I need to know everything. Who in the what in the where? I need everything. Trust me, I hear what you're saying, but I like this. Know what you're telling me. I'm curious. George, I happen to pause for five and a horse. I'm ready for war. I'm coming for throws to turn to a ghost. I need to know everything.
Hello and welcome to the counter narrative show. This evening's episode is called closing the digital divide. I am joined by three folks who are in their real life, like Real Life Superheroes working on closing the digital divide. I am joined by Frank, Franca, Mueller Paz as well as Zeke Cohen and Ahmad. I'm sorry, Beaumont. Adam Beaumont, I should have checked that earlier. All right, so one of the things that I want to start with, start with is actually Franca. I want to start with you, particularly because I know that your work starts as you've been a teacher in the public school system in Baltimore School systems for a particularly long time. You're also representative of the Baltimore teachers union, and you're also currently running for Baltimore's 12th district council seat with the Green Party. I want to know a little bit about that. What brought you to that work, as well as what is bringing what brings you to this work around focusing on closing the digital divide.
Yeah. So yeah, like you said, I've been teaching in public schools for the last 10 years. And so something that's really clear when you're teaching in schools is that the inequity that faces our communities of color is never, never stops. You notice what's happening around housing discrimination, around the number of students that are facing homelessness, around just even the infrastructure of our own schools, right? So for example, I've taught many years in a classroom that had no AC or no heat. I've actually had a student that had to go to the hospital for two weeks because her sickle cell anemia was triggered because of the conditions, the frigid conditions of my classroom, right? So when COVID came and hit and we had our first digital classroom, and I had three students in it, I knew immediately that there was going to be a massive crisis, that this was not gonna get better for a really long time, unless we made some serious investments as a school district, as a city, and had the help of the internet service provider that dominates the Baltimore market, which is Comcast. So as the school year began, students who had never missed a day of school were always present, super involved in their education. A lot of them went missing, and some of them we weren't able to get back into the classroom for days weeks, and some I never saw all the way through June. And so this is, this was a huge concern, and it's no surprise, when you dived into the numbers, what was going on, right? You can the ABLE released. Able Foundation released a report back in May, and it talked about the racial divide that has to do with internet connectivity. And so if you're looking, for example, at our cities, white population, there are more connected. They have over 70% of white residents in Baltimore have what's called broadband internet connection. And I'll let Adam talk more about like the internet lingo, but essentially, it's a functioning internet speed that you know is coming to your house. Meanwhile, if you looked at the percentages for Black and Latinos, it was 50 and 46% and so, you know, really quickly it became obvious that one in every two black and brown students wasn't going to be able to get online in a way that was necessary for COVID, where you need kids to have a pretty decent internet package, because you're asking them to participate in conferences like these, you're asking them to be on Blackboard, collaborate or meet, or what have you, and that requires a little bit more in terms of speed, right? For you to be able to stay online, be able to get the feed that's coming out from those programs, for you to be able to broadcast your image, you know? And all those things are really important. And I'll sort of close with saying that there's a lot of emotional and abuse related things that this also ties into with schools, because teachers were mandated reporters, and so when we have a blackout of our students screens, even you know when students could lock in, they often keep their camera off so that they can have a more steady connection, and that we can't see our kids, and so we can't see if there's something going wrong, and so the numbers of the amount of reported incidents of child abuse have gone way down. But it's also because mandated reporters have had their hands tied, right so there's a lot of reasons why we need fast speed internet at. And I'm so thankful for the folks that are on this call with us tonight, because Adam has been on the ground trying to solve that, you know, like one family at a time across our city, and Zeke has been a huge advocate for us in City Hall to try to get this solved. But it's a tremendous problem, and at the end of the day, if we don't solve it, if we don't get internet for our kids, we're not educating our kids.
No. I mean, I think that's so on point. I think one of the things that actually Ty just said yesterday, he was talking about some of the things that we would consider basic, like food and water and these sort of thing. And now access to internet is a basic like a basic need, in terms of for education. I feel like you set it up so well for me to go right to Adam. Adam as the founder of wave. And right now, my understanding is that a lot of the work that you're doing is providing Internet equipment to communities that can't afford access online. I want to hear a little bit about how waves were was developed, and, more specifically, around the ways in which Waves has been closing that digital divide today.
Yeah, certainly. And just sort of, like from the inception, just like talking about some of those pieces. So I'm first generation Moroccan American, and my parents came here, sort of working the jobs humbly that they did to support, you know, both my brother and myself and we lived in poverty up until, you know, my brother started working. He's a mechanic, and now, you know, I sort of work on waves, but I was a security engineer in sort of a past life, working at zero price and other sort of places. But internet connectivity has always been something that that was important to me. I didn't have the best grades in high school. I had a 2.6 GPA, but the one thing that I was really passionate about was, was sort of learning, and just being curious about about learning, and that's exactly what, what the internet sort of enabled me to do. So back in, I would say, you know, 12th grade, you know, into college, I started exploring the concept of what, what would it actually take to start sort of an Internet service provider, given that, you know, there is this problem across the country where there are monopolies and oligopolies in states that you know, essentially are the only providers in which you can get connected to, and there is this huge issue of, you know, just because a provider is available, it doesn't necessarily mean that they're accessible, and Accessibility can can mean a lot of different things. One one point being, you know, price point, right for a lot of folks, and there have been plenty of studies by Pew Research and others that show that, you know, price point, and also trust, is a huge barrier for disenfranchised communities, and that's exactly what we're trying to bridge. So, you know, waves was started after net neutrality was repealed back in 2018 by the FCC. So we started waves, and basically started to, you know, at the grassroots level, meeting with communities across Baltimore City, from the sharply Hall Community Association to the Green Mountain West Community Association, basically just listening and then also starting to advocate for change as it sort of comes to internet connectivity and seeing what we can actually build at the community level. And as sort of COVID started rearing its head back in March, we were funded by the ABLE foundation to work with city schools in sort of providing internet connectivity to 100 households, you know, over the course of a couple of months, and yeah, and definitely happy to sort of like talk about how some of that works, but what we're focused on is providing high speed internet for families, and also seeing it as a human right, just like the United Nations does, and that's something that they sort of spoke to back in 2016 so seeing it as a human right, seeing access to information as Something that's critical in society as we're thinking about health outcomes, economic outcomes, educational outcomes, especially during self isolation, and also having a voice, you know, which is so critical in today's age as we're talking about police brutality and a whole host of other issues that that are facing our communities and our country. Yeah,
that is major. And I can imagine, in doing that work, the second you start doing some of that work, you still hear about more people who need it, more schools who need it, yeah, so thank you.
Yeah, it's certainly, it's a very big divide, right? You know, as Frank has said, you know, there's a report out by the ABLE foundation. There was also one out by the Deutsche foundation that showed well over a third, a third of Baltimore City does not have internet connectivity. And I think the household number that they put that at was about 75,000 households. So at this point, we've connected about 55 households to our network, and we're providing free internet connectivity for families that are connected to our network with no paperwork, anything needed to be signed. The routers, the equipment that we also provide, in turn, the community, the folks who are getting connected own that, whereas with Verizon and Comcast, there's typically a rental fee associated with with that equipment. So yeah, there definitely is. Very big, big divide, and this takes, sort of like a coalition of folks, sort of across the city coming together to bridge that, and it's certainly not going to happen in a year. This is sort of a very this is a long term, I think, effort, and we need folks to sort of come together and rally around this issue. I'm
really curious about, how do people sign up for something like that. And how are you managing who gets, who gets the service and when it seemed like there would be a flood, and it's like, trying to, you know, get a cup and, like, get a sinking ship and just, like, empty it out with a cup. Like, how are you determining one? How do people get access to know, okay, I can go to this, this space, and get internet access support. And also, how are you determining who you help and when?
Yeah, that's a great point. And one piece, one part of that, very intentionally, we've been sensitive about, sort of like media and whatnot, because of, you know, we're still building out capacity within our own team. So we've been working with empower to basically hire folks across Baltimore City to actually sort of get trained on how to, you know, set up this, this equipment and infrastructure in the very same neighborhoods in which they live. So at this point, we have about 16 folks on staff, and they're the ones who are actually helping, sort of, you know, build this infrastructure in these communities and provide connectivity. But we've been very reliant upon what we call community anchors, so essentially, trusted institutions in communities to do the outreach, to help, to help, sort of identify folks who are needing service, and then from there, we then we then we have a community support specialist who has well over 20 years worth of social working experience. She then calls those families. We then work with them to coordinate a time in which we can come out to do a socially distanced install for for internet connectivity. And then from there, that Internet has, or that family has internet in perpetuity. And then we sort of work to, you know, because once again, you know, like, as you provide internet connectivity, there's still this huge, massive gap in terms of, you know, what folks call digital equity. So it's like, how do I use my laptop? How do I, you know, how do I get, you know, access to information? How do I, you know, sign up for Facebook, or, you know, things, things of that nature. So one thing that we also sort of work on is providing those those relationships, for those families that that were connecting and helping link them to other nonprofits across the city who are also doing really great
work. Yeah, that's really amazing. I think one of the things I find most amazing about it too, is that they get access and perpetuity. And then there's also this other piece that you're talking about with like, digital literacy, right? Like how to set up an email, how to send the email, and those sort of things. I'm just like, thank you so much for that. Adam Zeke Zeek Cohen represents the first district on the Baltimore City Council, and is also the chair of education and youth committee. Speak. I really want to hear from you a bit about what brought you to the work of becoming the first district representative, council representative, and also what situated you made you interested in being Chair of education and youth committee, and also what brings you to the work of closing the digital divide?
Yeah. So first off, it's really nice to be with you. Thanks for having me on and with really good people as well. So just like Franca, I was a teacher. I taught in West and in South Baltimore, in Sandtown, Winchester, and in Curtis day, sort of near where Adam does his thing in Lakeland. And I think for me, I felt like the piece that was most missing was just how we were teaching our students to be leaders and to have voice and civic agency within our city, we see Baltimore is a rich, rich civic infrastructure. There's a lot of good work and organizations, but we also see a lot of young people who have been taught, through systemic disenfranchisement that they really don't have much place in our city. And so for me, having been a teacher and then for about seven years, ran an organization where we taught community organizing to young people on the East side, I really felt strongly that this is an area we need to do better. Youth Leadership just needs to be a priority within our city. And so when I ran the first time for city council, that was right after what I call the first uprising, after. The death of Freddie Gray in police custody, and it was really sort of a wave election and a wave moment where there were eight out of 14 of us that were new on the city council, and we all sort of knew each other and, for the most part, respected each other. And for me, bringing my work as an educator, but also just wanting the count, the city government, the Council, to be a place that was accessible to students, to young people. And so we made it a tradition in the education and youth committee that young people speak first in all of our hearings. So we don't start a hearing without hearing first from youth, sometimes Bronco students, like in our last hearing, sometimes young people from Algebra Project or community law in action. But we really feel like young people need to drive the work. And for me, I will just say the most meaningful legislation I passed in my first term was the healing city Act, which is really about, how do we dramatically reduce childhood trauma across Baltimore and the place that legislation came from was young people coming to City Hall and telling us in A hearing, you know, you all spend so much time thinking about your policing strategy, where's your prevention strategy? Like, why isn't there a commensurate amount of energy and rigor and resources and dollars put into preventing that which produces crime and violence? And to me, that was really profound. And I spent about a year and a half working with those three students, trying to figure out what would be really, really strong legislation for Baltimore to really make us you know, we are a city that is so unfortunately, that has so much trauma, but also has so much resilience and so much opportunity for healing, and so with the young people, with a big coalition of folks, we passed this legislation right before the Coronavirus, and have been sort of working on its implementation ever since, and unfortunately, all the more important, given the level of stress and depression and anxiety and just struggle that we're seeing in families. Franca talked about the rise in child abuse, we're also seeing a rise in intimate partner violence in all forms of abuse, because, you know, people are stressed out, and you know, particularly, and this is not my area of expertise, but our seniors are also really struggling with isolation and loneliness. And you know, the cruelty of being the most physically vulnerable to this virus, while simultaneously having to do the most social distancing and isolation and everything else. So I think there's just a real need in terms of the digital divide. You know, really it was teachers, students, parents. I remember Frank and I speaking really early about just this crisis that we were about to face, and I'll say not only with connectivity, but also with devices themselves. Right? Like a lot of our children in Baltimore, a lot of our families don't have a laptop or a Chromebook. And so that was sort of the first rallying call. There was this whole digital equity coalition, and we ended up a council I sponsored a bill where we had to very, very, very quickly move $3 million from our children and youth fund into acquiring Chromebooks so that we could try to close that gap. And because whether you got internet or not, if you don't have anything to put it onto, it doesn't make a difference. And and the scene I would paint for you is about a week ago, there was this incredible line stretching all the way down North Ave. And it was all these families, primarily black and brown, and you would have thought it was a COVID testing site, or that folks were lining up for food, but it was actually to pick up the laptops. Was to pick up the Chromebooks. There is such a deep need as we think about school coming online, you know, in the next few weeks, still, so many of our families don't have the basic infrastructure, whether it's broadband or basic internet or just having a device to be able to learn on. And so. That was kind of my first, I'd say, awakening into this whole question around the digital divide. And since have had the great pleasure of getting to see Adam's work just last week over in Lakeland. And really, you know what I think Frank is going to speak about, but being in this coalition where now we're really focused on, how do we get Comcast, which is in a franchise agreement with the City of Baltimore, to be a better partner and to not allow children to continue, children and families to continue to be redlined out of internet in the year 2020, because if you look at the maps of the 1940s and the racial housing segregation, it is remarkably similar to who does and does not have internet connectivity. It's the same white l Black Butterfly. And so we just feel that, given that public school is about to start back up, we really need to treat the internet like a public utility and not a private luxury for the few.
Absolutely, I would love to hear more about the chrome like the Chromebook distribution. How is that going? My understanding at one point that it was one per household, is that still the case. Are there some left? Where are we, with the with the Chromebook distribution to
students?
So I think, you know, it's really important to anchor this and the situation of our schools. Our schools are tremendously underfunded. So the state itself has released a report that says, annually, our city schools in Baltimore are underfunded to the tune of $342 million Wow. And yeah. And so this is all because there was a there was an equitable school funding formula that in the recession stopped increasing for inflation. And even when we, you know, recovered from the recession, we never got that inflation money back. And so as time has gone on, the amount of money that schools get since in Baltimore City has flatlined. But of course, like expenses and everything, has continued to get more and more expensive. And so we're looking at a situation where schools have very, very little money. And despite that, they went through their, you know, extremely scarce budget, and were able to purchase, you know, 1000s of Chromebooks, some new, some refurbished. When this first popped off, then went to our schools and said, like you, you need to give every device that you have that's not nailed down to the floor to our parent, our families. And so every single school went through their entire inventory and gave and gave everything out, and so the school system has really been trying to to do what they can in light of this, like historic situation. And this summer, they began a program of giving devices and hotspots to families for those two reasons, to make sure that they have the internet that they need, and at the same time they have the device so they it can actually serve a purpose and use it for something. And so they started to see lines of 100 families, and then it went and increased until, you know, last week it exploded, and there were like over 700 families coming at a time to come get devices, because the need was so great. And so there has been this policy, which is one device per household, which I think everyone at the school system wishes it could be a one for one device, like it is in Baltimore County, but we simply are such a starved school system that we don't have the funds to pull it off. And then there are corporations like Comcast that are pulling in billions, billions of dollars in profit. They are looking at already like $6 billion in earnings, and they have made the most historic increase in new customers in their second quarter, in 13 years, in 13 years because of this crisis. And that's not even including folks that are signing up for their Internet Essentials package, which is for a limited time, you can get two months free you sign up normally, the program's $10 over 600,000 families have signed up. That's double the amount of people who have signed up for like the typical paying packages. So when their two months kicks off of free internet and they start to have to pay a Comcast is going to see an explode. Version and customers that they're making money off of. And the real thing is that this is, you know, while I wish that our schools had more money to do more, Comcast has the money to do more. They have the money to do more right now and get our kids connected, so that at least our only worry could be trying to get kids devices. But instead schools, teachers, families, even foundations, are trying to get try to solve both problems, which is trying to get devices into the hands of our kids and then make sure they have the internet that they need so that they can get online to their courses and do their youth works, jobs and all that. So I think it's really important that while, you know, it's important to be critical and evaluate how the school system has been doing this process, I really think they've been trying to solve the problem with both hands tied behind their back with a state that has been underfunding their education budget for decades. And so, you know, it's, it's a huge issue, and there's definitely players in the game that could do way, way, way more, because COVID is one of the greatest things that's happened to Comcast, internet. All of a sudden, everyone needs to live their life online. Modern life is happening in these video chats, education, work. People need this to get to see the doctor. They need it for everything. So all of a sudden, families that also said, okay, like, I can have a basic internet package now they have to upgrade and upgrade and upgrade because they need the speeds that allow them to actually function in the internet COVID scenario that we're looking at today. So I think it's time for companies like Comcast that like Zeke mentioned, have an almost exclusive deal to operate in the city because of a franchise agreement that they got for 10 years to function here and essentially control the market of internet. They're making so much money off of us. They're making so much money off of this crisis. What we teachers are demanding and students as well, and we have a unanimous support from the city council. And it's not even just Baltimore. Baltimore is asking for this. Detroit is asking for this. Philly is asking for this. It's happening across the US. They need to do more. They need to connect our kids and to close it would cost them no money to do it. The infrastructure of the internet has been built. So if you have a package and you're a subscriber, that's like, you know, if like to compare with like a car or something like you're on the internet Highway at 100 miles per hour, or you're on the internet higher highway for three miles per hour. It costs the same to Comcast. The only thing that they lose is that by creating all these little steps and internet speed, they get to make more and more profits off of us. But what they could do is decide that low income families, which are predominantly families that are black and Latino, are families of color that we know are historically marginalized, that we know are being locked out of internet that we know means that they don't get to get their education. They could step up and they could help us make sure that our kids can go to school and that's and that they and they could make a decision that low income families deserve functional internet, not a predatory internet package that's set to set them up so that they have to spend more and more money on internet as they try to keep them and their their families connected.
So then at that point, Adam is, is the ask for the in terms of that partnership? Is the ask for the prices to be lower, in terms of to increase accessibility? Is the ask for a better speed? What exactly is the ask for Comcast?
Yeah, I mean, I see our work as pairing, sort of like, you know, the advocacy with, with some of the pieces of like, you know, trying to light a fire under Comcast and do some of the on the ground work, and sort of like, connecting folks. And, you know, I agree 100% with Franca about, you know, the cost of the infrastructure isn't very expensive at all. And for the most part, once it's deployed, once there's fiber in a neighborhood, it's just a matter of connecting folks, and then it just maintaining sort of that infrastructure. It's, there's been plenty of research on this done that shows that it's a very nominal fee at scale for folks like Comcast who make money hand over fist. So I think you know, the push really is for Comcast to be more human centered. We're in a pandemic, and there are plenty of families across not only Baltimore City, but also across the country that aren't able to afford access to to the internet, which allows them access to information, and also the ability to actually be a part of the educational system. So I see the ask as making, you know, Xfinity hotspots more widely available, making them free and open, and also making you know, Internet Essentials free and open for low income families.
Hmm, and Zeke as a representative, as a councilman, what is it? What? What do you see in your that, not just in your district, but in Baltimore city as a whole? What is at stake for this in terms of this digital divide? What is at stake if that is not taken care of, if this gap isn't closed?
So I think it is quite literally life and death for the children of Baltimore, for our families, right? Because, I think, particularly in a place like Baltimore, where where the inequities run so very deep, where if you don't get a high quality education, just the job landscape is so deeply challenged, right? I mean, 5060, years ago, you could imagine folks working at Bethlehem Steel, folks working at GM and not needing some sort of advanced education or not needing to understand how to connect digitally. We're not in that time. So much of what we are in right now is a knowledge economy and an economy where the gap between folks who have an education and folks who are working in jobs like Amazon and like some of the rideshare companies, the gap in wages is profound, and you're simply unable to raise a family. So education is critical, and without the internet right now, you can't get educated. You also can't really participate in the workforce. You can't apply for jobs. You can't pay some of your bills. It really is life or death, and again, it is, I think, particularly profound for our children in this moment, because we're looking at school going back all virtual. But I'm always reminded that it's not just children, it's adults as well. It's folks who may have been incarcerated and who absolutely need to be able to connect and get online. It's folks who are themselves, parents and having to work and having to be on the one hand, connected to do their own job while simultaneously paying attention to their own children with no child care, who are trying to get online and learn. So to me, it is a life. It's really an existential question for our city. And to Frank, his point, I think what's important to point out is that this is not just a Baltimore problem. This is a fundamental 21st Century American problem. We really as a country, the FCC, the Federal Government, we really do need to shift into thinking of internet as a public utility, as something that should be accessible, treated like like water or like roads or like any of these things that we absolutely rely on, because people rely on it, and we know and we were able to link up that, like Franca said, Philadelphia is having the exact same struggle with Comcast, Detroit having the exact same struggle with Comcast and for a company that is big on rhetoric and talks about Comcast cares and Black Lives Matter, I find it appalling and ironic that here's the these three majority black cities where so many of the children who are trying to simply get a public education. Can't, because this one company has the franchise, has the right of way, has access to all the conduit and the fiber, and is charging prices that in this pandemic some of our communities simply cannot pay. And so again, I just echo Franco's call. We did a resolution Philadelphia and Detroit. Councilwoman Helen gym and Councilwoman Raquel Castaneda Lopez did matching resolutions where we are calling on Comcast to extend Internet Essentials through the pandemic, to open up their public hotspots and to increase the speeds so that children who are online don't get kicked off of Google Classrooms simply because they can't afford the better internet.
Where is that initiative now? Zeke, so we
passed our resolution in Baltimore, I will say there's been a lot of just energy and engagement. I think the business community is really making a push. I know Dr santelises and our school system are really making a push. I think Dr santelises feels that they're basically being extorted by this company. She's looking at the. If we want to keep, if she wants to keep our children online, heading into the next school year, they're going to have to pay a $700,000 ransom to Comcast. And so, you know, she's, she's got, she's put skin in the game. They've been getting these Chromebooks out there and paying for hot spots and doing the work the City Council put skin in the game. We took 3 million from our children and youth fund to try and solve this problem. What we really need is for Comcast to put its skin in the game and not just give us a pat on the head and, you know, say, Oh well, we've extended the duration where you can sign up for this offer. We really need them to come to the table, listen to the students who are calling on them to help provide a public education.
Thank you for that. Franco with schools, you know it's all it's come fall is like tomorrow. This year has gone already gone like February, what, March? When? When did that happen? Right? I have no idea. So school is about to start back in no time, and I think it's going to be it's definitely going to be an issue for families. Definitely going to be an issue for you. I feel like it's super going to be an issue for teachers, and even more specifically, teachers who are also who have families. You know, in terms of being in this digital space, I'm really curious about, what can you tell us about the safe, not silenced campaign?
Yeah, so that was a tremendous victory for the BTU. There was initially a proposal to opening, to open the school year in a hybrid model, which would have meant that we would be in person and online, and the teachers union really put, you know, a firm stance forward, which was that we're not ready. We are seeing numbers escalating as far as cases go, and we don't have the resources right now to be able to conduct school in a way that's safe. You know, I teach high school, so maybe you can tell high schoolers to, you know, keep their distance. But what about our teachers that teach kindergarten, that teach first grade? And a lot of times, people mention, well, you know, children, they don't really get us sick, and if they do, they're they're not as affected by it. But I think it's really important to remember that our students live in multi generational households, so when we put our students in danger, they're putting their parents, their grandparents, their great grandparents, in danger. And there's also, of course, the staff that's in the building. And so you take a school that has 100 adult staff, and we're looking at a statistic where, you know, there's a mortality rate of two, 3% you know, think back to your school like, who are the two, three people you're willing to sacrifice so that you can start school on time. And I think the answer to everyone is none, right? We value the life of our staff, of our teachers, of everyone that works in our schools, and we value the life of our students and our families. And so we did not think that we were ready to to really be able to execute this in such a way that we didn't put all of these people into harm's way. And so it was a tremendous victory between the Baltimore teachers union, who's been organizing with students, with parents, with community organizations to really make it known that we did not agree with a hybrid opening, that it needed to be a digital reopening. And now what's great is that because of because of that, when we've been able to really direct our efforts towards making sure that our kids can get online, and so the next place that the teacher struggle is moving is that on August 3, we're going to have a massive demonstration. It's going to start at Camden Yards, and you can come on your bike, by foot or on car. And we are going to be doing a car bike caravan for digital equity. And our target is Comcast. And we're making three concrete demands. One, increase the speeds we need, functional internet speeds that actually allow our kids to get online and get their education. Second, make sure that these Internet Essentials program. It can't just be free for two months. This crisis has outlasted two months, which means that parents and students that signed up in March already are accruing a bill because they've already need to pay Comcast. So it needs to be free from the moment you enroll until 60 days after the full resumption of school. And something else you couldn't enroll in Internet Essentials if you'd previously had a package with Comcast, you need to be able to enroll in this free. Program, irregardless of what your history with Comcast has been. And finally, they need to open up the hot spots. And Comcast will, over and over and over again, say that we have, we've opened up our Comcast hot spots. They haven't. They've only opened up public hot spots and corporate hot spots, which looks like kids having to do their work and work their youth works jobs in parking lots, and I don't think it's safe in days when we have 100 degree weather for students to be sitting in the middle of a parking lot with their device trying to get their work done, trying to do summer school, trying to do their AP Academy, trying to work for Youth Works. It's not right. They need to open up all the hot spots, and that would really help our students that live in dense public housing, that live in apartment buildings, that live in, you know, connected row homes, that could really help get our kids online. So we are lucky enough that on the third I be making those demands as a Baltimore teachers union. But we're not alone. PG County teachers union is joining us to montgomery county. Teachers Union is doing their own action in Montgomery County at the same time, Philadelphia is also targeting Comcast in their demands on their our national day of resistance that we're having as teachers across the country. And of course, we're going to be this event has been organized with the support of somos students organizing a multicultural, open society, and they have been fighting this equity fight for a long time. And we'll hopefully have lots of elected readership there as well. I'm pretty sure Zeke are going to be joining us on Monday, and so you know the community is coming together. We know what we need, and we know who can offer it.
Zeke, how are you reaching the folks in your district with this, with such a big digital divide? What What are the demographics of your area, and what is it? What is the landscape of your specific area look like? Technology wise, how are you reaching them? And also, how are you reaching them? And the folks, compounded by having English not be their first language?
Yeah, so that's a, that's a great question, and that, and that really is my district, by the way, is it is a large immigrant community. Traditionally, it was German, it was Ukrainian. It's, I've got little Italy. I've got Greek town. Now, the last 15 or so years, it's really been large groups of folks from Central America, from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, to an extent Mexico. And that's really been a blessing for my district and for our city. That is the fastest growing group of children in our schools. If you look at areas like Highland town and upper Fells Point. They've really been revitalized by folks from Central America who have built businesses, who have dug in. It's also a community regime that has been extremely hard hit by COVID 19 just the all the health disparities that existed before the pandemic have really been magnified. We've seen just explosion because these are folks who, for the most part, have to work. In some cases, didn't get any sort of stimulus funding, didn't get state or federal aid. These are folks who, again, are facing some pretty significant housing discrimination. And so there are parts of our district, there are parts of my district where we have slum landlords who will subdivide homes and have three families living in a row house, right? A 1300 square foot row house, and obviously, when you've got 1516, people, multiple families, living that closely together, when you've got a community of folks who are working what we now know to be essential jobs, but really don't treat them that way, like folks who work at Amazon, folks who work in our restaurants, in our kitchens, there is going to be a much, much higher rate of transmission for COVID 19. And so unfortunately, our district, the 21224, zip code, is the highest in the city. And again, the disparities are really, really, really profound in terms of the communication piece, we've been really intentional in partnering with both a few of our churches as well as a few of our schools. I've got a guy who works with. Me, who's our Latinx liaison, and he's just been in deep partnership with some of the community organizations with Sacred Heart, with John Rura, where Adam has expanded his program to. But you know the challenge? Frankly, one of the challenges is this is a community that is under the best of circumstances, not typically trusting of government, right? So like and for good reason, even though Baltimore is truly a welcoming city, even though I and my colleagues in the council and mayor young are very, very, very clear that we want absolutely nothing to do with ice coming in and touching anyone, and we've pretty aggressively fought back when they have come in and done raids in Baltimore. Still, folks don't trust and it's a huge gap to get over, but that's why we work closely with pastors. That's why we work closely with Community School coordinators, and just the same strategy that Adam utilizes of really knowing who are the respected folks. I've gone on Spanish radio a couple times, even though my Spanish is a CSC, just because, you know it's, it's a community that, if you're not intentional, folks aren't going to reach out and try to get help, especially from government. Culturally, there's some barriers, and so we've had to really kind of take a step and try to show up as much as we possibly can for our immigrant community. And I'll also say that Franca students at somos have been a huge blessing because they've been fighting not just, not just leading the fight for digital equity, but also for inclusion of ELL English language learning students in all of our schools, all of our selective high schools in Baltimore and so, you know, part of my job has just been following their lead and trying to block and tackle and provide as much support As them as I possibly can.
Thank you for that, Adam. I'm really curious to hear about what do you see as next in terms of your work, I hear that you're at John Aurora. I love that school, and I want to know more about some of the initiatives that you have. What's next? How can people be in contact with you and folks who want to support some of the work that you're doing. How can they do that?
Yeah, definitely. And one thing that I will say about John Rua, so I actually went to that Rec Center as a kid. So yeah, so more acrossman rec center. I attended there for about six or seven years. Yeah, no, no. No. So my parents lived in Patterson park, but, yeah, but yeah. So, so in terms of, sort of like wave specifically, we're looking to connect well over 1000 families by the end of the fiscal year. So next July, it's sort of where we're sort of like heading towards. There is some national science foundation work that we're working on currently to connect about 250 homes in three different communities across Baltimore City, those being southern Park, heights, Green Mountain, east and then the third is slipping me apologies, But yeah, so three different communities across Baltimore City. And also, just like expanding sort of service to folks that need it the most is sort of our goal. And yeah, if folks want to get in contact with us, they can go to on their phones, project, waves.net, or I'd be happy to, you know, also provide our email, which is just contact at Project waves.net, and then we also have a phone number that that's on the website as well.
Awesome. Thank you so much for that. Franco, would you mind mentioning again, what's happening on August 3, how folks could get involved in that, what you're up to next, and how, also how they can connect and support
you absolutely. So on August 3, we're going to be having a car and bike caravan. So for those who are interested to fight with us to make sure that we can get our kids connected, meet us at Camden Yards this Monday at 4pm and we'll prepare to go out, and I don't want to share the route yet. We want to make sure that, you know, there's a little bit of element of surprise about where we're going to end up. But meet us at Camden Yards, and we will, we'll be out there making sure that we're letting Comcast know that our kids deserve more and that. Our city has put down support. Foundations across the city have done their part. City Schools too, and now it's it's their turn, and they have the means to do it. So that's what's happening Monday, and I will say just to connect back to the work that Adam is doing, is that what I think is really beautiful about the work of Waze, and is it called rowdy orbit? Adam? Yeah, so rowdy orbit, which is another, another group that's helping to connect our communities to fast speed internet. That it doesn't have to be this way. We don't have to have a franchise agreement with a company that gives them so much control over the internet market in our city, we have means, and there is a way that we could build internet for our communities that's faster, that centers people, that is making sure that we're respecting the rights of the workers that help to Set internet up that's helping to train people to understand how to use the internet and really take advantage of it. And so I really think that, especially because of how coldly Comcast has responded to this crisis, we've had several meetings with Comcast executives and high ranking members within that corporation that have ignored and almost insulted the stories that students have shared about their difficulties being able to get online. And so I think we need to be looking at another way. And so I am running for office for a 12th district city council, and one of the platforms that I'm running on is that we need municipal internet. We need public internet. It is a human right, like, you know, Zeke or Adam, I think mentioned earlier, and it's time. We need to, we need to have an alternative that centers our families instead of exploiting them. And if people want to learn more about that, they can visit franca for the people.com
Franco franca for the people.com thank you so much for that. I'm going to go over to the chat really quick before I get to Zeek. It move. It's been moving pretty fast. There's quite a few comments. I've been so engaged in everything that you guys have been sharing with me. So I haven't really been able to get over here much, because I've been just like learning so much, and I appreciate you guys for it. So let's see some months. Samantha Musgrave, oh, put the link to put the link to project ways for folks who are trying to get in contact. There they're so there were some other questions. I feel like they moved so fast I missed them. So if you left a question, I will definitely read through them. All of our guests will be sure to make sure that they read through them. Please look in that section, folks have left the link to access where they will be, and also other ways to be able to support them. And thank you everyone for watching. We're not done yet. Let's see. Oh. Mona Diallo says, And what about students with special special ed needs, and then over stimulation and learning how to address their needs? Could school system provide provide guide and tools for parents with special needs, with special needs children, although having a computer is adequate a computer and adequate internet is 1/3 of the solution. If we don't address the issue, it won't mean anything to have adequate internet fees.
If you want to respond. Rasheem, go for it. Yeah. So the Baltimore teachers union is in total agreement. We need the platform for our students to be able to get educated and learn, but that's just like, like mana Diallo said, that's just, you know, 1/3 if not less, of the problem, right? We need that basic thing for them to get online, but then we need to make sure that they're being receiving the education that they need. We didn't make sure that our students that have IPs and 504 is, which are specialized learning plans, are having their needs met and so and also for the many ESOL students that are in our city, to make sure they're continuing to be able to get and improve their English. So that's something that is really important to be voicing those concerns to Baltimore City Schools. You can go to Balt city schools at their Twitter and message them directly and tell them, what are your concerns. There has been a plan released about what the opening is going to be like, and a lot of parents are. Unhappy because it's a lot of hours of straight screen time, not just for high schoolers and older middle school students, but for kindergarten students, for first graders, who are going to be online in front of their computers for over four hours a day. And so that's something that is going to be really tough on parents. So if you have an opinion or a thought about what arts children need. Please let the school district know. And if you're close with your with your school, you every single school has a Baltimore has a building representative at their school to be a go between with the school community and the teachers union, you can let them know so that we can voice those concerns over to this to the union, so that when we're making demands that we're also honoring directly the needs of parents and students. So please contact the union through any of our social media, contact the school district, let and let us know you know what is needed, so that as a union, we know to fight for, and so the school district knows what they need to be making sure is happening for our kids.
Thank you for that. And Zeke, can you let folks know? What are you up to next? And are probably going to want to know how to get in connection with ever with whatever effort and initiatives that are going on to help close this divide, and how can they support Yeah,
so I mean, first and foremost, we want to win this fight with Comcast, because we feel it's winnable. And just like Franco was saying, we think that it's incumbent on them as a multi billion dollar corporation that has all these franchise agreements with all these different cities across the United States, that we're just asking them to be a decent corporate citizen and come to the table and listen to the young people, because I've been in those conversations too, and the attitude has been, you don't know what you're talking about. You can stay on Google classrooms, the speeds are fast enough, and it's been just interesting these last couple of days, because so many folks have reached out, and people who I wouldn't have expected and said, like, why is Comcast behaving this way? Like they are a multi billion dollar corporation? Do they really want to be seen as holding ransom over a public school system, like, are they really that desperate for this amount of money, that they're going to take this kind of PR hit? And so we just feel like we need to make sure that they understand loud and clear that they do have a responsibility to our families that they have profited handsomely off of Baltimore, and we want to make sure that they support our children in this time of need. So that's, you know, first and foremost. Second two is, unfortunately, we're facing a compounding set of crises right when it's not just to Mona's point, it's not just the internet, it's not just the digital divide, it's also childcare, right? Like, what is it going to look like when parents have got to go to work and children have got to learn and for the 82,000 young people that rely on our school system as a place for them to go that is safe, that supports their emotional and physical needs. For many of our children, school is the place where where more meals happen. It is a huge, huge, huge problem. The city got about $100 million worth of Cares Act money, but that is quickly running out. We're about to face a massive eviction crisis, because the governor is ending the moratorium on evictions, and so we could be seeing 1000s and 1000s of families out in the streets, quite literally fending for their lives. So Mona Diallo is absolutely right, it is crucial that we figure out getting kids online, but there are all sorts of other challenges, not to mention just the loneliness and the trauma and just, you know, not being able to see your friends, I think, has been hard on
Monday, and so press on the feed
anyway. That's what I'm working on. We, you know, we are gonna, we're gonna power through. Baltimore is scrappy. Baltimore is resilient. Baltimore is brilliant. And for every challenge, there are hundreds and 1000s of people in our city who are figuring it out one way or another. For me, for us, it's all about, how do we bring people together? And solve some of these crises as a city.
Thank you for that. More questions in the chat or comments in the chat. Alicia Blackwood, moving pretty quick. Alicia Blackwood said it's a Florida problem too. It's widened in the digital gap and opportunity gap for our most vulnerable and marginalized communities. Antoinette pill says, What if you are not able to join the demonstration? What else can communities do?
So somos has written a national petition that we're closely getting to 1000 or working towards getting 1000 signatures on and hopefully more. So I believe I saw it pop up in the chat, but if someone that's in the chat could throw that back into into the links again, that this is another opportunity to be able to show that, you know, this isn't a community that stands alone, but that we have people all over the country who are supporting and again, it's really important to note that if we win in Baltimore, we win nationwide, right? They can't make a change and just increase the speeds for one city or two or three. If they change what they do, we win for everyone. And so that's why it's really important that, you know, Comcast is not feeling comfortable what's going on they are, are really not taking this negative attention well, and so it's really important to put the pressure on
blowing up my phone right now, Because I'm cast lobbyists in the last week. It's like, it's like,
when they call you z, what do they have to say? So
a lot of their thing is, you know, you all are presenting basically, like, false news, fake news, right? So, like, they, they, um, it's funny. They Frank and I were talking about this yesterday. They called a reporter who did a story on francas race in the 12th district, focusing on her candidacy and Franca, you know, repeated just what she said on this show and what, you know, what we've all been seeing. And they called the reporter to try to have the reporter retract the story and basically say, like you all are spewing falsehoods. And, you know, they they get into this thing about, oh, we don't have an exclusive franchise with the city of Baltimore. Well, yes, you do. You're the only company that has a franchise, and you're the only internet company that has a franchise with Baltimore, right? So they did this other really slick thing the other day where there was a story in the Baltimore Business Journal about this resolution that we were doing with Philly and with Detroit, making those asks on Comcast. And the reporter calls me up, and he's like, Hey, Zeke. Like, I know we just talked about this, but I just talked to Comcast, and it turns out they've actually extended their free Internet Essentials through January. And I was like, what? Like, that's amazing. Like, just, why didn't they tell me that? Like, and so I'm all ready to celebrate, come to find out, what they actually did was extend the duration of time at which you can get the two free months of Internet Essentials. They didn't actually extend the 60 days. So for most of our families, almost all of our families, already use that right last school year. So that's actually doing anything that's just like another marketing gimmick to get more people to purchase their substandard service and get, get get it hooked up at their home. So it's a lot of that kind of stuff. It's brow beating over, you know, we're not, we're not, we're not a monopoly. You know, we stop saying we don't uphold our values of Black Lives Matter. We do. We really believe in it's just, you know, it's you know, when you
like. And it sounds like to right now, it sounds good because it sounds like you guys are really putting the heat on them and shedding the light. And sound like this is happening all over the place. It also sounds like, from what you're saying, if it's only, if they only allow for 60 days, and folks got that in March, by the time when the school fell back September, they won't have that anymore. Are they, at minimum, saying people can re sign up in the fall?
No, I mean they as soon as that 60 days of free is over, then you gotta start paying for the service. And again, we're in a global pandemic. Like many, many, many families who are at the margins don't have even the $10 a month. We're looking at a next round of stimulus checks that are going to be not the $600 a week that the first round were. I mean, people are really, really stretched. And you're seeing folks who may not have even been living in poverty before this, but now are and paying that extra bill to Comcast, particularly, again, going back to some of our immigrant families, some of our undocumented families just can't afford that extra even $10 a month, and especially can't afford it when the service is not good to begin with and isn't even adequate to be on Google Classrooms.
Antoinette Phil says, What can communities slash neighborhoods do now to support the move to push Comcast slash XFINITY to make the internet available. Bronc, I believe you mentioned a potential petition.
Yes, yeah, you can sign a petition. You can find it in Google if you go to change.org Comcast, so most s, O, M, O, S, you'll probably be able to find it that way, and it's also in the in the chat of this live feed. But something else you can do is also contact Comcast, tweet at them, say at Comcast, you know, and let them know that you do not agree with what's happening and to the point that seek is making $10 is a lot when you're looking at families who are making a choice between, do I pay the rent or do I buy food, which is what a lot of families are experiencing right now. And something that's really crazy is that actually our, you know, the governor has put a moratorium on utility shut offs, and it includes internet. He actually just extended this on Friday. So just extended it yesterday. So when Comcast is putting a, you know, many 100,000 of dollar, you know, invoice on the desk of Baltimore City Schools saying, if you don't pay this, we're shutting off the internet to your kids, that's also violating what the state has said, which is that you can't shut off the internet right now. And so I think it's really important to recognize that they're trying to make money. You know, if they're trying to they're not following the executive order of our governor. So we need to make sure that Comcast is being held accountable to following state regulation as it is right now, which is that you can't kick off families that said, While families maybe aren't being kicked off the program thanks to this legislation that is in place because of the hard work and relentless push by community organizations and advocates to not have utility shutoffs, there is an accruing bill sitting setting up for these families every month and and also, $10 is not just $10 $10 is the cost of the program, plus fees, plus the modem rental, which, you know, like Adam said in waves, you have that you own it and it's yours. Comcast makes lots of money through these rentals, and I won't go into the many times that they tons of money off of people claiming that they never return modems. And that's like a, you know, a fun Google search of articles if you want to check it out. But $10 is not $10 it's $10 plus fees, plus rental modem rent costs. It's it. So you know, at the end of the day, it's more than that, and we have a bill that's accruing for families that they're soon going to be delinquent on if they're not already. And so, you know, it's just a massive issue that could be solved like this. It you can just increase the speeds. It does not take that much work or effort or money to happen. You could say that you enroll in Internet Essentials, and it's free until this crisis is over. These are not hard things to implement. And do they have the choice to do it? They have more than enough and resources to be able to do it. You know this? This is the time they has to happen. Now we're looking at a company that's having a 13 year record and how many new customers and profits they're earning. Come on, you can't help some families after you've had exclusive access to our residents to be able to make money off our city. I think Baltimore has done their part to support Comcast and monetary gains for their company. You. They need to do their part. Now that we're in a global crisis, they have the means they need to help us.
Adam, what is the with them being like the the primary provider of internet access, is there a high barrier to entry for other companies? Is that why they're why they have this hold on the city, on so many cities?
Yeah, certainly, you know, there definitely is the cost of building out the infrastructure initially that is the biggest barrier to access. And then I think you know that that's specifically why, you know, the way in which we connect folks is through sort of, like wireless internet connectivity and partnering with, you know, community based organizations like churches, like schools and otherwise to actually set up antennas on top of their rooftops to then sort of relay internet to communities across the city. But yeah, definitely through the franchise agreement. You know, there's a limitation on folks like Verizon or, you know, Port networks, or like Cloud or other sort of service providers in Baltimore City, and like them, actually being able to provide residential, sort of services to families and essentially provide another option that may be lower cost. Yeah, and I think just going back to Franco's point, just briefly, as we're talking about, you know, sort of the age of COVID and families, you know, and specifically, students needing internet connectivity to access free and in public education, families are having to pay a tax to get public education. And I think that's abhorrent, and I think that's ridiculous, and they're having to pay a tax to a private institution that already makes hundreds of billions of dollars a year in profit. So, you know, that's that's exactly why, I think Antoinette, your question, which I think we've already talked a bit about, what can communities and neighborhoods do now to support this move to push Comcast and XFINITY to make the internet more available. One thing that I would also say is, you know, in terms of advocacy, I think learning more about municipal broadband and some of the benefits that it can provide specific provide specifically to Baltimore City in having another option municipal broadband being, you know, internet that is partially or fully provided by a local government like Baltimore, I think that could, you know, there's a potential there for there to be a subsidy for families that are getting connected to that service. There's been success in other cities like Chattanooga, where folks are able to get sort of Gigabit internet speeds for like 40 bucks. And then there's, you know, a variety of other options, whereas, like Comcast, for instance, 100 megabit connection can cost $100 so you know that, I think that's where learning more about some of those other options, I think, is, is, you know, really important and critical. And one last thing that I'll mention to just for like, general awareness, there's this great website called net blocks.org. On Twitter. It's just net blocks. They basically, they basically just measure internet outages across the world, and specifically during the Arab Spring, you know, they actually measured when, for instance, they were able to notify folks across the world when Egypt's internet connectivity went out because of sort of like political strife in some of those pieces. So as we're thinking about internet outages, there's one every day in Baltimore City, and has been one every day in Baltimore City for well over a decade. And that's because companies like Comcast and, you know, Verizon and others, once again, aren't making their services accessible to families across the socio economic spectrum. And I think that's really important. I think that's critical. I think definitely the city has a part to play in that. I think private institutions have a have a part to play in that. But, you know, at the end of the day, we should all be advocating for internet access in the 21st Century, for it to be a human right.
Absolutely. Aaliyah says this is a time when public and free education is no longer free. Kind of be a point Adam and yours too Franca. It's not free. You have to you have to pay to play. So to speak, Edwin, thank you so much. Edwin says, I love the counter narrative show. I learned something new every week. Thank you Rasheem and the counter narrative team. Oh my gosh. I've learned so much about internet and Comcast and in a way that, like it's actually interesting and connects to something that I would want to know some more information, or some more folks in the chat. Aaliyah also says, Yes, municipal broadband internet will be so much better. Improvements would be based on the decision, would not be based on the decisions of corporations. And Leah also says so true 90 a $90 plan can go up to $150 in my experience. And then there's Comcast type posted Twitter's Comcast handle. Handle says Comcast cares. How ironic, as the mentioned earlier. Here. And Edwin also posted S O, M O, S, attention to petition to close the digital divide. Hold and hold Comcast accountable. Thank you all so much for taking the time to come here and provide for us the counter narrative on what is going on with the digital divide. So appreciate so much. Appreciate you taking your time to be here.
Thank you so much for having us. It's been great. Thank you. Thank you, awesome.
Thank you everyone. To everyone who is watching, tuning in. Thanks for your comments. Please check out all of those links that are put before. There's ways that you can follow Zeek, you can follow and support Franco You can also follow and support Adam. Remember, August 3, remember, there's a way to sign a petition. Reach out to Comcast cares. What's your opinions, thoughts and concerns there? And let's, let's keep this conversation going, and let's put some movement behind it so that we can actually be active participants in closing that digital divide. Thank thank everyone for watching again and see you next week, the conversation will be white supremacy and nonprofit in the nonprofit sector. All right, have a good night.
I need to know everything. Who in the what in the where I need everything. Trust me, I hear what you're saying, but I like it's new what you're telling me, I'm Curious George. I happen to pause for five and a horse. I'm ready for war. I'm coming for throws to turn to a ghost. I need to know everything you.