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Explore how the social construct of race and racial oppression operates at multiple levels with a rotating focus on different social systems. Connect with Austin-area justice movement organizers and everyday people with relevant lived experience to lay out historical context, current affairs, and creative possibilities for a liberated future.
Hey, Welcome to Racism on the Levels. I'm your host, Stacy Fraser. Pronouns are she, they, and you are tuned in to KOOP.0rg streaming online or ninety one point seven FM. Welcome to the show. We are holding space on the show for storytelling information sharing with Greater Austin area folks who are shining their liberatory lights and walking the walk, be they healers, guides, storytellers, experimenters, frontline responders, visionaries, builders, caregivers, disruptors.
Stacie Freasier:Shout out to Deepa Ayer for framing these roles within the social change map. The views expressed here are not necessarily those of the co op board of directors, staff, volunteers, or underwriters. We are broadcasting and recording on land protected by indigenous people who faced attempted erasure due to violent settler colonialism, which includes the actions of some of my ancestors. And this show centers justice and historical truth when faced can inform how we show up moving forward. I invite you to join me in active reclamation efforts by visiting nativeland.ca.
Stacie Freasier:My guest on today's show is David Johnson.
David Johnson:Hello. How are you? Hi. Hello, everyone.
Stacie Freasier:So, David, tell tell the fine folks listening. What is your Austin origin story?
David Johnson:Okay, that's that's great. So, hello, everyone. My name is David Johnson, and my pronouns are he, him, his, although I I answer to all with love and respect. I am from Chicago, Illinois. I was born there.
David Johnson:I moved from there a couple of weeks before my fifteenth birthday. And I I moved to Houston because my mom got a new job and that was, you know, that's Harris County and and I have an extensive background in Harris County related to incarceration, unaddressed mental health issues, lack of access to to comprehensive or even cohesive substance use recovery support and harm reduction support and I ended up in prison a few times. I I did pretty well as a drug trafficker and and just by the grace of the divine, I must say, I avoided an outcome that would not have me here on this on this show with you right now. Met my wife in the middle of the meth game, and we got married, had kids. Kids went to live with her mom because we were just too out of there.
David Johnson:She went to high school in Austin, and she started her journey without meth and away from it and alcohol. She started that eighteen months prior to my beginning. She spoke to some folks, Cole Schifflett, Tara Schifflett. They had a nonprofit at one point called Solstice Recovery. I was provided a scholarship.
David Johnson:My wife paid for mega bus tickets, multiple until I took one, and I came to Austin in January of twenty seventeen. That's how I got to Austin, and I just recently celebrated eight years of successful transformation in my relationship with self destructing substances through MyLens. After coming here and doing the whole sober living, and one of my first gigs was doing samples for clean cause because its founder Wes Hurt put a post on Facebook and next thing you know, I responded and I'm getting paid $20 an hour contract to go and serve up clean causes pre COVID. And then I went and got a job at Home Depot and then got back into the software world doing implementation and DevOps. Like, I was about to accept a really good role with a certain software company, but I saw a press release about an org called Grassroots Leadership.
David Johnson:It was talking about the fair chance hiring ordinance that was successfully pushed, and I saw that they had a listing for a mental health criminal justice organizer, and it specifically requested someone who had lived experience with incarceration, someone who had lived experience with psychiatric hospitalization, and that it would consider residential substance use care in lieu of the psychiatric hospitalization. Look, I saw that and I went, hot dang it. I hit the trifecta because because, you know, you you throw in having any experience with sexual with with being unreceiving and a sexual trauma and there are all the things that historically I wanted to keep out of view because otherwise they were like an albatross around my neck. So this was the first position I'd ever seen where the very things that I historically tried to hide in the to make me as marketable as possible professionally were the things that I needed to keep front and center. The late Louis Conway, I called him specifically and asked him what he thought about this role.
David Johnson:He directed me to contact, Kate Graziani, who is currently co director at Vocal Texas, with Paulette Sultani. Kate inter Kate, you know, brought in an interview, and I got a job at Grassroots Leadership. And it was through the Hog Academy, so I'm also a Hog Fellow. I had this wonderful exposure to both organizing for carceral issues. I also got to bear witness to amazing work in immigration justice that the folks at Grassroots at the time were doing.
David Johnson:I also had the opportunity to participate in the legislative process and policy and stuff like that and also, like, not only at state but at city and county level. And I stayed at Grassroots leadership for six years and some change and stepped down from president of the board of direct of of the board for Building Promise USA, and I became its ED, once a vacancy opened there, and we were having trouble filling it. I have been the executive director of Building Promise USA, which is a wraparound and holistic reentry support service provider that has built its foundation on the provision of peer support through paraprofessional health support. It just made sense for me to step into the role and the remaining board agreed and I've been in that role since August first of twenty twenty four. I think that brings us to origin story and and to where I am today.
Stacie Freasier:Yeah. Thank you. You succinctly ran through that, so I appreciate that admiration. So Grassroots Leadership, I moved back in 2021. I had left Texas for twenty years, and so I came back, I'm like, what did I miss?
Stacie Freasier:But really what I came back to ask is who's doing justice organizing here because I had become an organizer and activist in California in those twenty years that I was gone from Texas. And so I came back, I was like, alright, well who are my people? Who is my community?
David Johnson:Right, needn't plug back in.
Stacie Freasier:Exactly, and with a different lens, know, some life experience.
David Johnson:Like plug back in with the evolved you, like your facets look different, so you're trying to find where you now fit
Stacie Freasier:Exactly. For folks who have had zero interaction with grassroots leadership, how would you describe grassroots leadership?
David Johnson:Grassroots leadership is at heart a community base building organization that focuses on developing, like, rooted, centered in community wishes and community practice campaigns to undo the carceral system. Historically, there's been this siloed separation between criminal justice and immigration, and and that's just part of a greater strategy to keep melanated folks on different sides of a divide. Grassroots leadership has actually pushed strongly to move the needle so that carceral work is more comprehensively holistic and inclusive and recognizing that immigration, juvenile, criminal justice, all of these things are different gears within the same beast. And so, Grassroots leadership focuses on organizing, recently merged somewhat and made more collaborative and and more of a united practice. And they also have been doing work around participatory defense and making sure that the community of those who are incarcerated and are dealing with criminal legal processes or processes are supported in all of the ways they need to and are provided access to all of the power that they actually can bring into the process.
Stacie Freasier:There seems to be a connection between, formally, well, justice impacted people with a criminal injustice system and grassroots leadership. And so is there a proclivity for folks who have been justice impacted to work there or is there not an apparent connection?
David Johnson:Oh, no. There there is definitely in the past five years, there's there's been a strong shift towards the leadership being more reflective of the folks that we serve. The current executive director, Annette Price, she's formally incarcerated. The previous co executive director, Claudia Munoz, she is immigration impacted. You know, Robert Lilly, who working in participatory defense, he's formally incarcerated.
David Johnson:So there is definitely a predominance of justice impacted folks on the staff of Grassroots. Actually, know it was not always that way, and so I think that's also reflective of the transformation arc of that org, especially in line with purist abolitionist principles.
Stacie Freasier:Yeah, right on. Let's turn to Build and Promise USA for a minute. So you joined the board first. Is that what you said?
David Johnson:Yes.
Stacie Freasier:And what was that initial connection point? And do you recall how that came about?
David Johnson:Oh, with the board, yes. Both the founder of the org and the original executive director of the org are individuals that I have preexisting relationships. And the previous executive director, he asked me to join the board. You know, when you're doing board recruitment. And he'd invited me to consider joining in the past.
David Johnson:However, different responsibilities at work and different aspects of my of my life had limited my capacity. So I accepted his invitation and joined the board. It gave me additional insight into how the board management of an org could and should go versus would go. I also had personal relationships with former and current board members. So there wasn't the need to get to know one another in any way.
David Johnson:We know one another in this work. Yeah. And I I think that's also a very a great thing that I get to depend on is the consistent integrity and transparency that I do my best to model. So you don't have to like me, but you do have to respect how I move because you can't lie on me. You can't claim you offered to have a conversation with me that I turned down.
David Johnson:You can't ever claim that anything I said in a venue in any way is something that I did not talk to you about beforehand. That goes a long way, and it's actually carried me a long way in transforming the organization and preparing it to be more effective and sustainable moving forward.
Stacie Freasier:Thank you. If you are just tuning in, you are listening to Racism on the Levels on Co op Community Radio ninety one point seven FM KOOP dot org, streaming worldwide. This is Stacy Fraser. I am sitting here with David Johnson. David and I are just getting to know each other basically.
Stacie Freasier:And you're on the journey with us. I met you at the Capitol. I think that was the first time we were in the room together, that was, well, Bill Wallace and Cynthia.
David Johnson:It was like Tomorrow's Promise Foundation, Texas Civil Rights Project. It was a collaborative thing, and it was a legislative, like 101 kind of training thing.
Stacie Freasier:The system by structurally racist design is confusing. Yep. And anyone can walk right into that building. It is intentionally designed to be intimidating. You don't need to know all the jargon in order to get active.
David Johnson:No. I mean there's so much there would be so much power in individuals being able to find one common weekday where everyone just shows up and stands and takes up space. I mean, could you imagine what it would look like if without the traditional, like, no, without all the do something creative, without necessarily depending on loud noise. What does it look like for everyone to come in wearing the same color, all holding signs that say the same thing, but just taking up the space. Imagine what it could look like if you could fill the space of the Capitol so sufficiently that you had folks with the flash board so that from the third tier looking down, they're sharing messages with Like, there's so many possibilities wherein, I'm not saying that silence is necessary, but silence in itself is a tool to be used.
David Johnson:Yeah. Because folks do a pretty good job of tuning out sound. But the impact sometimes that just could you imagine if a thousand people filled the rotunda together? Right?
Stacie Freasier:Yeah.
David Johnson:Do you see how many people show up for whatever whatever private industry lobbying agency or organization has their legislative lobbying day? You see how many of them make the trip? Imagine what it would look like if we were able to get 2,500 radical, transformationally minded folks occupying the capital all at one time. Yeah. For an hour, and then dissipate, just to remind them of our power.
Stacie Freasier:That's right. My is over here pitter pattering because I'm a non violence practitioner and direct non violent resistance through creative actions like you're describing is where it's at, in my opinion.
David Johnson:And what's funny is I would identify more as I am going to do my absolute best at all times to make it the most ideal and desirable option to choose non violence.
Stacie Freasier:Mhmm.
David Johnson:And, I almost made the joke when in the group we're in, and I saw non violent Austin, and I thought, I kinda wanna tell them that like, there's about five to 7% of me that is pretty violent. And the way I describe it is that part of me sits in a pool house on the property of my identity and my existence. And that part of me, in their pool house, has screens showing every view and tracking every bit of data that comes in, and when that part of me, that's what brings it peace, knowing what's going on, and when that part of me hits the red button on the phone to tell me red flag, oh okay, thank you for that. So that I can better navigate the world because my deepest desire is to never, is to never have to say, alright, I gotta tag him in. But, I do wanna name in this world that we live in and considering all of the social grumbles and mumbles, I am happy to be part of that contingency that makes sure that full non violent folks are protected because that's a necessary part of the curriculum.
David Johnson:That's a necessary part of the continuum.
Stacie Freasier:Be a guest on our other show. My other show is Nonviolent Austin Radio Hour. This is racism on levels, but let me
David Johnson:Colonizer culture. These are systems of colonization. Right? The race piece is just the most prevalent and most dominant example of that happening. But there is a gender piece, there is a sexuality piece, there is a binary identity piece, there is a migrants piece, there is a poverty or a financial piece.
Stacie Freasier:There is an ableist piece.
David Johnson:There's an ableist piece, absolute, there's an ageist piece. There are all of these pieces desecrate the humanity of people en masse. And so, I wanna throw out, you know, the fact that we have to talk about what violence and non violence means, that in and of itself is a direct result of colonizer frameworks. I mean, we as the marginalized and oppressed, we're not even supposed to be in touch with the feelings of violence. We're actually brainwashed historically into believing that we are morally, ethically, and at some levels, fundamentally flawed for having any desire to express or demonstrate violence in the name of our own preservation, in the name of securing our own humanity and the sanctity thereof.
David Johnson:And yet, we watch the dominant the the representatives of the dominant systems, like, you know, rage says, that five sided fist a gun, like, we we look to them to tell us, hey, do as we say, not as we do, because we're about to go over here and extract resources from this country that can't defend itself. We are gonna sign on with blatant genocide because the folks committing it, they actually benefit us as partners. Or maybe it really does tap into all of the stuff about Ghislain Maxwell's dad being an operative and that whole Ghislain Maxwell and and what's his oh, Jeffrey Epstein thing being a giant honeypot that ties a giant honeypot for for for Israeli counterintelligence? Like, the and and this is just saying because you have to wonder why is it that there was such major offensive, Zionist offensive in the wake of Epstein dying, and in the wake of that, if in fact, you've got a list of all kind of powerful people who have committed whatever acts that they may see as depravity, because now you have everybody pretending that genocide isn't happening. I'm thankful that we live in a time today where there is enough access to technology, even in places that are relatively disenfranchised from technology, technical awareness, or technological awareness, or wellness, like, that there is enough present capacity that stories are still getting out.
David Johnson:Because we need to be able to have the conversation about how being anti Zionist is not being anti, is not, is not being anti Semitic. I have far too many friends who identify as as Jew, as Jewish, and we're talking about whether it's religious, whether it's political, whether it like, who identify as Jewish and say, Yo, I'm a Jew and I can't stand what's going on, and there's not a space for our voices in the dominant narrative because that doesn't serve the dominant narrative.
Stacie Freasier:Well, even to take it to another layer of examination, I was in Selma A Couple Months ago.
David Johnson:You mentioned it when we were talking.
Stacie Freasier:Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. We, an example that was given in the class, in the training was there is a woman who identifies as Zionist and she doesn't have the same understanding of what the label Zionist means. And the root of her beliefs are aligned with anti Zionism. And so this is the limitation of words. And to come back to what you were saying about the colonialist frameworks in which we are attempting to communicate with each other in the spirit of connecting with each other to find our collective power.
David Johnson:No, absolutely. And and I appreciate you bringing it back to that because it is so requisite for us to lean into the shared traumas against our our respective humanity. It is so important for us to lean into that. And, you know, you talk about the colonizer framework. Everything we look at institutionally to provide for us, whether it's safety or health, or fiduciary wellness, is structured to maintain systems of oppression.
Stacie Freasier:Can you bring it to Austin, as an example?
David Johnson:Okay, if the city has a responsibility to see housing as a human right, and I'm not saying the city does, I think there is at least implied responsibility to that, but if the city does that, and then they allow developers, for profit business interests, to pay fees in lieu of providing accessible housing, because it's actually cost effective for them to pay the fees in lieu of providing accessible housing, and then just overcharge because of the housing market historically, and and also especially the luxury market, which tends to do better, well, until tariffs, but tended to do better than than the mid the mid range market. It it tended to be more sustainable because wealth issues weren't impacting folks with certain levels of wealth. So, if the city, as an institution, is supposed to look out for and provide for housing as a human right, it can do all kinds of things, and at the same time, if you're selling out your accessible housing to a high bidder, then you're selling out that human right. If, I mean, especially if you don't have anything clearly put in place to make up for it. And I'm not talking about creating depots of accessible housing exclusively, where what you end up doing is creating a micro ghetto.
David Johnson:Right, which then becomes hyper police, so that then that neighborhood can be transformed into a safe haven for new families, most of whom did not live there previously and aren't going to be able to afford things. You know, there was a Vocal Texas event yesterday that I attended, and one of the things that one of the talking points they they dug in on was that, you know, affordable housing in Austin isn't really affordable, and that that affordable housing essentially in Austin requires that a person make 66 to a hundred and $3,000 a year. And I had to lay out, you know, I'm sure you remember, you would have jumped for joy at somebody offering you $30 an hour to work. $30 an hour is $62,400 a year. That means $30 an hour is still insufficient to provide someone access to housing simply because they can't afford it.
Stacie Freasier:And where are those jobs?
David Johnson:And where are those $30 an hour jobs? Because the more you look at jobs that people with justice involvement or with lived experience with substance use and lived experience with mental health hospitalization, the jobs that you see them being able to most commonly grasp that are not blue collar jobs, nothing against blue collar jobs, I am just against, again, here's some colonizer stuff, I'm against our subpopulations and our communities being treated as though they are irreparably flawed and damaged and therefore are good for nothing more than these I believe that everyone deserves, by nature, to have access to as many paths to thriving as they seem to struggle to access for surviving. I feel like that's necessary.
Stacie Freasier:Right, and a prevailing belief that human dignity matters.
David Johnson:Absolutely. At its core.
Stacie Freasier:Right. That human dignity matters.
David Johnson:It is actually, like the dignity and humanity, those are like, because that's, each is part of the other. Yeah. They're sacred. And we have been conditioned to see that as optional. You know what, we have been conditioned to accept people calling privileges rights, and people treating rights as privileges.
Stacie Freasier:Say it again.
David Johnson:We have come, we have been brainwashed collectively as a country to accept as truth privileges that are labeled as rights, and rights being treated as privileges. So, for example, and I say this often, if it is a right, then it cannot be abridged. The minute it can be abridged, it becomes a privilege. And that, I think, makes sense to everyone, regardless of sociopolitical leanings, I'm sure that that is a statement that people could lean into. Because the minute someone says, well except for this right, no, no, no.
David Johnson:If the right can be taken or disregarded or devalued or discarded, is a privilege. So think about this, You know, we don't, imagine how horrible it would be for the pro death penalty standard, if we were talking about the right to human life. Which means that even if someone violates that right, it doesn't violate their own. But that's a piece that people struggle with. Yeah.
David Johnson:That's a piece that people struggle with, including abolitionists, when you think about the fact that two things, Dirty cops who get busted are formerly incarcerated folks that have been harmed by the carceral system. So where is, like, so where is the conceptual capacity to truly lean into that? People say a lot of things, but here are some difficult scenarios to deal with. Now how about this, let's expand. But I have a great deal of compassion for racists, or people who have deeply internalized racists, classists, and genderists, and sexualities, and ableists and ageists and xenophobic and
Stacie Freasier:Oppressive beliefs, people who have
David Johnson:Right, no exactly, I have compassion, and I have because they've been sold a lie too. I have compassion for generations that are going to have substandard education around what has really happened because of the narrative that people want to be out there. That's, we're pulling away from truth by simply being able to say, I don't like that truth, therefore it's invalid.
Stacie Freasier:Yes.
David Johnson:And, like, that's a real, that's a very, huge threat to our, to the entirety of our existence, right? Do you know how much of an okey doke someone has had to fall victim to? To believe that the way to best serve the interests of safety and community, is to become a police officer. Because there is a historic denial of the roots of policing, the racist, classist, xenophobic roots of policing, just like we try to limit the concept of the drug war to, oh that was Nick, that was LB, no it actually started long before that, it started when they were targeting Chinese immigrants with the Opium Wars. It started way back like when, it started way back when Harry J.
David Johnson:Anslinger was the first drug czar and was working with huge publishers at the time, I think Hearst, don't quote me, but very possibly. Yeah. To push rhetoric like the reefer madness to show that cannabis is the devil's lettuce that black and brown people are bringing over and poisoning our people with.
Stacie Freasier:Yeah. You can't reduce it to one person and that there we go. This is another subject. So, I'm gonna put a I'm gonna put a pin in this one because.
David Johnson:Go.
Stacie Freasier:We're we have some station traffic and we're going be right back. Hey, y'all. Welcome back. You are tuned in to Racism on the Levels. This is Stacey Frazier.
Stacie Freasier:I am sitting here with David Johnson. Yeah, so in other fun conversations, let's keep talking about racism.
David Johnson:Well no, yeah, so we were talking about, I was talking about how he, I was responding to your question, your request that I add some explanations for clarity. Yeah. Around how people that choose to be the police are victims of trauma whether they know it or not, are victims of brainwashing and programming whether they know it or not. The people who who believe that the police are the keys to safety have been brainwashed whether they know it or not, and a lot of folks in the movement, the capital M, don't have time for that level of compassion or grace. And I understand because I can't tell anybody what their capacity for to deal with that nonsense is.
David Johnson:I'm here for it. I got all the time in the world. Because I cannot expect people to do differently if they don't know differently, and if they don't know differently, how can I expect them to receive information differently? You know, it's, I can, we can provide the greatest information, but if the people close to them aren't having conversations to them with them about it, what does it matter? And it may not even matter then, but that has the best the best chance.
Stacie Freasier:Right. And you gotta try. No. Have to As Dolly Parton would say, you gotta try.
David Johnson:You gotta try, and if you are truly practicing anti racist or anti colonizer practices in your life, that's an obligation for you. An obligation for you to carry that through your life and both model it and talk about it. And then people say, well, I don't really wanna talk about it on the holidays. Yo, I know people who are so committed to what's what is what is in line with the common overlap of every world belief system, including atheism, and that is basically, don't be a piece of bloop and don't like be a trash person, try to avoid causing harm, and when you cause harm, be willing to be accountable for it, but to grow so that you can become less harmful. These are shared values, and so leaning into these shared values, I have to have a willingness to explore grace and compassion for people who have been taught from the day that they were born, in all of these ways, that, like third base said, black cats are bad luck, and bad guys wear black, it must have been a white guy who started all that.
David Johnson:So, there's this, right, there's this very colorist connection between moral and immoral, good, and all of these things. There's no accident that that is how the term black even got applied. And it's funny because the minute we took power of that and black power and black and I'm proud, then we're African American, but I digress. I didn't get a no one asked me on a postcard if I agreed with that. It's there's much less poetic flexibility in African American, like, I'll still rock with black.
David Johnson:But that's because we also had to take that name and put value in it. So why surrender the value that we put into it, the pride? Because African American pride just doesn't slap like
Stacie Freasier:white also not all black folks are African American in this Like
David Johnson:like, can we say And and I understand that there's a feeling that, okay, well, if we trace back all the way, cool. If we're gonna do that, then we probably also need to tap into the discussion about the schism that exists between The US born African descendant population and African immigrants. Because if we're gonna talk about that, like I talk about with my homeboys, let's be real about what parents are telling their kids before they come over here to go to school about their proximity and interact proximity to and interactions with the quote unquote black community here. We could talk about all immigrants being told the same thing essentially. Go over there, get your education, don't mingle with them because you don't wanna be associated with them.
David Johnson:This isn't stuff that I'm just making up, these are things that immigrant friends of mine that I went to college with or who've gone to college have been honest enough to say yes, that's exactly it. And it's because of the media onslaught that here we go, this racist colonizer.
Stacie Freasier:Right, and they're raised on Hollywood movies.
David Johnson:Oh my gosh, exactly.
Stacie Freasier:I'm married to an immigrant. And yes, learned English, perfected English through Hollywood films. Therefore, the narratives that were fed were how he perfected his English. Now, how about that in terms of like ingraining messaging?
David Johnson:You're talking surrealness there like, and there's a perfect example of the meta level brain corruption, soul impugnment that comes with like, it's like, people don't even get a true chance to fully be okay from the ground up. Right now, is a space in which folks feel comfortable perpetuating harmful, violent behavior in the name of their power, I can say I hope that folks in those crosshairs are equipping themselves and preparing themselves adequately so that they are able to meet whatever comes their way in the protection of their own selves and their own families and communities. I I need to say that clearly because there's a mistake that when you look at a certain side of the left right false binary, that there is one more willing to defend their own safety than another. And I and I really challenge folks who are not in alignment with that dominant philosophy with regarding to what's politically happening or socially happening, and instead look at the history of abolition and revolution and transformation where very often it was the marginalized communities being fully equipped and prepared to defend themselves that kept colonizing and colonizers at Bay. Right?
David Johnson:So, like, there's a clear that. But to circle back into the close the loop, the entire concept of policing is an oppression. APD got founded because white people West Of 35 were concerned about black people and brown people East Of 35 getting a little bit too organized and a little bit too successful. We're threatened by this. It was like a micro version of what happened with with reconstruction.
David Johnson:And so, that's where APD comes from. And if you spread out anywhere else in the country, your police department is rooted, your sheriff's department is rooted in practices of racial oppression and and and misogyny.
Stacie Freasier:And money, honey. And because when they fenced in the public common in Boston is when the first police force showed up.
David Johnson:Talk about that because the police don't really work to provide safety. Police work to protect property and the value of property, and that is where the extension of the perception of safety comes in. Because data has shown that the majority of quote unquote crimes are committed by a very small percentage of all people that are being engaged by the criminal legal system. However, the practices of punitive justice systems use fear mongering to convince the populace that it is ill equipped to handle the rampant wave of violence. We have immigrants coming into the country, and they're bringing out their raping and pillaging, like that type of nonsense, right?
David Johnson:So that then, people are frightened into going, yes, we need more police, we need the militarization of the police, and so then police are in community saying, hey look, we protect and serve, but the actuality is no, you police and enforce and prosecute everyone to create an air of fear, so that they can keep as many people in check, we are supervised and engaged like we are that small percentage. And then you look and realize that police don't stop crimes unless they've already happened. Like, they can stop something that's happened by the same person, but everything that police do is in response to. There is nothing preventative or like proactive that is truly happening within police departments. There are things that may be reform, I see it.
David Johnson:And reform is like ladder steps on the way to transformation, so let's not take away the value of that. And there has to be change from within the institutions and the systems. It can't just be forced from the outside. That external force, that external tension is necessary to keep process moving, but it doesn't work alone. So I do wanna say, look, we live in a country and a culture where we are treated as though we are insane to desire and then try to envision a world without punitive justice modalities and without systemic and institutional harm.
David Johnson:And what I offer is, actually that is what we should be imagining. If we're never imagining, then we can never get closer to it. Exactly. And so, you know, it's like non violence. That's an ideal.
David Johnson:I would love a world where there doesn't have to be any. I know that's not coming, but if I can't work towards the ideal, how it was like, what did it say, if you wanna break the board, you have to imagine punching past it. We have to be able to shoot for Jupiter in order to land on Venus. We have to do those things. We have to shoot for the stars in order to land somewhere far away.
David Johnson:Imagine what it would look like for police to I think I was doing good. Imagine what it'd look like for police to
Stacie Freasier:To be paid.
David Johnson:Be incentivized to go get therapy to undo all of their trauma and brainwashing and then perhaps, imagine what that could look like if then they chose other careers and they were supported in the training vocationally because In restorative practices. Right, because they have to be disconnected from the false and unsupported by date of belief that they are changing the world one step at a time. We would change the future so much more impactfully, if instead of them trying to make sure that kids grow up thinking they're awesome, watching Paw Patrol, what if it was truly investing in showing what transformation looks like? I think there are a lot of police officers, especially, like we could talk about the absurdity of melanated police officers joining forces that have historically oppressed their folks, but I will say, people who, again, I said we need change from within. So, if someone is in the police, trying to change from within, they know what they're going against, and they know that part of that is them carrying with them, and having to bear all of the dishonor that comes with them wearing a uniform that has historically been so harmful and But that means that's something they're willing to accept, in the same way that you and I are willing to accept the critiques that come with our movement, as part of their contribution.
David Johnson:That's part of what you take on, in order to do it from system. And I think a lot of people get in the system with this intent to, because there was this officer that helped them when they were a kid, they wanna be that officer for folks, but you're getting into a system with a lot of hope to overturn practices that have been going on for over a century.
Stacie Freasier:To be in our city of Austin listening online, koop.org, 90 1 point 7 FM here in Austin. And we are in our last portion of the show. David, let's talk for five minutes about Building Promise USA. You mentioned at the top of the show what Building Promise USA is doing. Tell us a little more and tell us what, where you're involved and how folks can tap in.
David Johnson:Awesome, thank you. So, I'm the executive director of Building Promise USA, or BP USA as most folks call it. BP USA, we our office is at 6633 East 290, the African American Youth Harvest Fund building, suite one zero four. If you walk in the front doors, take the right down the take the right at the hallway on the right, and we're the first door on the left. We provide wraparound holistic reentry services, and we do so through the framework of providing peer support services.
David Johnson:By holistic, we refer to both community based to the greatest extent, and also looking at the entirety of the body of needs for the individual. We, traditionally reentry work people think, oh job placement and job readiness, and yes, all of that, and even the additional soft skills development. We, however, see that as a little bit too reactionary. It's a lot of band aids, and we're trying to get the staph infection out. So we look at our role in dismantling systems of carceral harm through how we engage folks who are impacted by incarceration.
David Johnson:Now that also means that, we're very clear, you have folks who are formerly incarcerated, and then there can be this, I did five years, and you were only in there overnight. We have to stop the division and be able to say, while greater time spent engaged with the criminal legal system, will provide a deeper and more rich body of resource from experience, that doesn't invalidate the experience of the person who was taken to jail for a night. And if we're going to talk about carceral systems, that means the people who were handcuffed and then let go, because the police were messing with them. That means that the communities where people have to completely alter the way that they move around because there's hyper policing going on and they're simply trying to avoid getting pulled over because they don't have insurance. Right, things of that nature.
David Johnson:Those are also carceral impacts. So that means that reentry, which we view as a lifetime journey, a lifetime process of recovery of wellness, We see it as not only an individual issue, it is an issue of their family, their household, and the community. So we see a responsibility to, while maintaining the provision of supportive services that reentry are known for, also expanding access to supportive services to truly lean into all of the dimensions of wellness that any individual has. And that also means supporting their family, their children, their communities, because for example, children. Children whose parents have been incarcerated or incarcerated engaged are most, they're the most likely to be engaged themselves.
David Johnson:So if we're going to talk about reentry, we might have to talk about preentry in order to fully disconnect from those cycles of harm. And so our we our website is www, you know, put the httpscolon/forwardslash, but www.buildingpromiseusa.org. Promise singular. Because while we are we feel if we were building promises, we would be building we would be hyping up expectations, but what we are actually focusing on is building the promise of our community to be established, acknowledged, and valued in the broader community.
Stacie Freasier:So you provide direct services, do you also engage in advocacy?
David Johnson:So yes, we, that is a piece we have been developing, because I believe, so service wise we provide peer support services, we partner with Thriftish to provide us a clothing closet, we provide a modest food pantry, we have a computer lab on-site, we provide hiring events called hire where we require that employers that come have open positions that they're interviewing for are willing to look at are willing to consider backgrounds on a case by case basis and have a minimum wage, so that we're actually hiring people a livable wage. We do that twice a year minimum. We have Train to Sustain, where we connect individuals with vocational training and soft skills development, and also interpersonal development, with a stipend to allow them and job placement to allow them to have a a new career. And so in addition to that, we partner with other organizations because we believe that one of the worst things nonprofits do is they come in and try to recreate the wheel. Instead of using their their their position and their leverage.
David Johnson:I mean, we were named the City of Austin Reentry Hub in the hub spoke model. And I think it's less hub spoke and more like hub web, where it's a multi nodal dynamic, and we feel that we have a responsible to lean into partnerships with orgs who are values aligned with us. That's key.
Stacie Freasier:Who are some of the orgs you collaborate with?
David Johnson:So we collaborated with LifeWorks, like in in so LifeWorks informally in discussion and talking, and we are looking at having our internal audit done so that we can really pursue an official MOU. But I also don't believe that partnerships require an MOU to exist. We consider the other one's foundation a partner. We consider Tomorrow's Promise Foundation a partner. We consider
Stacie Freasier:High Bill.
David Johnson:High Bill, rare reentry a partner. We consider Cynthia over at Innovative we consider Cynthia Simon a partner because her subpopulation is ours, and that means we provide best for them when we
Stacie Freasier:Cynthia's next month's show guest,
David Johnson:by Y'all y'all need to tune in. So, like, we we have a number of partners. We partner with with Sunrise. In some ways, we partner with Austin Public Library, with Indeed. We partner with whoever is values aligned and is willing to work with us and be creative about how to support.
David Johnson:And so, what that looks like for us, is that when there is a need that is unmet, and there isn't a values aligned provider, then we have a responsibility to initiate conversation and advocate. And that means that in order to truly lean into the wellness, the holistic wellness of our folks, we have to be able to connect them with their own self advocacy power. If we are a service provider, but we do not support our recipients, our peers, our clients, in learning how to be civically engaged and powerful within the process, then what are we really doing? We're just committed to looking for money to hand out services, but one of the greatest services we could provide is to connect folks with organizers, and with advocacy opportunities, so that they understand how decisions that are made actually impact their community. That's what you do to ensure that when it's time to have public commentary at the city, county, or state, you aren't tokenizing folks by asking them, yeah, will you come in and speak?
David Johnson:Shout out to like grassroots leadership and to vocal Texas for really leaning for for centering, organizing folks in the community, right? I know they, last time I checked they've taken a break, I also wanna shout out CCU, right? Communities of Color United. They did a lot, they have historically done a lot of dope work in making sure that folks are informed and educated. And I'm gonna shout out the City of Austin Equity Office, because the Equity Action Team does an amazing job of making sure that folks are informed and that folks have everything they need to be activated.
David Johnson:Like, we need more of that. We actively need more of that. People need to be able to connect to the limitless potential power within their experiences long before some policy org decides we need to know what you think. No, we need to have them connected so that they can advocate on their own, and they can collectivize on their own, without us having to steward it or guide it. We give them the tools, we connect them with the resources, and then they are able to be effective community organizers and health workers and peers and certified family partners because
Stacie Freasier:And parents. And parents. Let's get into the family level.
David Johnson:Parents and neighbors and role models. I have a friend look, my I I I showed you pictures, you know, a friend of ours, Love You Bree Schultz, passed a little over four years ago from accidental fentanyl poisoning. No, she wasn't abusing anything, long story. No, but I shout that out because people wanna, well, she shouldn't have been no, disconnect that from your prejudice. And her two kids, very very Caucasian, very pink and peach, Kyle and I inherited them, and we're we're so thankful for them, Nikolai and and Amy, which then adds to Elias and Jasmine, so we have four.
David Johnson:And three of three of them are minors and live with us, and our youngest daughter is about to turn six, and she's blonde haired, blue eyed. I love the model that I get to provide for her and for her friends. I love being the bluncle, the black uncle for people who need to have a positive, intelligent, like not blowing myself up, but like I want kids, I want black kids to have a black role model of somebody who's doing their best to disconnect and decouple toxicity from humanity. Like actively doing work, because I know that my identity as a, in masculinity, is without question. And I'm able to maintain that without being a harmful turd.
David Johnson:And so, I want there to be examples of that for young black men and young black black kids growing up. I also want non black kids growing up to have the same model, because you know what? One of the racist narratives that it goes means that black women are safe and nurturing and things of that nature, but black men are to be feared. So, it is an active process in my abolitionist journey to deconstruct the false narrative of what black men are in the community to anyone whose kids witness. Their kids fall in love with our daughter, they can't divorce the fact that here is this little blonde, blue eyed kid calling this six foot three black guy, daddy.
David Johnson:And I'm a good dad, better today than I was when I was shootin' meth. But overall, my kids all feel that I am a good dad, and Kyla's a good mom, and we know that we are doing our part to ensure that the generation that is voting in fifteen, twelve, eighteen years isn't stuck in the dark ages. We have to do our work to make sure that we're countering narratives at all levels, in order to push back on this baby making, family expanding motive driven by under informed and poorly educated folks. And so to all of you folks who joined the police force or became corrections officers, I just wanna shout out to you, I appreciate you wanting to make a positive impact on the community if that was your desire. And I invite you to consider things like social work.
David Johnson:I invite you to consider how thoroughly the poison of origin damages the fruit that you represent. And if poison tree, poison fruit is solid in the court, it's something that one should consider with regard to the institution that they support through their involvement in practice. And, if you are committed to staying rooted, staying trapped, like staying in that trap, in that machine, because you're gonna be part of the subtle, but stealthy change from the inside, whoever you are, much love and know that I know you have accepted whatever criticism you get from me or anyone else in the future as part of your bargain to move the dial.
Stacie Freasier:That was deep. Thank you. What do you have coming up? What does BP USA have? Do you have events?
Stacie Freasier:Do you have
David Johnson:We do have events that we are in the process of scheduling. So I do invite everyone to again go to www.buildingpromiseusa.org and connect with us, and we will keep you looped in. We are planning a hire event in June, which is, I said that's the so hire is actually multi day. The first day is about connecting people with soft skills, supporting them, having access to getting IDs, resume building, interview training, some digital skills.
Stacie Freasier:Dress.
David Johnson:All of that. Mhmm. The second day is where we host the hiring fair with those pre pre vetted employers. And shout out to City of Austin and to Travis County, because they have both consistently participated. Shout out to Austin Public Library for rolling with us and being a great partner.
David Johnson:We look to expand the involvement of labor unions, because labor unions are a wonderful avenue for people with justice involvement in a lot of situations. So, we have that coming up in June, stay tuned, and we are also working on some special projects that we will be unveiling throughout the year. So, again, stay tuned and I will definitely keep you looped in Stacy, like on all of the things. Yeah. You may have something to be like, hey, by the way, David sent me this message and I just wanna share this is happening, so.
Stacie Freasier:Oh yeah, I'm a sharer. I just, yeah. Yeah, share. I'm sharing.
David Johnson:The information is power, we share it.
Stacie Freasier:That's right, exactly.
David Johnson:Yes.
Stacie Freasier:Any advocacy days coming up? Any anything that you're involved in? Either within BP USA or outside of BP USA.
David Johnson:So, I love being able to do this. One, I'd like to invite folks to learn more about Grassroots Leadership. It's grassrootsleadership.org. Learn more about the organization and what they're doing, so that you can connect with the advocacy opportunities that they have. They are an absolute resource worth checking in with.
David Johnson:I would recommend also checking in with Texas Civil Rights Project. Shout out to my boy, Chris Harris, who is director of of of policy, I believe, or criminal justice policy, and Julissa Castillo, who's also there. They also do a good deal of work in policy advocacy, so it is great to tap in with them as well. Last, but not least, I wanna shout out Vocal Texas. So please look up Vocal Texas.
Stacie Freasier:Right on. How do folks find you?
David Johnson:I am at w w w dot buildingpromiseusa dot org, and you can email me directly at djohnson, common spelling with theh,djohnson@buildingpromiseusa.com. And if I don't get back with you after a while, circle back, I'm requesting it. Yeah. Please circle back and have grace.
Stacie Freasier:Yeah. Thank you so much for the gift of time.
David Johnson:Thank you.
Stacie Freasier:The gift of knowledge and, what you're doing. You're you're an active force for love and I appreciate that. Thank you for tuning in every month. The music you heard was gifted from Shojinka Rahim and appears on her 2016 album Bebo Love. Please reach out to me if, you have questions, if you, wanna get on this train.
Stacie Freasier:It's stacy, s t a c I e, at k o o p dot o r g. Up next is Democracy Now. Remembering all things and always, love is the highest level. I got a love song. I got a hit song.
Stacie Freasier:In this world, you only need one song. To live your life