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The purpose of the show is to provide a critical examination of society and culture through the intersectional lens of race, gender, and class, more specifically it seeks to provide a COUNTER-NARRATIVE. The Show encourages a reflective assessment and critique of unique standpoints and their potential contribution to popular discourse.
I need to know everything. Who in the what in the where? I need everything. Trust me, I hear what you're saying, but alleges know what you're telling me. I'm curious. George. I hop in the Porsche five and a horse. I'm ready for war. I'm coming for throws to turn it with ghosts. I need to know everything.
Okay, hello and welcome to the counter narrative Show. I'm your host, Rasheem, today's topic we'll be discussing having a conversation. And the topic is from protest to policy. Today we are joined by davon love. We are going to get into a lot of the conversation around all of so many of us have been protesting. We've had signs. We've messed up some really nice sneakers. We have written on cardboard. We, you know, gotten in lines, all of these things. And then a lot of the conversation is, what is next? What do we do next? How do we go from here? This is where we figure out, or we start to have the conversation around where to go from here and how to make some real, meaningful, long, lasting and impactful change, to go beyond the protests, beyond the hashtags, and actually, what can we do moving forward and to have that conversation I have the delight pleasure of being able to speak with Mr. Davon. Love dayvon, thank you so much for taking the time to join us today. I appreciate you.
Yeah, I appreciate you for inviting me. We were
just talking about how busy you've been. I'm sure you've, like, probably had a few of these conversations over and over again, time and time again, a bit. You're like, in high demand right now,
something like that, something like that. Well,
davon Love is the for people who don't know, which I just imagine that everyone knows. Davon Love is the Director of Public Policy for Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle. In fact, in 2010 davon love co founded leaders of the beautiful struggle, and like other members of lbs, Devon, believes that all groups and campaigns that endeavor to fix policies that harm predominantly African American communities must be led by African Americans in Baltimore that covers a bevy of issues, including affordable housing, economic development, education and criminal justice reform. Devon, I want to start the conversation by talking about how, a little bit about how you came to this work, in reading some other things around your beginnings, I read how you started with debate. Can you talk about that, that bridge, or that link that's from debate to getting into policy and then to lbs,
yep, so you know, there's a lot of aspects to it. So in high school, I came across policy debate. In the late 80s and throughout the 90s, there was an effort to develop and to provide access to the activity of policy debate to black folks all across the country. So they were urban debate leads that emerged, you know, Baltimore, Chicago, you know, Detroit, etc. And so Baltimore was one of those cities in the late 90s, they got an urban Debate League, and so I participated. And one of the things that for people to know about policy debate is one of the most rigorous forms of academic debate that exists. So a lot of people that you know come out of major think tanks and that shape public policy come out of this activity of policy debate. So we'll do it. So so I did it in high school, got a scholarship to go to college, and one of the things I became clear about is that on the national the highly competitive national level, was an overwhelmingly white activity, right in terms of the participants, and even in terms of the pedagogy and research methodology I happen to, you know, happen to come into the activity during an intellectual and academic innovation in the activity at the University of Louisville, Dr Eddie Warner and Darryl Burch crafted a form of debate, and they came out of the Pan African Studies department there, crafted a form of debate that looked at combining Personal Experience what they called Organic intellectuals, which, in their case, they use hip hop artists and traditional academic authors as a practice of debate to challenge the norms and procedures of traditional debate. And it actually culminated in 2004 in the team of Liz Jones and Tanya green, two black women that got the quarter finals of both national championship tournaments making, you know, these innovative arguments. My college debate partner, who He's a year older than me, he went to University of Louisville, 2006, he was there for two years. He transferred back to Towson University, where I went to debate with me and him and I kind of extended on, you know, kind of the foundation they laid down. Yeah, and so Devin and I 2008 we won a national championship, you know, making arguments about racism and white supremacy in the activity of policy debate. And so when we were done with the activity, myself and me, my colleagues in the activity, you know, wanted we saw how a lot of the people we were debating against were being a part of major institutions that were that were protecting the interests of, you know, major corporate institutions, right? And so what we thought to ourselves was, well, why don't we develop an organization in Baltimore that allows us to be the public policy arm of black folks? Because what we saw was we didn't feel like there was that radical black voice in the policy making space that would help us to be able to challenge the institutions that do harm to our community. So that's, you know, so that's kind of in a nutshell, you know, how I got into the world?
No, I mean, it totally makes sense, like it almost seems like the perfect logical next step, the way that you have it laid out. And I didn't. I actually did not know a whole lot about the difference between like debating and then like policy debating. I am curious to know specifically what makes policy debating more rigorous.
So policy debate, if you ever watch one, it's not very excessive, it's very jargon laden, very research Layton and so what you'll find is that, like oratorical skills and flourish is being prioritized in the name of rigorous argumentation and research, right? And so and so the you know, there's a Donald Rumsfeld. He once said that the most powerful person in the world is the person who decides to high school and college debate topics, because it's the topic where or that person decides what some of the smartest people in the country are talking about. There's another study that was done that says, To the years worth of work in college, debate is the equivalent of a master's thesis. And back before everything was so digital, you know, debate teams will walk around with big totes of evidence, right? Like really big totes with evidence, because you did extensive research on every possible area of the topic. So if the topic was on foreign policy, you know, you had a whole bunch of different, you know, you you basically, you know, get again, back before everything was so digital, you might Xerox a, you know, excerpts from a book, put them on a piece of paper, and you have a bunch of pieces of paper that are like the material you use, you know, in debate and so and so. Again, it's an activity that it's not very audience friendly. You'd have to be a person, you know they go. There's a study that showed that, you know, folks, folks talk like 400 words a minute, so you have to have, like, a special ear to even hear like how people are talking, and it's a very insular activity, you know, one example is a story about So, so I mentioned that I won nationals in 2008 that was my junior year. So, so our senior year, you know, we got invited to an exclusive tournament called the Kentucky round robin. So this is where, mid season, the top eight teams in the country debate each other, right? And it was in a Kentucky Country Club, right? Where, you know, and so it was just one of the most surreal experiences, because, you know, Devin and I, my debate partner, are the only black people in this room. Of like, very wealthy, well connected, you know, white folks. And
let me tell you the name Kentucky. Listen, I have felt safe, so both of y'all for even stepping in that space.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so that. So that's just to get a sense of, like, how it's a very insular activity. I remember, like, in October finals of the national debate tournament, 2009 we're debating the son of the governor of Kansas. Like it's that level of elite folks that participate in the activity. And these the people that are being prepared to wield power, right? And that for us was the thing that was really intriguing, like, Oh, these are folks in the policy realm that clear that this is where power is. We need to have something in our community where there's the clarity to see that policy is a really important level of
power, absolutely. And it also sounds like from what you're saying, you know, as you're talking about how insular it is, you have a specific audience that's going to be really keyed into that, like there's probably specific spaces where policy debaters are like super celebrities. You know, I definitely, definitely, totally get that. And it also makes sense as you talk about this connection with debating policy and then becoming a think tank. Can you talk a bit about think tanks, and what exactly is a think tank? What does that mean? And why is it important that African American communities have one?
So I'm gonna go back to the piece around policy debate, producing people influential in the policy making arena the activity of policy debate was very connected to the conservative rebel. Institution that culminated in the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 so you think about the response to this, to the to the civil rights movement, to the anti war movement, black power movement, when you, when you the response were that the conservative, the conservatives, develop a bunch of civic and political institutions to fight back against the gains of the 60s and early 70s. And so a part of their strategy was the was the development of think tanks. Because what they understood is that the people in elected office aren't the people coming up with the ideas they needed a specific, organized institution that's that its responsibility would be to develop the intellectual basis for the activity of the elected officials that they would support. So there's a book that the Heritage Foundation published in the 90s called the power of ideas, and in it, they brag about the fact that during the 80s they were in control of 80% of federal policy, right? Because, again, they literally were the brains behind the elected officials, you know, the Republicans. They were the brain behind them, right and able to essentially use the depth of knowledge that they were able to develop to essentially give Ronald Reagan and the conservative Newt Gingrich and others their playbook. And so for us, when you when you look locally in Baltimore, you know there, there are institutions that serve that provide a playbook to our elected officials. And you know those conversations, you know, aren't really, you know that public like there is a kind of mass conversation about what is contributing to what elected officials decide to do, right? And if we look at, you know, the folks that are driving the conversation, you know, we're talking mostly about institutions, you know, like, you know, Johns, Hopkins, right? Or major foundations. So like the ABLE Foundation, for instance, you're talking about major institutions who are convening the conferences, the work groups, and producing the reports that become the basis for elected for what elected officials do. And so as lbs, we kind of taken it upon ourselves to say we need to produce materials that can provide the talking points for people that are sympathetic to our perspective, to be able to know what to say, you know? Because, I mean, even given some of the work that we do, like the legislative advocacy that we do, there's just a lot of stuff to keep track of, you know, I'm saying. And unless you have a person who can spend that dedicated time keeping track of it, it's just a lot. So we really see it as our responsibility to keep track of a lot of that stuff and be able to tell our base to say, hey, here's everything that's happening. Here's what we think we should do, you know, provide that for the community. Yeah, I
feel like that's so much, so very much needed. And I think you kind of spoke to it earlier, when you were talking about you being on a debate, not being a part of debate, but also policy debate and how insular it is and how suspicious specific audience. So then to take that level of information, that level of rigor, and then to be able to make it consumable to a wider audience who are directly impacted by it. How do you explain, or how do you share with communities, particularly African American communities, the significance of policy and how policy impacts their everyday life. Because, you know, my uncle or my brother, they I think they don't have that connection to policy to know that they just know something's wrong or it's effed up, and they don't know why. So how do you bridge that to helping people to understand why? Why? Why is policy important for my everyday life?
Yeah, so the two two parts to them. The first is that it's important for people to recognize that it's intentional, that people are that those spaces are so insulin. So I'll give a couple examples, the Maryland Democratic Party, right? So Maryland is a Democratic Party stronghold, right? And what the Democratic Party does in the state, and it's not an official policy, but what they what you don't see the Democratic Party do, is do mass voter registration, right? The reason why they don't do that is because the majority Maryland is one of those states that very soon. In fact, I think the population under 18 are majority non white, and so what the Democratic Party doesn't want to do is to register so many people that the folks, the hand picked, folks that they want, aren't able to get elected pretty easily. So what they like to do is make the voter turnout low, because they can control the math on that and be able to put in the people that will prepare propel the kind of corporate agenda that those who guide the Democratic Party in Maryland want folks to go. So it's important to note that so so what happens is, and anybody who's been a part of a political campaign in the state, if you're familiar with like the van right, which is a soft. The Democratic Party uses to, you know, identify voters who voted in the last three elections, and the target their campaigns and so and so apart. So when you think about the strategy, you're this, you're most people running for office are discouraged from talking to people who aren't already involved, right? Because if you're not already involved for them, you're investing money, resources and time in something that you won't get your return on investment. So, so I say that, I said so that this first part is there's a very intentional arrangement of institutions and processes that disincentivize bringing in people who should be brought in, right? But it's just, it's made very insular. The second piece to that is, I think a part of it is very few people. I would say, when you think about people of African descent in this country, you think about the fact that many, even those of us who've who've broken into the, you know, what we call the middle class, many of us have not been socialized in environments where it's understood that we are going to wield power, right? Many of us are taught, do good in school, get a good job, right? Do that job, get a retirement. We're not I don't think that there are many, very many conversations that are had with particularly young black folks about what it means to build institutions, to be able to willpower, or what it means to be in a position to make policy, to be able to willpower, whereas I've observed young white folks who are in households where it's explicit that they're being prepared to run the world right. And so because they're being prepared to run the world, there's much more access to conversations about the way that policy impacts people's lives and and so I think, to your question, I think a part of the issue is that when, when you're not socialized to understand where power is, but in fact, you're socialized just to get a good job and survive, right? Well, then conversations about policies seem less important. And so I think a part of the task force for us is to help blackness, is to help our own community understand the importance that, yeah, we should survive make sure we can feed ourselves and our families, but we also need to make sure that we're preparing ourselves to be able to wield power, because that's where sustainable change is going to be otherwise. I mean, we got so many of our people working so hard and not getting nearly you know, the return on investment that their labor deserves. And so I think that's where the conversation about policy comes in. Because the simple question is, you know, we have the power to change the systems that or to impact the systems that impact our lives. The question is, are we going to organize ourselves to be able to will that the power to impact those levels of power. And again, usually the question of policy assets in the public mainstream. It's usually not described that way, right? It's usually described in much more kind of like grandiose terms, when really, again, it's just for me, it's simply, are we going to wield power or not, right? And policy is one of those mechanisms by which we can
build I think I mean, from what I'm hearing, it's not even just a matter of understanding the significance of policy, but also convincing folks that that they can influence or that they can have access to this power, seems to be a challenge, Even with something as simple as you know, whether or not to vote like that's a that's a simple thing that I think people are more and more discouraged around that piece. And it's for me, I'm going to tell you, it's hard for me to have that conversation because I don't know where to find the hope to give you. You know what I mean, I don't know how to convince you to buy into this system that you've already seen isn't just even when you play by all of their rules. So for me, it seems like it's a really challenging conversation to have to not even just to explain policy, because I think on the basic level, I could explain policy like, think of it as rules, and think of some rules benefit people and some people, some rules put people at a disadvantage. And if you could change the rules, and you have access to that, I think the challenging part is to say you actually can check. You can actually influence the rules. You know, especially for people who haven't influenced rules on any level.
Yes, you know, the older I get, the more clear that I am about the fact that one of the major impacts of the system of white supremacy in the society is the internal, is the internalization of notions of black inferiority, you know, and I think, I think it's really deep. I think I think many black folks are socialized to believe. Think that the only way we can access power is of why people give it to us, right? And and most people who I think, believe that within that they believe that because, I think it's one of those truths that's just really deeply sublimated into people's consciousness. But so even, like using voting as an example, like, when I'm talking to people about the importance of the things I say is I said, even I said, because all of us that vote are not voting, because we buy into the system, right? We're thinking strategically about how to use it. And one of the things I say to folks is, like, if you vote, I talked earlier about, like, the software that people use for campaigns to determine I said, if you vote, and it literally not not mattering who you vote for, per se, but if you vote, you become a person that now is on the list of people they want to go talk to, right? And so it's and so it's an example of like, yeah, I don't believe that American democracy, it doesn't exist, right? I don't believe that America is going to be a just place. I believe what Derrick Bell said, racism is a permanent feature of American society. But if we talk about the importance of voting, we don't necessarily have to talk about it in terms of buying into the system or not. We can talk about it from the perspective of if more of us vote, that means that they're going to come talk to us, and it gives us more leverage to be able to impact the kinds of people that run for office and ultimately, the kinds of policies that get pushed through, you know, the system.
One of the listeners, Mona Diallo, says, I remember those days the white hat required reading as well, or the White House had required reading as well. Franca said, We need politics that actually value voter enfranchisement. Ty shared, how do we get our communities to believe that they can will power when there are so many examples of powerlessness? And I think that was kind of a bit of like, what you were speaking to, we You talked a bit about we talked a bit about Maryland. One of the questions that I have in general is like, what is your take on the general political climate as it is today, and the impact of being able to bring forward and move forward conversations around criminal justice reform, and not even just the conversations, but what is the current climate? How does the current climate contribute to policy being moved forward around it, or has it? So I'm
gonna start real big picture and get narrow. So, so, so, real big picture, and it relates actually, to something I just mentioned. One of the things I just get increasingly concerned about is, and we talked a little bit about this off air, many of the people who are appearing as folks that are experts on issues that impact black people, what I'm observing is many of them have not dedicated serious energy and rigorously studying the history of the kinds of work that is that needs to happen, and rigorously studying the mechanisms of power. The reason I say that reason that's important is because apart, what I think animates this general landscape is white folks are clear that the appearance of racial injustice is bad for business. It's bad for the moral authority of America as an idea. And so the capitulation to issues of racial justice is about that. And what they're clear about is is there's a difference between those that are disruptive to the ability for white folks to will power versus those that are articulate about racial oppression, right? And a part of what happens is we're getting more people that have mastered the sociology of the dimensions of black people suffering. What what I don't see happening is the depth of knowledge of the bodies of work that people of African descent have produced off the mainstream as instruments for our liberation. And so what's happening is, I think many of the political thrust that we'll see are heavily influenced by white institutions, white progressive liberal institutions, curating which black voices get elevated, and they're going to curate the black voices that get elevated, but are not talking about fundamentally undermining white institutional power to make decisions about where resources go in making decisions. So reason why I want to start big like that, because in the state of Maryland, as I mentioned earlier, it's a Democratic Party stronghold. So even though we have a two term Republican governor in some states, he'd be a moderate Democrat. And so what you have is you have a legislature that wants to claim to be. Are progressive, and a part of the legislature's claim to be progressive, a part of what they're going to do is they're going to elevate certain voices and diminish others, right? So a part of what I'm concerned about in this current landscape is that there are people who are connected to the Democratic Party establishment who are going to be the black voices for black people, right? And the question we got to ask as a community, what we have to ask them is, you know, to what extent are they accountable to black people who are not adjacent to a lot of these white political and financial networks, as opposed to being, you know, appendages of the Democratic Party machine, and even locally, you know. I mean, you know, I think one of the questions that I think remains to be answered, you know, Brandon Scott is going to be, you know, the next mayor of Baltimore, the trends that have gone on over the past several years continue. And the question that there is to ask about, you know, Brianna Scott is, you know, to what extent will he be able to be accountable to black folks that are not adjacent to some of the white progressive networks that were really pivotal in getting him elected right. And I think that's, that's a question that is going to be answered in our, you know, asking questions of him and seeing what him and his administration is going to do, because, and I'll kind of end your, you know, answer this question on this is that, I think this question of the infusion of white liberals and progressives and positions of power in Baltimore locally, I think, is a very instrumental question, because we're going to hear more about a willingness around like legalization of cannabis, about, you know, criminal justice reform, right? And one of the quotes that I find myself using a lot and talking to folks in the political realm is the, you know, the Malcolm X quote about how you can, you know, if you put a knife in the person's bed nine inches, pull it out three you can't say you've made progress. You have to pull it out and begin to heal, right? Or you can even talk about progress. And I'm concerned that, you know, they're gonna pull the knife out three inches. Call that progress, right? You know what I mean,
right? And not only will they call it progress, there'll be folks who buy into it and also name it progress, especially for those folks that you kind of mentioned earlier, that that are propped up by those by those particular institutions, since we're talking about Maryland, and you mentioned Scott, I'm curious about, have you seen any changes since the arrival of the new Speaker of the House, Adrian Jones, or the new senate president, Bill Ferguson? Have you seen any change changes around them that might give you some indication of where things might be with Scott moving forward.
So I think the best way I can answer that is the change that I've seen is that me and my organization have more access to some backroom conversations. And I'm sure that a lot of other people who are considered more progressive who are getting access to more backroom conversations. Now, the question is, does that translate into actually moving policy that usually wouldn't have been moved before, right? And, you know, unfortunately, given the pandemic for this past session, we weren't really able to test that and really see, you know, if this legislature would be much different, I think in 20 the 2019 session, a part of the conversation, I think legitimate, was, you know, for folks to get their, you know, get their grounding, like for Speaker Jones to get her grounding to, you know, learn the lay of The land. And same for, you know, Senate President Ferguson, um, but we'll see. And I think, I think the biggest thing I would want to stress to people, and this is true of speaker Jones, Senate President Ferguson, and, you know, eventual Mayor Brandon Scott, is that we, we're going to have to challenge them, right? Even if they're nice to us, you know, I'm saying, even if we're cool with them, you know, I'm saying we're gonna have to challenge, you know, saying because I mean people who mean, well, in those positions of power, I think sometimes it's easy for people to simulate, like, if I was them, I would do this, right? And it's just very different when you're in the seat and you have all these powerful forces converging on you. We should not depend on a person's goodwill, you know, I'm saying we gotta. We gonna have to make these people do what needs to be done.
Absolutely So on that note, are you seeing any incorporated resistance as a result of this change of the guard? Yeah.
Yeah, you know, you know, what's interesting is, think about Maryland, Baltimore, Maryland politics. And I'm sure this happens other places. You know, there's so much inside baseball, and there's so much like posturing that folks are doing. And so a lot of which a lot of, what at least I've observed is a lot of, like, hiding the ball, saying and, you know, like, so people aren't clear about where stuff is coming from. And so, you know, so politics, particularly in Annapolis, the legislature, is very slippery. The other thing is, in terms of incorporated resistance, there are legislators that I think have taken advantage of the opportunity to present themselves as being kind of progressive heroes or champions and and so, you know, again, it's One of those things where it could be good if they use it in the way that they're willing it for the community, or it could be something they're using as a thing to pursue their next kind of ambition, you know. And so, you know, there are people in the legislature who, and let me, let me give two specific examples, because I want to be too abstract. Let me give two specific examples. So State Senator Will Smith, he's a state senator out of montgomery county. He's the current chair of the of the judicial proceedings committee. So you know, lbs has worked on a lot of criminal justice related advocacy. So it goes through, goes through that committee. And the thing about Senator Smith is that, you know, he's a person down on many issues. He's been good, you know, he's somebody that's voted the way we needed him to. He's voted badly on some pieces of legislation in the past, but overall, he's someone that he's in a district that's very progressive, you know, and he's black, right? So there's a part of it where, and, you know, he's somebody that's going to be very important to watch, right? Because, you know, he his first time as chair was last session. It was cut short by the pandemic. He's somebody that we're going to need to watch, right, and we're going to need to, we're going to need to make sure we push him to live up to, I think what he's kind of putting himself in position to be understood, as he made a comment to in response to Governor Hogan, where he said he's not putting out any mandatory minimums, right? And then Hogan said something about him not deserving to be there. How genuine is that? You know, we'll see, you know what I mean, but he's somebody that we're going to have to watch. I don't want to go on too long. No,
you're fine. You're totally fine. It just you mentioned Hogan, you mentioned Smith. And I really want to talk about, I mean, I really want to talk about to very specifically to within the Democratic Party, because there are certain people we know, you know what I mean, like, I see who you are, you know. And there are some people who we don't necessarily see. And I'm really interested within Maryland, in terms of within the Democratic Party, those though the struggle that's going on between, like, this more corporate, centrist democratic person, and then the more progressive democratic what is that struggle? And I'm curious who they're there for, like, Who's Who are they trying to please in those on those different sides?
Yep. So I think it's a complicated question, because I think there are people who see part of the issue is, is that there isn't a whole lot of ideological clarity, right? You know? So, so I think, and so as a result, I think it makes it that's what makes it complicated. So, so, so I talked about Senator Smith. I'll give an example of somebody else that I think helps get to your question. So when the social unrest began, Speaker Jones announced a work group, a specific work group to look at policing, and the person she asked to chair that work group is a state delegate, Vanessa Atterbury, out of Howard County. Right now, Vanessa Atterbury is interesting because, you know, I like her personally. I find her. I find her to be a nice person. In terms of her politics. I see her as the moderate Democrat. She's somebody who voted for mandatory minimums, voted for the Johns Hopkins private police force. You know, she's someone. Who is like is a moderate, moderate Democrat. Having her chair the policing work group struck me as odd, because she's not somebody that I find to be somebody who has been a champion on issues of racial justice, right. And one of the things that you know in my conversations with her and others who have who I've made kind of similar comments about publicly, sometimes they reduce it to like Dave and I thought we were cool. Or why would you you know what I mean, and what I say to people is it's not a quest, because I had the same argument with a conversation with Alex Hughes, who's the Chief of Staff of speaker Jones. She was also the speaker, the Chief of Staff under speaker Bush. And I had written something that was critical of Luke Clippinger, who's the Chair of judiciary in the house and a Baltimore City delegate. And you know what I said to her, what I said to Alex? I said, Look, you know, I don't know him personally, right? What I can tell is his legislative efforts and his public pronouncements. It's clear to me that he's not a champion of racial justice. So when I'm talking about racial justice, I'm not talking about like, you think black people are equal to white people. I'm talking about like, fundamentally challenging the system of white supremacy, right, and all of its machinations and so, so, so delegate Atterbury, being the chair of the policing work group, to me, felt like an example of that incorporated resistance, where, you know, Delegate at a very someone who's who's moderate, right, and whose understanding of the issues of policing is not to the level of other legislators who have worked on this issue, right? If speaker Jones would have had somebody like delegate Eric Barron out of Prince George's County, right, or somebody like even Stephanie Smith, who's the Chair of the Baltimore City delegation, these are legislators who have pushed the envelope, right? These are legislators who have channeled to Democratic Party establishment, right? But these aren't the people who are given those very important posts, right? As it relates to, you know? And so I think that so, that's why I say it's complicated, because in terms of like, the struggle the incorporated resistance, and the struggle between the corporate part of the Democratic Party and the more progressive in Maryland. Maryland seems to have mastered this art of incorporating resistance, of giving out the symbolic stuff, right, and not moving on some of the more substantive policy that's going to make a big impact. Now, with that being said, what I will say is, I think we do have an opportunity to make them go further than they're normally willing to go. Okay, I just think there's so much appetite for it. But again, we have to make them
do it. So to that, you would say, you would say that this current climate and these recent protests may have some influence on moving the conversations around policy for a little bit more, even if it's just because folks don't want to look bad,
I would, I would say exactly that. I would say, I would say, it's given us greater opportunities, but we're going to have to really push to make sure those opportunities are realized, right?
Um, I have another question, but before I get to that, I know one of the things you mentioned, you mentioned, look out. You know, we need to keep our eye on this person. We've got we gotta challenge this person. I really want to know more and be able to tell people more about what holding these folks accountable looks like.
So, so I would say this, it's really important legislators care the most about people in their district, right? So I would say one of the most important things to do is to keep tabs on what your legislator is doing. And it may seem small. And one of the things I tell people is it seems small to do this, but consistently writing to your legislator and periodically calling are things that legislators pay attention to, right? Because what they're clear about is people are representative of larger networks, right? And if and if someone who is active in their office has a bad experience, they understand that it'll impact them electorally. So So really, the bottom line is, because sometimes what people do is they'll talk to legislators that are not in their district, but may be important or influential. And one of the things I say to people is connect to somebody who you know in that person's district, and have that person contact and interface with that legislator, because that's that's real. That's ultimately what you know, legislators respond to. And in my experience of legislative advocacy, you know, that's been one of the biggest things. The other thing I would say, in terms of being familiar with what your legislator does, find out what committees they serve on, the mayor. General Assembly website is actually pretty good about recording the hearings, and so I would make it a point to watch hearings in that committee that that legislator is on. It's time consuming to watch some of the hearings, but if you really want to know what that person is saying in Annapolis versus what they're saying when they come back, that is the place to really see it. You know, say, because they're used to. A lot of these legislators are used to being able to tell us in Baltimore all kinds of stuff that isn't true, because they know people haven't watched any of the hearings, right, or haven't seen the stuff in
Annapolis is some of, is some of the work that you do around sharing basically, like, what folks have said in Annapolis, absolutely,
that's what, that's what makes people really, I mean, legislators have gotten really mad at us because of that, because, because it's almost, they almost have said it to me, like, come on. Why would you do that? Like, that's, you know, I mean, like, and in a friendly way, like, come on, you know. And I've had to tell them, like, I'm not playing the game, y'all are playing like, I'm not just not playing that game. And I said, we can still be cool. I'm just playing a different game. And there are people who like, won't speak to me anymore because they're like, You posted something on Facebook and that was messed up. It's like, all right, right.
What can you tell us about the pedagogy and race equity bill.
So, so, if I remember correctly, correctly, so you talking about the this was an amendment to the Kirwan commission bill, right? Yeah, so, so education in Maryland, and education advocacy over, over for a long period of time, has been overwhelmingly led by white folks and and so the reason why I say that is because a lot of the conversation about education in Maryland and in Baltimore has sent on the question of money. And while money is important, I think one of the things that gets left out is the methods of educating children that are present in our school system. And I think those conversations happen kind of in meetings or convenings and stuff like that. But in terms of policy, like in Annapolis or with policymakers, that conversation is not very robust, and so a part of what happens is, and this is a unique education, but it's a place where it's rampant. There's a lot of profiteering off the suffering of black kids, right? Whether it's a nonprofit sector, you know, human social service like, there's a lot of profiteering off the suffering of black people, particularly and and so our thought was, if we put something in the bill that mandates some things around racial equity, and we gave some really specific language, because sometimes you can say racial equity, that can mean a bunch of stuff, right, We put some really specific language in there that would help to narrow it down so that you get more legitimate stuff. Our thinking was it would encourage certain professionals to be in the space and discourage others. So that was the overall thinking. The amendment got watered down, and I don't even, I don't even, I don't even think it made it into the overall bill, because about rushed session ended this past session, right? That was the overall thinking. And I'll say this, and I think this is important for people to really, to really get a sense of, is that I mentioned earlier that, you know, education advocacy in Maryland, for the most part, has been very much white LED, not only that, but it has also been the case that approaches to socializing black kids in these majority white spaces, I would argue, have had a negative impact on black youth in ways that nobody's studying, because you're not gonna get a grant for that, like you're not gonna get a grant for how white nonprofit organizations or white education institutions hurt black children. But I would argue that that is a harm that is done to black children that we need to come to grips with. Right? I had a conversation with the chairwoman of appropriations, Maggie McIntosh a couple of years ago about this question, oh, and, and, what she admitted to me, pretty frankly, was that the concerns that I were raising are not concerns that she was really deep into, wow, you know, I'm saying, like, the question, like, for her, her thing was about, you Know, poverty being a proxy for race, right? Get more resources then. And what I explained was that if you're not using the methodologies of socialization that people of African descent have produced to socialize and raise our kids, right, to be fully functional human beings, they can actually do more harm than good. That's not a concept that many people. Who are the starches, staunchest advocates for education, understand, and, in fact, are freaked out by because, because, for some people, it's a business model, right? Their business model is, we need more money for kids, not to School programs, right? You know, so that's, so, that's, that's what made us put that bill, and we, you know, we understood that, that, you know, that bill that turned into an amendment would be an uphill battle, and there are even black legislators that don't quite get the importance of that, you know, but we thought it was important to at least put the conversation out there, so that as a community, we can begin to have that conversation and figure out
how to intervene. No, that's super important. I feel like I gotta have you on just so that we could talk about that a little bit more. Can you tell folks? What should we know, particularly people in Maryland, what should we know about the Maryland Public Information Act?
So one of the important things about police accountability is the question of, how is it that people can know what law enforcement officers are doing? So I, you know, I testified in front of the judiciary, and one of the questions I posed to the to the committee members was, if I would ask you, is there a gun trace Task Force in other jurisdictions? Your only legitimate answer is, I don't know. And the reason for that is because, because of the Maryland Public Information Act, which is kind of in the category of workers rights right, or the rights of public employees, because the idea behind the Maryland Public Information Act is to say, you know, the the constituents that should have access to what government's doing, but when it comes to personnel, workers have rights to not have this stuff over scrutinized and their personal information out there. So I can't, I can't do a public information at request on someone's health records, right, right? That's, you know, reasonable. So that, so Right, right, so that. So that's what now, what happens is the investigatory and disciplinary file of a police officer under Maryland law is considered a personnel file, and therefore not subject to the random Public Information Act, right? So that presents an issue, because what that means is that if an officer has a history of abusing the community. The only people who have access to that information is people within the department. And so that's one of the pieces of legislation that we focused on last session, which was amending the Npia such that these disciplinary files and investigatory files were not considered protected by the PIA, and I'll tell you some of the conversations and arguments we have, both with the police chiefs and sheriffs and with the chairperson of the committee, because what we were asking for, you know, there's a whole bunch of things within the law within the police department in terms of discipline, some of which I don't care about, like an officer doesn't, you know, put their uniform on right now. Care about that. I don't need that. Or, you know, and even stuff like, if an officer is caught, I don't, know, having an extramarital affair, like, I don't really, I don't care, you know, I'm saying, right? But we were asking for a list of things that we wanted to know about officers, which was use of force, sexual assault, you know, their veracity and dishonesty. I already said use of force, criminal activity, right? So there was a list of things kind of along those lines. And we wanted the full file made available. The concession that we were given from both the chairperson and the police chiefs and sheriffs was, we'll give you all of what they call the sustained findings. What that means is that when, when a complaint is lodged against an officer and the investigation happens when it ends. There are a bunch of categories, but there are two major categories you'll have, either sustained or unsustained. Right. Sustained means we found that you did something wrong. Unsustained means we don't know if you did something wrong. We can't substantiate whether this claim is true or not. They only wanted to give us the sustains to which police said, No, you don't want the ones that you investigated and you thought were legitimate. We want all of the investigations that are done right.
And especially there's a pattern like you find you you're not finding whatever doesn't mean anything to me. If there's a list of unsustained ones, that's
exactly so that was exactly our point, and that was different they, you know, if session had gone on, it's normal, like, I don't know that we would have, we would have reached the compromise. I think unsustained was off the table for them. Now, again, given the current social unrest, I think we may be able to get more. But, yeah, the police chiefs and sheriffs, they were real clear with us. We they and what they say is, they say that they don't want, they don't want a whole bunch of the officers personal information to be put out there and used against them. And particularly they were talking about in the case of needing an officer to testify in the case of like, if someone, if they're prosecuting a homicide case, and this officer was someone who was a witness that having the unsustained would make that officer not a good witness, to which what we said will say you need better police officers absolutely
different. Why is that? Why? Why is that a legitimate argument in the first place? Right? Wow. Um, I think one of the things that I find most shocking about the Maryland Public Information Act is some of the things that I would think would be automatic and reasonable for the public to know if you did have excessive force, and you've had a pattern of excessive force, I feel like the public should know if you do have criminal activity. The public should know if you do have something around sexual assault on your records, sustained or unsustained, that should be public information. That's not the same as whether or not you have diabetes, whether or not you cheated on your wife, whether or not you got two demerits for coming in late. So that's definitely something that I hope is pushed through, because there's so many times where I hear about a shooting, and then, then I'll hear about their record, and they've been doing all of this stuff the whole time, and it's like, you know, you want to say to me, body cameras and police reform, but this guy's been, he's been showing you who he was. This was never hidden from you. More to that, all of these police protections. Can you talk to us about the law enforcement Bill of Rights? And what is that?
So? Law enforcement officer Bill of Rights, l, u, b, r. It was codified, I believe, in 1974 and it's a set of protections that outline discipline, but it, in my estimation, gives officers rights Above Beyond their constitutional rights. So just a few examples of what I mean. So one of the ones that people kind of latched on to is that officers have five business days before they're required to make a statement on the record in an incident where they've alleged to have engaged in excessive force. Right? Officers are entitled When so, so when an officer does something, the police chief hands down discipline. The officer doesn't want to take the discipline, it goes to a trial board. Now, before 2016 there was a prohibition of non police officers to serve on those trial boards. What we were able to do in 2016 which was the most we were able to get accomplished, but not enough, nearly, was that we removed the prohibition. So now you can have non police officers on the trial boards. Now that requires the commissioner to act on it. And so, so, so, but it's one of those protections where you know you're going to have mostly police officers adjudicating issues with other police officers, and officers entitled to all the information against them, you know when they're subject to the child board. So all the information against them is subject to all that information only sworn law enforcement can participate in the initial internal investigation of an allegation of excessive force, right? So these are just examples of all of the protections that police officers get. And so the reason why this is important is because, you know, police are just they're normally policing and investigating themselves, and they clearly have a professional interest in protecting each other. And actually, Maryland was the first state to have had a law enforcement officer Bill of Rights. And in fact, in 1975 there was a conference held in Maryland on the eastern shore of fraternal orders of police around the country to model a law enforcement officer Bill of Rights in other states. And so now we're one of about 15 or 16 states that have a law enforcement officer Bill of Rights. One of them is Minnesota. Minnesota has a law enforcement officers Bill of Rights. So, so, yeah, it's it. And again, it's one of those things that is framed in terms of worker protections. Right, right? And this is one of the things that the FOP and the police hide behind, is they say, Well, we are employees like anyone else. We deserve, you know, the same protections that other public sector workers get. And a part of what you know we say in response is that, if they you know, public safety is a public good, right? It's supposed to be accountable to us. How can we hold them accountable? We don't know. We don't have access to information to know what they're doing. So, yeah, so that's, that's the Leo br, law enforcement rights
and speaking of protection, I know a lot. I've been hearing a lot more around. And I'll make this a two part, because we're getting to the bottom of the hour. Can you tell us about one of the most ones that I hear about most right now are qualified immunity and police union contracts in terms of police protections? What are those? And how are police shielded by those two things?
So I'll start with the police. The police contracts is the most important one. You know, the qualified immunity part is it, to me, is an appendage of a larger issue of how officers are prosecuted, and the tools people use to get information about what police are doing. The Fraternal Order of Police is central in this because as I, as I talked about the PIA and l, o, b, r are all put they're all in terms of the legislative frame. Are put in the context of workers rights, the FOP contracts are the places where a lot of power is wielded about the nature of how law enforcement is conducted because because of the laws around collective bargaining, only the collective bargaining unit and management are able to be in conversation with each other about what they're negotiating. There's no public there's no way for the public to be involved in the actual negotiation. So what happens is, there's a lot of stuff about what law enforcement are required to do, the protections they have that are in the collective bargaining contract. And so I would even argue, when you think about the fact that in Baltimore, public safe policing is a third of the budget, and you think about the fact that in many respects, the FOP is subsidized in large part by public dollars, right? I've often described them as a special interest group financed by subsidized by public dollars, right? And so and so. I think those police union contracts are really important. I think that one of the things that is going to be important for Baltimore is we need to have conversations with, you know, with the spring the staff is eventually gonna be mayor, to have a conversation about how we want him to negotiate on the contract and be active on the kinds of things we want to see in it. Since it's prohibited by law for that process to be public. And I think a part of what we're going to have to do, just as a community, is a part of how we elect people to public office is going to be based on what we expect from them as negotiators on these contracts, right? Because I think a lot of the internal practices of law enforcement and various municipalities are governed by what's in the contract, and these contracts down to how you fire somebody, down to how complaints are handled. Like there's just a bunch of things in those contracts that have a lot of influence. And I would advise people to just look up, look up the contract that Baltimore has with the FOP, and you'll see all the stuff that they're able to negotiate.
That is a lot. I'm going to go over to the audience. Crystal says Paulo Freire suggests we do this through I'm not going to say that word right. Consign situation. How
do you say it? I say conversation which is developing
a critical awareness of one's social reality through reflection and action. Action is fundamental, because it is the process of changing the reality. Paulo Freire says that we all acquire social myth which have a dominant tendency, and so learning is a critical process which depends upon uncovering real problems and actual need. Thanks for sharing that crystal. And Aubrey just says, I'll just put this out there. How do we syndicate your show? I'm just saying, Thanks. Wow, you've given us so much, and it's like so many more questions I could ask you, um, a lot of them around, like are around. You know, there's so many attempts at reform these body cameras, bias training. I don't know if there's any evidence that have said that have pointed to these leading to any reduction of excessive force. I haven't seen any, and I've actually looked, but you, with your eye, have probably seen more. So I'm curious about that, if you have. And then the last question I'll ask is around, tell us about community led policing, and what does that look like.
So So on the first question, I concur with the observation that there is no evidence that those efforts, in fact, you know, we're lbs, was an organization that when, like when Ferguson happened, and the National, you know, conversation around policing really started to pick up. We were really clear that, in fact, body cameras is, in many respects, was another excuse to give more money to police, right? And that police don't need. The other thing is that so cameras, training, this is all more money to law enforcement. What some what's important folks to recognize is that the question that we're dealing with on law enforcement is about power to discipline. Everything else is secondary. The community should have mechanisms of oversight such that they can dispense discipline. And to put it even more simpler, if an officer knows that no one is going to be able to find out the things that they've done, and they have entire institution organized around keeping it from the public that people are going to feel comfortable doing things that that show a lack of regard for the humanity of black people. And so for me, that's the fundamental thing. Everything else is secondary, right? Because you can have the camera footage, right? They can turn it off. It could be not a discipline in court, you know? It could be narrated as something you could even start the camera at one point and ended. So, so it's about the power to discipline in terms of what does so. So I think that when we think, when we think about non western societies, when we study non western societies, we see that the function of police and prisons is a particularly unique thing in the West, right? That non western societies don't have essential to them, policing in prison apparatus, right? And part of the issue is that many of us are not socialized in our professional academic training to really rigorously study the political economy of non western societies. So we're taught to see them as more primitive and less advanced. But if we look at some of the highly advanced civilizations, both in indigenous American societies or indigenous African societies, we will see that, that there are ways of social organization that are not that don't require police in prisons. And so I think when we so the ultimate vision is to imagine a world where we don't need police and prisons. I think the steps to getting there, I think, has to do with rethinking what it takes to address issues of violence and crime in our community. So part of what happens, I think, is that when you see people talk about like homicide, right? And we need to, you know, do something about the violence. We put it all in one box, right? And we just say it's all but to me, there's a, there's a very big difference between a fight that got just escalated out of control and a retaliation related to some drug trafficking and stuff, right? Like, they're different. Violence is it encompasses a bunch of things, and so a part of it is developing a community based, community led, Institutional Responses to some of these issues, so that police do not deploy to situations that they're not very useful for, right? So one example when you think about things like conflict resolution, like one of the things because of just the lack the divestment in the black community, and just in many respects, the evisceration of many of our social networks we don't have as A community, widely understood, widely bought into mechanisms of conflict resolution, right? If we had that, I imagine there are a lot of situations that would decrease the amount of times Police are deployed to particular situations, right? So I think a part of what we need to do is think about what are all these different issues that emerge in our community that we lump into this category of violence and then build, you know, different community owned and controlled institutional formations that address those particular problems, such that police would be be the last resort.
Is that is that the rose. To defunding or police abolition, is that the road? Yeah, it sounds like Absolutely. And the question that I was going to ask you at the end, which I feel like you already answered, was around like, what can the average citizen do? What can people do right now and today? And I feel like you talked a bit about, you know, calling your legislation, mail it, writing letters to them, watching what they're doing in sessions, and that sort of thing. In closing, I'd like to hear more about what you're up to next. How can people follow you, get connected and support some of the work you're doing?
So a few things. One is, of course, like and subscribe to lbs Baltimore and all your relevant social media, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, lbsbltimore.com you know, we're involved in a lot of stuff. You know, Lady Breon, who's on the leadership team of our group, is working on the Black Arts District over in West Baltimore, on the Pennsylvania Avenue corridor. And in fact, you know, last year, we were able to get a design state designation of the Pennsylvania Avenue corridor. It's a black arts district. And so the next steps in that is to work to get a building on Pennsylvania Avenue that would be a Black Arts Incubator and event space to be a container for black creatives. And I think one of the benefits to, you know, this black arts district work is that, unfortunately, I think a lot of our black creatives are having to be proximate and dependent on, you know, white arts institutions, you know. So I think for us, the beauty of the Black Arts District is to provide that alternative space to really be centered in the world and work of black creatives. And Pennsylvania Avenue has a rich black arts and culture entertainment history. And so, you know, just so, so one of the things in terms of support is just, you know, make sure, if you're talking to your city council person or your legislator, just tell them, you know, you support that particular effort. That's something, you know, big that we're working on. In terms of our legislative work. We have, we're going to be, you know, in Annapolis this coming session, working to repeal the law enforcement officer Bill of Rights, to amend the Maryland Public Information Act. What we're also going to do is we're going to we've talked about it the past couple of sessions, but we're going to go this session is going to be a big priority for us to look at the deep the legalization of cannabis, with an emphasis on the revenues going to the communities most impacted by the war on drugs. Because one part of, part of, part of what we're worried about. Because, because, you know, what's interesting, I've heard some rumblings that there are legislators and folks in leadership that say that they're inclined to repeal the Leo br, right, and inclined to move on some of the stuff that we've been pushing for. And sometimes what I think folks fail to mention realize is that, in many respects, we're not going as far as we'd like to go in terms of what we need. And for me, it would not be enough just to open the doors in terms of police accountability. We need resources for our communities to repair the harm that was right, right, and so that's going to be a very important aspect of what we push for during the Maryland General Assembly. And for us, it's going to be like you, even if you do all the good stuff on police reform, if you're not trying to repair the harm, it's still the same, right? You know what I mean? So that's so those are going to be big issues
in connection with repairing the harm. Is there any conversations around folks who have been arrested for distribution of cannabis. Like, is there anything connected with, okay, if we are going to legalize or decriminalize it, can we now go back to those folks and be like, my bad, you get to get out anybody? Yeah. So
one of the things we actually worked on, a piece of legislation in 2019 session, and we partnered with the state's attorney, Marilyn Mosby, on a place of legislation that would have that would vacate marijuana charges. So it's different than expungement, because expungement is like it was on your record, it got taken off vacation, means it gets erased like it never happened, right? So we were working on it was a two part vacation bill. So one part was the was the marijuana conviction vacation. The other piece was vacating convictions that were based on the testimony of corrupt police officers. Paraphrasing it, we were able to get past that first of the first part around the corrupt offices and not the marijuana convictions part. And so that's something that we'll continue to work on. Getting those things vacated. I imagine that any legalization bill will have a vacation clause in it, and we're going to make sure that if legalization passes, that some. That they capture. It's a part of that piece of legislation.
Okay, thank you again, so much for your time, for joining us and talking about this. I could talk to you a whole lot more. Actually, want to ask you to come back on. At some point towards the end, I really want to talk more about the nonprofit industrial complex. I read, I'm pretty sure it was you who wrote the white paper or the black paper. Very, very good read. I have it somewhere, somewhere around here, all highlighted and everything. So I would love to have you back sometime this month to go into a deep dive, and just like exploring that a bit more, let's do it. Alright, yay. I'm gonna hold you to that. So stay on. Thanks everyone for joining, for watching. Thank you, everyone for all of your comments. Aubrey crystal, Ty Franca, D Jones, Luca, Yesenia, Angela, Hannah, Derek McGowan, other people who decided not to comment, but chose to show up and watch anyway. Thank you so much for all of your time and energy. Look forward to seeing you guys next week, next Saturday, we will be discussing closing the digital divide. So join us next Saturday, where we'll talk about closing the digital divide. Feel free also, if you have any additional questions to go ahead and still write them in the chat. I'll make sure that that they get forwarded along. What else is there anything else? Nope, I think that that's about it. So thanks again, everybody for showing up and being here with us. And have a good night. Bye.
I need to know everything. Who in the what in the where? I need everything. Trust me. I hear what you're saying, but allegiance. Know what you're telling me. I'm Curious George. I hop in the Porsche five and a horse. I'm ready for war. I'm coming for throws to turn it with ghosts. I need to know everything you.