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Learn about the principles and practice of nonviolence as an active force for personal, social, and political change. Co-hosted by Stacie Freasier, Robert Tyrone Lilly, and Jim Crosby, the show covers current events, learning opportunities, and nonviolent direct action taking place locally. Airs 1st Thursdays of every month from 1-2 pm CT at KOOP Community Radio 91.7 FM in Austin, Texas, and streaming online at koop.org.
People, they try to poison me. They might use the me. You unsee me. They need. Look.
Speaker 1:Here I am. No. They would not kill me. Me heart belong to the land of Nairi. Back
Speaker 2:KOOP HD one HD three Hornsby.
Speaker 3:And next up is the Austin Cooperative Hour here on k o o p h d one h d three Hornsby coming up after this message.
Speaker 4:Business member support for coop comes from Hancock Wellness Center. To learn how your business can support co op, go to coop.org/support.
Speaker 3:Alright. We are here. Let's get our music going with a Jim Crosby. Hello. Welcome to another episode of the Austin Cooperative Hour.
Speaker 3:This week, it is nonviolent Austin radio hour. It's part of our collective. We come to you every Thursday from one to 2PM on coop with a different host and a show. You can find out about the show on our schedule page of coop.org. Today, we have an exciting show with our host brother Tyrone Robert Tyrone Lilly, and our other brother Jim Crosby provides our background music.
Speaker 3:The views on this show are not of the coop staff, volunteers, board of directors, or underwriters. Let's get to that show with Robert Tyrone Lilly.
Speaker 5:Good afternoon everyone. Good afternoon. Peace and blessings to you. This is brother Rob Tyrone Lilly. As my friend and sister Stacy Frazier would always introduce me, she makes sure to use my middle name.
Speaker 5:And I appreciate that because there are the Robert Tyrone there are the Robert Lilies out there. We wanna make sure that we have a distinction between us and them. Today I want to just give a shout out to my friend Stacy who's been traveling and Jim Crosby who is not here with me either. This would be my first time hosting this show without them. So we wanna say welcome to the non violent Austin radio hour.
Speaker 5:We are going to bring you a fantastic show today. We have an amazing guest, Bob Lybold with The Sentencing Project. He will be joining us today. We're gonna be talking about voting rights and we're gonna be talking about felon disenfranchisement. On this show, we ground our work in the nonviolent philosophy of doctor King.
Speaker 5:And we believe that the vote is an expression of the people's will over and above the gun, over and above violence. This is our way of participating in this society. Bob, you wanna just say hello?
Speaker 6:Yeah. Hey. It's great to be here, Robert. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 5:Alright. Wonderful. Let me tell you why this conversation is important to me. I am on currently on parole in the state of Texas. I'll be on parole for another twenty six years.
Speaker 5:I'm 54 years of age, and in this society, there's only been one period of my life, approximately ten years ago, where I was able to participate in the electoral process by casting a ballot at the ballot box. I remember that time very vividly because, number one, I took the time to go and register. I'm not sure if I did it at DMV or if I went down to a polling location and registered there. Whatever the case may be, I I I acquired my my voter registration, my my card, which I still keep with me in my pocket. A matter of fact, I might even just pull it out and just look at it as I talk about this experience in my life.
Speaker 5:Yep. There it is. Voter registration certificate. I remember that. It was dated in 02/2018.
Speaker 5:That was the last time that I participated in the electoral process. After that, I acquired another felony conviction and I had, unfortunately, to go back to TDCJ where I spent another four years in prison. And then something struck me as I was, you know, navigating this particular, you know, series of consequences in my life. I realized that, you know, being given this thirty year sentence, which is what occur what occurred, not only was I going to waste to spend, you know, whatever amount of time I would be in TDCJ for the infractions that I incur incurred, But I would also be restricted from participating in the electoral process. And I would be restricted for the next twenty six years, which ultimately was the case because I was released after four years.
Speaker 5:And and then something struck me as fundamentally wrong with that. You know, I don't wanna mitigate, you know, what transpired in my life. I don't wanna minimize the the the choices that I've made. The reality is that I made some unwise decisions that caused me to find myself once again in the crosshairs of our legal system. But the question before me became, to what end does restricting me from participating in the electoral process serve to make this society any safer?
Speaker 5:How does that lend itself to to public safety? Right? The research that I'm not gonna be able to cite a document right now, but there is research that shows that voting is proactive, socially proactive behavior, and participating in electoral process can create a greater sense of belonging in those that have been formally excluded from our society. And so, asked myself again, you know, what is the benefit that this society incurs by restricting me? And then beyond that, what is the detriment that is that I sustain as a result of not being able to participate in the electoral process.
Speaker 5:As you all know, we're living in a very, you know, unusually punitive and hyper agitated political moment. There are a lot of issues that are being debated. I cannot participate in any of those decisions through my use of the elect electoral my right as a I have no right to participate in terms of voting. This disturbs me. Mhmm.
Speaker 5:And this is what we wanna talk about today because there are millions of people like me across the state of Texas. And mind you, Texas, not every state has the same policies in place for those who have a felony background. There are states like Maine and Vermont where the right to vote was never taken from its citizens. And even using that word citizen, you know, the question then becomes what does it mean to be a citizen when you have no right to participate in the electoral process? A process that is fundamentally considered a criterion for what it means to be included in our society, I believe.
Speaker 5:So we've got Bob Lauber with us today with the sentencing project. Bob and I go way back. I don't even know how many years now, I know he's over 10. And we used to work together in another organization, Grassroots Leadership. He's now the what's your title now, Bob?
Speaker 6:I am the senior campaign strategist for the Sentencing Project.
Speaker 5:Senior campaign strategist for the Sentencing Project. If you would, just tell us a little bit about the Sentencing Project and the work that they do and what that entails for you. And and we're gonna kinda riff on some of this material that we have in front of us.
Speaker 6:Sure. Yeah. Thanks, Robert. Thanks for having me. I think that was honestly the perfect introduction to this conversation.
Speaker 6:Yeah. So I work at the Sentencing Project, which is a national criminal justice reform organization. We believe in a safe and effective criminal legal system that doesn't rely on mass incarceration. And we work on various issues, including youth justice issues. We work on issues related to extreme sentencing.
Speaker 6:We don't believe that anybody should be sentenced to a sentence of longer than twenty years. There's no evidence that that does anything to keep our society safer. And then we work on voting rights for people with criminal convictions. And, you know, our belief is that there's no good reason to take away someone's right to vote because of a criminal conviction, whether they are on probation or parole or after probation or parole or currently incarcerated. And, you know, as you mentioned, there there are a lot of reasons for that.
Speaker 6:Right? There's a pro democracy element to it. There's a public safety element to it. The the research certainly shows a strong correlation between people having the right to and exercising their right to vote and reductions in people going back to prison or or going back into the criminal legal system. It is one of those prosocial activities, like being, you know, married, like having a job, you know.
Speaker 6:It's it's a it it it is an indicator of, you know, belonging in many ways. And, you know, I think that one of the important things to note is that it hasn't always been like this, and it doesn't need to be like this, both in a US context and in an international context. The Sensing Project, one of the things we do is we do a lot of research, really in-depth research on criminal justice issues, including voting rights. We put out a report every couple of years called Locked Out that is on the Sentencing Project's website that estimates the number of people who are disenfranchised in every state around the country. And the reality is we have a patchwork of laws related to disenfranchisement for felony convictions.
Speaker 6:And as you mentioned, in Vermont and in Maine, people never lost their right to vote. Most of the felony disenfranchisement laws, the initial laws date back to the 1800s, some of them pre civil war, but many of them post civil war as part of this kind of wave of racially disparate laws that were passed in the wake of the thirteenth and fourteenth amendments. And Maine and Vermont are also happened to be the whitest states in the country, which I don't think is necessarily a coincidence. But there are also states that never pass laws disenfranchising people so that you can vote regardless of your criminal conviction even if you are currently incarcerated in a prison. So there are polling locations in prisons in Maine.
Speaker 6:The District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have also, in the last couple of decades, passed laws to allow even currently incarcerated people to vote. But the other states have a patchwork of laws. Right? Some allow everyone who is not currently incarcerated to vote. Places like California, Minnesota, New York, New Jersey, Mexico, many states allow if you are on probation or parole, as long as you're not currently incarcerated in the facility, you can vote.
Speaker 6:But then there are states like Texas that say that you are not allowed to vote if you are serving your sentence, whether that is in prison or on probation and parole for a felony conviction. And as, you know, your case and your story certainly indicates and as many people around the state of Texas stories indicate, have extreme sentencing here. Right? I mean, people get sentenced for extremely long periods of time and that often parole is the check on that long period of time. Right?
Speaker 6:So people will get out of prison after a few years on a very long sentence, but then they are disenfranchised from the vote for years or decades after that.
Speaker 5:Which which for us so there's a lot that I wanna unpack what you said. So thank you for that commentary. You know, so one thing I'll I'll indicate is that, you know, it begs the question, what is the production of this disenfranchisement? And what I mean by the word production, what is it able to produce as a result of its being applied? I believe very forthrightly that when you associate when you learn the history of the Reconstruction era and the debates that went on around the thirteenth and fourteenth amendments and how these, you know, these these political leaders, both sides of the opposite sides of the aisles, radical Republicans and the and the the Democrats, were debating this notion of what it meant to be included.
Speaker 5:Restricting the right to vote was definitely associated with crime, but that was couched under in couched in that was race. Right? And so it's very interesting. And so I you know, as as you listen the audience today listens to this conversation, I wanna ask you, you know, what are your thoughts about this? I mean, do are you do you participate in the electoral process?
Speaker 5:And if you do, how much do you value it? And if you value it, what are your thoughts about the inclusion or the exclusion of other people from this process? Right? Especially folk like myself who today, you know, I'm a homeowner. I'm gainfully employed, I have a family, I have a child that goes to our public school systems.
Speaker 5:But yet for the next twenty four years of my life, twenty six years of my life, I will be at the whim of other people's will. And, you know, right now in the city that I live in, Pflugerville, Texas, our our property taxes are continuing to go higher and higher. More and more people are being pushed from the the inner city of Austin or Austin proper to the outskirts. And, you know, I I have no recourse to address these issues because I'm restricted. I'm limited in in ways in which I can participate in this process.
Speaker 5:So, again, I'm asking you as the audience today if there's anything that we wanna achieve with this conversation today is we want you to think about this. Right? Often in our society, these the issues around crime and punishment transpire outside of the the realm of consciousness for the for the average person. We may see the crime, we may see the sentence, and then we forget about the person once they're incarcerated. And we definitely don't think much about what the the long term consequences of this this high rate of incarceration and all of its continued barriers represent in the lives of people that are incarcerated.
Speaker 5:So, today we're talking about voting rights. And you mentioned something, Bob, about Maine and Vermont have they have polling locations in the jails. Mhmm. So tell us about that. What what does what does that represent?
Speaker 5:Why why why how could it be that in some places they think, you know, having the right to vote is so important, and in other places the opinions can swing so vastly?
Speaker 6:Yeah. I mean, I think that it I mean, I I think one of the very unique things about Maine, for instance, is that the my understanding of the story is that the polling location and a lot of the the advocacy to get polling was a result in inside the main state prisons. So these aren't even the jails. Right? This is the main state prisons, was the result of organizing on the inside.
Speaker 6:Right? And in particular, there's advocacy by the main there is a chapter of the NAACP in the main state prison that has been very vocal about this. My colleague Nicole Porter, who is, you know, one of the foremost experts on all of this around the country. She maintains a correspondence with the I guess it's the president of the of that chapter of the NAACP who, you know, has has pushed for these things for for for a long time. And I think it is a recognition that even though you may have the right to vote, that doesn't mean that you are provided access to the ballot in any kind of meaningful way.
Speaker 6:And one of the things that we have seen around the country is it all across the country, if you are not if you are not yet convicted of a felony, if you are pre in pretrial detention. And so, you know, folks may or may not know, but people who are in jails, there are, more than 250 jails in the state of Texas, are by and large people who have not been convicted of a felony. And so if you are a citizen and you are in a jail, you have the right to vote. But oftentimes, you are de facto excluded from the ability to to vote. And put in places like Maine and Vermont where people are eligible to vote even when they're currently incarcerated for a felony in a prison, it's really important to to provide people that access.
Speaker 6:And so that's where the, like, the polling location piece comes from. But we're also seeing momentum around the country for jail based voting locations. So we're starting to see a few of them in Texas, but we're also starting to see, like, really robust programs around the country, including in places like Chicago, where the Cook County Jail has, for the last many years, not only had a polling location, but had civic civics education programs by an organization that we know, Chicago Votes, go into the jail and do civics education. And that's actually produced enormous amounts of civic participation, in that during the last mayoral race, the precinct that was located in the Chicago Jail, in the Cook County Jail, had a higher turnout than the rest of the city's turnout rate.
Speaker 5:Very interesting. You know?
Speaker 6:So it it shows that people, when engaged, right, can when when engaged and given the ability to vote, are interested in participating in the decisions that affect them exactly as you described it. Right?
Speaker 5:Yeah. Yeah. There's one thing that you brought up that was interesting to me a moment ago was the notion that just because someone is arrested Mhmm. And charged of a crime, that does not, in principle, remove them from the citizenry. They still have rights.
Speaker 5:Mhmm. I don't do you think that's a popular notion of how things work? Or do you think most I mean, I know you can't speak for everyone. Right? But, you know, generally speaking, I think my opinion is that many people in society may not think differently.
Speaker 5:What are your thoughts about that as far as somebody having an arrest, being excluded as a virtue of that arrest and being jailed and definitely being disqualified once you're jailed.
Speaker 6:Yeah. I mean, I think that people have a lot of misconceptions about the criminal justice system, especially if they haven't, you know, gone through it, you know, themselves or they haven't navigated it with a loved one. Right? And and I think that's one of them. Right?
Speaker 6:I think there is this idea that we have that if you are arrested and are spending any amount of time in jail, that you're guilty, number one. Right? And certainly, the way we set up our criminal legal system to incentivize plea deals, right, and to incentivize, you know, people not fighting even if they are innocent, like, I think helps with that misconception or that that conception that that people have. But yeah, I mean, I think that I think that if you told most people that, you know, between 6080% of people in the Travis County Jail who are citizens are eligible to vote, I don't think that people would generally know that. Yeah.
Speaker 6:Right?
Speaker 5:That's the question I'm trying to wrap my mind around. I don't know what you, the listening audience, know about this phenomenon, but I heard Bob say that we had over 250 jails in the state of How many prisons in the state of Texas?
Speaker 6:I don't know.
Speaker 5:I I think I I have the number. It's a 110 between a 110 and a 114. They've either relinquished some control or given back control of certain privately owned prisons in the state of Texas. So we have about a 110 prisons in the state of Texas.
Speaker 6:And that those are just state prisons?
Speaker 5:They're state prisons, yes. Not federal prisons. Thank you for the distinction in A
Speaker 6:bunch of federal prisons and then we've got something like 20, you know, federal immigrant detention centers. So this is a extremely incarcerated state.
Speaker 5:Yes. I think the number one state in the whole union, if I'm not mistaken on that number. So going back to a little bit of what you said a moment ago about those that are in jail still having the right to vote, and yet large numbers of them are not participating in let's say, I'm reading some of the report from and what I'm looking at, if you are not aware of the Sentencing Project, there is a website called sentencingproject.org. Is that correct?
Speaker 6:That's right.
Speaker 5:And they have different research reports. I was actually reading these research reports when I was incarcerated. I'm looking at one right now called Voting from Lessons from Maine and Vermont. What is that report? Just give us a, you know, overall synopsis of what that report attempted to accomplish with and why Vermont and and Maine as opposed to any place else.
Speaker 6:Well, yeah. It was by my colleague, Kristen Budd, who did, you know, a lot of research on the polling locations in the in the prisons in Maine and Vermont. And I think we did it there because they are the only places that allow currently incarcerated people to vote.
Speaker 5:And what what they wanna see there? What were they trying to look for?
Speaker 6:I think that the idea was to look at, number one, how how does it work? Right? Like, what are some of the lessons of how it works and how it might be able to work better? My colleague collaborated with the departments of corrections in order to carry out the study. So, you know, in order to to, you know, actually go into the facilities to talk to people in the facilities and people who are running the facilities and working in the facilities.
Speaker 6:And then I think that the other aspect of it is really to kind of prove the case a little bit that this isn't something that is abnormal. Right? This it's not any different really than setting up a polling location at a senior center or, you know, at any kind of, like, place where people might not be able to leave easily. Right? And so I think that the combination of this report, some reporting that's gone on about people voting in the District Of Columbia, in the jails, and who are eligible to vote in the prisons, and then work that has shown how effective jail based polling locations, so polling locations for people who are not yet convicted of a crime or not yet convicted of a a felony, you know, essentially, it's it's proving the case.
Speaker 6:Right? And certainly, the sentencing project, we believe that everyone should be allowed to vote regardless of their felony conviction and that, you know, not only should they be allowed, but there should be access to the ability to vote and demonstrating how entire states, you know, albeit fairly small states, right, are able to accomplish this is is, I think, you know, one step along the way. I think one thing that I didn't mention is around the country, there are about 4,000,000 people who are disenfranchised because of their felony conviction. Right? The majority of those people are not in prison.
Speaker 5:That's staggering.
Speaker 6:Yeah. 4,000,000 people. Right? There are there are very in Texas, it's nearly half a million people. Right?
Speaker 6:So it's like 479,000 people, I think. Black folks in Texas are two and a half times more likely to be disenfranchised because of a felony conviction Mhmm. Than white folks. Right? So there's an extreme racial disparity, right, when it comes to disenfranchisement due to a felony conviction.
Speaker 6:But, and this isn't necessarily the case in Texas, but in states across the country, there's really been a move over the last couple of decades to change that, and particularly to reenfranchise people who are on probation and parole. So people who are completing their sentences
Speaker 5:Folks like myself.
Speaker 6:Folks like yeah. Exactly. And in Texas, you know, I think it's something like a 100 and of those 479,000 people who are disenfranchised through a through a felony conviction, 327,000 of them are like you. Right? Are people on parole and probation.
Speaker 6:It's it's two yeah. It's it's two thirds.
Speaker 5:Two
Speaker 6:thirds. Yeah. Yep. So and around the country, ten years ago, there were 6,000,000 people, around 6,000,000 people who were disenfranchised. Now there's 4,000,000.
Speaker 6:So those efforts around the country to reenfranchise folks to change the laws state by state, right, in New Jersey, in New York, California, Minnesota, New Mexico, even Nebraska changed their laws to reduce a you're still disenfranchised while you're on paper in Nebraska, but these have a two year waiting period after you're on parole and probation, and they changed that law last year. Right? So there's been a real movement around the country to move forward on this issue, and it you know, we are still nowhere near where we should be. Right? But we have really made some, great strides in the right direction over the last decade.
Speaker 5:Thank you for that comment, Bob. If you're just tuning in with us, you're listening to the non violent Austin Radio Hour with brother Rob Lilly, Stacey Frazier, and Jim Crosby. Jim Crosby and Stacey are out for the day. I am hosting and we're having a conversation about voting rights and voter disenfranchisement for those with felony convictions with Bob Libel of the Sentencing Project. And we're just now finishing up a piece of discussion around a report put out by the Sentencing Project entitled Voting from Prison, Lessons from Maine and Vermont, where the findings were based on interviews with 21 staff from Maine and Vermont departments of corrections and other stakeholders, and over a 100 and throughout a 132 incarcerated people participated in this particular survey.
Speaker 5:And we learned some of their, perspective about, you know, how this plays out, how voting rights plays out in a prison context or a jail context. And one thing I was listening to you talk about a moment ago, Bob, was the political world of Vermont and Maine didn't fall apart because someone with a felony or someone who was incarcerated participated in the process. And I say that with a bit of tongue in cheek because it is my impression as a person with a felony background that in our society, you know, these kinds of policies are predicated on the idea that someone has been othered, the person who's committed the crime can be othered or who can be demonized. You know, we paint with a broad brush everyone who we label a criminal. And once someone who's labeled a criminal, they can be successfully excluded from the bounds of society.
Speaker 5:And we can we can justify all kinds of harsh and inhumane treatment toward them. And this, I think, is something that I personally, you know, dedicated my life to resisting and pushing against with my storytelling and with my participation of advocacy. So what does the public need to know? Like, can the public you indicated several times that these things have changed over the course of time and there are efforts all around the country. What is it that the Sentencing Project, you particularly are doing, and what does the public need to know in terms of how we change this reality?
Speaker 5:Let's let's talk about change for
Speaker 7:a little bit. Yeah. I mean, we have you know,
Speaker 6:we saw a great rate of change, I would say, in kind of the 2015 to 2020, 2022, 2023 even. And then it slowed down, to be perfectly honest, around the country. But that doesn't mean that it's you know, I think there was a little bit of a pause. There's been like some backsliding on a lot of criminal justice reform issues.
Speaker 5:Let's just
Speaker 6:be very honest, right, around the country. Now on this issue, we haven't seen dramatic backsliding. Right? At least not when it comes to the law on voting rights for people with felony convictions. But we haven't seen, you know, much pass this year.
Speaker 6:Right? Last year, it was just Nebraska that passed a relatively modest reform. Before that, in '23, it was New Mexico and and Minnesota. I think, you know, for you know, most of the listeners are probably here in Texas. Right?
Speaker 6:I think that there is a growing movement of people who are interested in restoring rights to people, particularly people who are on parole and probation. Because as we've talked about, you know, we know a lot of people who are on extremely long term parole. Right? The state trusts people to be, you know, paying their taxes, living in our communities, living in our neighborhoods, sending their kids to school, running businesses, working for, you know, the governments. Right?
Speaker 6:And yet we and yet, you know, I'm describing the man next to me. Right? You know? And yet, we are not we don't trust you to to vote in your school board election. Right?
Speaker 6:That makes no sense at all. Right? And so I think there is this growing sort of movement around Texas led by formerly incarcerated folks and supported by civil rights organizations to change the law here in Texas. I was up at the Capitol with you and folks like Steve Huerta from All of Us or None and and folks from
Speaker 5:Mari from Lion S.
Speaker 6:Lion S. Yep. Like a very good crew supporting bills that were introduced by Austin area senators and representatives. Right? Senator Eckhart from here in Austin and representative Busey from Williamson Mhmm.
Speaker 6:County introduced a law that would reenfranchise folks. And they also introduced a law a bill, excuse me, that would notify people when they were are eligible to vote.
Speaker 5:Which currently is not the case.
Speaker 6:That is currently not the case, and it is a big deal. Because we don't tell people when they're eligible to vote, and then if you vote or if you vote even if you register, get a registration card back, and then it realize and then the state realizes that for some reason you weren't eligible to vote because of, like, an out of state conviction or a felony or a or a federal conviction or something, then they sometimes have criminally prosecuted people.
Speaker 5:Yeah. There's some cases.
Speaker 6:Crystal Mason being the most, you know, one of the more egregious in public of those cases.
Speaker 5:Five year battle.
Speaker 6:Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. And, you know, and so those are two very important bills. One that would change who is eligible to vote and allow people on probation and parole to vote regardless of their felony conviction, and then the other to just be clear, right, with people when you are eligible to vote so you don't have this this, you know
Speaker 5:Cloud of doubt over your head.
Speaker 6:Exactly. This cloud, this deterrent, right? You know, those bills did not move this session, but I do think that there is this kind of growing, push for this. And, you know, and I think that the other thing to you know, I work for a nonprofit organization, but some people view this as a partisan issue, and it really isn't. Right?
Speaker 6:I mean, if you the surveys of currently and formerly incarcerated people, right, that have been done, it is an extremely bipartisan issue.
Speaker 5:Right. What I think Bob was alluding to is that there's been research into what are the political views of those who are incarcerated. Some would have us to believe that if if voter enfranchisement for those with felony convictions were passed universally, that it would give an advantage to one party over another. And I can tell you from my own experience being incarcerated, the political views run the gamut. Mhmm.
Speaker 5:And they're very nuanced. You may have a guy who's a very he's very big on the second amendment rights, but he also has ideals about gun control policy. So, you know, the reality is that we are as nuanced as any other human being in our society and to paint us with one broad brush for political purposes would be disingenuous.
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 5:I think before we get ready to go to a break, which we will be doing momentarily. I just wanna say to you, if you have experience with the criminal legal system, if you've been impacted in any way, your voice matters. What you have been through counts. You can make a difference. I encourage you.
Speaker 5:We've listed a number of organizations and research articles to look up. Start getting educated and informed because change starts with you, and you've got to be the change you want to see in this world. We'll come back to you after this break.
Speaker 3:We'll be right back after these messages. You are listening to the nonviolent Austin radio hour on coopk00p.0rg. Our host Robert Tyrone Lilly is speaking with Bob Leibel about voting rights. We'll be right back.
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Speaker 8:Whether you prefer the aisle or center seat, take butter with your popcorn, or sit impatiently through the trailers, cope with the movies is perfect for both the Austin cinephile and the casual moviegoer. From three to 04:30PM every Wednesday, host Robert Sims airs Lights, Camera, Austin branded film related interviews and curated sets of soundtrack selections, plus film reviews and the top five weekly film events guide. So until 3PM Wednesday, enjoy the films you watch and the soundtracks you listen to.
Speaker 5:Welcome back to the nonviolent Austin radio hour. I am your host, brother Rob Tyrone Lilly, with Stacey Frazier absent today, and brother Bob and brother Jim Crosby, who is also our cohost. He is also absent today. They're traveling. They're globetrotting.
Speaker 5:And so I'm here today subbing for them with my dear friend and colleague and a mentor, mister Bob Libel with the Sentencing Project. And we are talking about voting rights. You just heard that wonderful hip hop song emphasizing raising your hand and voting. I wanna read to you a quotation from this report by the Sentencing Project called Voting from Prison, Lessons from Maine in Vermont. It is from an incarcerated resident in Maine, and he said as follows, quote, being able to vote both as a felon and incarcerated is extremely important.
Speaker 5:Voting returns a sense of humanity to us in a place where that rarely happens. Personally, it also returns the feeling that I'm still a part of society. This nation and the community, incarcerated person from Maine. You know, I could relate to that particular quote because I too have felt excluded by my incarceration. I felt that, you know, being incarcerated was a way of removing me from belonging.
Speaker 5:And, you know, it's a slippery slope. I understand that in any society we need order, we need guidelines for people to coexist with each other, we need to protect others from harm. But I think what's happening in our society under this era of mass incarceration, has been playing out over the last fifty years, and when I use that term mass incarceration, encourage you folk to begin to put some flesh on that construction because the reality is what's happening in America today, in The United States Of America today, there's no precedent for it in the history of the human family. Right? We're excluding more people.
Speaker 5:We're caging more people. We're denying more people social belonging. We're placing the pall of social death upon those who have crossed the line of what we consider social sensibilities. You know, they've stepped across the legal boundaries of the law, what have you. But is this the way in which we produce safety?
Speaker 5:I don't believe so. I don't believe that we ultimately are making ourselves safer by restricting the lives of people more and more, creating more and more barriers for folk who are human beings. I mean, at the end of the day, regardless of what kind of offense that I'm guilty of, regardless of what kind of offense I'm guilty of, I my humanity is never erased. I'm still a human being. But in this instance, when we're talking about voting rights, we're talking about citizenry.
Speaker 5:We're talking about social belonging. And it is my firm opinion that, you know, excluding me from the right to vote is excluding me the citizenry of this society. Now, course, this is my opinion. I don't necessarily want to impose my view on you, but I encourage you to find what your position on this is because if you deny more and more people Bob has already cited some of the numbers of people that are currently excluded. If you continue to restrict us, I mean, how did this country form itself?
Speaker 5:You know, one of one of the basis the logic behind the revolution was no taxation without representation. And so the more and more people you exclude, the more and more people I ultimately think you're producing dissatisfaction in. And it begs the question, what do you expect? What do you expect as a result of that? Bob, do you have any thoughts?
Speaker 5:You don't necessarily have to speak on this, but I do wanna bring back something we were talking before the show about the Reconstruction era.
Speaker 6:Mhmm. And for the listeners at home, Brother Rob literally has the textbook on it sitting in front of him.
Speaker 5:Yes, yes, yes. I'm reading the book by Eric Foner, Reconstruction. It's the updated edition, America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863 to 1877. And I don't know about you all, but I'm a bit of a history buff. And if you don't know anything about the reconstruction, it was a very pivotal moment in our society.
Speaker 5:We could've gone either way and we chose to go a specific certain way when it came to inclusion and participation. But one thing that stands out to me about the era of this Reconstruction, African Americans were given the right to vote. Men were, not women. And at some point, they were pushed back against by those who were adamant about keeping the South white. So I bring that up not to necessarily recall anything unsavory, but more so to point out how they saw the vote.
Speaker 5:They didn't see it as something that was inconsequential, irrelevant, but rather very important. So much so that they were determined to even generate streams of blood in our streets to prevent people from having access to it. So anyway, I just wanted to kind of bring that up by way of eliciting any thoughts that come to your mind.
Speaker 6:Yeah. I mean, think, you know, and and you know, this is certainly not a unique thought to of mine, but is something that people have have written about a lot is that we we've gone through these eras. Right? That that that in this country of, obviously the ultimate exclusion from society that we didn't view black people as people for, you know, the first, you know, nearly hundred years of The United States. Right?
Speaker 6:And then we have this this sort of like the the civil war and this moment of of reconstruction followed by, right, an era of extreme backlash, right? Mhmm. Of, you know, Jim Crow and the Klan. Right? And many of these the either the laws or the dramatic expansions of these laws that restrict the vote.
Speaker 6:Right? The Jim Crow laws come after, right, Reconstruction or at the tail end of Reconstruction. Then, obviously, we have the civil rights movement of the fifties and sixties, you know, followed by an era of mass incarceration where the numbers of people impacted by these laws skyrocket. Right? Because the number of people that are convicted of felonies, particularly black and brown folks and disproportionately black folks, you know, goes through the roof
Speaker 5:from Mhmm.
Speaker 6:You know, up and you know, rising and rising and rising until 2010. Right? And then we've seen a slight decline. You know, and I think that there have been people who've who've talked about the current era that we're in, right, of we have gone through a a reckoning over mass incarceration and policing and the racial the race the racially unjust ways that these systems play out and the massiveness of them, particularly compared to the rest of the world. And now I think we, know, the last few years we've been in a moment of backlash, frankly.
Speaker 6:Right? That, you know, it's kind of like history sad. You
Speaker 5:know? Pendulum is turning.
Speaker 6:Yeah. And I think that, you know, we need to draw back to these lessons, right, of these these previous times of how we, you know, think about, you know, how we think about holding the accomplishments that we where we have come, right, and also continuing to push forward. Because history doesn't always work, you know, despite despite the famous quote, right, the the arc of history doesn't always bend immediately towards justice, Yes.
Speaker 5:Yes. Doctor King said that. You know, as I'm listening to you talk, I love the point that you're making about going back and drawing on these lessons. One thing that as you were recounting the incremental changes in policy after the Civil War, one phase that was you didn't mention, but I know it was implied there, before the Jim Crow policies, there was the black codes.
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 5:And I bring that up specifically because and by the way, a listening audience, if you are not familiar with this language, these these terms, I encourage you to go out and get Abraham Kendi's book, Stamped well, I I would encourage you to read Abraham Kendi's book, Stamped From the Beginning. I encourage people to read, Michelle Alexander's book. These are books that are available in the public, things that I've drawn on for over the years that have significantly increased my sense of awareness and connected to the historical challenge of being a part of this American milieu. But the black codes, I brought up the black codes because the black codes was were policies that were put in place immediately after the emancipation of Africans in slavery that essentially criminalized all forms of behavior, even to the point of saying that you could not stand around on the corner unless you had a work permit. Even to the point that you could not sit down and play checkers with a white person.
Speaker 5:I mean, was ridiculous expressions of criminality that were created. Right? So what I'm trying to imply with this is that criminality is very subjective. Right? We as a society determine as criminal is really based on those who rule and have power.
Speaker 5:And by virtue of me stating that, what I'm pointing out is that this is why it's so in power. This is why I think it's so important for people to never lose the franchise because if we remove from the franchise all the all persons we deem unacceptable, then it creates this imbalance where where the wealthy and the affluent you, they are the ones that determine what society will look like for all of us. And they can criminalize anything that they deem to be criminal after that. Mhmm. And so, yeah, your thoughts.
Speaker 6:I mean, I I think, you know, it's a it's a perfect exam I think that there is a sense that we have that crimes are crimes and that that's kind of like an objective, you know, that that we have an objective system of some sort. But I think what you're talking about is a great example of the process of criminalization.
Speaker 5:Mhmm.
Speaker 6:Right? The process of, you know and and I think we're going through a similar period right now. Yes. Right? To be honest.
Speaker 6:Yes.
Speaker 5:Like, I
Speaker 6:think that when it comes to immigration in Mhmm. Particular you know, I I thought it was a very enlightening moment when the press secretary for the White House was being pushed on who's being rounded up, right? And this sort of dichotomy of criminal versus not criminal. And, you know, one of the reporters, which I think is like a false dichotomy and and we should not sort of lean into that dichotomy, but the reporter was saying, well, the vast majority of you people that, you know, that you are rounding up don't have any criminal record. And you know, her response was, well, they're illegal, they're criminal if we say they're criminal.
Speaker 6:Right? I thought it was just this perfect moment of like, well, that's exactly what we have done actually throughout history, right? It's like, you know, you know
Speaker 5:We've imposed the label wherever we deem because we have the power to do so. And this is why thank you for that point, and I'll say this as we continue to shift into more conversations around The Sensing Project and the work you're doing. But the reason I bring this up is because, you know, when you think about the idea of criminality or what is considered criminality and the arbitrariness of it, right? Like whoever's in leadership can determine this thing to be a crime or not. You know, there was a point in our history where same sex attraction, same sex marriage was criminalized.
Speaker 5:Mhmm. There was a time in our society where black white relations, white black relations were criminalized. These are all the value expressions of a certain element of our society. They are not These acts in themselves are not inherently criminal. Mhmm.
Speaker 5:They were given that valuation by those who had power. And that is why it's so important for those of us who have a position on this matter to continue to assert our claim that we belong and we have a right to determine what our lives look like. We have a right to determine who will govern us. And to deny us that is fundamentally undemocratic, is fundamentally unfair, and it must be changed. And this is something that, again, I assert as my opinion on the matter based on my lived experience and and wanna continue to lend my voice to.
Speaker 5:So, Bob, what what as our time, you know, gets closer to the end of our show today, what is it what is it you want this audience to take away with them after having had this conversation with me?
Speaker 6:Yeah. I mean, I I I think that you kind of hit hit it, you know, the nail on the head there, and that we should strive for a society where everyone has the ability to influence the decisions that impact their lives. Right? And I think that's across, you know, in their workplace, in their communities, you know, certainly, the formal structures of power. I think the one thing I wanna add to it is that that one thing that has become clear in talking to folks around the country who are pushing for, you know, rights, reenfranchisement, and expansions of the formal enfranchisement is that voting is clearly not the only way that people can engage civically, right, and and engage people in power.
Speaker 6:Right?
Speaker 5:Mean Elaborate.
Speaker 6:Well, for example, you know, we have colleagues who are formerly incarcerated and are unable to vote, but have helped write pieces of legislation. Right? Certainly, people who have gone to testify at the Capitol, who've held press conferences at the Capitol as, you know, you and Marcy and Steve and others did alongside legislators. You know, there are all kinds of ways to be civically engaged. Right?
Speaker 6:And I guess we haven't talked about it, but a project that you worked on with doctor Hannah Walker at the University of Texas, right, on essentially looking at ways that people who are justice impacted are mobilized to civically engage, including vote, right, people who are eligible to vote, what are successful ways in that. And I think one of the the the sort of linchpin of of doctor Walker's book, which is called mobilized by injustice and is great, is that people civically engage, including vote, justice impacted people, when they're mobilized by an issue in a community organization. Right? It's sort of those are those are some of the factors that are very important. People aren't just gonna people who are struggling to get by and, you know, have a million other things to, like, deal with aren't necessarily gonna just go vote.
Speaker 6:Right? Because somebody you know, because there's an election. But the evidence shows that when there's a trusted messenger, when there is an issue, when there's a community organization
Speaker 5:A perceived sense of injustice.
Speaker 6:That's right. Yeah. Then people will will, you know Activate. Go vote. And I don't know if you wanna talk anything about that experience because you were Yeah.
Speaker 5:Keeping it. Yeah. Thank you for bringing that up. Know, so I got a chance to participate in a project with grassroots leadership and doctor Hannah Walker from formerly of the University of Texas was an excellent opportunity to explore this part of my identity and concern as a person who's justice impacted and a person who very much believes that their presence in society shouldn't be denied based on the last greatest mistake that I've made. Right?
Speaker 5:So we were able to activate we were able to mobilize approximately I don't remember the exact number, but it was over a 100 people who to participate in making calls to their peers and seeing who could could a trusted messenger, someone who has a similar background, a peer, potentially influence someone else positively to vote. There were several ways in which we did that. That report is now available out online. I don't necessarily know what website I have to get that information from doctor Walker. But it was a great experience for me in that it showed, like Bob pointed out, that there are other ways in which we can be active in our society.
Speaker 5:And so although I'm today adamant about wanting my right to vote returned, I do not believe that just because I don't have the right to vote that I'm impotent. I'm very capable of, and anyone else that has this experience, we can collectively change our society. And that's something I I think I wanna end on. If there was a takeaway I wanted you to have from today's show, it would be to remember that, you know, change doesn't happen because individuals want it to happen. It happens as a result of a collective expression of of of angst and frustration.
Speaker 5:And so if you're not invested in this conversation, you know, I encourage you to begin to think about what it looks like to, you know, to inform yourself, to educate yourself, to become more attuned to what this conversation is like in your local environment. Right? And my hope is that you never find yourself on the opposite side of the law. Because if you do and you, for whatever reason, require felony conviction, you'll then learn what it's like to be a taxpayer and to be denied the right to determine your own destiny. And that is, I think, a horrible place to be in a society that lauds the ideal of freedom, but yet has prevented it from becoming a reality for so many people in this country.
Speaker 5:It's tremendous. It's It's just just a tragic reality that I think we have to as a society begin to grapple with. And if we're ever gonna achieve this beloved, you know, this beloved community that Doctor King called us into, then we've got to learn what it means to value the humanity of every person on the face of the earth. Who doesn't deserve clean water? Who doesn't deserve, you know, healthy food?
Speaker 5:Who doesn't deserve a place to call home, a safe environment? Who doesn't deserve, you know, to have decent clothes to put on their back, right, an education? All of these things, who can we say does not deserve that? And if we can point out anyone that we say doesn't deserve that, okay, but if we can't point out anyone that we say doesn't deserve that, then how can we say we have a society that values the franchise, but then we deny it to other human beings who are just as worthy of all these other social needs being met. Bob, any any parting words?
Speaker 5:I
Speaker 6:I think that's a perfect place to end it on. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me on, brother Rob. Really appreciate it.
Speaker 5:Thank you for coming out today. Just we have no particular announcements today other than drink water, stay hydrated, take care of yourselves, remember that this life is precious, and we all want to live it to the fullest. Thank you.
Speaker 3:Alright. Thanks for listening. What a great show with brother Robert Tyrone Milley and his colleague and friend, Bob Libel. Thanks for listening to Co op Radio. Coming up next, then keep it on this dial, 917 on your radio and k o o p dot o r g all over the world.
Speaker 3:Thanks for listening.
Speaker 8:K o o p h d one h d three Hornsby.
Speaker 2:The following is a nationally syndicated news program broadcast by licensing agreement with Co op Radio. The views expressed are not necessarily the views of Co op Radio or its Board of Directors, volunteers, staff, or underwriters.
Speaker 9:From New York, this is Democracy Now.
Speaker 7:And when they fired, there was shrapnel over us. And we are running on the street, all of us. As you could see, women, children, men, and elderly, everyone as you can see us, left on the streets without shelter. Nothing. We have nothing left.
Speaker 9:Israel may soon expand its assault on Gaza to a full military takeover of the territory. UNICEF says at least one Palestinian child an hour is dying in Gaza. We'll speak to Amjad Iraqi, senior Israel Palestine analyst at the International Crisis Group.
Speaker 5:His