Civic Engagement Priorities

The Vote, Census & Post Election Advocacy - Our Way Forward!

This week we discuss the need for making informed decisions as we listen to politicians' campaign speeches or read news stories about the people running for office.  Part of being an informed voter is being familiar with down ballot candidates and understanding the referendums which impact local elections.  Has your family discussed a vote plan?  Are you an early voter intending to mail your ballot?  Have you checked to ensure you are registered to vote in your district?  These and other timely considerations will be part of the Profound Conversations.

Show Topics and Highlights

The system is broken. My passion is getting more social workers engaged in doing something to change the system.

Can Social Workers help change Democracy?

The people that are most affected by climate change are the same people most affected by Covid-19.

We have to engage in our local elections because so much impacts our daily lives.

We have a lack of adequate healthcare in our communities.

Civic engagement is participation.

We have to develop relationships with our representatives so they know what our concerns are.

In the history of the united states we have never had an equitable system.

Many immigrants are living in fear and are afraid to open their doors to census takers.

The census is supposed to include immigrants and undocumented persons just as you do citizens. It’s in the constitution to do that.

First and foremost we need an administration that is interested in the truth.

The biggest issues we have is lack of trust, especially in certain communities.

We are talking about power, and resources are power.

Try to identify a group that wants to make change.

Bureaucracy is very scared of community participation.

We are a party of the people and I don’t know if we always live up to that.

“Counseling Not Criminalization in the Schools Act” is a bill to provide federal funding for schools who would like to have more social workers and other service providers but they have to get rid of the police from the schools. 

The word “defunding” scares people its really more of a reimagining and putting money towards other services.

Profound Conversations Executive Producers are the Muslim Life Planning Institute, a national community building organization whose mission is to establish pathways to lifelong learning and healthy communities at the local, national and global level.   MLPN.life

The Profound Conversations podcast is produced by Erika Christie www.ErikaChristie.com

Full Transcript

Erika Christie

Welcome to Profound Conversations, a dynamic broadcast platform focused on building healthy communities. content for programming is developed through our interests and involvement in education, economic development, culture, and governance. Profound Conversations is a listening and discussion space, which brings thought leaders into a conversation to address the vexing challenges of our times. In an ever evolving world. New ideas and transformative ways of being are the lights at the end of the tunnel. Please join us as we participate in critical and Profound Conversations impacting humanity.

Karim Ali

Welcome to Profound Conversations. Just to let a few people come into the room, we're broadcasting a lot. And I want to just explain a little bit about what Profound Conversations is, for all those who have not joined us in the past. Profound Conversations is a listening and discussion space, which brings foremost thought leaders into a conversation to grapple with the vexing challenges of today. FAO conversation uses inter cultural dialogue, extensive community and organizational engagement to initiate valuable cultural, educational, economic, and policy outcomes, and an ever evolving world. New ideas and transformative ways of being are the lights at the end of the tunnel. Again, thank you for joining us today. And I'll turn it over to our host, Miss Linda Howard.

Linda Howard

Great, welcome to Profound Conversations. We have a very timely topic today. And that is civic engagement priorities. And we'll be talking about the vote, the census, and post election advocacy, we have a nice lineup for you. And I'm going to have, I'm going to have our Profound Conversations was actually introduced themselves today and tell us a little bit about what they do, and why they do what they do. But I'm going to actually kind of set the stage a little bit here. And I want our Profound Conversations to just kind of listen and think about making a comment on one of these things. And just to look at where we are today are our state of affairs. Where are we in the US. And civic engagement is very critical at this time, it's an opportunity for us to not only do for ourselves, but to do for others and to do for our community. And to really make a mark in history. This is a really historical time that we're living. We are dealing with a situation where we have a pandemic COVID-19 that is affecting the world, affecting the US and affecting some communities more than other communities. And we have two of our guests that are actually on the West Coast. And we have fires burning in the West Coast's that's creating loss of life, loss of property, and probably health risks that we are yet to see. We also have won a very historical elections happening. We have two candidates that are running that couldn't be more different. And, and we have a country that is really polarized. We also have issues around police reform. And what has been happening in black and brown communities is actually playing out on the world stage. And it's not that these are new situations. But these situations are being filmed for the world to see. And so we have all of these dynamics that are happening at the same time. Then we got issues around climate control. And we're seeing the impact of that. We're seeing record number of hurricanes. We're seeing the wildfires that I mentioned that's happening on the West Coast. Denver last week had an extreme change in temperature, they went from 101 degrees one day to 30 degrees the next day, a 70 degree change in 24 hours. So we have all of this happening. And at the same time, we are being told to physically distance ourselves to stay at home as much as possible to not get in large gatherings. And all of these dynamics are happening. And this is also a census year. So it's it's coming down to how are we being counted? And what is the importance of being. And when we looked at all of these issues that we are facing today, we thought this topic around civic engagement, and where you stand as an individual, and where we stand as a community is important. So the guests that we have today can talk on all of these things that I just raised, that I'm going to ask them to say who they are, what they do, and to just pick one of those things that they feel passionate about, and just share with us that passion. I will start with Charles.

Dr. Charles Lewis

Good afternoon. I am Charles B. Lewis, Jr. and I am a political social worker, meaning I operate in the political arena. I spent some time on the hill and have created the Congressional Research Institute for Social Work and policy, which is a nonprofit organization that's designed to keep social workers engaged with Congress, because as you say, civic engagement begins on on on on election day. But that's not where it ends. We all have to be constantly engaged with our representatives. And I'll talk more about that as we go. Where's your passion? My passion? My passion is social justice. I mean, I think we live in a very unfair society. And in so many ways, something not just racism. But I think I think economic inequality is probably the biggest challenge we have. Because if we don't fix that system, then we'll never achieve racial equity. You know, we'll never achieve people moving out of poverty into better lives. So it's not, you know, I think that is the way we tax our citizens. The taxes right now are born largely by the middle class, and in the lower middle, the lower middle class more so than, than upper middle class, we, we bear the weight of those taxes, and that it shouldn't be, we have to, we got to, we got to change the system. But if the system is broken, and you have a number of ways we can change the system. And, you know, I'll go into some detail about that. But my passion is getting more right now. Social workers engaged and doing something to change the system. I'll just say that. In 2018, after reading Massey McLuhan's book democracy in chains, which he lays out how the Libertarians funded by the Koch brothers have gained disproportionate advantage in elections and governance. I raised the question to social workers, can social workers help save democracy? Because a lot of times, we're not thinking about, you know, at that level, we got to help our communities you got it, you know, we got to help our people, but if we don't do anything to redirect the system, we're going to still be in trouble. Right? Or incorrectly? Yeah, thank you on mute, so that that will be our last guest. Say it again. Outta out. Okay, so tell us a little bit about what you do and why you do it. Yeah. So I am an afro Latina from Colombia. I immigrated to this country with my family 25 years ago. So a lot of the work that I do is shaped by the experience of, you know, coming here at 18 years old and being an immigrant. Since I was a child, I have been an environmental activist. At 11 years old, I learned about global warming back home in my country, and I went to my school and spoke to my principal, and we founded the first environmental club in my school. And in those days, the biggest thing was the area of souls you remember back in the 80s, with the big haired on the curls and, and such. So we ban aerial assault in my school, and ever since I have been a very active advocate for social justice and environmental justice issues.

Aura Vasquez

10 years ago, I came to California to pursue a career in community organizing. So I've been able to do a variety of things, including helping California pass driver's license for undocumented folks. For the Sierra Club, as one of their lead organizers I help la divers from cold include Los Angeles to a path to 100% renewable energy. I became the youngest and the first activist commissioner of the largest publicly owned utility in the world, Los Angeles Department of Water, and power. And there, I did things like solar for renters, I'm a renter. And sometimes we don't think about other communities. When we think about renewable energy, in a traditional way, I help retired three coastal gas plants that were polluting our communities, communities of color, low, low income communities. And this is what ignited the green New Deal in Los Angeles. So I'm very proud of doing all that work. Recently, I ran for city council. And as a, as a person that ran in a system that is not set up for people like myself, for women, or women that have an accent for women that have a difficult name to be pronounced. For somebody young for somebody that has innovative ideas. I had, I felt that I had to do that. I felt that the issue of money and politics and the issue of lack of representation was a real problem in our city here in Los Angeles. And obviously, we see that all around the country, we are at a very pivotal moment. COVID-19 has exposed us to a healthcare system that is the lobulated and income inequality like no other where the top 1% has made more money in this last six months than the bottom 90% And in fact, has taken income from the bottom 99%. And this is this this conversation and the conversation around voting this census, and who do we vote for couldn't be more important. So thank you so much for inviting me to give my points. And I'm looking forward to sharing more. What do you think about the fires that are happening? You know, as someone that has been working on this issue for so long, as someone that repeatedly says that this issue is interconnected, that it was not just somebody that was doing agenda, revealing party weed a candle, and it burned down the, you know, the forest, this is something that is a direct result of climate change. And in sadly, I don't think that our elected officials and our leaders really take it seriously. We have a governor that seems to be an environmental leader. But under his administration, we had had the most permits for fossil fuel in the state. So we really need to take this seriously. And change hurts, change is difficult and change is scary. And with COVID-19 we were able to kind of test that out to see how changing was so hard for us to quarantine to use a mass. And we're gonna have to use extreme like very serious measures if we are serious about mitigating the effects of climate change. Because just like the people that are most affected by COVID-19 are the same people that are most affected by climate change and, and we deserve to have a world that we can lead to future generations and also we deserve a world that thrives also for people like us.

Linda Howard

To Jamiah, you're also on the West Coast.

Jamiah Adams

Yes, yeah.

Linda Howard

The impact of what's happening on the West Coast.

Jamiah Adams

Yes, yes, thank you so much greetings apiece to all who are watching and to the Profound Conversations, family. And I just appreciate you all for thanking for inviting me to be a part of this conversation. I am in California, I think we're in two different parts of California. The whole state, of course, is on fire. But I am an advocate as well. I've been working in campaigns working in advocacy for the past 15 years, I started out, I am originally from the Bay Area, I'm from a Muslim family. And so being engaged and being a part of changing my community, and working to empower communities of color have always been a part of my work is my drive, even when I wasn't getting paid to do so. I started out, I am a 70s 80s, baby. And I started out really organizing my high school around a clothing drive for the homeless. So homelessness is a big problem was a problem in the 80s. It's even worse now. It's it's quadrupled as auto said, because of our economic decline, because of the pandemic that we're currently in. And so that was the impetus that really got me into advocacy work. My first probably campaign was registering people to vote. And that's why I'm here today to really talk about civic engagement to talk about why communities of color in particular, must register and participate in this election. It is critical, as you said, Sister, Linda, this is a critical election, we have a desperate in the White House that we have to work to get out of the White House. We also have local leaders, like out of said, we have to engage in our local elections, because on the local level, so much has changed and so much changes that affects and impacts our daily lives. We're in a climate emergency, not only in California, but around the country and throughout the world. We have refugees who are moving from place to place because of climate change. Today, actually, yesterday was the first day I was able to open my windows, I and today is the first day I've been able to see the sky since last Tuesday. So this is real. And it's personal. And like you said, Sister, Linda, it impacts our communities that much more, I read an article in the newspaper that was talking about the impact of the smoke in the air. And oftentimes, this is not an immediate impact, even though it is huge. It is dangerous for human consumption. But our communities where black and brown communities, many of whom have pre existing conditions like asthma, they have impact maybe of six or seven months down from these fire emergencies. So they see an increase in people seeking out medical attention because of this. And then we have a lack of adequate health care for our community. So all of this collectively, is why I do the work that I do. And when you ask about passion, my passion is civic engagement. My past passion is climate change. My passion is closing ice facilities where women are given on you know, given hysterectomies, without their consent, or caging, our babies, all of these different things, you know, polluting our communities, whether they be poor communities, Native American, African American or Latino, we need to or poor white communities, we need to fight back against all of this. And this is the impetus of why I do the work that I do.

Linda Howard

So we've been talking about civic engagement, what have you kind of jump in and just for our, for our audience, can you define what civic engagement is?

Jamiah Adams

Sure. So civic engagement is participation. We are living in a democracy and the thing about democracy is, it's not just one word. It's two words. It's a participatory democracy, which means that you register you vote, but it also means you advocate it means that when you see an issue a local issue in your community, you go and write a letter, you go and call your local representative, and find out what you can do to make a change it means participating. It also means informing, we have an environment right now where we cannot always trust, the truth of what is coming from our leaders is the truth. So it means researching, and making sure that the resources that you look at are vital and valid when it comes to finding the proper information for you, your family in your community. So that's all what civic engagement means. It starts with, you know, registering to vote, but we can't just end it there. We have to continue past there to continue to keep the people that we put in office, hold them accountable, and make sure that if we do not like what they do, we'd let them know. And that if we do like, what they do, we thank them for it and let them know that as well. But it means participation fully and constantly.

Linda Howard

Anybody else want to add to that?

Dr. Charles Lewis

I'll add to that, because I agree wholeheartedly with what to me is saying because I tell social workers all the time. This is a representation of democracy. So we have people are representing us. And when we go to the poll, select people, a lot of times we go to Paul, and go to elections. And if we elect the person, the person who we want to win wins, you know, we get all excited, and we're happy. And we just let them, let them go and wait for them to do the things, you know, all good things that we wanted to do. And if it's someone that if the person we don't want to wait, win wins, we just kind of hold our breath and wait until the next election, see what would happen. So I tell them, we have to, we have to engage our representatives, because they represent us. And as Jimmy says, if we don't develop relationships with these representatives, they'll never know that, you know, what our concerns, true concerns are there's, you know, there's always nuances and everybody's needs and desires. So we have to communicate them to to our representatives, whether it's in Congress, on the state level or the local level. So I tell about tell students and and professors that the who represent you who who's the Congress person? Who's the state rep, who's your city council president, you need to know who they are not only do you need to know who they are, you need to know what committees they sit on. So you know what, you know what their responsibilities are, and what their focus is. And so I get Yeah, I agree with you wholeheartedly that we have to engage our representatives.

Aura Vasquez

I would like to add a different spin to this, which I think is equally important as, as involving and engaging with our elected officials. We need to empower people. And power people can do incredible things, when we empower when we feel like we're part of something when we feel that our voice matter. Is, is I mean, we are unstoppable. And I don't think our political process right now, or civic engagement is set up that way. So if civic engagement is truly participation, and is is getting people to be part of a process, political process, a CD process, you then don't have city council meetings that are attending the morning where everybody goes to work. You don't have board meetings where rates for your water and power are decided at 10am where you can leave your home or your work to be to have your voice heard. You don't have a system where I personally have to wait an hour to cast my vote in the most recent election in March. That's not what civic engagement is. And that doesn't empower people. And that's why people get turned off. And they say, that doesn't work like vote doesn't matter. I can take off work is boring. I don't want to do it. And we need to really rethink about what civic engagement is in the era of technology, where we have social media work that has kept us together more than ever. And they might be this kind of, you know, best of two evils or some people have their own ideas about social media, but social media is a very powerful tool. Incredibly really powerful. I mean, we saw in the presidential elections, last presidential elections, how, how much impact he had on voters? So I think it's time for us to think about what civic engagement, how civic engagement looks like. And for us that organized in communities, how are we keeping people in touch and empower to take action? Because this is, in the recent years, I see more and more an apathy. There is a feeling out there, that people don't want to get engaged that people don't care. And I don't think they care. Because we haven't designed a system where people are informed, and informed people will, would participate.

Linda Howard

So how do we change that?

Jamiah Adams

I think part of that is, and I totally hear what you're saying. I think that, throughout the history of the United States of America, we have never had equality, we have never had an equitable system. And that's part of the work that I'm doing right now. Because I do believe what you're saying we do need to empower our communities. But we empower them by teaching them civics by teaching them about agitation. When we have our young people out in the streets, we put them we help to organize them, make sure that they have a concrete ask, make sure that they've built out the power structure. And they've done a Power Map that lets them know where they go, and what they should do and what the next step should be. We also continue doing what all of us are doing, we it's not a one to three thing, it is all of these things, and it's making sure that if we have local meetings, they should be, you know, in my town, our city council meetings are in the evening. Now, unfortunately, pre pandemic, I live far away because I'm African American, and San Francisco is too expensive for me to live there. So although I work there, I take a fit, I used to take a ferry boat in to work and it was always too late for me to attend, because I would get home around eight or nine. And, and that, that that's part of it as well, you know, economic equity and making sure that we have affordable housing. You know, it's a litany of things that, you know, I know, we're going to cover today. But I'm going to step back now and let others add to it because I know they have additional pieces that we can add to that.

Linda Howard

So let's talk a little bit about I'm going to shift a little bit, because this is also a census issue. And so, you know, traditionally, African Americans people of color have been underrepresented with the census. And there might not be as much Soozee Azzam for to participate in the census, can you can any of you just give us a sense of kind of where we are with the census, in what purpose the census serves?

Jamiah Adams

Sure, I can speak to that briefly and give it to my other panelists. But the synthesis is really critical, because it counts our lead our legislative representatives, it accounts for how many libraries, schools, and civic civic resources that all of our communities have. As far as traditionally non counting, you know, I did a project with the Muslim Public Affairs Council during the last census in 2000. Tin, because our communities, whether it be Muslim communities, Latino communities, African American communities, Asian American communities, Native American communities, we have a distrust of the government because they have taken our information and use it for nefarious means in the past and in the present. And so there's a distrust between the government and what they're doing with the census information, and how they will use the information because many people don't even know that you do not even have to be a citizen in order to be counted, because it is an enumeration of the services that our communities need. And so that distrust is unfortunate, and I'm not sure that I have the solution to it. But what I do is I talk to the communities about why we need to participate and I start by just talking to my family and letting them know what the impact of it is. And the fact that this collection of information is anonymous. And that when you know right now we have our census, enumerator is going through the community until September 30. Unfortunately, the federal government has pushed up the deadline for enumeration and change it from October to September, which is unfortunate because our communities that are traditionally undercounted will be even less undercounted, because it's less time in order to complete that enumeration. And many people do not participate via the internet because of the digital divide. And all of these other types of challenges that impact our communities. So when you say it's anonymous, are you saying you don't need to give your name? No, you don't need to give your name at all, they're asking for I'm an African American woman, I am 49 years old, there's one person in my household, you know, that's what they're they're asking for that information just so that they can be numerate and find out what the needs are in my particular area in your particular area. They don't need to know your name in order to make that information or to to glean that information.

Linda Howard

So how is it with the immigrant communities ?

Aura Vasquez

I actually wanted to add to your My as an open explanation about our census. And just give a little bit more of a broader, bigger perspective perspective about why people don't want to get counted some people and specifically, to your questions around the immigrant community, you know, immigrants in this country are living in fear. We have a president that is very vocal, and very open about being anti immigrant, makes racist remarks, not just against immigrants, but other groups too. And, and this is how that kind of behavior trickles down to something like the census. People believe that, well, we have our president hates us. That's how they feel. And now they're sending people to figure it out who we are. There's no way I'm opening my door. So that's the distrust that all these rhetoric, and I hate to make this a partisan issue. But the Republicans don't help themselves. Not all of them, but a lot of them with creating this distrust with the community. Absolutely.

Linda Howard

Go ahead Charles

Dr. Charles Lewis

Yeah. So it's the way we do the census. That is that is that is the problem. And I, I have really, I am fearful about this year because of the Coronavirus and, and people that responding to door knocks. And you know, and just and of course, with the immigrant community, you know, with the with, I'm not you supposed to count, undock, quote, undocumented immigrants, as well as citizens and legal immigrants, is stated in the constitution to do it that way. Lots of research, I know, there are ways to do this, there are scientific methods to do this, that you don't have to count every individual person. I mean, we know how many homeless that are. But we haven't counted every individual homeless, because we do sampling the sampling techniques, that allows us to get national representative sampling, and it will give us a much better much accurate accounting of holes in the country, then trying to go around and, you know, and identify each person one by one, but the Republicans have resisted that for years, because they know that it's going to give them give larger accounts of people of color, automatically so so until we get a i a democratic government in the end in the House, Senate and presidency. You know, we're gonna we're gonna have these problems in terms of science, because they just don't seem to work too well with scientific methodology. So it sounds like we need some advocacy around changing how the senses take. Absolutely.

Linda Howard

I don't know how much we're going to do in the next what I think is two weeks, but but is this something that we need to be looking at For the next census, that to begin this work of how are, you know, how do you create a situation where communities that have traditionally been under counted for whatever the reason, whether it's a homeless population, and there was, there was no home to really take that senses of whether or not it's fear and trust issues, that, you know, can we do that work in the next 10 years to change those dynamics? And what do we do to get a better count, despite not having participation in the census?

Jamiah Adams

Yeah, I do think first and foremost, we need an administration who is in support of the truth. I think that, you know, there must be more innovative techniques. You know, I always wondered about that myself. And I'm grateful that brother Charles actually mentioned that, because it's key, but we need a commitment to the truth. And we need a commitment to transparency. And we have a general fear, like autoset of black people, brown people and the browning of America. And that fear is, unfortunately, on both sides of the aisle. It's not really a partisan fear, although it's portrayed as a Republican fear. I believe it's a it's a democratic fear as well. And we need to do some cultural education in order to educate the country about the importance of this transparency, because we're in a, we're in a Black Lives Matter moment, right now, we're in a racial equity reckoning, and it's not going to stop. And although folks think, Well, I'm not part of this problem, I'm not a racist, or I'm not, you're benefiting if you're particularly a white person from the privilege of the society that we live in. And we have to address this as a nation. It's not just an African American issue. It's not just a Latino issue. It's not just a communities of color issue. It's an American issue that we have to address and talk about, it has to be where the Truth and Reconciliation moments, and now is a great time for us to have a conversation, and really face the hard truths of our past in our current issues that we're working on and try and find solutions together.

Dr. Charles Lewis

So I didn't mention this, brother Karim on, you know, get on my case, if I don't say anything. So what we are one of the things we're doing next week is having a congressional briefing, where we're talking about cops, police in schools, which is a big issue. Now. There's movement to product called the funded police, or at least some folk just wanted, don't think police need to be in our schools. And I think there's a lot of reasons why police shouldn't be in schools. I don't know if every community feels that way. Maybe some communities who have gang problems might want to have some police in the schools. But we're going to have this conversation on on Wednesday. Bringing together some some people from education, and in fact, inviting the executive director of the the National Association of School Resource source officers. So I'll make sure that we get that information out soon, everyone. So how does the thing that's that that's that's excited me the most in recent days, is a book I've read called the politics industry, the politics industry, and what what what they're saying is that the system is broken. So we have we have these, what they call a duopoly of political parties. So we've got the Democrats and the Republicans. And for the most part, they if they call the primary, and whoever wins from each part from each party, face off against each other, and there might be one or two minor party candidates, but they really don't have a chance of winning. So what what they're proposing is open primaries, right, like you haven't California, I believe, now, and what they're calling rank choice voting, where everybody participants in the party and the prime primary, you could have as many as a dozen people. And you and you Select them according to the way they were chosen by the voters. Now, it's so much less a lot, it's a little complicated to explain in this in a setting like this, and but what it will produce a different dynamic in our democracy process. And we will start getting people who are not as polarized, because they will truly represent the people that that they're elected to represent. And I believe the state of Maine has already adopted this. And so I'm going to be that's going to be one of the things I'm going to be preaching, going forward to check, we go change the system, the system is really broken.

Linda Howard

In Maryland, right?

Dr. Charles Lewis

Yeah.

Aura Vasquez

Absolutely. I also want to just lift up two things, which is, we need to continue strengthening the partnerships with organizations that are already rooted in communities that oftentimes are not counted, or, or what is more difficult to count them, especially on the census, because those organizations have already a report, and people trust them. And, and I want to, again, emphasize that a big part of this issue is the lack of trust. This, you know, we have technology, more than ever, you know, and, and, and this in the world right now basically actually coming from California. And, and we we can really think about outside of the box of how to make this more accessible. The other thing that I want to just remind folks is the money in politics and the influence of the money in politics, also in the senses, and in how elected officials that have been elected for I mean, we have a few cases, actually here in Los Angeles, that have started senses and voting rights organizations that only favor them and suppress other groups. We see that oftentimes here in Southern California, where there's a lot of Latino and African American tension, sadly, you know, where we see a lot of, you know, I mean, we talking about power, and resources, our power, and counting people and figuring out how much resources come from our federal level, everything yours also wastes a lot of power. So also for some folks to suppress certain groups to not get counted, a worse for them. So I think we need to really think about all of the pieces that are that are working, and I agree with Charles, we need to change the system. And that's not going to happen within the system.

Linda Howard

So how to have this someone who's listening, who say, I want to do something I want to have, I want to have an impact. What is your recommendation? Like? Where did you where do they begin?

Dr. Charles Lewis

Well, there are many organisms, organizations that have have been born out of this recent catastrophe of election that we had in 2018. Our organizations like, indivisible, I'm not sure if you've heard of indivisible, but they are some of some former Hill staffers who decided to come up with a plan to change. So I would the Justice Democrats are one group that elected Alexandria Castillo Cortez. Ocasio Cortez, Ocasio Cortez. Yeah. And they have they have they recently upset one of the longtime Congress persons in Missouri, Lacy Clay, Cory, Cory Bush, a black woman with him, and he, he he, he inherited that seat from his father. And they held that seat for 52 years. Alright, so, you know, it was like their seat. And so he really couldn't tell them, but now they got different kind of representation coming and this is happening. So yeah, I would say I did try to identify a progressive group or a group that wants to make change.

Linda Howard

Anybody want to make a prediction? About the 2020? Election? Not at the federal level, but at the local levels? And and do you anticipate that we're going to see shifts? I think level?

Jamiah Adams

Yes, I think brother Charles already, you know, spoke about that and alluded to that we are seeing a shift born out of the 2016 debacle. And many young people, and particularly women of color, are coming forward and saying, You know what I'm going to run and I'm gonna, I'm going to say something about that. The sister who won that unprecedent seat in Missouri, she ran when AOC ran, and she lost. And I want to encourage folks who are watching, if you run, you're not able to garner enough money, you lose, or you don't have enough votes to run again, a lot of people don't know this, but I'm going to speak about news that don't speak about the federal side. But I'm going to make a point about our current president. A lot of people don't know, he ran three times before he won. He ran resident as well, yes, he ran three times for president, most i A friend has told me this, and I didn't, I thought he'd only run once. He ran three times. And so it's really key to not give up and, and to run again, and to attend those meetings if you can, and to, you know, make your voice heard and to get behind some of these organizations like justice Democrats and whatnot, to try and get that support to run because there are mechanisms out there, and we are changing the system.

Dr. Charles Lewis

Yeah, I'm gonna say I want the example is Barack Obama last election when he ran for Congress?

Aura Vasquez

You guys gave me a lot of hope. And I love it. Less than 1000 words. I was and I was overspend by, like, $300,000. So my campaign was real grassroots campaign. It's definitely given me a lot of I see.

Linda Howard

I see Karim has come along, which must mean, it's time for some questions.

Karim Ali

Sure. Thanks. Thanks, a lot, really engaging conversation. I was hoping that Dr. Lewis would talk a little bit about the Congressional Research as to policy study. And because I see that, that is really one of the vehicles that he is using to really impact change in terms of, you know, how policy is actually pushed through. So if you talk a little bit about the organization, and you know, what your objectives are, you know, with young students, getting them into politics, but then as the second part of that question, if you could talk a little bit about what the process is, we talked about civic engagement, we talked about issues that are most closely held, you know, by citizens in our communities. How is it? And what is it that we can actually do to really affect those policy decisions? Also, as we look at TV, we see congressmen and women, you know, on television, and they seem, you know, bigger and larger than life. So we don't really feel empowered to be able to, you know, have an impact, how what is the step by step process, to get to a place where the ears are open, and, you know, they really do take up, you know, the mantle of those things that are most important to you, in your communities? Well,

Dr. Charles Lewis

I think that's about what the organization is, is was was designed to keep social work, or encourage social workers to be more engaged, and with the, with the federal level of Congress, and so we do bring students to the hill. We have a student advocacy day in March, which is social month, and we bring hundreds of students to the Hill to lobby for, or to meet with congressional staffers, who set up meetings for them and congressional staffers, so that they can just get the experience of being in the halls of government and meeting with people who represent them. And then in July, we do a boot camp for social work students, where we train them if they're interested in going to the arena. Now in terms of in terms of influencing policy. Okay. It's relationships. Okay? It is I tell I tell all, I work with a lot of Dean's of social work schools, and I encouraged them to engage their Congress, Congress people, and not only the congress people, but at every level, but I'm, I'm focused on Congress, because when you when you establish a relationship with, with people, they know what you do, and they know what you could bring to the table, they will, they'll reach out to you, you know, I have a number of Hill staffers. If they're working on a bill, they may pacify me to get my reaction. Okay. And that's become from having having relationships. So, I think, you know, for us who particularly, you know, in leadership roles, we definitely need to have a relationship, it doesn't always have to be, you know, buddy, buddy, but respect, you know, let them know what you're doing. Because ultimately, you're, you're a voter, and not only your, your, are your voter, you're someone who can influence other voters, and they take that seriously, and they will listen to you. But you know, he says, it's not always, as he said, Jeremiah, going to them with, you know, with something you don't like, and protesting, you know, that's part of that's, that's a legitimate response to some of the things that happen. But at the same on the same time, you don't have to wait until something happens. You can go to them, just get to know them, and then they'll know you. And and then eventually, it can become a relationship where you can actually influence policy. So I don't know. All, how you are able to shut down the three gas plants? Yeah, but you had to have some, you know, some, you had to have some allies. Yeah, you couldn't do it by yourself.

Aura Vasquez

So one thing I learned as a commissioner, and coming from the space of community organizing and activism, is that beautiful bureaucracy is very scared of community participation. That's why we have these meetings at random times. That's why they don't want to let anybody know or they say they do, but it doesn't really reach, you know. Um, so we were able to retire the coastal gas ones, because they had an ally in the decision making, which was me. And, and we also had a, a movement that was behind making la 100% renewable energy. And we were lucky that as a commissioner, this came to my table this into our desk. And I actually was the first one to speak about it, and to say, we need to retire these gas plants. And, and the LA Times quoted me saying, I won't approve one more dollar on fossil fuel, which was a very bold kind of, you know, it was very strong, I guess, to say, but I mean, is it really strong now, where half of our state is on fire? It's on fire, where we had San Francisco with the worst air quality in the world. This doesn't sound so boy, where's the line? You know, that we crossed. So just to speak a little also about participation. And earlier, you guys, were talking about running for office? There's so many ways to participate in LA, for example, we have neighborhood councils, I don't know maybe in other cities, sometimes their district councils, you know that they have different names. And it's a way for you to get involved and, and give opinions about how your neighborhood is run. And that's important to your local Democratic Club. I am sorry, I mean, I am going to vote blue. But I am appalled to see how moderate we have become where we are a a democratic, where we are a party of working people. This is the party of the people. And I don't know sometimes if we're really back to that. So maybe it's a matter of all of us participating and again, that maybe your calling is not to run for office. Maybe your calling is still Start in mutilate in your, in your neighborhood or in your area or, or maybe get your mom's or I'm not a mother. But like for moms that is important. The participation of women women have made an incredible dent on our political process in the recent years, especially African American with incredible

Karim Ali

I have one more question. And this would probably need to be really quick. I thought, Dr. Lewis, but I wanted you to talk a little bit about HR 7848, who introduced this bill. And this is sort of an example of the community engagement work, you know, that we're talking about today. And a little bit about, you know, bringing together a coalition that is coming together up for this conversation next week.

Dr. Charles Lewis

so the bill, are you referring to hr 1748. It's called the counseling not familiarization in Schools Act. And that is the that's a bill that was introduced to provide federal funding for schools, who would like to hire more social workers and other service providers, but they have to get rid of the cops. So if you want to get the aid, you could have no cops. And that bill was introduced by Congresswoman Ayanna Presley, and Ilhan Omar, all right and ever did neutral there. I think this is going to the freshmen if I'm not mistaken, and, and then what they did, but then to show you where the relationships and and how the power means, they were able to convince Elizabeth Warren and Chris Murphy, to introduce the same bill in the Senate. So, you know, votes was the winner, we're gonna, that's gonna be part of our discussion on Wednesday, we're going to look to see whether this bill is good to have the required or desired effect that they hope that hope that it will have, because I'll be honest, I'm really like, I think we need to get cops out of schools for a lot of reasons. Just just the presence is traumatizing to young, black males and females.

Linda Howard

And what time

Dr. Charles Lewis

it begins at three o'clock.

Aura Vasquez

I just want to add that this is the promise of defending the police. So a lot of people get very scared of the Sunday police, I have friends, my own friends that have reached out to me privately to say, Do you really believe that? Is that like a buzz, you know, hashtag that you use and, and I always say like you guys. Imagine NLA for example, we have billions of dollars that we give the police and we have also 45,000 people living in our streets. That's what the finding the found in the police means how do we invest those resources on for example, on a unit that can deal with our unsheltered neighbors, instead of the police come into them to move them around or to do sweeps or or whatever that that they do. We don't, we don't need cops that are not trained. with substance abuse, counseling with mental illness counseling with strong trauma. We don't need policemen doing outreach to our unsheltered community, for example, we need people that are experts on dealing with that kind of community. And dealing with that, you know, the same with schools are really on computers.

Jamiah Adams

And if I could just say one thing, it's really a matter of reimagining the services for our communities. And you know, that word defund scares people. But it's reimagining and putting money towards services for our students putting money toward services for our unhoused putting money towards services for our mentally ill. And we do need to reimagine this because police are overly funded throughout cities in America right now and that money can be moved toward that we've done it here in San Francisco with Mayor London breed and other cities can do the same.

Dr. Charles Lewis

Yeah, I was gonna say that one of our panelists is Pia Escudero, who is with the Los Angeles Unified School District, and they just took $25 million from the from the money they use to fund building is moved to to hire more on social service. So yeah, you guys will be part of that conversation.

Linda Howard

So we have something to look forward to on Wednesday. And you'll get Charles, you'll get that information to us so we can send it out. continue this discussion next Wednesday. And Karim, we are at the top of the hour, I want to turn it over to you and let you do our final closeout.

Karim Ali

I appreciate that. I want to first of all, thank everyone for joining Profound Conversations today. Miss Aura Vasquez, hailing from Los Angeles all the way out there. I would normally say sunny, la. But no, that might be a bit pejorative today, right? With the wildfires. Mr. Jimmy Adams, hailing from the Bay Area, and I've got Charles Lewis, who's here in the Washington, DC area. It's a Profound Conversations. His executive producers are the Muslim life Planning Institute, and the programming that's written and produced by Samuel Shareef and the alien network. And I'd like to provide special thanks to Erika Christie, our engineer and our communications consultant Khadija Ali, and we look forward, we want to just ask everyone to just set your calendar for Thursdays at 4pm. And we're going to be here. And so you can, you know, put that in your calendar and check on our website to see you know, what's up and what's next, for each week. Also, a special shout out to afficher Muhammad with think it's learning al Islam or study al Islam. She is the one that connected me to Jamiah Adams. And we're so appreciative of her if we did not ask your questions during the session, but we'll try to get those answered an email t. So thank you so much, and welcome back when you've been on for a little while. It's great to see your smile and to have you back on set.

Jamiah Adams

Thank you. Thank you.

Erika Christie