The American Social Epidemic of Violence And Racism
Economic and Health Inequities & The Weaponizing of Authority
Protests that originated in Minneapolis after a white police officer killed George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, quickly spread around the country. The reality of social inequality create anger and despair that is now playing out on the streets of cities throughout the country. How did we get here and what is the way forward? What are specific health impacts on individual, family and communities from both physical and mental perspectives? What are effective pathways to breakthroughs in enforcement and judicial policies and civic engagement? How do we begin to transform our social contract to include those who have been dehumanized, commoditized and under represented?
Show Topics and Highlights
These micro aggressions and victimization that we see our own. These are only symptomatic. It's not just about the police. It's about the system.
So now America is no longer seen as a moral leader.
“Because there's another element here that is going on through these rioting and looting and trying to take over over our movement and our young folks are ‘No, no way. This is about us.’ And I commend them for that.”
World Health Organization conference in 1969 determined that the number one mental health problem in America was racism.
I think it's important that all of us and others be able to help people be able to utilize the moment in time we have.
“This is only profession we have [policing] with the authority to take someone's life.”
How do we change the police force for what it is now in terms of the militarization of it?
One quarter of the police department's nationwide have alcohol problems.
There is a disincentive for officers to be more approachable.
Should there be a movement to have the videos of the killings of victims banned from constant television broadcasts because of the mental health of the community?
Today's host is Linda Howard and the panelists are Muhammad Bashir, Ameedah Rashid, Darnell Blackburn, Diane Bell McKoy, Pastor John Arnold, and Latif Rasheed.
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
Linda Howard
Before we really get started with our session today, I think these are some very trying times for everyone. And we are dealing with a lot of issues. We're, we're in the middle of a pandemic, which is causing a lot of havoc in loss and grief for a lot of people in our communities and around the globe. And in the middle of that we are also dealing with, we're dealing with the issues that were brought to light with the George Floyd situation. And so we have a lot of people that are are grieving, that are hurting and that are in pain. So I am going to violate one of the rules of broadcasting. And I'm going to say let's have some dead silence for a moment. So I will ask that we take about just 15 seconds to have some silence and to send out some prayers that those of us that are in in pain.
[15 Seconds of silence]
Thank you. Also you know a lot of times we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to to be perfect and to get this right and to look good and sound good. And when we do when we are doing things like this, this is the first time that listen life planning Institute has had this many speakers at one time and this is 10th episode. So I've pretty much committed to that I'm not going to put pressure on myself to be perfect. And and I will ask that the speakers also not put pressure on themselves to be perfect, because we're not in perfect time. And if everything doesn't come out sounding perfect, and we may look a little tired at times, that's because we're doing some tiring work right now. So I'm so everyone, relax, and let's get into this conversation and have a family conversation. And for those of you that have joined us today, please feel free to participate via the chat. If you have any questions, put your questions in the question and answer box that you'll see down at the bottom of your screen so that you can also and so that you can also engage with us. In this conversation, and we are we're not going to be talking we have some people with us today who are clearly experts in what they do. And they have excelled in what they do, but we're not talking to them today just as experts. We're talking to them as members of the community and asking them to, to share with us from their professional perspective, but also from a human perspective, who they are and how this situation is impacting them. And when I when I started out, thinking about how to approach this, I started thinking about a lot of the stats about all the people that we lost through what has been called unquestionable or questionable police shootings. And, and I went back to 1999 in the Call it that time was 41 shots when a young black man was shot 41 times an unarmed, standing in his hallway where he lives 41 times by New York City police officers today with George Floyd where the call is I can't breathe. So I want us to just think about that from 1999 to today, where we have been very vocal about these issues. And we can go back to Emmett Till. And I don't know what year that was. Maybe one of the panelists can shout out what year that was, but let's just say that was way back. So we've been dealing with these issues for a very long time as as a community. So today, we're going to be knocking Talking from experts looking at it from an expert standpoint, but we're going to be asking people to really touch. And let's talk about this from a heart space that we deal with our hearts and our souls in this. So I'm not going to do the introductions of these are our speakers and these are their credentials. But I will ask each of you to share with us just maybe take minute, a minute and a half, to share with us a little bit about what you do. And how what's happening today is impacting you personally, and how it impacts your work. And we'll start with I'm looking at my zoom screen. So I'm going to start from the top which is Mr. Blackburn.
And you are on mute. I got just I think I'm good. All
Darnell Blackburn
Hello, everybody in the panel and thank you again, Linda. Karim for opportunity. Real quickly. My name is Darnell Blackburn. I work full time for the Michigan Commission on law enforcement standards. We are the standard setting body for all police officers in the state of Michigan. Prior to that, I spent 10 years as a police officer I'm a civilian employees now is far as community activism, I mean, my goal is to be the change that that that we need the world to see and to recruit more diversity more black brown people into law enforcement that will stand up and string to the top of the mountain top and change and say you will not Lynch a man in public and we will not allow you to do that by by strangling him publicly so disheartened, disenfranchised, I'm frustrated, I'm hurt and I'm putting that frustration into more action. That's who I am.
Linda Howard
brother Latif.
Latif Rasheed
Good afternoon. I appreciate Muslim life planning Institute for facilitating this platform for us today. And you all are very impressed by the work that you all do and the commitment that you can bring. I guess my history briefly is that as brother Karim mentioned, I've been working with first responders since 1999. Either with first responders and tandem in a Maryland area in two counties or with firefighters. In one county, primarily. I'm a mental health therapist licensed for the last 25 years and this situation has really touched me and has I mean, I haveoftentimes, and I'm pretty sure that the other guests, the male guests, particularly, have been repetitively stopped by police since I come from Philadelphia. But since I was a teenager, I've been stopped by police harassed by police. Just just because I'm walking from class and going to class and I mean, this is on and on. And I have three sons, African American sons who I'm constantly afraid of them coming under a unscrupulous law enforcement person, more so than then possibly victim on being victimized directly by white supremacy. So, one of the things that this situation is brought to me and made me even more keen kidney aware of this that, like I'm working with first responders, historically, as a therapist, I've been hearing their stories and hearing and seeing their their issues from a traumatic background. But it's only made me more convinced how important it is to, to work with our own people in terms of issues of trauma, transgenerational trauma and to look for ways of bringing some sense of respite or relief. So that's, that's my piece.
Linda Howard
Diane.
Diane Bell McKoy
Hi. Diane McCoy. I'm president ceo Associated Black Charities in Maryland. I think I'm bringing my humans to this conversation. I have to first start off by saying who I am As a wife, of a person who has had six strokes in the past four years, who is diabetic, who has high blood pressure, who has all the things that makes them subject to being very much to the whole COVID situation, but also I comments my background as a mother of a adult, black male Chow and three grandsons. And it's tough grants on that was killed murdered in the streets of Baltimore. And so that is my humaneness that I bring to this conversation. But it's also a part of who I've been my entire career, which has always been about how do you how do I make a difference in terms of the lives of black people? That's who I am. From being early career being very focused and kind of grassroots effort and the disease area, and then coming into the Baltimore area and early in my career, and every single way is focused on how Do I contribute to make a difference, particularly economically for African Americans and understanding that it really is about whether we're talking about criminal justice system, whether we're talking about economic, whether you're talking about health, very clearly that it really is all that beef underneath, cause structural racism. And that's our work as organization.
Linda Howard
And what's the organization again?
Diane Bell McKoy
Associated Black Charities, ABC.
Linda Howard
Mohammed. Tell us a little bit about what you do and how this is impacting you and your work.
Muhammad Bashir
I'm a retired criminal trial lawyer 20 years of in the trenches on above ground eyeball, the kind of stuff that you read about and stuff like this. Right now I'm retired and I teach young lawyers how to try cases as a matter of law, so one of them right now. I have four titles out now and we have like so connected to these older America and some criticism and criticism, which we expect to in a week, hopefully it'll at least enhance the conversation taking. I pray that it does and I think when people say criticism, killers, putting somebody down sometimes Attracting, constructive and raise their level make them raise their level as well be a path to particular viewing of this distance let me say it this way, chasing criminals you become very hard. I became very hard, but graceful I became very optimistic. Whenever there was a hardship there was an ease. It was it was a light. And so I trained myself to try to find where the light is. And frankly, this is a time where a very risky sadness a very serious event has opened. The opportunity for the Muslim community to assert its leadership assert its humanity and assert a particular leadership and humanity into a system that really needs. But again, I'm hopeless optimist.
Linda Howard
I started out saying that weren't gonna be perfect. So your, your audio was a little broken up, I don't know whether or not maybe on one of our one of our people can reach out and maybe see if we can assist a little bit on the on the audio. And while you're doing that, let's talk to john and john if you can also share with us what you do and a little bit about how this has ended. In your work in you personally.
Pastor John Arnold
Yes, well, first Peace and blessings to everyone. It's such an honor to be part of this panel of distinguished guests. Currently, I'm a retired law enforcement working in a major healthcare system in the state of New Jersey. And what I do is emergency management for the system of fraud of the corporate office. I'm also involved with our social impact and community impact department, which was set up by a young a young lady and attorney who was a defense attorney who came into the corporate world and she's also a head of the executive vice president of the governmental affairs. So for me, with my background as a pastor, former law enforcement and now in the healthcare industry, it seems to be a perfect mix, and we're doing some great things in the community here in New Jersey. Especially wherever we have a hospital. We have a footprint we have some type of program or assistance for the community and we work well with the police departments as well. Prior to that, he was the deputy police director for the city of Newark, which is the largest city in the state of New Jersey largest police department. The state of New Jersey, came there in 2014. When Ras Baraka became Mary taught me to be the deputy director. And before that I was a retired Captain 23 years at the Essex County prosecutor's office where I have made I was the first black Lieutenant and first black captain of their homicide division. I spent my my early career there. And as I said, 23 years I worked there, doing major investigations, police shootings, death by cops, as well as just the regular homicides from the community. Prior to that, I came in as a, a patrol officer for two years, with the University Police Department in the city of New York. I became a pastor about 10 years ago. And it was eye opening experience for me. Because I've dealt with so many people from all walks of life with which had issues I never considered myself to be in any type of position to help them. But I just found out, you know, through being a pastor that and just being open and loving and talking to folks that, you know, when you open up those doors of communication you are allowed to go into, you can go and most anywhere as long as people feel that you're genuine. So when I came to New York, I was in charge of the community and clergy affairs units. And what we tried to do there through the clergy in the community was to build relationship with the community, the community walks, wasn't that we sent out captains but it was myself and The director, the chief of police, we went out into the community. And when Michael Brown was was killed in Ferguson, and they had a lot of protests, one of the things we did in New York was we reached out to the community leaders, the clergy, and we told them we say, listen, we we're here to support your protest. We're going to supply police officers with you to march and make sure that you have a safe passageway. Our only concern is keeping our residents safe keeping our businesses safe. And we were able to do it, we had no problems. As a matter of fact, after the protest, we had an incident where a white superior officer shot and killed a young, black male as a result of a robbery and subsequent cartoons. And because our relationship with the community, there were no problems there were no issues. We had an open door policy to the community, through the clergy and through community activists such as Larry ham, people's organization for progress. Reverend now shocked in so we've been making contact With you know, we made contact with a lot of people in the community, and it helped us do our job. And I just believe that moving forward, law enforcement cannot especially in this position when I came to healthcare, I see that law enforcement cannot no longer stand by itself in this century, but they have to partner they have to, to join hands with other organizations such as the panelists here. And that's the only way to justice is going to come out of cases and that's the only way they're going to be able to protect and serve. I currently do a facebook live every Wednesday we do. We call it squad protect and serve and only we take the top topics that cops will on the job cannot talk about and you talk about community policing last night was racism within the police department. And we touched on the current events so I'm just glad to be here. You know, to contribute what little bit I can to this awesome panel. Thank you brother Karim, who I went to school with and You know, we've spent our high school years together.
Linda Howard
Wow. We've got people who are talking from a spiritual perspective from the clinical perspective from a law enforcement perspective. And our our last panelist is also in the clinical space system, Sister Ameedah.
Ameedah Rashid
My name is Adeedah Rashid. And I actually began working with my primary area of surfaces with women, children and families. I'm currently I own a company and provide a service direct service online for usually couples and families regarding issues of crisis that they're experiencing in their relationships. But that's an income kind of at the end of my career, because I began my career in 74. And I started at that time in the prosecuting attorney's office. Working with women and children who were experienced the sexual abuse or the kind of crisis, I work directly with the police officers, and the prosecuting attorney's office. And my whole career has basically been with women and children. I've worked in DC, I've worked in Ohio, I've worked in Michigan, I've worked in different parts of the country in the same role pretty much working directly with women, children and families who are experiencing trauma and crisis related to environmental and social issues that they're experiencing and helping them through that process. Most of my deliberately so my career has been with people of color, and people who are usually in economic situations of disparity. That's just where I decided to drop my own bucket many years ago, because I'm a product of the South. And so when it comes to the things that we're experiencing right now In our environment, I see them as a continuum. They've been going on for many years. And I think the victims that are usually the silent victims, and we don't see them until much later and often the world so I guess where they can become other kinds of victims or children, because they are growing up in communities in environments of disempowerment. And I live that and see that more now. Because not been married for a very long time. I have one son, who I have to honestly say every day I prayed you come home. And now I have 10 grandchildren and seven of them. Seven of them are boys, that I find myself praying even more, that they're going to have a different experience than my own brother had my uncle head that my grandfather had that my father had at the hands People who saw themselves as acting in the role of law enforcement, but really often were really just fulfilling a legacy that allowed them to think that there was some role they had is superior. That could victimize often people that were not only in my family, but in my community. So the way that I believe that I decided in my whole life to try and help people who are more like myself and other women in my circles was to try and work with women, to work with children, to work with families who are really often trying to work with the men in their lives, the boys in their lives to try and make it through, which is really a minefield, and it hasn't changed. I want to say I do think it's changed. I do think it's better. I think those on the panel, we have a sense of history now that it has improved, but I do see it as a continuum. I guess hopeful because I see it the light in a different way. There was a time when people like the people on this panel would not have been on this panel. That would not have been panels like this. There were panels like this in the 60s, in the early 70s. And I was a part of that I ever saw. So I do feel hopeful for my grandchildren, my grandsons, my granddaughters, too, but especially my grand sons, because I see them, especially my teenage friends and situations that keep me in prayer. So that's the personal side. And I try to make an impact in the work that I do. Now, as I say, kind of at the end of my career, because I've worked in lots of different capacities. My last role was in Baltimore, substance abuse to deal with people who were in part of the judicial who were in the court systems and had lots of stories that were heart wrenching, but I'm at another point now where I do more things online. Because like, I think it was Miss Bell. Diane mentioned, I'm at a point where I'm probably I guess one of those COVID-19 at risk people because of age and health conditions. So I'm also very conscious of that. My work with parents, when I see couples, I see people online, pretty much four days a week, I'm working with parents who are working with children, who are struggling with how to process what they're seeing, what they're experiencing, what they're hearing, and helping them and teachers By the way, to be able to help their students even before they went online, to be able to help children process what's going on, to make sense of it, and get through it and especially when it comes to violence against people that look like their families that look like them. So I'm, I kind of look at my role in terms of relationship work and individual work micro as opposed to macro.
Linda Howard
Let's build on that a little bit what what we've heard in that statement is that we're talking about victims beyond the ones who may have the direct the direct victims, you know, looking at how is this impacting the children? How is it impacting the mothers, the daughters, the communities? And I'm not going to direct a question to any particular person, because we want to have a family conversation. So I will ask any of your panelists to jump in and just talk a little bit now what are we seeing in terms of the mental the psychological, the emotional impact that this situation is having in our communities?
Pastor John Arnold
Oh, I like to say that one of the things is that we are, it hasn't manifested yet, but we're going to see that Our children and folks in the community are going to have a form of PTSD because if you look at it, we actually saw a man murdered on national television. And that I mean to see someone I mean, we already in our community, our reset, see violence, we see people gunned down, we see the police abusing folks, but our young children, especially our teenagers, they actually witnessed a murder. I mean, just think about it. I mean, this this man pled for his life, and toward the end when he was getting ready to transition, you know, it was touching that he called for his mother who was already dead, which us who are you know, whether you're Christian or Muslim, you believe that this this spirit separates from the body. And, you know, he called his mother which tells you that that he was in another dimension, you know, so we actually saw him dying. Children saw and die and our children are exposed to social media. And they work social media a lot better than we do. I mean, they they have their own way of doing things and their own platforms and discussions. And we think about it that not only that, but even the subsequent rioting and looting we've heard about I was born in 65. So Newark was on fire in 6768. My dad was a North police officer. He went out into the community during the riots. And as I got older, I heard about it. I read about it. I saw on Time Magazine, the effects of the 67 arrives in New York and it was devastating to me and now now, I'm seeing it on TV because everything is broadcasted you saying cop still abusing people in the community. And, you know, I sort of like went off I I learned to deal with what I what I was going through later in life through peer mediation group. And, you know, operational stress management, those types of training. But what really woke me up and bothered me was the looking at offices eyes, as he kept his knee in George Floyd's neck. Anyone who has a conscience, especially those of us who worked in law enforcement, we, we were bothered by that. So I mean, we don't know the we haven't seen how it's going to affect our community. But I guarantee is already in place that PTSD is going to be one of the issues affecting our children.
Latif Rasheed
See, we see we have a lot of young people on our panel this afternoon, for the john was in fifth and 65. And then 52. So, young brother, I appreciate that. I think I think I think you're quite quite correct. I think the issues of quite as we say transgenerational trauma are very much in line There's a thing called which I'm sure Ameedah knows about aces there is a aces study, I'm not sure was that funded by a Kaiser Permanente, whatever. But aces is an acronym for adverse childhood exposure or adverse childhood experiences. And it's been not just postulated, but it's actually been researched that children who have been subjected to even just one adverse childhood experience and some of the adverse childhood experiences something like a tumultuous family unit, I mean, a lot of fighting the separation from a parent due to whatever reason, but also of course, to untimely death or to imprisonment, substance abuse and addiction, domestic violence. And there's two more things which doesn't really come to me right now. are more predisposed. Not only a taken up criminal behavior but having having a life trajectory of either 20 to 25 years, less than the other their average counterparts who didn't who weren't exposed to that. So someone mentioned it to there was a study and I mean, we hear some things about CDC Center for Disease Control talking about the issue of mental health being a or or violence in a mental health program. Being a mental health problem, I think something about the World Health Organization, but there was a conference in 1969 in Florida that a doctor late Dr. Francis Cresswell Singh references in her acclaimed book, the ISIS papers, talks about there was a a APA, American psyche Psychiatric Association meeting and then there was a black caucus up Have those clinicians on the side who determined that, that the number one mental health program was was racism problem in America was racism. And of that, not only was racism the number one problem in America, but white supremacy was the primary cause of most mental health issues in in, in America in 1969. Here we are in 2020. And we're facing the good thing is, of course, everybody has cameras and all this technology. But while a lot of things have changed, a lot of things have remained the same. These microaggressions and victimization that we see our own. These are only symptomatic. It's not just it's not about the police. It's about the system. As it says it needs a systemic change, not just a changing of the guard, and I've had some some customers encounters prior to become a clinician years ago with police. I've had some some very touching encounters with police as a professional. And but it needs a systemic change in my opinion.
Muhammad Bashir
Can I jump in here? Can you hear me?
Linda Howard
Yes, go ahead.
Muhammad Bashir
Okay. Again, I, I believe I'm hopelessly hopelessly optimistic on these circumstances. And that comes from a criminal justice background. But let me give you a personal anecdote. When I was maybe 60 to 6019 6263. Kennedy assassination. My mother showed me, people were crying over john F. Kennedy, except she made me do a report and outline everything that was to know about John F. Kennedy. I mean, every newspaper every magazine article, every news broadcast, take notes from etc. And my dad on the opposite side of that showed me pictures of lynchings and Emmett Till And the reason why I point that out now is, I recognize that they'll be potentially that the potential for post traumatic stress in our community is there. But on the opposite side of that is the revolutionary forces that this particular timeframe has unleashed on the world. And it's a generation that's going to grow up believing that the fight back is necessary. And I thought, since maybe, King's assassination since the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, we have moved away from that resistance that was necessary to move the culture forward. So I'm hopelessly optimistic that on the side of seeing this homicide scene, this murder, seeing the murder of Audrey in, in Georgia see in the murder of reading about the murder of Miss Taylor in Louisville, or the other, the other brother, excuse me in Louisville, that on the opposite side of that, there's a generation that's growing up and seeing that There's an obsessive need to stand up and fight back to stand up and take the challenge of leadership to stand up and take the challenge of moving the culture forward in a positive way. And frankly, the reason why I say that is because that's exactly what motivated me to open my big mouth when I was 1011 years old, and have you shut my mouth since. And so maybe I'm using a personal anecdote to hopefully project on the community. But I do believe that the community what you're seeing out there in the streets, what you're hearing from these young people now, as it relates to resistance to racism, white supremacy, as resistance to leadership strategies that that have, for lack of a better word may have dropped the ball in moving to the matters forward from the 60s to now. I think there's a generation that's growing up and seeing that the necessity and it was brought out by this particular incident. So again, there was a tremendous negative, but it shout out is a tremendous positive that I see With the door open, I hope that we, as maybe the generation before, had the courage to go back and say, This is the history, we can, we can match your energy, but we can give you the history and the insight to help you move forward.
Linda Howard
So one of the things was different about this particular incident, because we've had a very different reaction. In terms of the cross section of people that's responded. This has been a response around the globe, we've seen protests, you know, I've seen images of protests in Rio de Janeiro. I've seen images of protests in Canada. I've seen, you know, the European countries coming out and telling the US to use restraint and responding to protesters. So this has been a global reaction. Why was this situation different? Why was George Floyd different than all of the other incidences that have happened? Where black and brown people have died through police activity.
Diane Bell McKoy
I'm gonna jump in. I think that it really it got teed up, teed up by so many things before. I think it got teed up to have this response to somebody that other people may call a president and turn. I don't call my president, the behavior that I think in some ways is also a global reaction of pushback against that. kind of push that absolute in humaneness that comes out of that space. And he was teed up by COVID-19. In terms of teed up from the standpoint of having been discovered the disproportionality of people of color being impacted, but teed up, because everybody was in a space in this country, isolated and keyed on media keyed on issues, by having the sense of the date business of going around in terms of everyday work world and everything was teed up for it. So it was like this explosion in terms of, I see it, I see it differently. I hear him. I see what happened with black people. I go back and look at all that it was teed up for that kind of response. I don't know if it's teed up for system change, but it's teed up for at least the immediate protests.
Darnell Blackburn
If I could jump in some too, Linda. The other aspect, I completely agree with it, you know, it's a tipping point. It's a boiling point based on everything else that's going on. And when you look at it, like brother john alluded to, we It's one thing for it for a person to be shot. You know, for a gunshot to occur. It's an impersonal thing. Typically there's a distance between people, but when you literally watch, watch somebody who scars with their hands in their pockets, and that's why I call it a public lynching for me. I see visions of lynching, I see visions of the executioner pulling the lever and the person hanging, the executioner was that, that so called officer. And then the other aspect of it is it becomes the the people, the bystanders, the other officers are the encouragers that said, Go let him kill him kill him. It becomes a more personal thing. And along coupled with everything else that Mr. Han talked about, you look at his facial expression and everything you saw that. So I think that's kind of the other part of that makes it what it was.
Muhammad Bashir
Can I get me jump in here again, there's a there's a confluence, a coming together in this. And let's go back to the 60s 70s, maybe even 50s. At that point in time in America, America, or at least in the world, America was coming As a moral leader, which is why they fought so hard against the that's why the civil rights movement impacted internationally as well, because people were seeing how black people were being treated in America. And one of the staples of Malcolm was that he would go to Africa and say, Look at how they treat your brothers over here. And so America was often trying to find ways to make sure that their lack of moral leadership was not exposed to the world. They will say jazz groups over to Europe and things like that. All right, so he will always consider around the world as a moral leader. jettison now to 2016 the guy who calls all African countries, shithole countries, s whole countries, excuse me, the nature of the leadership that's coming out of the Trump administration, the fights he picks with everybody in the world like a five year old child. Nobody in the world sees him as a moral leader now, so is tepid, almost ignorant response to Coronavirus, international problems. His tepid response to a collapsing world economy. So now America is no longer seen as a moral leader. And so people around the world and governments as well as the people are speaking out as a way of saying, take a step back America, this particular incident as well as the whole.
Pastor John Arnold
And also, you know, like, I was saying that, you know, we were all in a pandemic situation. So, all we had was the news. And you know, we watched it, I was on quarantine for seven days. And that's all I saw on every channel. I did watch nothing else except the news. So now you saw day after day, new development, someone being killed, a black person being killed at the hands of officers. And the issue is that policing is an international international event. And the same issues that we're having here in America is happening in Jamaica, it's happening in Brazil is happening all over police corruption, the police abuses. Power, all these things are going on. But for once, as it was said, Now America has been exposed. And people have seen that and they are not with it. And they're and they are. So you know, we told, we told ourselves is the greatest nation on Earth. But truth be told, our African nations and Caribbean nations define advanced in us they differ than us we have become a, you know, in some sense, we have become the third world power, the first shall be last and the last shall be first. And that's what's happening to America is the fall of America that, that we're starting to see the remnants of the fall of America because we have become so arrogant and there's no greater arrogance than what's in 1600 right now. That that white superiority that white supremacy is, you know, folks of color have seen that. And I've dealt with that in England and Germany. They've eradicated it, but he no America we want to take over the world and push ourselves in when we have issues in our own backyard and everybody's saying no, sit down, shut up. And you know, and they started to stand up and protest because protest is going on. They're calling George Floyd's name in England and Berlin. And all all throughout your, in South America, because it's a how cry about the injustice against people of color black and brown people here in America, and the world is tired of it. So I mean, as as, as Brother Mohammed said, you know, we see the North we saw the North with our young kids, this was an awakening for them and they stood up and they they they stood up and they started moving forward because they did not let the riots and looting that happened throughout the rest of the nation going in north. They call those folks out. Because there's another element here that is going on through these lot riding and lootings that are trying to take over and take over our movement and our young folks are No, no way. This is about us. And I commend them for that.
Ameedah Rashid
If I can add to the conversation here also, I think that I agree with everything that's been said. I think there's also probably two other factors that may, I'd like to add chime in to this. One is the interconnection of the world is the global connection has been there before this ever happened through music, in particular with young people, the crossover cultures. And as time has gone on, the world has changed. I grew up in a black and white world, probably most of us on the panel did, my children. My grandchildren certainly have not. So there have been changes that have happened that have been cumulative, just like drops of water on a stone that have worn away some of the old vestiges that we had in the 60s in the 70s in the 50s. In the 40s. The 60s could come about in the 70s came about because of the work of Marcus Garvey and those that came before It's it's been, but so we can see that but also, there's another piece. I would they often talk about the, the election of 45. It's what he's called, because he was a reaction to holding up a clean glass who was who was 44 and another kind of class 245. So people had a comparison and they can say, you know, wait a minute, but it was shocking at first. It's like any other kind of trauma when you first get it, you just kind of freeze a lot of people freeze or they go underground and listen to do other things. But now you have COVID that said, Okay, go home now. Everything shuts down. And it shut down here in March just shut down around the world and other places. People in other places read more, they talk more, they communicate more. And so now when the world got quiet and everything got quite an environment, that's why the seas were different. The water was there. Everything is different. So We're taking that in. And so when you get quiet, it's just like we meditate, you get quiet, and you can start receiving what's going on in your environment. And then you can really see that dirty glass. And it's not just one person, just like Mr. Floyd represents. he's a he's a symbol. But he's a symbol that represents a lot of people. What about those guys who were gunned down by the father son duo, it just shot on the street. I mean, a lot of things we see, but there are things that people have heard over the years over the years. Remember, I don't know if you remember the guy that was drugged on the truck. You know, in Georgia, I can block it with so many people. So I think it's cumulative. But then you get to look at what could be the hope that we had. The reality that we have in young people, you know, part of being young is they still have hope. They still have light, and they have the lessons of those of us many of us that are on the panel that can start Communicate, they can still share the stories. I mean, I've heard stories like the brother of Mohammed Bashir talks about stories from his family. I mean, I started my family, I mentioned to my family, you know, but that kind of just goes, you don't do anything about it. It just settles there. And then you share it with your children, and they share with your friends and cousins. So it's just a narrative that the seeds were planted. And now they're just blooming. And there is a quiet, what is that song? The last revolution will not be televised, you know, you're seeing is not the revolution. The revolution is happening in the minds of people around the globe. And there is a global awareness is taking place. And whoever said their reaction, we should not take this anymore. And so we're going to see a different world. We'll talk about the environmental movement. There's all kinds of things that have been going on, that we just haven't heard about. But guess what, if you have anything else to do, you can go back Read also can't watch sports anymore. The diversion and last thing I will say the diversions have been done away with, you know, I always tease my husband because I say he's the greatest sports fanatic in the world. But there's no sports. I can't go shopping. So there's a lot of stuff that we used to do that take us off where we need to be. But it's not just us. It's young people, and they have the energy to go out there and do something with their ideas. So I find this to be an exciting time in our period of history, because this history is being made now. But what can we do? We will have called we will be shut down forever. We're already going back when a second way comes. What will we do with that time? So I think it's important that all of us and others be able to help people be able to utilize the moment in time we have, and those who have an audience or those who have backgrounds who know How to talk and teach and work with. And whoever I can't remember seven panels. So this was systemic, a systemic structural disorder. What we have to do is be able to teach to that and really help people. And the very last piece I want to say, trauma, yes, we're going to have post traumatic stress, we've already got it. You know how many, I can't tell you how many children I've worked with, who've already seen people get killed in their parents to kill community violence, people just shot when I was in Baltimore, I was in my kitchen. How many kids, you know, are young people in their 20s, who were in the jails, who saw their parents shot, kill, some have just one after the other after the other. And after a while, you get desensitized until something really big or major triggers you. So a lot of things, people being triggered, and other people are just being aware. So there are a lot of things going on in the environment right now. We can really use people that have resources and to community organize And know how to tap into. So I'm very glad we have this vehicle to be able to talk about some things that can be done I'm sure there are others but I really think that this is a very exciting time some kind of like with Brother Muhammed Bashir I you know I can see this my mother said it lunch calories and in my in my dad was all kinds of things they didn't have this kind of organizational things that are going on on the globe. We have it now. But I guess it'll be on us as to what we do with it. I'm talking about us the old hands.
Linda Howard
Let me let me let me ask some question for those of you who had some connection to the police department. Whether you have provided support service to them or been in that space I thought about in and I've put this in one of the statements that I made was that we we focus on we focus on gun control and so We want to make sure guns don't get in the hands of people with mental health are we doing in terms of ensuring the mental health of the police officers? Who we armed and gives the authority to go out there with weapons? Is there a focus? So does there need to be more of a focus on assessing the mental health of police officers and providing support to police officers?
Pastor John Arnold
No, I was gonna say I'm gonna say that that's what we do at I'm in the healthcare system I work in now. That's one of the things that we were actually doing in the communities where we have a footprint. The South District of New York is the hotbed of crime in the city of Newark is where the most violent crimes are carried. The most murders, the most shootings and the most trauma in the community. And what we're doing is we're setting up operational stress management, it became mandatory under the new Attorney General, that every police officer goes through a two day session of operational stress management in which we give officers an outlet to talk about their issues, their frustrations, and to assess themselves. I don't think two days is enough. I went through a train the trainer course, which was about nine days through a company out of Israel, which deals with operational stress management for police officers and military because what they found was when they officers went through operational stress management, there was less sick time, and there was much less there was much less complaints against police officers in the community. So what we'll find what Barnabas is doing is that they're going into the communities and we will We've opened up our facilities to police officers that come in and they deal with conditions and social workers, and also the community because when a police officer does something that is traumatic in a community, the community is affected. And when the police officers pull out, the community is left, you know, traumatize. And, you know, like, brother I don't know, you know, as a police officer, we go from call after call after call, it takes its toll on the officers. And we You're right, we have the authority. This is only profession we have the authority to take someone's life. And a lot of times, someone mentioned before, a guns gun shooting is impersonal. You know, most, if not most people who make it personal. They're either blunt force trauma, they're using their hands or their feet to kill someone or hurt someone or they're using a knife. That's when you know, a homicide was personal. And police officers are not like like we just saw which was cool. He did not pull his gun out and shoot George Floyd. He used his own body to kill George Floyd. And that's the same thing. It might not be a murder every time a police officer strikes out or lashes out. But he's taking his face. He's doing a chokehold as Eric Garner happened, you know, and that's how that's what leads up to these type of things. So I'm just I think that we have to have more of an outlet for the police officers, we have to make it more of their training and more of policy, that they go through this and evaluation just like you they took me graduation, when they came on the job, that evaluation can't stand for 25 years. I know it didn't for me. So you know we need to make it then it comes up maybe every five years or some type they go through some type of complete evaluation to reassess them and see if mentally they're still able to perform the job that they've been entrusted to do.
Darnell Blackburn
Can I jump in I know Latif is on that but I justwant to jump in on that. Brother John's commentin the state of Michigan I promise I'll be brief, brief brother in the state of Michigan and then most days working for the certification for the licenses police officers. In Michigan, a medical doctor can sign can check a box on a form that says a police officer is free from mental and emotional instability, a medical doctor. Now, most police agencies require they go through the full psychological clinician that the Commission do most departments. But for the state standard, if you got a department that's not on the ball, that's what happens. So going back to what brother john says, I think, you know, you're you're absolutely so right, what we need to do is, we need to set laws that mandate that every three to five years that somebody goes see because the opposite the stigma that's associated with it, and he can testify so it's relevant to anybody who's dealt with all forest There's such, you can be fine my first year, I can be great. And I can just fall off by the 10th year or the fifth year, the third year. And the reality is that I know I have a problem, but I'm not going to go and ask for help. So if we mandate randomly, then these people just go get assessed because we want them to be okay. And we want them not to murder our black brothers and sisters. We did we can change the spectrum, then we don't have to say, okay, no, there's no, don't look at the stigma. Look at actually, the fact that we're just going to randomly evaluate you and get you right and make sure that you're on point. Go ahead, brother. I'm sorry. I'm done.
Linda Howard
All right, brother Latif jump in.
Latif Rasheed
Well, heavy I'm worried again, I've worked with some fine officers in the past. And I mean, really, I'm as I'm not saying that just because we're on this farm. I mean, very, very far. offices, you know, almost like social workers. I've seen them on their knees, working with working with victims. You know, I mean, in terms of, I've done a lot of death notifications over the years, I've worked with police department with the police department for nearly 14 years, and was really touched by many of the stories and many of the encounters I've had, please. I've been on the board to have a panel that was screening potential candidates to be evaluated. So the police, and we did find a very good candidate to get that position. But brother Darnell is very right in terms of it needs to be a yearly evaluation of police officers not just coming through the front door, and you're good for the first one to five years or whatever, but but a yearly and defensive jurisdiction to jurisdiction but also we need to know that we need to be aware The fact that many of these officers, and I think that was in the perspectives that was sent to us by by you all, Linda, are coming out of the military. So in terms of militarizing the idea of militarizing these police agents, they're coming from a military or paramilitary or military background. And it's been statistically shown that many of the traumatic issues I mean, there's an SR Mita knows a person's don't get this and there's a dose exposure that's what it's called. In terms of to the degree that you might be you might see a critical situation or traumatic trauma is interesting word but a critical situation and and that you're there for a couple minutes that may not be effective for you or impactful on you. But if it's a repetitive exposure, someone like the repetitive seeing of the of the things on TV, the the chances of the potential ality of Developing, not just acute stress disorder, but it moves to post traumatic stress disorder are heightened tremendously. So many of these often, many of these former soldiers or military personnel don't go through a stepping down from, from being deployed to being pulled back to go into Germany or wherever, before they come home, which is typical. And we think that happens for everybody. It doesn't. And the fact that many of the times that their traumatic symptomology doesn't set in until seven months after they returned home or discharge, or whatever, and then some of them had several tours of duty. So I mean, it's, it's, it's phenomenal in terms of how much they're exposed to, and they bring that exposure back to United States. And it's very typical around for instance, around the Fourth of July, that you have, I mean, many of them Either drive out of town because the the sound of explosives only is a trigger for them. That heightens their potential for being aggressive to have aggressive behaviors. And I mean, so I mean, this this phenomena, all these stats are connected to the vets, and they've done a very hard job depending on where they are. And that's one aspect. Just another aspect of the thing brother john mentioned. And it's not. And it's a difficult equation, and that is that many of our police forces are trained by the Israeli police force or reason or Israeli military, which has its own background in terms of the trauma and the and the brutality towards the Palestinian people. But then they've taken the technology of policing, and and corralling and teaching others around the world. I mean, it's not just America that goes to Israel for these these lessons in in power militarism or policing strategy. Psychology, but it's it's Legion in terms of the effect of them on others. And then there's a last I like to say there is a Islamic tradition from the Prophet Muhammad peace upon who says a an evil thing that we there's three degrees of faith, you should either change it with your hand, if you're able to, which is the highest degree of change and move your tongue if you're not able to, or third, and lastly, the change of your heart, your heart being the weakest form of faith. So there's something for all of us to do.
Diane Bell McKoy
I want to jump in there because I want to ask that question, Linda, in terms of the conversation, I think it all is absolutely critical. Everything every one of the speakers has talks about in terms of how to disrupt that issue in terms of trauma, how it plays out by the police, in terms of the community, and what should be put in place. But I asked another question, and I asked the question, how do we change that to be the system that we have? I don't want to just in terms of disrupt in terms of getting there and make sure at this moment, we ought to do those But I want to know, how do we change the police force for what it is now in terms of the militarization of it? I want to know how do we change the system in terms of from very much upstream in terms of policies, legislation that lays it out a different kind of way of being, I want to change your terms, what the requirements are to be a police officer, I want to have a system change. I want to go for transformation for a different future for policing in this country. I don't want to just fix what's now there. I want a transformation. I want something very different for the future for my kids into my grandkids in terms of that. So I really was curious in terms of particularly bills, and law enforcement, how do we go upstream? How do we begin to change the system of policing in this country? And yes, we really must pay attention to officers. I know number of officers that are great as well. How do we change the system though? Lots of what plays out plays out because of those policies and presses are embedded in the system that we allow to be created the way it is, how do we change that?
Latif Rasheed
need to have community oversight? I mean, at the very least I think that's a place to start community oversight. That and and not that it's not that you're going to see everything but you know, when I before I kind of jumped in with the police department. I did, I did several, what they call ride alongs. And it's amazing some of the things that police deal with I mean, and as I was taught, I mean, as I was told, the police have MC traffic law is much more elastic and much more extensive than regular law. I mean, they, you can be stopped for just throwing bubblegum out your window or I mean, I mean, this is phenomenal. So they haven't been disposer at their exposure, tremendous resources, and that's us, maybe not correctly, but to jam you up if they wanted to jam you up. I mean, so, but I think it starts with the level of community involvement, but community oversight definitely.
Muhammad Bashir
I represent a couple of organizations that are involved directly with community policing in community initiatives to take control of policing. A couple of things that we talked about here that consistent with that, for example, a couple of brothers talked about trauma for police officers. And it led me to have to do the statistics on it. A police opposite, according to a study done in 2018, or two to 3% more likely to use drugs than the average citizen. One quarter of the police department's nationwide have alcohol problems. The suicide rate among police officers is only Second, the second highest and the highest is the military and a lot of results coming out of the military. So you know, it's a traumatic experience. All right. So with that said, though, if we're going to change the systems, then we have to attack every aspect of it. So for example, when we say you go to the Maybe speak to a clinician or something like that maybe once a year, maybe it should be if there's any act of violence that you can meet on the street, any app, you should immediately see a psychologist or you should have a blood test. what it would do is it would do, it's like the old Chris Rock show when he says, if they charge $5,000 for a bullet, a God would think twice before he shocked you. You say I'm Buster captain, as soon as I get my check, something like that, well, I would be the same. That would be the same kind of situation that you would be dealing with with a cop. It would be like if you knew that if you put your hands on someone or do your weapon on someone, you immediately get tested, and you're one of that one four, or you're one of that 2.5 that are using drugs or you're one of those that has the bad day at home, etc. And you're going to be evaluating somebody is gonna call you out on or potentially call you out on it and sit you down, then they may be a little bit more reluctant or knowing that having someone to speak to me ease that frustration that they have when they get out or even that Fear, which is a lot of times behind. So we try to do that as well. Community control Ripley's is so, so important. But we can never underestimate the power of racism, white supremacy and the mindset because there really is a blue versus black, a blue versus community mentality out there, that no matter how hard you try to fight against it, no matter how many offices you think that a little officers that are working hard in the in the process, and I have respect all of them, except when you take the witness stand in a courtroom, because they have a tendency to lie. That in and of itself creates a dynamic so if I'm not good officer, what does that good opposite do when he sees that bad officers. So for example, take a black man who is in Atlanta, Georgia, and there's a group of white kids riding in front of a car over the past curfew and again For black kids, it's a black boy in a black girl who don't notice a Kurt, you come from Morehouse. And Spelman, and you attack the black car, because you have a blue mentality. But again, the nature of being able to talk to someone being able to address your issue, whatever thing you have going on that would say, Whoa, wait a minute, that's wrong, I can stop him. I can stop there. I mean, they literally opposite of being fired for stopping other officers from committing overly aggressive things. And so therefore, in order to change the system, you really have to get understand that this is a mental process because it's a rare thing. Just almost mentally destructive job. I mean, you see the worst of people, seven hours out of your eight hour day, in the minds of most people. You see the downtrodden, you see the junkie you see the you're arresting the husband who beat the wife, the wife who beat the husband, and you're, you're always involved in it. Very seldom do you see an occupant is when they pull in the cat out the tree or whatever. Go in and drink lemonade and jump rope with the kids. You know, so we recognize in urban settings, it's a very tough job. So then therefore, if they're not willing to put mental health and drug testing and things like that as immediately connected to the acts that they do, then we as legislators, we as community activists, we have to begin to push that as part of our community control the police
Latif Rasheed
Just to say one thing, just want to say one thing and you trigger that for them. I went to I was part of a police training several years ago, and I was I was startled to find out that that the you're ending comments about drinking them in a jump rope and all that, doing the slide, line dancing, which is interesting that we've seen the last few days I was touching the offices do line dancing. I mean, I almost wanted to get my shoes on myself. It was interesting that this this training, I went to said that That disproportionately the officer friendlies officer friendly, those were the officers there were more likely to be killed in the line of duty as opposed to the hard nosed racist that we have now that the Office of friendlies who we prefer to think about into India and to do line dances with and all of that those of officers who are more predisposed to getting killed. Now, the other two former officers could maybe address that. But I was surprised. I would, I would have thought that the office was frenemies drinking, eliminating cats out of the trees that would have been spared. But that's that's the that's the weird twisted side of thinking about he said, Wow, how's that possible? But anyway, I don't know if that still holds true.
Muhammad Bashir
I represented an officer friendly, it's because he's the one who's always with his feet on the ground in the community. So if you spend 10 hours a day in the community, as opposed to one hour a day, the community you're going to come into more negative contacts. And even if you are the friendly one, I mean, this is the guy who literally will step to the guy in the neighborhood and say, Come on, man. We don't do that. This is not what we do in our community, not interested in arresting, but that angry out of control kid responds negatively toward him to the point is for the guy who's coming into his department.
Latif Rasheed
This is a disincentive, this is a disincentive for officers to be more approachable. That's the point I'm trying to make.
Linda Howard
We have a lot of questions. I want to make sure we get some of the people who are with us in this in the conversation. So Karim, are you? Can you handle the questions for us?
Khadijah Ali
Hi, my name is Khadijah Ali. I'm a communications consultant for MLPI, and I'm just going to read off some questions. These for anybody to answer, so, okay, so should there be a movement to have the videos of the killings of victims banned from constant television broadcasts because of the mental health of the community?
Latif Rasheed
I would, I would say, I would say, because this kind of came up in a recent conversation for those and I think there's a parental responsibility. I'm concerned about children being repetitively exposed to these imagery, images. Actually, I was. Can't think appropriate when I was pissed off. That's not an appropriate word that I was pissed off the other day, when I saw someone interviewing George our martyr, George Floyd's six year old daughter mean, I think that was callus, I don't care if if the mother allows that and that was the argument you had with the mother allowed that to happen. So, how are you know I think that there should be a ethical, something judicious discernment in terms of the program directors or whatever the case is to know that that to happen. So I am I am definitely concerned about that because it relates to human beings. You could be involved in the trauma or secondary, secondary or tertiary relate meaning on the third level involved are exposed to a trauma, it's not necessary for you to be the victim of trauma but to you to be a witness to trauma can be traumatizing as well. So having having persons to constantly see these images, particularly children with despite parental agreement, I don't think it's healthy. I mean, so for the rest of us. I think i think i think it doesn't do I mean, going into back to the police issue, or first responder issue, I've gone to many suicidal situations. In the past, I mean situations when a person's accomplished suicide, and the first responders on the scene would say, Latif, you want to come and see, it's not necessary for me to see I'm not there to see that me. So if I don't have to see the image of someone hanging, or someone decapitated, or the like, I don't need those images flooding into me at night and in my in my interactions with my family, some focus on I think it's unnecessarily in the end, it does more harm than good.
Ameedah Rashid
I think it's very important. You see him on the radio more than I do on television. I don't see why I can't be more on television, where there's a Parental Advisory. This is if there are young children in the room, you might want to Remove them. And not just about definitely about seeing someone die on television. But that doesn't at least brings to awareness because the age of the child is very important. And I think teenagers or older teenagers can absorb more are also people who have been exposed to sustained community violence, domestic violence family, but they're going to take whatever they see in in a different way. But more importantly, young children can't process that. They can't make sense of it. And a lot of times, they'll do things to try and make sense of it that are not good for them or good for the family. But I think the parents don't know that. I think that most parents don't even think about that. So I think that what can be done is aware parents need to be made aware of, I will say parents, adults, so if you're an adult in the room with a child, what age is the child and we have to say that let's remove that. A child from the room because they don't need to see this. And in terms of showing it, I think sometimes even if you get an audio and suppose How many times do you need to see the same visual, but I don't think it should be banned because I think that will play into a not people. I think what made this happen was awareness. I think they needed to see it. And children didn't need to see it, especially repeatedly. And a lot of times and working with parents, it's easy not to do it for teachers, but with parents. It's just letting them know developmentally, where are you? Where's your child? And can you help them process this and most, if your child 5678 tips, they can't process that, you know, so. And not only that, what else are you going through divorce your husband and you have you've been in an abusive situation, chances need to see that, you know, so I think that a lot of times it's educating people and making them aware and also the media pressure, we can apply pressure on the media. You know, it's to say, you know, there should be a real warning here. We don't show children pornography on television, right?
Latif Rasheed
I've worked in tandem with the coroner's office coroner's in the past as well, coming to suicidal homicidal incidents. And when you bring the family in some of the fine coroner's would do this, they would take a picture of the death of the death scene of their loved one. And then and and prepare, prepare the loved ones family friends, to see the picture as the precursor to preparing them to see the actual body. You see what I'm saying? That's going to add dope. So the thing that a child can be able to take this take this stimuli and have a picture, a horrid picture of their loved one their parent their, their a sibling or whatever the case is, and be able to process that is rejected. This domain
Muhammad Bashir
I think you get one thing that we have we underestimate is or at least we undervalue is our own ability to educate and organize. I think that if we have seen since Emmett Till the rash of killings of black people that we have seen, or read about, or have pictures of a post cards up, we've started out the system. I'm gonna do Diablo. I mean, if we just walk ourselves through it, the kids are aware of what the history is, what the history is, and if they aren't, then we are really dropping the ball. My point though is we know this is coming we know people are gonna whip out their phones and record what's next. So we as a community, have a unique opportunity now to shape how it is that that's displayed. You know, if this displayed it online, then we need to be in the forefront of those people who are saying putting that warning on this Put this warning on that. This age group, we got psychologists, this age group, let the community know so that the parents don't know if the people don't know that they're injuring people by seeing this or that there's some people being motivated by seeing this, that at least we are in the forefront and we have every kind of professional in the world in the Muslim community here in America, we are really a unique community, powerful, entertaining, educated, but we should be in the forefront of all the things that we're discussing right now. And that is that there's going to be labels. I don't I don't believe you ban anything, but if there's going to be labeling, etc. It should be us putting that out there to the community that this is necessary. And this is the reason why. And I'll bet my shirt that the committee will go right along with they'll say, Okay, I can't let jr see that he's only 5678 but I'm gonna explain it to Jr. That this is what's going on in our community. And I think we need to get into the forefront of it. Because we have the resources unique we have the resources to be able to do it.
Linda Howard
Thank you. Khadijah you did you want to bring the next question we want to, we got a lot of questions lined up on Should we get some of these questions in.
Khadijah Ali
Okay, so the next one, does anyone think we moved away from activism as a direct result of PTSD and traumatic experiences?
Muhammad Bashir
Nope.
Khadijah Ali
Does anyone think we moved away from activism as a direct result of PTSD and traumatic experiences?
Pastor John Arnold
No. No, I don't push my brother into, you know, into activation. What we've seen, you know, on social media was it was a saying it wasn't that the police saw the video of the Ahmaud Arbery is that we saw the video. And when we saw the video, months later, however, be it. It was up there was an outcry and a push to get these two individuals prosecuted And the push was so strong that they took it away. They expose the prosecutors in that small town in Brunswick, Georgia and got it pushed to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation who subsequently made the arrest what fourth the charges arrested the third individual who videotaped it, because they found out that he had a party, and they're looking at bringing sanctions against the district attorney to the district attorneys who didn't bring forth charges at the beginning. So I don't think we've pushed back I think that what what's going on now is that where they just woke up, sleeping giant, and you know, when this is over, it cannot be over. We have to continue. You have to stay woke.
Latif Rasheed
Y'all like to just interject. While I agree with the other thing, and looking at just my from the rally just a little bit with research into traumatology. They said that, you know, you have fights Flight, but you also have freeze. And there's been a lot of research on freeze and freeze is a interruption of the fight or flight response. And I mean, and so there are a lot of things online when you see about that. So and, and I think there has been a low period and at some point in our efforts now, I'm not talking about this incident I'm just talking about historically, there's been a low period of some sort. And so, that low period according to researches, when you when you factor in the, the freeze response, the the level of pre response, which then which ends briefly, and goes back to activism, that the entity will go back to an effort of trying to complete their action of fight or flight. So during that low period it's been identified as being a what he called a the loss of instinct in Las Vegas. The loss of the instinct for survival, you know, mean, or, or meaning. So I think that there has been a low period in some of our efforts historically, that but I think that we are we have been awakened and we have been energized and incentivized in terms of most recently. And this incident with our brother, George Lloyd, has been a good example of the fact that, that we're not going back to that point. We're going forward. So I think it's a point of celebration of sorts in terms of that we move to activism now and stay away from prior non activism of sorts.
Muhammad Bashir
Let me address it. Here's how I hear the question. I hear the question asking us if things if the activism of the 50s 60s and early 70s and the trauma That was heaped upon the community in the 50s 60s and 70s gave us PTSD and then from 80s to now, we have taken a backseat because we are just, we just had enough death enough backups, enough mass incarceration and and that's where we are. That's the way I read it. So if I'm reading it like that, or reading a question like that, then my thought process is this, that we didn't have PTSD, right? We don't have PTSD. We never had PTSD. What we had was an orchestrated attack on black nationalism on black radical thinking, in our communities. we eliminate you know, Malcolm comes on the heels of the Battle of the bullet and the riot in Rochester, the riot in the so called riot in Rochester, the so called riot in Holland, which people were beginning to say, was a direct consequence of Malcolm the Battle of the bullets speech and, and the position of black self defense. And so therefore, we move into a black and white tradition in the 60s that is competing with the civil rights movement. And Dr. King was smart enough to be able to say from his letter from Birmingham Jail, that you deal with us, or you have to deal with these radicals. And so they began under cointelpro to eliminate radical thought. So here's where your assassinations, there's your incarceration of the Black Panthers. There's your destruction of the Native American movement, each kind of movement, to killing off of leaders, etc. That's the trauma that I believe they're talking about, but that was part of that was complicity by black leadership. Black leadership was complicit in a lot of that. And black leadership was complicit in Ronald Reagan's crime bill. Black leadership was complicit in Bill Clinton's crime bill. Black leadership was complicit in the protect police act or whatever it is that they're trying to make into a federal crime. The Black Caucus voted almost 90% in favor of trying to make the Any assault on a police officer I hate crime and making the police a protected class, black leadership has been complicit in that. And that black leadership led the charge led the community away from street corner activism. So I don't think it was post traumatic. I think it was a new change in the heart of the leadership that said, we can appease, and we can play this game of politics, etc. And we don't need to be more active on the streets, when in fact, King was telling them and Malcolm was telling them that in all the progress, we need, that, that that leadership that says, nonviolent social change, and we also need that leadership that's willing to step out into the streets and put the gloves on and bang them if they need to bang, because then they have a balance. They have to say Do we want to deal with you? Or do we want to deal with them just like King often.
Linda Howard
So we we are at because I want to be conscious of time. But we're at 230, which is our scheduled time. Time, I'd like to just be able to do a little bit of our kind of closing comments, but then asked if people want to stay on for about 15 more minutes maybe because we have a lot of questions lined up. And if our panelists can hang in there with us for a little while, I'd like to see if we can get a few more questions answered. And if anyone has to drop off, off this recording you'll also be able to view this later.
Khadijah Ali
What are our next steps in building coalitions and influencing policies? How do we keep the momentum going forward?
Diane Bell McKoy
So I'm gonna jump in here on this one. I think that it really is about looking around, and our community as a whole say that in general, in terms of who's already been in the trenches, doing the work Who's doing what work? We've got lots of folks, even on this panel, though, part of the work. And so the question is, how do we identify that? And how do we step out of our own way? How do we step out of our own ego and terms of the understanding that it's not going to be either or it really is going to have to involve including that, because, as I hear lots of the conversation nationally, that I'm reminded in the youth that I'm reminded of, that becomes critical, the point that Mohammed early in terms of around black nationalism, pushing away from that, you know, we were part of that we were part of colluding in terms of pushing back that there's one size fits all, and it's not, I will say that to do away with what we see in this country, and I would say it is directed these I continue to call structural racism that learned something different from the civil rights days than to now I think we've learned not to do the okie dokie. I think we've learned in terms of how I think it has To be very intentional effort, and understand that I'm not going to be out there in terms of protests, because I too, in terms of other relationships I can give to the young brothers and sisters, and I'm going to give them that. But it really has to be about a strategy. I don't think we think enough to teach it way of how do we move this for the outcome we want for ourselves, for our community, and how we do that strategy? How do we join forces in terms of being clear that this is going to be how you can move it forward? That's possible. I believe that that's really possible and doable. But I believe it's going to take a different way for us to collectively come together. Because there are lots of brothers and sisters that have been doing the work. They're doing the work pushing against legislation, they're doing the work. It doesn't make any difference in certain services to family and children. That's part of it to doing the work, that none of this is something that we can let go of, but we really got to find the space to understand that it's not going to be just this or just that, that we're going to dismantle This beast, it's got to be both pathways. And we've got to figure out how do we join together in terms of Kumbaya. That's not real. We'll have disagreements with that. So means we need to figure out what are going to be those rules of engagement, that we can be at the table together, because we'll have disagreements.
Pastor John Arnold
Yes, I like to say something. I'm one of the ones that might have to leave out for another meeting. But um, one of the things that we saw in the protests we saw outside antagonizes that were in our community and destroying our communities. And what brought my attention to that was the amount the number of our black youth who were calling them out and stopping them from actually tagging, spraying blank data on our buildings and burning down our buildings. So you know, the the youth came out and started calling them out. And one of the things that I started as, I guess it's the cop me, wanting to know how they come to our protests, more organize them we were and just just this morning because I still stay in touch with a bunch of my intelligence officers. And we found that in the town that I live in, which is East Orange. There was a group on Facebook called. I grew up in East Orange. The problem with this is that it was 13,000 members that we found to be kind of strange. When we looked at the administrators we found that they were white white folks from Pennsylvania. And it was a closed group so we couldn't see what was going on. But some of us have started another and started another group that said, I grew up in East Orange and with a quote knives they said, because the first group was clearly when or not from the stars. We don't know those people. We never met those people. So what they were able to do was they were able to communicate and as we looked a little bit further, they had I grew up in Lindon, New Jersey. I grew up with In summit, New Jersey, I grew up in this area. And in those Facebook groups, they're communicating where they're going to go. They're communicating what to bring, how how to bring, how to antagonize how to break up this street sidewalk and take those bricks that were put down in our community, make our sidewalks accessible for for wheelchairs, how to rip that up, and use those as projectiles to throw at the police and draw anger and fire because they have an agenda. So we have to it's nothing wrong with studying your enemy. If you study your enemy, you know how to defeat them, and you also collect valuable lessons from them. And one of the things that I think moving forward is platforms such as this, where we are all from different parts of the country have come on here, and we just have to communicate more. That's the one thing that I found in our communities that we don't do is that we don't communicate enough. And I just say this in Newark, we had a we had a Sort of like community Facebook, where everyone in the community was broken down by community, anything happened or went on in there. I got it. I got an email, my intelligence unit got an email and we were able to assess what was going on, we were able to cut down crime boss we're able to take care of problems issues, anywhere from a collection of garbage not being done to light a streetlight being out. And it was very effective and it brought us together and when everyone came together, they wrecked it, you know, thank you for getting that that light from PSA, public service back up and working. Thank you for getting our garbage up, you know, because all in all, it was just making a phone call to the different departments within the city. So, in order to move forward, we need to take this momentum, we need to build direct communication because communication is important to any operation. And especially going into November, we have to make sure that we are communicating, we are educating. We are we are unify, I say organized I say, strategize, mobilize, and execute. Those are the things that we have to do in order to make sure that we as a people are going to keep this momentum going and be successful moving forward. And we can never, ever let what happened in 2016. happen again, where 50,000 to 60,000 black folks don't come out and vote and don't engage in the political process. No, because we have to start engaging on local levels, as well as national levels. We did it with Iraq, we can do it again. So you know, I just think that that's my little two cents as far as what we need to do to mobilize and come together.
Darnell Blackburn
And I'd like to, if I could jump in only because I don't want to be rude, but I got to take off for another meeting. So I hate I'm missing this. This is awesome. But before I sign off, I concur with the panels and thank you with the panelists. Thank you everybody. But I do want to there was a point I saw on the thread and I want to just address this Because it's so important, I would ask that everybody who's listening everybody who's on this panel, I asked that you, the black police officers in your prayers and your thoughts, you raise your voice. Okay, can you hear me now? Can you guys hear me? I said I'd ask that you keep the black police officers in your thoughts in your thoughts and your prayers. And I'm saying this because, you know, I thought something in the thread and john obviously can attest to this. This is a tremendous dynamic to be a black police officer. I give you a great example. In I didn't see this I was told this that initially the officer The so called officer, who I call them 'so called' because he doesn't represent what a police officer shouldn't but the officer who executed George Floyd, I heard that police officers were assigned To protect his home at some point, I don't know if that actually was the case, but that there was a detail assigned out to this home. With that being said, the challenge that we as police officers who got on this job to help our communities to serve our communities have to deal with when we are being directed or told to do something that is a direct conflict of our moral compass. Obviously, I'm not I'm not saying that an officer, those officers should, somebody should have stood up and said, that incident, not Get your hands off him, get your knee on him. That's enough. That's something in and of itself, that that's it, but to have to go and even be a police officer when you know, that the protests are legitimate with that you when you know that things are wrong is wrong and what's going on is wrong but you still yet have to do your job is a very, very difficult position to be in On acid, you keep them in your prayers. The second part of Genesis that I would ask that, I think part of the solution to the challenges that with this law enforcement is that we have to get more black police officers, more people to come on this job to understand the dynamics of our community that will understand that come in and say instead of saying, Man, get your league off the hill, that's it will come in and say, Nah, man, that's not make up golf. This is what you do golf, get out of here. That's, you know, don't do that anymore. We need to we as black people need to make sure that if we can integrate police departments that we infiltrate them, and start making them look representative of the communities that we serve, that they serve, and I think that's just a huge, huge thing. And I think we we lose sight of that we got people like john who was a director of a major city and a police agency who's able to implement change. from the top down and say, these things are not going to happen on my watch. So I think that that's just a monumental thing that we need to do is we need to start saying we're going to integrate or infiltrate these police departments. And here's why we need to hire more black and brown police officers to make the situation better. So I just asked that we that we'd be encouraged to do that before I sign off and I'll take a quick comment and shoot but I got I got to get off. I appreciate you guys for listening and happy.
Latif Rasheed
You're worried you're worried about infiltrating triggered my memory about a report that came out about the FBI had done a research study in sound that found that a lot of white nationalist white supremacist groups had had been infiltrating the various intelligence agencies and police departments across the country. Could you speak to that?
Darnell Blackburn
And that's my point. If we know that there's white nationalist organizations, we know that they have We know that they it's it's shown by some of the evidence of the things they do have infiltrated these departments. Right now. It is this age, you know, major cities are saying we want diversity. They're saying, even though they may not want, they're saying we want diversity. So let's make them put their money where their mouth is that start pushing more diversity into these push more applicants into these pools, so that we have a voice as black people, as people of color in police agencies to make changes. If we get we can't just It can't just be one. And speaking of a suburban police agency, some of the suburban agencies have one black officer, one Latino officer, there needs to be a push to have more come in. So there's more of a voice so there's more of an impact. And so that's what I'm speaking of is that we need to have the mindset to say that change happens from the inside out most effectively. So now we're going to change it will push you more More blacks into law enforcement.
Latif Rasheed
And one additional question that I have, and that is that for those for those potential officers who are coming directly from the military, I would think that we that somehow that that the process from then leaving the military and onboarding to the various police agencies, could be protracted could be lengthen, such that we can do a comprehensive assessment, investigation background check mental health evaluations over them over a period of time before we say you got the job.
Darnell Blackburn
And I would agree with you and I can speak to Michigan, I can tell you specifically in Michigan that that as of last few years, there are many more fewer people transitioning from the military coming into police departments in Michigan. And then then there have been in the least the last five years there's been a downward trend with military people coming into law enforcement in the state of Michigan. I can speak to that. So, absolutely. Thank you guys for having me. God bless everybody. Thank you so much. I'm sorry, I gotta leave.Please connect with me. You know, Take care everybody.
Linda Howard
I think we went by judging by all the questions that we have and that we're running over time. I think this is a conversation that needs a part two. And it's also saying to us that, that there are lots of opportunities for us to collaborate and work together. And I think that, you know, this should be the beginning of all of these various entities coming together to be able to address some of these profound issues that's affecting our community. And I want to turn it over to, to my partner, Karim Ali and let him say a few words as we start to kind of wrap up this time.
Karim Ali
Thank you, Linda, You took the words, you know, right off the screen for me that I think we're going to need to have a part two to this discussion. There were a few areas that we weren't able to really get into, because it's a really big topic. You know, I mean, we actually talked about, well, in our abstract, that we wanted to talk about how to transform the social contract that we have here in this country, you know, a contract that took at least three or four of us to equal one person in, you know, to even sign it, you know, we've got to actually relook at that. So that is an inclusiveness as well. Talk about dehumanization, and the commoditization, you know, of our most vulnerable populations as well. We want to get into more of how our current situation is impacting individuals, you know, families and communities from a mental health perspective. And so we were really seeking to connect the dots today by having thought leaders are in the various spaces and sectors, you know, within our community. And I think that we're going to need to have a part two and there were a number of questions that we really aren't going to be unable to get to in this broadcast. But what I'd like to do is to see if I could get an agreement from all that was in a part and participate in today, that we build a coalition, that we continue to work together towards this transformation together and that we don't stop and we don't let the momentum you know, a go away that we actually work inside this momentum to to keep moving forward. I want to just give some thanks to A few people. First of all, I want to thank all participants to this conversation. There's a lot of it was short notice, with thought about putting this together. I think within the last week, we had another show, scheduled for this weekend, we changed things based on the current climate. So I definitely want to thank Diane, Diane McCoy was a last minute call. And she was gracious enough to join us. And I'd like to say that I'd like to bring you back to talk a little bit more about associated charities and what you're doing. Because we're going to have to actually get into this area of the economics, we're in an economic decline, and you've done a lot of work in terms of workforce development, you know, and working within the community to, you know, help our own populations, you know, I, you know, participate On the economic front. So we want you your voice to be able to speak into that and as well everyone else And I don't mean to give short shrift to anyone that that joined us about Latif. He's a, you know, a regular guest on our program. And I also want to thank Samuel Shareef, our executive, one of our executive producer program, Erika Christie, who is our engineer, Khadija Ali's a communications consultant, the National wellness Intitute who is a collaborating partner in our work, as well as the AaliaNetwork who's well worked with us to produce this programming. Everyone that's actually online. Thank you for sticking with us for so long, you know that we went over. What we're going to seek to do is have those questions answered either on our website and I would also request that the participants also So help us in answering some of the questions if there are questions that actually are inside of the areas that you do work if we can share those questions with you and get answers from you. And I'm going to let Linda close us out. Oh, just last thing. Next week, we are scheduled to come back, I think we're going to move into a conversation around a deeper sense of civic engagement. And we've got professors of social work from Columbia University and Michigan on the University of Michigan, who will be joining us as well. john hopkins university. So next week, we're going to delve into a little deeper, you know, what the civic engagement really looked like, at this time, you know, a post George Floyd, and how do we get 45 out? What do we need to do, you know, to become a viable voting bloc, and what do we need to do in order to really understand what's on those reforms? randoms you know who those people local government that we need to be keeping an eye on and either voting or not voting for? So Linda, I'm going to close it like keep going. I don't want to keep going. But thank you so much for this wonderful program and thank you for your time. Thank you.
Linda Howard
I'll let Karim have that last word and I will just say Salaam Alaikum. And thanks everyone for joining.
