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Social Justice - A Conversation
Unknown Speaker 0:00
You're listening to locally produced programming created in KU NV studios on public radio K, u and v 91.5. The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jazz and more the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.
Unknown Speaker 0:24
Hi, I'm Charles Stanton. I'm on the faculty of the Honors College of UNLV. And the Boyd School of Law.
Unknown Speaker 0:31
Hi, I'm Gabriella Tam. I'm a fourth year accounting student. And welcome
Unknown Speaker 0:35
to social justice, social justice, our conversation,
Unknown Speaker 0:39
a conversation.
Unknown Speaker 0:42
Well, good evening, everybody. And welcome back. I'm Charles Stanton, along with my partner, Gabriella Tam, hello. And we're here, again to talk about those societal issues that never seem to be addressed. But we at least try to bring them to everybody's attention. And maybe by doing that we can try to make some progress in these areas. The first thing I wanted to talk to, it actually ties together to a couple of other things. Is, is the shooting that occurred in Maine. And, you know, when it first happened, you know, of course, once again, it's another situation where we find somebody who has a assault weapon that they should not have, basically wreaking havoc on a on a on a small community that's understaffed with police and law enforcement personnel. And a person basically just, you know, killing scores of people, wounding scores of people ruining all kinds of people's lives and people's families. And yet, and yet those people who believe in unlimited gun rights are totally silent. That that that would that would that would be, that would be bad enough. But what's really, enormously troubling is the fact that this man was very mentally disturbed. Yeah, that this was known about by his family, that it was conveyed to law enforcement. It was conveyed to the military, it was conveyed to people who were involved in mental health care as to try to find a way that this man could be given, you know, counseling and mental health care, because the man suffered from an advanced case of schizophrenia. Oh, he was hearing voices, he was people were talking behind his back all the rest of this stuff. And there were a number of instances where he acted out. He was he was part of like a Military Reserve unit. And he acted in a very disturbed way when he was there. His family was was was was was subjected to these actions that were inappropriate. And somehow, he also had a live stock of ammunition in his house, he had guns, he had all kinds of different stuff. So when you have a situation like that, and the person is obviously deeply troubled, whereas law enforcement, where was where the
Unknown Speaker 3:28
Yeah, why didn't No one think to like, step in and be like, hey, like, this is not a good idea. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 3:35
But But I think I think the answer to it, the answer to it, and we we've discussed this before, in this class, in this in this setting of our radio show, and also in the class and, and and other places. It has to do with a societal indifference. Yeah, people are just indifferent. People don't care. People just do their own thing. And you have a ticking time bomb, the guy has given every indication that he's completely disturbed. Plus from having you had a military background, he has a facility with weapons and knowing how to use these different kinds of guns and ammo and the whole thing. And the man should not have been walking around the man should not have had any of those had any of those weapons, they should have been removed. But no one did any. Nobody did anything. Nobody did anything. That's the mind bomb. Yeah, that's the crazy part. You know. And what's interesting too, in a lot of these mass shooter cases, just it's pick one the El Paso shooting, all the Hispanic people and other people were shot in the Walmart and I'll pass there were plenty of warnings about that about that guy. I, and what he was going to do, he was on social media. Yeah, it was, you know, very clear what his intentions were the guy who shot up the synagogue in Pittsburgh, again, it was very clear what he intended to do. Yeah. And they just, they just nothing was done. And the other the other thing that ties in there too, though, is social media. Yeah. You know, and there needs to be some kind of regulation on social media. Yeah, they need to have some kind of contents. Evaluation is on by the people who run these who run these, you know, companies as to exactly what kind of behavior was going to be allowed. And social media? And they don't have it. You could talk about social media, because, you know, yeah,
Unknown Speaker 5:57
I mean, I feel like, in a way, it's bad. But like, it's good that they're expressing, like, through social media, it's just that people, for some reason aren't being like, or like in the police department, they're not seeing these things. And not they're not alarmed about it, which is a scary thing, because there's evidence that they're going to do these things. But like, it clearly shows like The motive, but like, they're not taking the actions to like, go check up on them, and like, go like search their house or anything. So it's like, just like, why? It's like, why aren't you going out of your way to see what this person might potentially do? Yeah, yeah.
Unknown Speaker 6:43
Well, and, you know, I don't know what the powers that an individual might have. Yeah, that's not in law enforcement, what they could do. But certainly, the powers that be in law enforcement, whether it's the FBI or, or the local police, or the state police, they're certainly should have been some much more. Investigation. No, exactly. Yeah. And who, who had a long record of being deeply troubled? And they weren't, they just didn't seem to care to care about it. And, you know, there has been case after case now, the mass shootings, were there. A lot of times, there's a warning given there, they're, the people will telegraph what they're going to do. Yeah, you know, whether it's anti semitism or anti Asian or anti anti black or what have you. And they're pretty clear about what they want to do. And that should be like a warning sign. Where I think social media, I mean, I believe, you know, you know, I believe in free speech, but I also believe that social media has a responsibility. Yeah, if they have, either to either to regulate what's going out over there over programs, or to have some kind of liaison with law enforcement. Yeah. Where if a person is a is a repeat offense, well, offender, a, on a regular basis, say, you know, derogatory things about race, another race or so. But not merely say derogatory things about them. Say that they wish there was violence against them. Yeah. Like there's an intent to hurt doesn't intend to hurt somebody that they should they should be working with those authorities. Yeah, to try to prevent that from happening. Yeah. And they don't they don't seem to be they don't seem to want to do it. Yeah. You know, it's interesting now with Twitter, basically, that basically, they they stripped all the regulations that they had. And you can basically put anything out there. Yeah. You know, and then the, of course, the other danger is that, you know, you have a lot of young people who are impression impressionable, and, you know, they see and hear for about these different things that these people are advocating. Yeah, they don't have the discernment really, to know when when somebody is really saying something that's that wrong. It's not. It's not they're not that astute, so to speak. And then you have somebody that the person goes out and they do little Wally's things. And then they go, oh, yeah, you know, well, well, he said some things and you know, above. Yeah, but there's a degree though. Yeah, this is agree. I mean, and in the case of, in the case of the guy in Maine, it wasn't so much. You know, social media, per se. It was it was personal interactions with a lot of people. You know, people in the military. Yeah. You know, people want it's family. His family actually went to the authorities. I mean, that's the mind boggling thing. That's how I knew that the guy is the guy doesn't care. The guy's trouble. He's schizophrenic. He threatened me, he, we talked to him. He needed help, et cetera, et cetera. And they don't want to do it. And then, of course, society has to pick up the bill. Yeah, the innocent people who were who are, you know,
Unknown Speaker 10:19
we're on Yeah. And then it causes people to lose hope in the, in the in the system and the police system. I mean, like, even in the the bunch of movies that you've like, shown the class, like the classes that I've taken with you, like, it seems like, in every not everybody in a lot of the movies, the police department isn't doing anything. And that I feel like tells a lot about how the police system in the United States is, which is really sad.
Unknown Speaker 10:47
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, I, one of the problems that you have, what you're seeing today is a lack of police. Yeah. So whether it was the defund the police movement, or whatever movement, it was, a lot fewer people are going into the police to be police officers, men and women. Yeah. A lot of people are retiring early. And then, and they're not getting the amount of people they need. I mean, you look at you look at our city here, we're shorter police. Yeah. I mean, the we have we need more, we need more police. You know, and the problem is to that what's happening in a number of cities now is they're basically turning over law enforcement, like in Portland, Oregon, to security guards, to police areas, and an unarmed security guards. They're supposed to, they're supposed to, you know, keep the peace. And then the other thing that's crazy about it, too, is that the response time with like, with 911, when people call 911. And in this article I read in the New York Times, they come back and half hour, 45 minutes call back. I mean, this is what's going on now. Yeah, even in this city, you see it, I cannot tell you how many people I've spoken to have had, you know, incidents and problems that were that were serious. And nobody showed, yeah, basically. So so. So that's so that's one part of the thread, then then you go to the to the to the business part of the threat. And that's and that's what GM. Now GM, basically, you know, had to or is in the process of probably recalling a lot of the cars that they have, because of the airbag situation. Yeah. Okay. Well, that that's, you know, that's something that they need to do. But now it turns out that it's in the city of San Francisco where they had this program of the driverless car. Yeah. They're basically they're basically have been guessed, the program's been stopped. By the by the, the, I guess, by the civil authorities. And also, I guess, my GM itself for all the accidents that they're having with the driverless car. But the accidents with the driverless car, this has been going on for a long time. Yeah, it just didn't happen the other day. And my question there as well. How would you? How would you be having a driverless car? If you found out that on a number of occasions, there were accidents? And people were going to go into the car and depend on it? You know, like, almost like, if you will, if you wanted to get Uber or Lyft, let's say, and then, you know, the car comes to your house. And the car is supposed to take you somewhere. And but you knew that it was dicey. Yeah. I mean, you knew that, you know, maybe you didn't make it back. Maybe they wouldn't. You know, yeah. How would you do that, though? How would How would you be socially responsible? I mean, I mean, business responsible is obviously it's a lawsuit. But yeah, just what is the what is the mindset there? I don't get it.
Unknown Speaker 14:17
I don't, I don't understand it. I feel like, we're stuck. We're trying, like, so hard to be ahead and like technology, right. But us being ahead and technology is causing a lot of lives as well. So at what point are businesses going to be like, okay, like, maybe it's okay, for not so ahead, like we should be focusing on like, the safety of our cars or safety of all the technology that we're, we already have out?
Unknown Speaker 14:46
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, certainly, I mean, you know, certainly two essential things. Would would number one, be you know, the airbag situation. Yeah. Now If you had a situation which apparently have is recalling all these things, yeah, that when the when the airbag deploys that, you know, shards of metal and stuff come out of the airbag into the face and head of the person who the airbag is supposed to cushion the shock of the of the of the crash. Yeah. And now they must have known something about that. Yeah, exactly a long time ago. But but it doesn't seem like it's only when people are forced to do something. You know, there was a very interesting article we had talked about, you know, before we went on the air, having to do with the pharmacies. Now, this is another problem. So you have the major pharmacy, CVS, Walmart, Walgreens, and basically the almost the revolution or mutiny or whatever word you want to call it, by the people who are working as pharmacists and and pharmacists technicians in these in these pharmacies, because they're way understaffed. Yeah, they don't have the people. And they're doing like multitudes of tasks that lead to people making mistakes. Yeah, people getting the wrong medications.
Unknown Speaker 16:15
Yeah, you know, so you're not only hurting the pharmacist, but you're also hurting the patient? Of course,
Unknown Speaker 16:20
yeah. Oh, absolutely. I was I was in a farm. I was in a pharmacy one day. Well, I had two experiences. Actually, I had one experience. And you know, I had gotten back East. And I had gone to a pharmacy. It was, it was a CVS Pharmacy. And this one woman was basically doing the whole thing. She was answering the phone. She was taking care of people with the counter. She was filling in prescriptions, then she was also doing the window for the cars. I mean, that's crazy, though. Yeah. And it's all about the bottom line now. Yeah. So all about, you know, the profit thing and how much money we can make. And what was very interesting in the article having to do with that, was that when COVID was going on, yeah, and, you know, you had the, you know, the definition of the workforce, how these people were treated by the management, like that, they were like, Instead of praising them for, you know, working under the conditions that they were working to people were basically, like, castigated by the management, that they weren't doing enough that they had to do more. And, and all that, and I'm saying to myself, well, they were doing a job that was extremely hard to begin with, and then they had COVID. And basically, you're attacking the people that are working for you, that they're not doing enough. So there's something wrong there. Yeah, there's something wrong.
Unknown Speaker 18:00
And like, also, not only that, but I feel like like, the people who are getting the medications, like if they don't get the correct medications, or anything like that, they get mad at the pharmacist. They don't get mad at like, the, the company itself. And I just feel like if I was like a pharmacist, I would be extremely frustrated game, like, yelled at by management and and patient. It's like both sides. It's not there's no one like, like, support me or does no one like, want to be like, Oh, you're doing a good job, you know?
Unknown Speaker 18:33
Yeah, no, it's, it's food for thought. So that was one experience I had. And then another experience I had was where I had gone for the booster for COVID. And, yeah, we went to it on the phone, I talked, spoke to everybody. And the person was going to give me a flu shot. Okay, so I said, Well, I said, if you have if you take a look at your records, you'll see that I already got the flu shot. And I waited a certain amount of time to get Oh, COVID COVID Booster, right? Well, she had never looked at she had never looked at my chart. There. She's gonna give me a second. She was gonna give me a second. So I'm saying no, no. And then, like, she didn't know how to access the program to to get the record, as this is supposed to be a pharmacist. I mean, come on. What's going on? Yeah, you know, but but, but that's what you're dealing with, though. That's what you're dealing with.
Unknown Speaker 19:38
And I'm sure these people are like, extremely tired as well.
Unknown Speaker 19:42
Well, sure. Yeah. It's a very it's a very precise job being a pharmacy. Yeah. It's it's, you know, it's getting the right prescription to the right person with the right condition with the right quantity. It's not a joke. It's not like you know, the just grabbed some bag off the counter. Yeah, and give it to somebody. But it was very interesting because they had a quote from the sky Stephen Schwarzman Agassi's and he's one of the hedge fund people. He's got billions of dollars. And he was like critiquing critiquing the workers performance during COVID. Like, that's, the workers didn't work hard enough during COVID, etc, that the people who worked, you know, remote, you know, et cetera, et cetera, a lot of people that were working remote that was sick. Yeah. And they were working from that's why they were working from from from home, or, you know, basically, they had to cut down the in person staff because of this spreader. COVID Yeah. And here's the guy, he's got a billions of dollars, and he's critiquing. He's gonna take him to people who are just trying to get by who, you know, could have sick family members. I said, What is that about? What is that about?
Unknown Speaker 20:54
I feel because it's probably like, it's so easy for him to make critiques about, like, the working class and stuff, because he's not in it. So he like he feels he feels like he he has a say, for some reason,
Unknown Speaker 21:07
ya know, it's it's like a they're removed from everything, though.
Unknown Speaker 21:14
Yeah, they're like, yeah, like, completely separated from us, yet they feel like they still have a say, on how we work and how we do things.
Unknown Speaker 21:22
Yeah, yeah, no, it's really interesting. It's really interesting. What that what that mindset is, yeah, you know, I'm like an oligarch, or whatever I am, you know, not an oligarch but, you know, I mean, like a person in authority, and, you know, but you don't you don't know what these people actually are doing, you know, how they're living and what their what their,
Unknown Speaker 21:43
what they have to deal with, they
Unknown Speaker 21:44
have to deal with. Exactly, yeah. And it's like we, you know, we talk about it in class. It's a lack of empathy, basically. Yeah. I think that's a lot of it. I think it's a lot. It's, it's, you know, when you're going out in the street here, and, you know, walking around and, you know, talking to people and observing people. The I think the whole homeless situation is a lack of empathy. Yeah. I really believe that I believe that there should be something, there should be something in a person, whatever that something is, that when you see a person in that kind of condition, you should feel something there should be some there should be a feeling in your heart. Yeah, yeah, there should be a feeling in your heart that I wanted, I want to try to help them in some way. And it always amazes me, you know, coming from, you know, the East Coast in New York, and you know, it the homeless problem is not is not limited to to Las Vegas, Nevada. It's astronomical in Los Angeles. So astronomical in San Francisco. It sounds astronomical, everywhere. But there's just like, almost like an acceptance of it. That's the dangerous thing to me. Yeah. Well, you've always had homeless people. Yeah. And you probably always will. And there's a whole latitude of reasons why a person may be homeless, who lost their job, they may have mental health issues, etc. But we have this like huge foreign aid budget in our country, where we're giving foreign aid to all these countries with the problem. The problem is here, though, yeah, it's in our country, with our own people who are suffering. And there doesn't seem to be any, like interest in it, because it's not fashionable. You see, that's our society in many ways has to do with what you know what's trendy, and you know, who's wearing what gown who's wearing what suit as a Javan Shia? Yeah, this stuff, which is okay. I mean, there's nothing wrong with that. But what's wrong is if like this a complete indifference to all the other stuff that's going on. Yeah. You know, you see, I didn't know if you see, you see that met ball every year that they have, oh, the Met Gala. Oh, my God, oh, my God, break. Give me a break. And it's like, it's almost like, you know, they're ready for a sigh or something. When, when that was, it's crazy. It's crazy. You know, you get all these people on the, you know, and it's not it's not the celebration part. It's not that you don't celebrate, you know, you know, a nice time or rest. Well, it's not that, but it's just like, everything else that's going on in the world is blocked out. Yeah. And you're just like, you're in your own private, you know, Silo. Yeah, you don't, and you don't basically, you don't basically have any connection to that. Yeah, you know, and what's it Just think to me, as I'm sure a lot of these people did not grow up wealthy, I'm sure if you look at a lot of the people in Hollywood, etc, who have careers and done all these things, that they came up the hard way. Yeah. You know, they had, you know, was a hard go, you know, actors and actresses, you know, they had to go to tons of auditions. Yeah. And it was very hard, but something like that. If you're able to achieve that, if you're able to get to that level, then this, this should be like a duty. Where you feel, you know, yeah, I made it. I got the success. But you know, I can help other people. Yeah, that's the that's the that's the interesting thing to me.
Unknown Speaker 25:47
I think there's a, there's a couple of celebrities like that. But I feel like there is a lot of celebrities who are just like, that's not me anymore. So I'm not gonna deal. Yeah. Anything related to that? Yeah. No,
Unknown Speaker 25:59
it's true, though. It's true. It's very interesting. It's very interesting. Yeah. I mean, you know, I, you know, look at myself, you know, being an attorney and everything. And, you know, coming to the point where I was, you know, I was able to teach, and, you know, teach, teach at the Honors College and teach at the law school. I think that's, I think that it's giving back. Yeah, to see these institutions and giving back to, to all the people, I can hopefully talk to you about these problems, you know, because you will, when you when you go through the struggle, and all those things, as I know, you could identify with this. Yeah. You know, as far as like, you know, studying accounting and the obstacles that you had, that you you feel empowered to say, Yes, I got this, but it's more than just saying now, I'm a lawyer, and I'm an accountant. It's, what do I do with it? Yeah. What what's, what's my mission beyond just being a lawyer or an accountant? Yeah, you know, and I think that's very important and a person? I really do, because otherwise, it's just about me. Yeah. And so many of the movies we've seen over the past few years. That's what your belly about. Yeah, you look at the devil's advocate is one movie or wall or Wall Street? Yeah. I mean, you know, I made it, you know, I'm living in the penthouse. I'm living. But it's more than that, though. Yeah, more than that. It has to be more than that. It has to be. It has to be more than just yourself. Yeah. It has to be outside yourself. It has to be that you you're relating to other people, and you can do certain things for them. Yeah, like,
Unknown Speaker 27:50
what can you do for the community? Yeah, exactly.
Unknown Speaker 27:52
What can you what can you do for the community? That's the thing. That's the thing. And I don't know, it's, it's food for thought, for thought. I mean, I think the greatest gift that, that, you know, we in education can, can can bestow is that feeling among the people that we're interacting with? And the university community that, you know, you teach a course. And I've taught several different kinds of courses here. But it's that when the students leave the classroom, that that's part of them. Yeah. So it's, yes, it's teaching about, you know, certain things, and, you know, from a film point of view, or otherwise, but it's that when you leave, you say, Well, yeah, this is, this is what I want to do. Yeah, I want to do, you know, basically, accounting or law or whatever it is, but I wanted to other things, too. Yeah. Other things too. And, and that's, and that's, that's also part of what was also part of that, too, is in a society, which is very self absorbed. It's rare to see humility, where people, you know, make a mistake or do something wrong. Very rarely do they apologize. Yeah. And when they do, the apology is like, it's not good. It's like, it's like, It's shaky. Like, it's yeah,
Unknown Speaker 29:22
you know, and it's, like, rare that they hold themselves accountable to
Unknown Speaker 29:26
Yeah, well, that's it. That's it. But accountability ultimately, as is on every one of us. Yeah, you know.
Unknown Speaker 29:35
Thank you for listening to our show. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at tangi one. That is T A N, G, one at UNLV thought nevada.edu. Or to contact Professor Charles satin at charles.stanton@unlv.edu See you next time.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai