause.
As we prepare ourselves for that fight ahead,
we need to address the main challenge that confronts us.
How do we get justice in a system that was not designed to protect us?
One where race is the determining factor in our freedom?
Brilliant artist, activist,
and YouTube content creator Prince EA
explores these questions in our next mini-doc
And now with our conversation “The Voices Of Hate,”
here are Soledad O’Brien and Deepak Chopra.
Joining me now to talk about the rise of tensions
and also the rise of hate,
is the one and only Deepak Chopra.
So nice to see you. It’s been a minute since we’ve had a conversation.
– How are you? – I’m good.
I’m very happy to join you, and it’s a delight.
When did you first notice
the rise in hate in this country?
Is there a point that you can pinpoint to say
this was the moment that I really recognized it?
Well, I came to this country in 1970
when the Vietnam War was coming to an end.
And I thought the world was changing.
Gloria Steinem was talking about the feminist movement. There was Greenpeace.
There was an anti-war movement.
I thought things are going to change imminently.
And shortly thereafter there was, of course, Watergate,
and there was a crisis on bussing in Boston.
and what you are calling hate.
But not everybody who’s fearful turns that fear into hate.
What is it about the next level hate that–
is it a sense of empowerment?
Because the people or hateful
versus the people are fearful
feel and act very differently, I think.
On mass scale, what happens is
manipulation of collective consciousness
by people who are presumably leaders
and they are masters at manipulating
the collective consciousness of fear to their advantage.
And the way to do that is to incite hatred out of that fear.
I think for a lot of people, hate feels good.
Because the brain kind of likes that feeling
and they want to be amped up on hate.
So, if you’re feeling fear, if you’re feeling anger.
if you’re in the fight/flight response,
the brain chemistry that corresponds to that is adrenaline,
is cortisol, is more adrenaline.
It’s all things that cause inflammation in the body,
make sure blood pressure rise,
speed up your heart rate, et cetera,
because you’re prepared to fight.
Now, of course, our brains are also evolving.
when we feel love, when we feel joy,
it’s a whole different chemistry.
Serotonin, opiates, dopamine.
So why is hate the one we seem to click into so much more easily?
I can tell you any story I’ve ever done
where people are being more hateful than saying
here’s a peaceful march and here’s an inspirational story,
I’ve got to be honest, the one where it makes people feel angry and hateful
is much more likely to motivate people than the other.
Because the reptilian brain
is hundreds of millions of years older.
So if you think humans make rational decisions,
you’re an idealist and you’re actually–
you don’t know what’s happening.
Humans bristle with emotions
pretending to be intellectual and rational.
Do you think hate is more prevalent today
or is it that we’re able to better message hate?
Actually, if ask social scientists,
and I’m not the expert in this,
but everybody agrees that everything is evolving
in a better direction, that hate is less prevalent.
that racism is less prevalent.
It doesn’t feel that way. Why is that?
is what you just mentioned as a journalist–
We are a culture that has romanticized violence.
Who has to step forward in order to combat hate?
And what does that even look like in the world today?
I mean, how would you advise an individual
to actually do something?
That sounds like maybe you’re going to be
fighting with your limbic system or a group limbic system.
– Fight is the wrong word. – Tangle. Wrestle.
No, no. Struggle, wrestle, all wrong words.
What’s a creative solution? Even hope is a wrong word.
Hope means there is despair, okay?
Hope and despair go together.
How do you get independent of hope and despair into creativity.
That’s essential human adventure is creativity.
The worst use of imagination is violence.
The best use of imagination is creativity
and emergence and vision.
So unless we understand the past
leading to what we call the present,
and then we look at the present without denial.
Without denial. Don’t romanticize anything.
Then say what do you want to pursue in the future?
How can we create emergence of that future ?
That takes maximum diversity, shared vision,
complementing strengths, writing the new story,
and harnessing the powers of technology to do that
– and hoping for the best. – Then how do you–
how do you– like, I’m trying to figure out
how I advise people who say,
“I get it. I want to be part of a new story.
I want to ratchet down the hate.”
Sometimes I think hate is very visual.
We see people screaming and fighting with each other right now.
But I also think there plenty people would admit to you
that they feel hateful in their heart,
that they’re mad at their neighbors.
They’re angry at how the tensions have risen
over the last few years in this country.
So what is your advice to people
who want to figure out the first step
in stepping back from hate?
Soledad, you know, your questions come from a mindset
that wants instant solutions and instant gratification.
– You know me well. – And that’s not going to happen, okay?
So, we have to start with kids.
We have to start with children.
We have to start education on self-awareness.
The world that you see is a projection of the degree of your self-awareness.
What we are seeing is total lack of self-awareness in the world right now.
I think most of us are trying to be good people
and then we kind of hit roadblocks.
How do you navigate hate in your life as an individual
and trying to do all of these things
that you’re talking about when you are–
“surrounded by” sounds too dramatic,
but when there are these pockets of hate in your life?
And it might be a relative, right?
It might be a neighbor down the street.
Instead of arguing, you ask questions.
“What are you observing? What are you feeling?
What’s your story? What are your values?”
That starts a conversation.
You want to understand who they are.
So, you know, I engage again in asking them questions
like what are the happiest moments of your life?
Why do you call them happiest moments?
Tell me about your peak experiences?
Tell me about your parents. Tell me about your children.
Tell me about when you first fell in love, your first kiss.
Suddenly, you see the other person disarming
because they want to be heard and they have a story.
And in fact, if you go deeper, they have values.
They’re just distorted out of fear and anger
which comes from fear of survival of identity,
which you took for granted,
which was a provisional identity to begin with.
We end our conversation as we begin,
understanding that when people feel their identity is challenged,
that that can easily spur fear
and then pretty quickly spur hate in the right way.
And only when you start seeing people and recognizing them as human beings–
and, I mean, I love those conversation starters,
for lack of a better word,
to get people to communicate outside of the hate up here.
Deepak Chopra, always so nice to talk you.
Thank you so much. What a pleasure.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
It was really my first year in college where I knew
that I was a trans woman.
Year after year after year,
I progressed in my transition,
and by my last year of college,
I had legally changed my name to Kathryn.
I knew that transition would paint a target on my back,
but I had to move forward with my authenticity
and truly be who I knew myself to be.
So, back then, YouTube was very important to me.
I needed a place to vent, and I needed a place to share
all of the things that I was experiencing
in that strange point of my life.
I had this amazing idea to make a video
with a little start-up company that no one knows about
And I remember when I went in to film this video,
which was about pronouns, I thought to myself,
“Who’s gonna watch this video about pronouns?”
So the video goes up, and it comes out really well.
And it reaches a bunch of people,
and the view count just gets higher and higher and higher.
And more people see it, and more people are sharing it.
And I start getting messages from people.
I start getting these emails from people
who have met me, you know, in the past two years
who had no clue that I was trans.
So people in general had a pretty positive reaction to that video.
– ( knocking ) – But the worst was yet to come.
So at the time of me publishing this video,
I was in a relationship, and I was living with
some of my partner’s relatives,
and his relatives did not know that I was transgender.
And when this video came in their feed,
to really over-summarize the whole story,
they were really uncomfortable with me living with them
and they moved to evict both me and my partner.
And in that moment, I realized that one of the worst things
that could have happened happened,
So that really truly was a turning point in my life.
And I started to sort of attack YouTube and blogging
with a lot more confidence.
I started to actually make an effort to be a blogger,
to be, you know, a person making content on the internet.
I became the representation
that I desperately needed when I was a child.
Big problems need bold new solutions.
And that is why it is imperative
that we elevate our thoughts for what lies ahead.
Let’s take a look at a few insights that we’ve gained thus far
from the big ideas of the past six months.
If you’re black, you were born in jail.
Woman: What this movement is fighting for,
it is to dismantle a system
that was designed to criminalize black people.
If we strategize, we absolutely will tear down this whole system.
The laws aren’t handed down from God.
We can change those laws.
Defund the police. But how would it work?
Defunding the police department means
keeping the right to safety and protection away from our tax-paying citizens.
Defunding the police is not simply about withdrawing
funding for law enforcement and doing nothing else.
It’s about shifting public funds to mental health counselors
who can respond to people who are crisis without arms.
In many cities in America, over one third of their city budget goes the police.
To achieve safe and healthy communities,
you put more resources into the public education system
of those communities, into affordable housing and to homeownership,
into access to capital for small businesses,
mental health, homelessness.
Tracy: Mandatory minimums are how a prosecutor
coerces or scares my clients into pleading guilty.
Man: The species of minimums now being singled out for reform
were birthed at the height of the drug war in the mid ’80s.
The drug war, not by accident,
has been waged almost exclusively
in poor communities of color.
shouldn’t create lifelong barriers to jobs or education.
That’s why I’m offering $20 billion to states
to change their state laws to eliminate minimum mandatories and set up drug courts.
No one should be going to jail because they have a drug problem.
Woman: Here’s the problem with our cash bail system.
If you have money, you can buy your freedom.
And if you don’t, you can’t, and you sit in jail.
Almost half a million people go to sleep
in those concrete jail cells
who have not been convicted of anything.
They cannot afford to pay the price of their freedom.
And the price is called bail.
Kalief Browder was arrested at 16.
Never convicted of a crime, never had a trial.
But spent more than three years
in one of the most violent jails in the country.
To go home, Kalief’s mother, Venida Browder,
needed to post bail of $3000,
money she said she just didn’t have.
Court records show Kalief had attempted suicide at least six times,
spent 1,110 days behind bars.
More than 800 of those in solitary confinement.
Two years after his release from jail,
Kalief Browder hanged himself
with an air conditioner cord in his home in the Bronx.
Woman: Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill
that would eliminate cash bail for those awaiting trial.
Regardless of the color of your skin,
you deserve justice, and a cash bail system violates justice.
Man: If you do nothing, or if I do nothing,
Nothing is going to change.
But if each of us does something, we can win.
Despite the ever repeated promise of the American dream,
America is not a meritocracy.
But how do we rebuild systems that have been designed
to reproduce inequalities over generations?
We dive into these questions and more
in our next conversation.
The institutionalization of equality.
Once again, here is award-winning broadcast journalist Soledad O’Brien
joined by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author
Isabel Wilkerson, it’s so nice to have this opportunity to talk to you.
Your new book is called “Caste: The Origins Of Our Discontent.”
You use the word “caste.” You could call it “racism in America,” but you don’t.
Why did you call it “Caste”?
When you don’t know the country’s history, our country’s history,
then it seems like a completely alien language and alien term.
But then when you know our country’s history,
when you really know the history of enslavement
and the history of Jim Crow, the true history of Jim Crow,
then it starts to click into place, and once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
The idea of caste allows us to look past the somewhat
emotional freighted language that we’re accustomed to
that kinda gets us mired in emotions of guilt and shame and blame
and allows us to sort of see things differently.
That’s such a great point, right? Because for something to be racist,
someone has to be acting in a racist way upon it.
– Yeah. – And so I think that’s right. It brings up a lot of guilt
in a way that caste seems to just invite a sense of examining the issue
versus feeling like you’re part of the system.
We just love to have this vision of America
that doesn’t match the actual history of America.
Why do you– why do you think that is?
Well, it’s a combination of things, but one of them is just to me,
the failure of our education system to truly be able
to impart the reality of our country’s history.
41 of the 50 states at some point in our country’s history
had laws against people marrying across racial lines.
Alabama was one of the last states to finally renounce,
to vote against its anti-misogynation laws,
and it didn’t happen until the year 2000 that they finally passed a law, you know,
essentially concurring with what the Supreme Court had already ruled.
And 40% of Alabama voters
voted to keep the anti-misogynation laws on the books in 2000.
Listen, my parents got married in 1958.
My dad was white, my mom was black, right?
And literally, they lived in Baltimore, Maryland,
so they could not get married. They had to leave, go to D.C. to get hitched,
come back, live illegally. They had six kids.
My little brother was born the same year
The Supreme Court would overturn the ban on interracial marriage.
And people think of these things as like, “Oh, my God. Ancient history.”
You’re like, “I’m not so ancient.”
You know, we often think about this as being ancient history.
Something that’s going so far back, it has nothing to do with anybody alive.
Today, no adult will be alive at the point at which
African Americans will have been free for as long as they were enslaved.
That won’t happen until the year 2111.
It’s the structure of human division.
It’s the architecture of our hierarchy.
– It’s what we’ve inherited. – What other signals are there,
do you think, that relate to where you fall in the caste system in this country?
Well, gender is a huge one. You know, patriarchy is real.
Immigrant status is yet another. These things have meaning.
I mean, these things determine one’s standing,
one’s, you know, sense of, you know, the respect that is accorded a person.
The assumptions about, you know, intelligence
and resourcefulness and beauty, even.
Of course, some more extreme examples that we’ve seen are, you know,
people who are born to what I would call a subjugated group,
historically subjugated group, who are going about their days.
And then someone from what I would call the dominant group, you know,
asserts him or herself and intrudes upon that moment.
The two men who are at a Starbucks, you know, waiting for a friend.
Or the birdwatcher the black birdwatcher in Central Park.
Racism exists, but there’s something underneath it
that seems to persist no matter what laws we pass.
Seems to be autonomic. People seem to know
who can say what in a way to an individual.
Can you buy your way out of the caste system
if you are black and wealthy?
Can you to some degree inoculate yourself
against the effects of systemic racism?
I think you can buy a buffer against some of it.
You can buy comfort for sure. You can buy distance.
I would say that, you know, when you think about someone who would say
the editor of British “Vogue,” you know, Edward Enninful,
who is one of the, you know, clearly the most–
one of the most sophisticated people on the planet.
And yet when he was walking into his own office building,
the security guard stopped him and told him he needed to use the freight elevator.
So, what I say is that if you can act your way out of it,
then it’s class. If you cannot act your way out of it, it’s caste.
You have talked about Germany and the eugenicists.
It wasn’t until Charlottesville that, you know,
we all saw that the protesters were merging these symbols
of these two cultures across– in the decades across an ocean.
They made the connection about the Confederacy in our country
American eugenicists were writing books
that were huge bestsellers in Germany
and were, in fact, used by the Nazis in their school curriculum.
That’s how interdependent these eugenicists were across the oceans.
When you look at some of the data, like a black person
being five times as likely to be stopped
without just cause compared to a white counterpart,
you know, I guess I’d like to know for the people
for whom they do have to think about it all the time.
What does it do to people?
Having to deal with the constant vigilance
and hyper vigilance of just making it through the world every day,
you know, it actually shortens the telomeres on the cells,
which opens people up to other– other problems
that opens them up to cancers and other, you know,
other illnesses that literally can mean the longevity of a person.
It actually affects the lifespan of people who have to live with the constant fear.
What does an individual do in a system that seems
to sometimes be working against you
in order to fight against the system that’s been around for such a long time?
Well, ultimately, a system is made up of individual people.
We make up the system. The system is us.
And that means that there are things that people can do.
I make mention of this term “radical empathy,”
which means that it requires each of us
to not just try to imagine ourselves in someone else’s shoes,
but to be willing to do the work to truly understand
another person’s experience so that we can begin to understand
not what we would do in a situation we’ve never been in in life and never will be,
but what it is for that person so that we can begin to see our common humanity.
We do have more power than we think we have.
Isabel Wilkerson, so nice to talk to you, as always.
What a pleasure. Thank you.
Alissa: What does it mean for me to be a black woman in the beauty space?
I think that being a black woman in this space
means recognizing my privilege as a light-skinned black woman.
Just my complexion alone gave me an advantage
just because society decided that people
with deeper complexions were not that important.
And they didn’t find them desirable or attractive.
And we still have such a long way to go with that.
As a black woman accepting my own beauty,
I’ma keep referencing to this privilege
because I just have to be real about it.
Society I’m sure finds me beautiful.
But for me, I definitely had internal struggles with accepting myself,
moreso my features, and to pinpoint a feature, my lips.
And one other thing that I found to be very rewarding
about having his platform is people who have messaged me
saying I make them feel more confident in their lips.
Because we all know, you guys, we got beauty.
Through makeup and through YouTube,
I have been able to make such a small difference.
Keke, why do you think the millennial generation and Gen Z
is taking such a leadership role in the movement?
I don’t know. I think we just seen so much
of what our parents and grandparents had to go through,
that we realize we can’t solely rely on the government.
You know, that we have to advocate for ourselves.
And we want a better life for us and for our kids.
So we decided to just try to take the old ’70s approach
And really just call these things out and not be afraid.
Not be afraid to say the truth and to ask for more.
True indeed. Keke, we thank you
or taking the leadership role.
And for all the millennials and Generation Z,
thank you for the work you’ve been doing.
It’s really creating a better future for all of us.
Earlier tonight, we heard from some of the new faces of the movement.
And coming up next, we have some impressive advocates for change with us.
In this second new faces conversation,
let’s hear from the perspective of two of the leaders
who are picking up the torch of justice.
Actor/activist Skai Jackson and Brandon Kyle Goodman.
You know, I think a lot of people are thinking we just had the election.
We’ve seen this huge global awakening and reckoning around race and racism.
and bigotry and homophobia.
And so the big question is what are the next steps that we take.
You know, I was recently on a show that was mainly a white audience.
And middle-age. And I knew it was a risk,
but I really wanted to talk about the whole Black Lives Matter movement
and how important it is to me.
In the moment, I was really nervous
‘Cause I was like, “Okay, I could be voted off right now
because people don’t agree.” But I was like, “I don’t care.”
– Yes. – And I still did it.
It was great to see that people applauded me for that.
I was just like you didn’t let that audience–
or because of what the audience is stop your message and what you had to say.
And people, you know, there some comments
that people felt like the Black Lives Matter thing was political
or why did she have to bring politics in it.
– And it’s like, it’s not po– – It’s not political. It’s lives.
– It’s not political. It’s people’s lives that– – Yes.
Which is really important. So in that moment and time,
I was like, “You know what? If I get kicked off, I don’t care.”
– Right. – At least I got my message across.
I was talking to somebody about code switching.
And They never heard about code switching
And how, you know, often times those of us who are black or people of color
have to really shift how we act in certain spaces.
– Yes, which is sad. – Which is very sad.
And it’s what I call mental aerobics.
You know, black people are constantly having to do these mental aerobics
of knowing where they are, their surroundings,
and how to act in each space.
And kind of shift, be chameleons, right?
It is exhausting. You feel like you can’t be yourself at times.
– Yeah. – Some people don’t think that saying racial slurs
as the n-word, you know, it’s not a big deal.
And I’ve met so many people
who are not black who have just said it.
And not even just, “You’re the n-word.”
Just, “What’s up, my,” you know?
– And I’m like, “You can’t do that. – Oof, no.
And someone was like, “Why? Well, this is where I grew up,” you know?
“I’m from Florida, and in Florida, we say it here.”
And I just had to take a moment and I was just like,
– “You have to understand the history of the word.” – Yes.
“You can’t just–” I’m like, “Because if you say that to the wrong person,
– it can go the wrong way quick.” – Hello.
“I didn’t know,” or, “I don’t know,” no longer works anymore, you know?
– Yeah. I know. – In June, we heard a lot of, “I didn’t know. I didn’t know.”
And it’s like, okay, The whole world knows
about anti-blackness, about Black Lives Matter.
– Right. There’s no excuse. – There’s no longer any excuse.
Now you have to put in the work.
We’re in 2020 now. You can’t be that ignorant you know?
Yes, but ignorance is bliss.
People love– love to pretend like they don’t know
the harm that they are perpetuating.
There’s anger, and beneath that is hurt.
But they choose anger because it makes them feel emboldened.
And the same thing with whiteness.
Whiteness and empathy, right?
Whiteness makes people feel power.
– Yeah. It doesn’t at all. – Empathy doesn’t.
And so they don’t want to– this, you know, demographic,
the almost 55% of white women who voted for Trump
don’t want to lose their power.
Even when it comes to films as well.
That’s why love Ava DuVernay
because even with the central park five,
I was not aware of that situation.
– until that was brought to light. – Yeah.
Which is like– of course it happened way before I was born.
You know, we’re both in Hollywood.
And Hollywood loves to talk about, you know,
– “Look, a black person. Look there.” – Oh, my gosh, right.
“Look, it’s black friend. Look! Okay, we’re doing diversity.”
– You know, it’s like– that’s not enough. – That’s not enough.
Just because we got one black person on camera doesn’t make you–
– That don’t change anything. – That don’t change nothing.
All we have right now is time, you know? With corona, we’re at home.
– We’re at home sitting on out couch. – Come on, write them scripts,
– honey. Yes. – Write some scripts. Come on.
It’s really about we want black creators,
black producers, black writers, black grips, you know, black HMU.
– Right. Exactly. – We want black people and queer people–
– As a whole. – As a whole in front and behind the camera,
and really also being empowered, you know?
– Yes. – To tell our stories authentically.
I wrote on a show, “Big Mouth.”
And so I’m very attached to Missy,
who is black, and to Matthew, who is queer.
But it doesn’t mean that I can’t talk about the other characters as well.
And that I’m not useful in talking about cheating on a math test.
– Honey, I know what that is. – Right. Exactly.
I can talk to different facets of people that are not just queer and black.
And so when you bring black folks or women
or queer people into your rooms or into the boardroom,
don’t just use them for the black things…
– Right. – …Or the queer thing. Like, we can do things.
We can do it all. Like, come on, really?
I’m like– I feel like change doesn’t happen
– until people like us come in and really make change. – Yes.
‘Cause other than that, people are just going to keep doing the same things.
– The same thing. – Same storylines, and it’s like, no.
– This is not real life. – How do we–
or how do people continue this fight
even if the algorithm and the news cycle is off?
Some people feel like, “Oh, people won’t care what I have to say.”
And I’m like, “Girl, it doesn’t matter if you have 1,000 followers, 50,
– your voice is still important. – Yes.
There’s still people, you know, the internet is so big.
there’s still people seeing your post.
“Oh, I can’t post that ’cause it doesn’t go with my feet.”
– Ugh. – “It messes it up.”
– I’m like, “Girl, I don’t care.” – I don’t care.
– “I don’t care. Just post it.” – Post it. There’s somebody’s life at stake,” you know?
– Right. – Really staying curious
– is probably the foundation of action. – Yes.
Curious about what’s going on in the world.
What don’t I know about, and how can I support?
– Period. – Period! That’s that on that.
Good afternoon, my people.
Welcome back to BWTA Radio,
where Gen Z keeps it 100.
Today’s topic is sure to ruffle some feathers
but Gen Z and Millennials
will lead America one day.
Did you realize that Millennials and Gen Z are climbing
the ranks of powerful institutions.
We will try to solve the problems that,
I hate to say it, Boomers just couldn’t figure out.
We will at last have the power to guide America
in her relationship with the Constitution.
Let’s talk about how we can reimagine justice.
Today’s Gen Z caller is somebody that we all know and all love.
Asante Blackk. Let’s get him on the phone right now
so we can ask him what he thinks about reimagining justice.
For me, personally, I think that reimagining justice
really just starts with, you know,
the restoration of communities that have had so much taken from them.
The rehabilitation of communities that have had so much taken from them.
So I think there’s a lot of healing that needs to go on.
There’s a lot of community that needs to go on.
And I think that that’s also within our own communities, within ourselves.
There needs to be a lot of loving, a lot of unity, a lot of healing.
Thank you for joining BWTA
to talk about reimagining justice.
And I’ll holler at you soon.
– All right, Storm. Peace. – All right. Peace.
Reporter: We’re just now learning more about the unarmed young black man
who was gunned down by police in San Diego last night.
Graphic footage shows him being approached by the officers,
at which the officers yell at him to get on the ground and draw their weapons.
After approximately two seconds, he was shot over 15 times…
No problem, Mr. Williams.
I understand how hard it must, uh,
I understand how hard today must be for you.
Today has been hard on all of us.
We are hurting alongside you.
We can’t imagine how you must be feeling,
but we imagine it’s hard. ( chuckles )
We’re here to support you, and we believe that all lives matter.
– Thank you. – Of course.
Our final segment, everyone is a part to play,
implicates us all in the fight for justice and equity.
And the fundamental takeaway we want everyone watching this to have is
that right now, today, tomorrow,
and every day going forward
is our opportunity to bring about real and lasting change.
It’s up to all of us to take what we’ve been seeing and hearing tonight
everything that has inspired and empowered us
What is everyone’s homework? Look, you told us what the problem is.
You’ve told us what the demands are.
What can everybody do right now to have an effect on your movement?
You can start a club in school.
Then you guys can have fundraisers to raise money for different projects.
It is a time for us to begin to support black businesses,
to invest in black businesses, to invest in black creativity.
First, put your money where your mouth is.
Three, don’t just retweet or repost.
Hijack hashtags. That’s what I did, and look where I am now.
That’s how I got my voice heard.
Activism takes many forms.
Being civically engaged and working at the policy level is great.
We have to start with children,
and we have to start with education on self-awareness.
The world that you see is a projection
of the degree of your self-awareness.
And what we’re seeing is total lack of self-awareness in the world right now.
People don’t know how to open up bank accounts.
You know, people don’t know how to go online,
and even the apps that are out there now to know how to use them.
Doing mentorship, buying suits for kids so they, you know,
they can go out there and do those interviews.
Undertake service, opportunities with kids,
with the elderly, with people who are simply struggling.
Do not be afraid to reach out.
For families like ours, mixed families,
a part of the LGBTQ+ community, know that there is a lot of support
and resources, such as the family equality councils,
the Human Rights Campaign, and so much more.
There’s never gonna be a way for you to live
in a black person’s skin or a person of color’s skin for a day.
You really have to learn as much as you can
in order to speak out about it and join our fight.
We have to put on our own organizer hat.
Who are our neighbors? Who do we work with?
Who we’re on the phone with. Who in our family listens to us and trusts us.
And keep a list of those people so you don’t forget them.
Hell, I’m a black trans woman. Any sort of movement forward
without intersectionality, I think is going to be destined to fail.
Society is just individuals. And only until each individual wakes up
and realizes the courage and the power that they have within
to shift their community, their town, their city, or country.
Only then will we change the world.
Collective impact is how we make a change,
whether it’s in voting, whether it’s in protests,
whether it’s in our ability to be policy makers.
So find your vehicle for voice.
Indentify those individuals like district attorneys,
if you have one, who are pushing for restorative justice,
The people who are elected to serve
have to do exactly that. Serve.
And that your responsibility is to push them
and to demand and remember that they are not your friends.
They are people there to do a job.
And we can be friendly to people there to do this job,
but you are there to fight for a community
that is much bigger than you.
We have the power to change our future
with the actions we take in the present.
Power is not some distant thing
that’s bigger than who we are.
I saw it in you, Keke, earlier this year
When you took to the streets in protest.
Alongside so many others and used your voice
to galvanize a group of national guard officers to hear you
and kneel in a show of solidarity with the movement.
How did you receive that moment
and what did you give and feel in that moment?
And that humanity is the part
that we keep forgetting in the midst of all this pettiness.
That we need to connect on love.
We have to go where the love is.
And I wanted to connect with that officer
through love and humanity.
It didn’t matter that he was–
that it was a job or that, you know, I’m a celebrity
or I’m doing– it just didn’t matter.
All that mattered was we’re out here,
and I think a major part of me felt like,
you know, we need your help.
You represent something so powerful.
You represent something so safe.
And if we know as a society,
if we know as a community that’s saying, “No, stop.
“This isn’t right. We need more.”
then we together say something to the powers that be.
That we’re on the same page.
So if you as the government don’t get it together,
then we’re coming after you.
And that was ultimately the feeling that I had
is that we’re both humans, you know?
No matter what color he was, no matter what color I was,
no matter what sex he was, no matter what sex I was. We were two humans.
That’s very powerful, and we appreciate you doing that.
Our next conversation is the exercise of power.
It explores how we can use our power
Here are two leaders on the front lines of the movement.
Actor and activist Kendrick Sampson
and the president of Color of Change Rashad Robinson.
How are you doing? Good to see you.
I’m always saying I’m 2020. That’s my answer whenever–
“How are you?” “I’m 2020.” How are you?
I have a lot of different feelings,
but I am mostly focused and determined.
You know, don’t do this much around an election.
not a candidate who was necessarily going to be our
sort of aspirational choice.
But you don’t do this much without recognizing
that now the real work begins.
Yeah. We won, and it was strategic.
No, It was not our ideal ticket.
But knowing that there’s data that proves that it was us, right?
That was the people, that it was the communities
that drove these huge wins
Should empower us to move forward
with bigger and higher engagement.
Like this should be the baseline of engagement.
What you said, I think, is so important.
Because sort of recognizing who won, right?
It is also important to setting up
the scenarios for more wins, right?
If we recognize and if we’re clear
that it wasn’t the candidates that won,
– but was movements that powered it. – Yep.
Racial justice won this election.
Racial justice is a majoritarian issue.
And for the first time ever, it’s a majoritarian issue. We should claim that.
is to turn what is a majoritarian issue into a governing majority.
And that’s why infrastructure, that’s why advocacy,
that’s why building power is so critically important
because just because you may have the majority of the people
sort of theoretically on your side
doesn’t necessarily mean that that translates
into the type of change that the communities that you’re fighting for deserve.
Yeah. There’s urgent things that we still need to consider.
And like you said, this is the beginning of the work.
And how do we move forward
in a more healthy way, especially with COVID and everything?
It’s not going to be enough to simply say
that we want to advance police accountability
if we don’t deal with police shootings.
It’s not gonna be enough to say that we want healthcare access
if we can deal with insurance companies.
And that has to be part of the work.
That has to be part of the engagement.
They have so many resources
and deep investments and money in infrastructure
over, you know, centuries of infrastructure to oppress us, right?
You know, for us, we’ve got a list of demands,
but I’m so focused on this idea of posture.
Of both how do we send a powerful message to the campaign
that we’re going to hold the line
between real solutions and fake solutions, right?
Sometimes we have to challenge who is on our side, right?
Who actually is scared of losing us as a constituency,
And challenging those people.
And there a lot of corporations that said black lives matter,
but will be lobbying, fighting, and pushing back
against any type of policy that actually makes black lives matter.
You know, in my career, my profession,
the studios, right, what type of content are they actually producing?
And a lot of them started initiatives
that would have been very helpful
and really standing up for black lives.
But they said, “Let’s wait until after the election to really settle these plans.”
Because they wanted to see if we were going to remain mad
and holding them accountable.
And right now they’re trying to assess
how much and how little they can get away with.
And really changing the culture within the company and outside of the company.
So how do we continue to move the center of gravity
of what’s acceptable and what’s possible?
I think it’s wildly important to make sure
you’re engaged with people like Color of Change.
And also those organizations in our communities.
We have to make sure that we’re paying attention
to who is in our sphere of influence.
Who are our neighbors? Who do we work with?
Who we’re on the phone with.
We’ve been going at everything
that we’ve gotta do, all the barriers.
I’m interested in what are you most excited about
as we sort of try to move through 2020 and into 2021.
I think more empowerment, right?
I feel all of these corporations are trying to navigate.
Like we said, they’re trying to decide
how little or more they can get away with.
And that’s an opportunity for us
and assess how we can be a part of instituting liberation,
instituting our joy, instituting our wellness into these systems.
I just hope that people who turned out and voted,
who engaged in this election know that we won,
but know the part of winning
is being able to claim our victory.
And that’s the work ahead is claiming that victory.
Our final segment of everyone has a part to play
is a clarion call to action.
Here is the demands of the movement.
My demands and dreams for this movement would be
for us all to come together
and support each other, support black-owned brands
and these black activists.
Just really doing the work
and for us to use our platform for good.
Racial justice has become an majoritarian issue.
Now we have to translate the presence and visibility of our movements
into the power to make real change.
My dreams for this is always going to be
equity, equality, justice, protection,
amplification, and honoring black lives.
More peaceful, justice, sustainable, healthier, and joyful world.
My hopes for the movement would be that we continue to look at
a holistic approach to mental health and wellness.
One of the major things that needs to be done
is an improvement on Obamacare,
and I know that’s going to be a very hard thing
But healthcare for me still feels like the most important issue.
I want to see more black people taking the time
to not look at those images.
Taking their time to take care of themselves.
And also finding ways in where they can take control of their power.
My hopes for the movement are for us to liberate our minds as well as liberate society.
My immediate short-term goal or demand,
I think people don’t understand in many instances
how much money their community is paying out to citizens, to civilians
when they win judgments against the police.
But if we can’t build this country from the bottom up effectively,
we’re never going to be as strong as we hoped to be.
We’re never going to have our place in the world
because we’re ignoring some of the best and brightest
that this country has to give because we don’t even see them.
The demand for the movement now and my movement specifically
would be that I hope that black women are the ones leading our own movement.
I just hope more than anything
that people take this level of engagement,
this level of engagement that we’ve had
over the past few months in the streets
and at the polls and in our homes,
that we make this the baseline level of engagement.
My immediate short-term goals for our social justice movement
is to pass the Breathe Act.
Because this is one consequence of federal policy
that will just deliver real safety, wellness, and freedom
into black communities and all communities immediately.
I’ve not lived in a world where the police don’t kill people,
but I know that world is possible.
We must be focused for the first 100 days of this new administration
to be clear, crisp on how we create a society
that better reflect our needs and interests
in a society that’s far more just than what we currently see.
Making sure we have some accountability both from Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
We still keep their feet to the fire as well.
Because there are a lot of people
who want this to be a moment and not a movement.
I want to see more people like me,
who look like me doing extraordinary things
because they already are. They’re just not highlighted.
We need people who are not minorities speaking up for us as well.
Because people aren’t born racist. It’s taught.
Only when we have the truth when it comes to the statistics,
the numbers, the injustices that we see
will we be able to fix these problems. The truth.
It is the truth that will set us free. Not fake news.
in the social justice toolkit is your voice.
New voices who are bold enough to reimagine
what an American society can be.
I think the ultimate goals of the movement
is life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Regardless of what you look like or who you love.
Life, liberty, pursuit of happiness.
The movement fails if we stop caring.
Keke and I are so honored
to once again be part of “Bear Witness: Take Action.”
As our time together comes to a close,
I hope tonight has been thought-provoking, energizing, and encouraging.
The struggle for liberation is ongoing,
In shared pain, there is also shared power.
Activist Lilla Watson says,
“If you have come here to help me,
you’re wasting your time.
But if you have come here because your liberation
is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”
We all bear the responsibility to act.
To push forward in honor of those who came before us.
And in service to those who will come after us.
We owe it to those who came before us yesterday,
to our communities today,
and to our children and their tomorrow.
To use this time together as a catalyst and take action.
And now here with our final performance of the evening
is a living legend at the top of her game.
She has won NAACP Image Awards,
American Music Awards, Grammys.
And she’s been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
Here is the godmother of soul Patti LaBelle.
—
This post was previously published on YouTube.
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—Photo credit: Screenshot from videoread more