September 21, 2023 • 48 mins
Movement lawyer and political commentator, or “professional loudmouth”, Olayemi Olurin sheds light on what she knows about the American criminal “justice" system - which is a ton. Having come from The Bahamas as a young woman, she had seen plenty of poor Black folks. But she says America has a very different way of treating Black and brown people, which is that there is a focus on breaking down, criminalization and imprisonment, and just maybe there’s a lucrative payoff for it. A report by the ACLU shows that prisoners generate over $11 BILLION of goods and services and are rarely paid anything. She and Laverne talk about bail reform, the shady habit of over-policing and underfunding poor communities, and the way the prison pipeline perpetuates itself. “Our environments are who we become.”
Please rate, review, subscribe and share The Laverne Cox Show with everyone you know. You can find Laverne on Instagram and Twitter @LaverneCox and on Facebook at @LaverneCoxForReal.
As always, stay in the love.
Mentioned in this Episode:
Mass Incarceration Is Slavery (Olurin, The Appeal)
Tyre Nichols Was Killed by Black Police Officers Because the Whole System Is Racist (Olurin, Teen Vogue)
Bayard Rustin (PBS Newshour, YouTube)
Podcast: American Police (Throughline, 2020)
Kalief Browder, 1993-2015 (2015, The New Yorker)
How do I know if a source is credible?
Links of Interest:
What is bail reform? (ACLU)
How Bail Reform, Crime Surge Mix in Angry Debate (The Washington Post, 2022)
Criminal Justice Statistics (The Marshall Project)
Criminal Fact Sheet (NAACP)
The challenges facing black men - and the case for action (The Brookings Institute, 2020)
The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime and the Making of Modern Urban America
Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, Noam Chomsky
Other Episodes Mentioned:
Housing Segregation and Structural Racism w/ Richard Rothstein
CREDITS:
Executive Producers: Sandie Bailey, Alex Alcheh, Lauren Hohman, Tyler Klang & Gabrielle Collins
Producer & Editor: Brooke Peterson-Bell
Associate Producer: Akiya McKnight
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to The Laverne Cox Show, a production of Shondaland
Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
The reality is the fact that you were raised into
that you were born into that community, into that neighborhood
where this is what you have to contend.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
But that's on purpose. It's not the system coming in like, WHOA,
how do I deal with this? This is a problem.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
The system is like, ah, look at that, round them up,
and it's on purpose.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Hello everyone, and welcome to the Laverne Cox Show. My
name is Laverne Cox. It's a really interesting time in
the world right in this post twenty twenty era, where
there was, you know, some of the largest political protests
against police brutality that we've seen in our nation's history,
(00:58):
and some reforms came out of that, not a lot,
not as many as a lot of people would have
liked and post that. There are a lot of media
outlets and even conflicting data that suggests that veil reform
(01:19):
is directly correlated with what feels like a rise in
crime in major cities like New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, etc.
And I wanted to have a conversation with someone about
that with nuance acknowledging the inherent white supremacy of our
(01:41):
criminal system and how it was designed to disproportionately incarcerate,
you know, black and brown people, and the corruption and
how inhumane people are treated in prisons. I believe that
everyone is a human being, no matter what they've done,
and they should be treated with humanity, no matter what
they've done or accused of having done. That is a
(02:02):
core value of mine. And what about people who are
experiencing higher rates of crime, who are victims of crime?
What about public safety? And when I discovered Oliami oh Lauren,
I thought she might be the perfect person to talk
with about this subject. O liamy oh lauren is a
(02:24):
movement lawyer, political commentator, and writer originally from Nasau, the Bahamas.
O'lauren is a public defender at the Legal Aid Society
in New York City and a leader in the movement
to close Riker's Detention Center. She's a frequent media presence
and has appeared on outlets like The Breakfast Club, Last
Week Tonight with John Oliver, MSNBC, CBS, NPR, NBC, and
(02:48):
many more. She also co hosts The Leftist Mafia on YouTube,
as well as her own call in show Tea Time
with Olay, and she has a monthly essay newsletter called
Laura Naughty, where she critically analyzes different issues of our time.
She received her jd from Saint John's University and her
BA from Ohio University. Please enjoy my conversation with Oliami
(03:14):
Oh Lauren, Welcome Ole to the podcast. How are you
feeling today?
Speaker 3 (03:23):
I am great. I'm feeling good.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
So okay. First of all, I have to say that
I don't know when it was that I became obsessed
with you. You're so much fun and so unexpected, like
the dragon ball z in the background, like you're such
a nerd, but like you're so fly, and you happen
to be a really smart, well researched, brilliant attorney. Can
(03:49):
you tell us a little bit about that work. Let's
start there that the work that you do as a
public defender. Are you still doing that work because I
know you're doing a lot more in the media now
and you're writing a lot more.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Yes, I'm moving Lauren, political commentator. I like to call
it like a professional loud mouth. Make my life easy
to encapsulate at all. So I am not in the
court day to day as a PD anymore, but that's
as a very recently right now, what I'm trying to
do basically is advocacy has to extend beyond the courtroom,
right Like, if you're in the courtroom, you're doing your
best to contend with what the circumstances already are. But
(04:19):
if I want my clients to be not between that
rock and the hard place, I need to be out
in the world trying to shift social consciousness. And as
much as I love to I love the work that
I do, I am still just one person. But there
are lots of other incredibly talented people that are doing
the same work, that have the same advocacy, but they
don't have their foot in the door in these media spaces.
So what I'm currently doing now is basically locating and
plugging them into the media and stuff so that we
(04:40):
can do better at combating these narratives that basically keep
us incarcerated.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
So I consume a lot of Most of the media
I consume now is with be independent media, would be
probably leftist media, a lot of Internet stuff everyone on
leftists Mafia. I watch regularly for the most part, and
it is rare to see black faces in that space,
and on Young Turks, we have shot Richie and we
(05:07):
have Nina Turner, so there are black faces in those spaces.
But it feels, I feel scattered, and a lot of
the conversation on the left left feels class reductionist to me.
I don't know if you get that sense, and doesn't
feel intersextionual enough. And so it's like and then it's
almost like race becomes inconvenient to talk about or too
(05:31):
divisive and it doesn't feel intersexual enough. Intersectionality has become
a really bad word, especially with the governor of Florida,
and it's so necessary one little like soapbox. I want
to just kind of go on. I was thinking about,
you know, Ron Santus is like trying to ban AP.
I think he basically has, or at least they've changed
the curriculum for AP African American studies and high schools
(05:53):
in Florida. And he was like, they have stuff like
queer theory and intersectionality, and what does that have to
do with history? And it's just like that is history.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
That's literally the epitome of history.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Like well, some like you know, by rusting, like you know,
work with Martin Luther King organize the March on Washington
is black and gay. Yeah, and even the intersectional piece,
Like there's so many conversations I see now going on
about like what's going on with men and and and
the crisis for men, and a lot of a lot
(06:24):
of them are white men. And it's like, you can't
have that conversation without intersectionality because you have to talk about.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Class, right, But they don't want to do that.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
So it's like it's it's just a way of analyzing things.
It's like a way to have a complicated approach things.
But I guess the nuance isn't like, isn't helpful to
maintain the system as it is?
Speaker 2 (06:46):
No, America America is all about that. America loves to
carve the problem up into parts, right. They love to
criticize a part of the problem. That way, you don't
talk about the overall structure that you need.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Right.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
That's why they won't talk about prisons, but they'll talk
about private prisons, right, They'll talk about non Liverpool wages,
but they won't talk about capitalism overall. You know, they
love to break it up like that, And I think
it's because it's not to me a coincidence that you
see when you see movements are successful, the first thing
that they do is they start trying to prohibit what
information we have access to. Right you see the Black
Lives Matter protests take off and George Floyd and then
(07:16):
immediately what you've seen them do is make this concerted
effort to keep everything out of the books because they
recognize that if you know certain things, it changes your position.
Like a few days ago, I had someone say to me,
I tweeted out a Hue Newton quote and they responded, some,
you know, you know our community, how they can be
with their homophobia and the transphobia.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
So she she can wait to jump in as an opportunity.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
She was like, do you think Hughey Newton would have
been a transactivist? And I was like, first of all, actually, yes, probably,
And I supposed to a screenshot from his book when
he had a whole chapter an essay about needing to
join in with the liberation of LGBT people and women.
So I was like, one, yes, but two, if you hadn't,
that would not be a position. I wouldn't be like, ah, right,
he's a transphobe. Gotta get on that but that's what
(07:57):
they do, right, So we were not informed. But if
we learn more about things and people realize, hey, this
is not actually new the thing that you're pretending just
because it's the first time you're hearing about it, or
it's being used as a political pawn in this way,
it's not actually new. There's actually a lot of information
and people change and you see that over time. So yeah,
they don't want any any form of intersectionality.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Well it gets deep. I mean I think about the
piece of you know, I just focused on the Breakfast Club.
I loved your appearance in the Breakfast Club. You were
there before me. Were wow, and it was a beautiful interview,
and the comments on YouTube were great. And then they're
you know, some of the excerpts on Instagram were so transphobic.
And I'm not you know, I'm I'm used to it.
(08:37):
I'm not bothered. I and none of it's really even
new anymore. Part of me, it's like, can you come
up with something new? You know, and they're just misdondering
me or whatever. But like that resistance too, it's so
deep to me. But like for black folks, for us
who understand in a deep way, systemic oppression would then
(09:00):
and go and participate in the oppression of other people.
I mean a lot of black fields are really conservative too,
I mean religion, Christianity, I mean just how conservative a
lot of black folks is. It's interesting, even though we
vote mostly Democratic, a lot of us are rather conservative.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
It's because the race.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
If Republicans for one second decided they weren't galvanized around
white identity and racism, they would probably be able to
get a lot of black people on their side. As
someone who's from the Caribbean, incredibly conservative, incredibly conservative in
terms of quote unquote value systems, And I think that
actually goes back to the whole thing of you know,
wanting to criticize a part, but not the problem. The
problem they're having is not capitalism, it's not systemic oppression,
(09:41):
It is not a class. They don't have a problem
inherently that there are these class devises or that everybody
doesn't have access to the same things or don't have
equity with.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Their problem is is that they don't.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
And that's something that's why I think it's important in
the way that we educate ourselves that we have to
be critical of the entire system and be critical of
all the ways in which oppression functions, because what happens
is we come to educated around only what we deem
as having to do with us. And I think that's
why they've made such a concerted effort to always constantly
act as though the black community is separate and apart
from the LGBT community and just erase black were people,
(10:12):
because if you for one second have that inclusive moment
and you think of it as are our shared thing,
then you realize that there's no way for us to
actually do anything that benefits all of us or creates
equity for all of us without attacking the system overall.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
So much of the work that you do around I mean,
the piece you just wrote about my incarceration being slavery,
and then the teen Vogue piece about the Tyree Nichols
case very, I mean, very different pieces, but similar in
the way in which you call out structural white supremacy
(10:46):
and the way that the criminal system. You're careful like
to say the criminal justice system, but the criminal system
was formed. And I think when we I think those
of us who've done work, you know the history of
policing life, We know that policing started his slave patrols.
And you talk about the thirteenth Amendment and your Peace
and how that made slavery legal. Basically it outlawed it.
(11:11):
A family member of mine when I was doing my
genealogy or like great great grandfather Manuel Cox was like
he was basically like in the nineteen hundreds, was got
arrested for stealing a dead cow. That made the family,
his family sick, Like they found a dead cow on
the like found a dead cow on the road, took
the dead cow, they cooked it. Everybody got sick from
(11:32):
the cow in the house. And they tracked him down
and arrested him for stealing this dead cow. They made
everybody sick. He went to jail and then out of jail,
he was sold into indentured servitude. Like this happened in
my family. So in that moment, I and it's so funny.
I didn't know. I've watched The color Purple multiple times,
but when I watched it, and when Sophia goes to
jail and then she comes out and she's forced to
(11:53):
be someone's maid, that's the system that we were dealing with.
That if you were incarcerat then you could basically be
sold into slavery. I mean, it was literally being sold
back into slavery at that time. Now it's just that
the prisons themselves are you know, in genery servitude.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Yeah, no, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Can you talk a little bit about your piece that
you just wrote about mass incarceration being slavery. Can you
expound on that.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Yeah, So, you know, I feel like people often don't
want to have like very plain English conversations about the
criminal system or the state of racism in America what
needs to be done, because the reality is the answer
is very clear. But if you and if you don't
want to do that, you want to push back, and
it has to be all this nuance to it. And
I think that's why they don't want to call mass
incarceration slavery. Why they like to be like, oh, it's
(12:40):
modern day slavery, or it's slavery two point or all
these things.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
I'm like, no, it's.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Actually explicitly slavery, like you have slavery. Your government went
and recognized, hey, we'll aballish slavery, except except we can
enslave people that we convict of a crime. And then
they made a conscious choice, a conscious policy decision to
engage in mass incarceration. And you know, when you're raised
in a society where you of policing and you think
of prisons like you think about water and air, you
(13:03):
don't realize it as a man made institution.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
Or these are policy choices that you.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Don't have to live in a country where they have
two million people incarcerated, Or it doesn't make sense to
say you're innocent until proven guilty, but four hundred thousand
people are locked up pre trial. So I like to
engage it from that perspective and recognize that people are
not going to even if you tell them that and
you present them with the facts, they are not going
to just abandon their entire worldview. I expect it to
be like abolition and really come in to internalize these things.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
Has to be a process.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
But reality is that is that mass incarceration is slavery
and it doesn't make us safer beyond the fact that
it's morally bankrupt.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Can you parse that out more? And I mean, I
read your piece, but I would love you to talk
specifically about the labor, what prisoners get paid for their labor,
how much money they're generating, Like you have all these
facts that are cited in your piece. What was we
should link to this in show notes. I forget where
you wrote it, but we'll link to it in the
show notes.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
It's the appeal.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
The appeal.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
Yeah, this is the thing.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
America spends more money on policing and mass incarceration than
anywhere else in the world. And there's no other place
that constantly complains about being not safe and crime hysteria constantly.
And it's interesting because America will present it, you know,
the news and the media will treat crime waves or
all these crime problems as something to reflect to negatively
on progressives or activists or people who are abolitionists. And
(14:23):
it's like, well, that makes no sense because the only
method that's in place in this country is policing, is
mass incarceration, is tough on crime. So if you're saying
that we're not safer, that is a reflection on that
system being not successful. But importantly, it's not meant to
be right. So the whole purpose of our legal system
is to make sure that we reproduce these kinds of arms.
America has made a business over this. America makes billions
(14:45):
over eleven point six billion dollars on goods produced from
prison labor every year that's not expob.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Eleven point six billion dollars on goods produced by prison labor.
That's that's an important thing for people to just digest
that there are people who are incarcerated who can make
like maybe they make four hundred dollars a year like
in their pennies, you know, and they won't make that,
and they won't make that because living costs will come
(15:10):
out of that. Yeah, do they even do? I think
they tax it too, it's good.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Yes, they absolutely do tax it, and most states don't
even pay. So I think on average is somewhere like
on a riot state. If you have a state that cares,
you might get twenty one cents, and most states just
completely he.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Went since a day or twenty one cents, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Twenty one cents, twenty one cents a day, twenty one
cents and that's if that. But most states, most states
just don't even engage in the pretense you're just not
paid period. You just have to engage in this labor,
and that labor is what is used. And on top
of that, so if you have eleven point six billion
dollars in goods that they're producing, and that's in private
and public prisons. I want to make sure I make
that player because people will be like, you'll say that,
and they'd be like, Oh, these private prisidents gotta go
(15:47):
turn into a business. The whole thing is a business,
and that's important because a business is meant to expand. Right,
that's literally, that's just not and that's not a theoretical one.
That's what America's actual like corporation laws are and what
their whole feasis.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
Around business is. Right.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
So if a business is meant to expand, they make
that much money off of prison labor, they make another
twenty eight billion dollars in fines and fees associated with
criminal convictions. And I think that's important because the vast
majority of everybody in the US criminal system is represented
by a public defender, which means they're too poor to
afford an attorney. And I need is to understand what
that really means in terms of poverty. I, as a
(16:20):
person could not afford my own lawyer. If right now
I had to pay a lawyer'll be sick. I'd be like, Oh,
this is going to hurt me. It is going to
cut me dry, and I would not qualify for a
public defender. And I was even at my brokess, just
fresh out of law school, dead broke, I still wouldn't
qualified for a public defender.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
So to qualify for.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
A public defender, you have to be underneath the poverty line.
Statistically speaking, most arrests nationwide, most people who are arrested
made less than twelve thousand dollars annually prior to arrest.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
So this is dead poor.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
So if the majority, the vast majority of when your
criminal system across the country are literally underneath the poverty line,
what does that tell us? So, now, if you're arrested,
you already live in the poorest communities, the most underresourced communities.
And once you're arrested, you have a criminal case. You
can't get a job, you lose your housing, you are
fines and fees. If you have a criminal conviction, you
go to jail. Now you and your family are sidled
(17:07):
and what is quite literally billions of dollars nationwide of debt.
How could you ever possibly escape that? How could you
ever turn your life around?
Speaker 3 (17:15):
How could you ever be wealthy? You can't. You can't,
and neither can your family and your loved ones.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
And what's deep to me is how often black and
brown people are criminalized so early. Yeah, we get us
in assistant so early. There was a beautiful podcast that
I posted in twenty twenty that looked at the history
of policing, and I forget the professor who did the podcast,
but it looked at the history of policing, and his
research started from being arrested. I think it was in
an Ivy League school. He was arrested for like putting
(17:42):
some posters up. They didn't realize he was a student
at the school, and then he like sued and they
tried and eventually they dropped the charges. But what just
stuck out to me, this is years ago that I
listened to it, is that the police were like, there
has to be a record you're black. There has to
be some kind of record on you already, because there's like, yeah,
the assumption that we've because we were often criminalized so early. Yeah,
(18:09):
this is a good time to take a little break.
We'll be right back though. Alrighty, we're back. Luckily I
haven't been profiled by a police match. But the first
time I went to Vegas in twenty twelve, I was
stopped on the strip and a police officer said, can
(18:32):
we see your ID? And I was like, what, you know.
The funny thing is, I just met these white girls
at Pure if Pure nightclub. We were going after hours.
I was, you know, I met these white girls and like, oh,
this is Laverne from VH one I just met. To me,
I'm sure mbH one, this is Laverne. They're drunk white girls.
This is Laverne. Reached one to the cops and they're
like ah, and they're like, we need to see your ID.
And I'm just like, well, what is this about, sir?
And I'm like, you know, like, what is this about?
Speaker 3 (18:54):
You know?
Speaker 1 (18:54):
What's going on? Yeah? You know, I get very you know, proper.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
One, Yeah, you get your nice voice.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Yeah, what's happening? What's going on? You meet the description
if someone were looking for. And I was just like,
really right, you are really I look real cute. And
so I give him my ID and they're gone for
like twenty minutes or so, and then I'm just kind
of like when the girls are like, what's going you know,
and so, and they come back like twenty twenty five
(19:21):
minutes later, so they're taking a minute. They bring in
my head and they say, oh, you've been a very
good girl, and they just kind of look at me,
You've been a very.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
Good because they can't believe it.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
That's what I'm saying. His reaction was so he was
so surprised. He was so surprised that there wasn't a warrant,
that there wasn't some arrest, that there wasn't something. In retrospect,
I'm thinking, like, Okay, they didn't want a black trans
woman on the strip. They probably thought I was doing
sex work and they were trying to like that's what
I'm thinking, that's probably what was going on. Yeah, But
(19:50):
he was so upset that I hadn't been arrested, yeah,
and that there wasn't something they could their warn outstanding
warrant that they could get me on. And it was
that was deep to me. That was like, I'll and
so it's just the assumption. So they criminalize, it's so early,
and then it's just like it becomes this cycle.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Yeah, because the reality is, I mean, listen where our
environments and how we are perceived in this world and
what we have set up to what is made normal
for us has everything to do with who we become. Right,
Like the reason why I went to school I went
to college is because my daddy went to college. Both
my parents went to college, so it wasn't I didn't
even have to think about it. There were certain things.
But by the time I got to America, and I'm
all these white environments and they're saying all these things
(20:32):
to me that are so interesting.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
People who don't know you're from the Bahamas. Yes, she's
behaving and darling, that's the beautiful accent. Thank you, go on, and.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
So you know you're very much what becomes normal for you,
well what seems likely for you is based on that.
And like so and what I went when I moved
to America. I went to Florida, then West Virginia, then Ohio,
than New York and by myself my parents a home
in Omahama's no concept of America, no speech, no warning,
no nothing, right. So I'm kind of like learning as
I go, and I'm realizing this is really racist. And
(21:01):
I remember my senior year of college, my English my
senior high school, my English teacher called me into her
classroom to tell me how I was gonna.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
Fail out of college.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Like She's given me this whole speech about how I'm
not gonna be success successful.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
And I remember it goes on.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
For so long because she clearly when she played it
out in her mind, you know, she thought she would
say a couple of little things, and I would like
fall apart, or you would see the impact of me
really internalizing that.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
And you're a senior in high school. What and what
was she basing this on that you would fail out
of college, not a senior.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
In high school at a college preparatory school with the
most college acceptances in the senior class. But nothing other
than you know, if you she expects this way that
you know her inherent you know about whiteness and centering
itself right, is that she her opinion should be in
so much more to me than it will.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
It will dictate beyond what are the facts, what are statistics?
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Whatever my family believes, because if this is West Virginia,
you should be raised in the world. In her mind,
you should be a raised in the world where you
think that you were beneath, where you already have these
low self esteem. That I should be able to come
in here and and plant the seed in you and
it should really take hold.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
But for me, my dad, he.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Want to Oxford, he's an architect. My mom is a CPA,
my big sister want to call it. So I'm sitting
there looking at her, trying to process it.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
But you were also raising the Bahamas. I think there's
something when I when I look at like a Grace
Jones and any mon in a Naomi Campbell and people
who are not I mean, certainly these are, you know,
colonized places, but there there's a real specific way that
racism operates in the United States to like exactly, to
(22:32):
like break black people down.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
And when you see it, when you see a Grace Jones,
I just remember reading her book, her memoir, and like
she gets here and she was shocked that you know
when but she never internalized this sense of less than
a man, oh the bringing them on. She always knew
she was a queen. Yeah, Naomi, you know Rihanna, like.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
When you don't and that is a privilege.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
It's a privilege. And there's and I think so we
have to as African Americans, as black folks raised in
the United States, many of us have to unpack the
ways in which we deeply internalized racism and deeply been
told that we're less than and that we should expect less.
It is so deeply ingrained, and you see it when
you see people black folks from other countries come here,
(23:19):
I just need to say.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Yeah, no, exactly exactly, and we're not and we're not
informed in the same way. So you'll see people that
and that's a conversation that I had to learning. It
was years of really figuring out that out because I
remember in that moment, I'm like, what is what's going
on here? Why is she even saying these things? It
takes me a minute to process it. And then throughout
the years you start to be in this America where
again a lot of that and it starts to seep
(23:42):
in right law school for the worst years of my
life because of the ways that they psychologically, they were
constantly trying to convince me that I don't belong, that
I'm not going to do well. And I thought to myself,
I have the benefit. I have the benefit of being
come from a country where I'm not being told with
my blackness.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
I wasn't raised.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
You know, we have we listen, calling ass we have
a lot of problems, but it doesn't present in the
same way. Yeah, But I'm like, I had the benefit
of not being raised to think these things are not
feeling like I have these particular kind of limitations and
I'm this close psychologically to you know what I mean.
This is unraveling for me. And I thought to myself,
if you're raised, if you grow up in a country,
it doesn't matter like you could. People look at America America,
(24:19):
and I think a lot of black immigrants or black
people elsewhere will make the mistake of thinking because you're
from your own country and you're looking at the most
of what America has to offer, but you're looking at
that of what America wants to offer to white people,
and you're looking at that for me, a black country
is so that's from everybody right your feet in your
believe the diversity melting pod lie. And then you don't realize, like, yeah,
if you're being raised in a country that is like
(24:39):
systemically keeping you out of every single door's making sure
it goes out of its way to not only not
let you know about opportunities, but should you happen to
find out, they will do everything that they can to
tell you that it doesn't belong to you.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
It doesn't this you are being set up to never
escape that.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Speaking of crimes of poverty. Though. I really wanted to
talk to you about this because it's something I've been
thinking a lot about and I met you. I just
thought about Khalif Broward, that horrific situation where he was
held I believe it Rikers Island for a couple of years,
just because he didn't have bail money and eventually was
(25:18):
you know, I think his case was dismissed or something.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
They falsely accused him of stealing a backpack when he
was sixteen years old that he didn't steal, and they
kept him at Rikers for years, most of which he
was in solitary confinement, and even once the charges were
dismissed and he was released, he never recovered from the
psychological impact that experience and he eventually took his life.
And that's kind of what spawned the Closed Rikers campaign
and a lot of what you see for bail reform.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
And so I wanted to So I remember talking with
someone in law enforcement about that case, and what they
said is Khalif had a warrant, so it wasn't just
that he couldn't afford bail, it was that And I
looked it up and I was like, oh, there was
a warrant for his like he had a warrant he
had been something had happened, and for whatever reason, there
(26:03):
was a warrant out for his arrest for something he
had done or been involved in hanging out with the
wrong people.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
But that's how a system legitimizes itself.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
And so then I'm like, Okay, But then the question
seems to be and I've looked up statistics, and the
statistics are saying different things. There's anecdotal evidence that there's
a lot of anecdotal stuff. I know a lot of
people who are experiencing a lot of crime right now
here in New York and Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Crime seems to be up in terms of how it's
(26:34):
affecting people. I know there are different statistics that say
certain crimes where Baire reform happened went up twenty percent.
You know, different stories. They are saying different things, right so,
I feel like the data is inconclusive right now, But
it feels to me like so for me, I want
to be careful. I want to acknowledge that our criminal
(26:58):
system is deeply flawed, based in white supremacy, broken that
many people are incarcerated for crimes of poverty for just
not having money. That schools and certain neighborhoods have been defunded,
people have just been demoralized. You can look at there's
a direct relationship between neighborhoods that were redlined and the
(27:20):
worst schools. Right, So there's all this history like stuff
that it's like, you know, we can see, But it
also seems as if that because people are committing crimes
and are out in a few hours, that they're going
on and committing more crimes. And for me, the question
(27:41):
is a lot of a lot of abolitionists and defund
folks talk about the humanity of those folks who are
accused and those people who are incarcerated, and I believe
in that. I believe everyone is a human being. But
what about those people who are victims of crime?
Speaker 3 (27:56):
Okay?
Speaker 1 (27:57):
So you who were steeped in this work, what are
your thoughts on that and taught to me?
Speaker 3 (28:03):
Okay, so listen, Yeah, there's a lot of things to unpacked.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
So first of all, we're inundated with coppaganda twenty four
to seven, and that's something that's important. We are inengated
with copakanda to make us ouppose progressive reforms copaganda. And
there's a website. There's a beautiful website called Justice not
Fair dot org where they debunk all of the myths
when it comes to baill reform and specifically New York
and in Chicago.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
Here's the reality about bail.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
The purpose, the legal purpose of bail is to make
sure to ensure someone returns to court. The media loves
to talk about it to us as though it's this
public safety analysis and whatnot. That's not what it is.
The purpose of bail is to ensure someone returns to court.
If you have money for bail, you'll be out. Has
nothing to do with dangerousness. The five cops who kill
Tyrie Nichols are out on bail, on cash bail.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
It's about money. Rittenhouse posted as cash bail. He was out.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
Every white person, every rich person, they are out. So
that's one two. Statistically in New York City, it has
not led to a rise in crime. The purpose actually,
we like I said, the legal purpose is to make
sure your return to court. In actual returning to court
has been high since passing bail reform, and in terms
of rearrest for any level of violent crime, it has
been less than two percent statewide. And it's important to
(29:07):
know that eighty to eighty five percent of all felonies
in New York State end up getting resolved as something
far less than that anyhow, and over eighty percent of
all arrest nationwide are not for violent crime. It has
sensationalized to us in that way, but that's just not
the reality of what's happened.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
And so that's the one. Two.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
We all care about crime. There's a way people think,
you know, oh, only they care about crime. Caring about
crime does not mean that you have to believe that
the way to stop crime or to prevent crime is
to keep expanding and putting more money into policing and
mass incarceration. At the end of the day, that's not working. So, yes,
we all care about crime. That's what we're doing. They
love to focus on places like New York State, which
is also a dog whistle. They love to focus on
(29:42):
New York City, focus on Chicago, focus on La focus
on any places where there is a large black population
that is being criminalized. Meanwhile, you would never know that
New Jersey under Governor Christy, eliminated cash.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
Bail in twenty fourteen fourteen. You ain't hurt a peek.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
But New York City does it in twenty twenty and
you can't hear about nothing else. Chicago even suggests doing it.
It's not even implemented as law yet, and they're lying
and pretending like that has something to do with the
spiking crime.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
So that's one too importantly.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Oh, I don't know what number we're at, but when
it comes to crime in the communities the community is
most impacted by crime, are the ones telling you that
they don't want more police.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
At the end of the day, when you see these
news articles and you see.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
People, oh, I'm so scared and so crime, they're never
the victims of crime. They never live in these neighborhoods.
They're never calling for more police in their neighborhoods. They're
calling for it somewhere else.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
Right.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
It just as reality is that the safest communities are
not the most police and the most resourced. If that
was the case, we wouldn't have the same community as
the same black and brown poor communities being the high
crime areas.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
For generation and after generation.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
So I think it's important to listen, like, yes, we
do want us to listen to the people that are
most impacted by crime the people that live in the
black neighborhoods that are dealing with the police. And that's
who's telling you, Hey, what I don't need is a
police officer stationed out my house like it is every day,
conducting illegal stops, are harassing blacks that come off the
subway or doing that. What we need is that's same money,
the same willingness that you have to put into policing.
(31:05):
You should put that into mental health. You should put
it into housing, you should put it into education, You
should put it all these things, because that is what
causes crime. And I think you know, when we think
of crimes of poverty, people think of it as just like,
did you steal some food because you're hungry, that's crime
of poverty, or you stole some money. But crimes of poverty,
poverty impacts your psyche, It impacts your life, It impacts
how you deal with problems, how you respond to things,
(31:27):
how things compound you. I always tell people, in twenty fifteen,
I was more likely to knock you out than in
twenty twenty three because I have money and disposable income now.
And I think people have to think about that. It's
a lot of what the criminal system is is us
judging people for how they respond to circumstances that we're
in and in like we will we will say non
violent crime will make carve outs for a non violent
crime is understanding how that's linked to poverty, but not
(31:49):
violent crime.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
When some people are.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Living in communities where they have to fight for their lives,
where they have to engage in it, so where they
feel like they have to take for others, so it
has to be a more holistic picture. So I recognize
it and not going to and I'm not necessarily asked
fornat a world where they are going to open up
all the jails every day and open up the courts.
But what I'm saying is, right now, you have invested,
you have hyper invested into policing and mass incarceration. What
if instead, by bit by bit, you start divesting from
(32:13):
that and giving people the money that they need. The
same way white communities, it's treated as an opioid crisis
and not the crack epidemic or the war on drugs.
Speaker 3 (32:20):
Right, it's an opioid.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Crisis or oh, mental health or you see the kind
of things they're raised in court, like I don't know
if you've ever heard about the affluenza defense. I'm too
affluent to understand my accic. Oh, that was amazing, and
that's realize and realized. I know that gagged me. I
was like, are you girl?
Speaker 1 (32:37):
I mean yes, if you have money and this I
think it feels like if you have money black and white,
then you are more likely to like not spend.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
Time and you're in a different position.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
You're in a really different position, still class but intersectionality.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
So then.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
So okay, I hear you, I'm with you. But what happens?
So there are people, I mean I know someone who
were they they police a really high crime one of
the highest crime areas in Long Island, and you know
a lot of gangs, a lot of drug you know,
(33:15):
drug dealers. They leave them alone a lot they're just like, okay,
chill whatever. There's a lot of warrants out on them.
Then sometimes it's like you know, there's guns and there's whatever,
and they have to arrest them and then a few
hours later they're out.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
And then that is a bit Can I dress a
re quick with a few hours?
Speaker 2 (33:30):
That is not the case, Like, let's just if you
get arrested in New York, you are going to be
in jail. You're looking at least the next sixteen hours
or something before you get a rave. It's like a
day's process one. But to most of everything in New
York City is still bail eligible. The only thing in
your York.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
Maybe that's Long Island then, because in line, because.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
Long Island is even worse the case I'm hearing about it,
don't mind them that like the next day they're out.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
This is what I've been.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
Told, if it depends on what it is. But again,
this is propaganda. They literally they lie. They lie, just
point blank period. And I know that's hard to understand,
like to believe, because we should be able to rely on.
Speaker 3 (34:05):
And also Long Island.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
Let's also look at like the areas Long Island is
incredibly segregated, like incredibly segregated New York City in general.
People don't talk about that. Now New York City is
the most segregated schools in the country. That is a reality.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
It's not a coincidence. Long Island.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Yeah, they basically have relegated their entire black and brown
and poor population to one little area and they police
them and they treat them this way, and whatever it is,
and they saddle people with criminal convictions in New York,
hen New Jersey. If you have a gun and they
arrest you, you're want to jail, especially without cash bail,
without the cash bail system, it's worse for you because
they're not eve gonna set a bail costing you. They're
just gonna remind you and you're going to be You're
(34:40):
not only you're going to be in jail pretraul, but
you're go into jail for at least three years.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
So that's just not true.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
And it's also just not the vast majority of what's
in our criminal system at all, like at all. I
wish I've reached that omber a thousand people in New
York now wan Gung Gays.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
Wow, Wow, Okay, it's that time again. We'll be right back.
We are back. So then I'm I'm I don't want
(35:15):
to say a victim. I've been compagandized. I've been propagandized
around crime, and but I do also know a lot
of folks who are experiencing crime. The staffs and a
girlfriend of mine was like hit by some homeless person
who obviously was mentally ill and was struck by them.
Another person I know was struck by someone who is
mentally ill and homeless. But when I think about those communities,
(35:37):
right that are over policed and under resourced, and I
think about like the terrible schools, the terrible schools, and
then like the kids who will come up and they're
just there's gangs everywhere, and there's just not a lot
of even options around, Like you're just kind of like
gotta get in this gang or like leave the neighborhood, right,
you got to somehow get your kid out or something like.
(36:00):
So it's like, how do how does one even begin
to when there's inner generational trauma neglect just inhumanity, right,
these generations and generations, How do you begin to make
inroads when like the education hasn't been valued for generation.
(36:22):
You can and you can't.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
And I think that's the no.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
And I'll tell you America has this way of convinced,
especially with black people, convincing Black people that is on
us and on our shoulders to hope that you are
the one person that makes it out. You know what
I mean that it's an incumbent on us to try
to figure out a magical way to treadd through adversity
that nobody else would have to.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
But the reality is you are being set up. You
are set up to fail.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
And the way that the system legitimizes itself is by
not recognizing its role until after that. Right, Like, the
reality is the fact that you were raised into that
you were born into that community, into that neighborhood where
this is what you have to contend.
Speaker 3 (36:55):
But that's on purpose. It's not the system coming in like, WHOA,
how do I deal with this? This is a problem.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
The system is like, ah, look at that, round them up,
And it's on purpose. There's a reason why you know,
NIGHTSA buildings are seviled the way they are.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
They put up all these rules.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
They arrest people for lobby and they have gang databases
where oh, you kids are hanging out together, gang, I'm
gonna charge you for this. And if you do that
enough times, people have enough rap sheets. What people do,
come to believe, what their options are, where they come
to believe about each other, where they come to value,
and all these different things will work in tangent. So
eventually you see a system in a society of total
or you see a community that appears to be in
disarray and it appears like it's just the community that's
(37:32):
in this disarray. But you were thrown into disarray and
you were told fight figure it out. And when you
get to when you get to the door and you're trying, however,
you are trying to fight your way out, I'm going
to be there to decide or you don't want to
let out. Are you somebody that goes to jail being criminalized? Listen,
in the Bahamas we have massive poverty, but a six
most expensive place to live in the world. We have
(37:53):
a minimum wage of five dollars and twenty five cents
a dollar is equal. So I know what it is
to see black people be impoverished, but I'm not.
Speaker 3 (37:59):
I don't.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
I don't know what it is in terms of growing up.
I can see the difference in what it means to
be criminalized in that way in which you're taught about yourself.
Because we could be poor in the Bahamas, but there's
not a boot to my neck. You see what I'm saying.
There's not a boot to your neck. They're not the police.
The Royal Bahamas Police Force is not there trying to
make it their every business to put you in and
out of the jail system in America, the average black
man at some point in time will be arrested by
(38:21):
the time he's twenty nine years old. That's not a
black reality. And a lot of black nations that are
black majority nations that are dealing with poverty, that are
third world, but they don't deal with what it is
the day to day criminalized experience. So I think it's
important for us so when we look at that, like, yeah,
that is how they have being set up.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
So if we can't so if we can't make interventions,
you know, dilapidated schools and underresourced and there is higher
crime in those communities, then what do we do then
if we can't heal that.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
I think it's incumbent on and that's why I said one.
I think is important that we be educated to what
is the larger structures than what we need to go after,
and the fact that we need to make it clear
like no, it's not a boot strap thing, it's not
ouriat if it's not something that we individually can pull
ourselves up about. It's about what we had the ability,
the privilegion, the structures that we need to be placed.
Speaker 3 (39:06):
In our money is and our efforts there.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
It's also incumbent black people that do have the benefit,
like myself of you think you know better, do better
you live in those communities like me and my mentor
lives two streets away from me. We live in Flatbush,
and for a month, they were conducting an a leegal
checkpoint right outside my window.
Speaker 3 (39:21):
And every day I'm recording.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
Every night I'm this, and I'm like, me and my
mentor are talking about this, and eventually we're like, we
just gon be two black.
Speaker 3 (39:27):
Lawyers in this neighborhood and see it, and this is
what's happening.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
It's like, let's sue, can you break to any legal checkpoint?
Like what are they checking for? Are these stopping and
frisking people or.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
So what they've been what they were doing in Flatbush
for a month until I tweeted about it and then
they stopped immediately.
Speaker 3 (39:41):
So every night for a month, the.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
Police were they would wait until like two three in
the morning when they think people are like going to sleep,
and they would come and they would literally pull out
checkpoints like ciscar and they would just pull over every
black guye that drives by, every single black guy specifically.
Speaker 3 (39:54):
I've been recorded.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
Recording it for a month and the only reason I
didn't tweeted the videos was because I was like, it's
writing in front of my house and I'm like, okay,
let me, let me, let me tweet about this. And
then the minute I tweeted about it, the minute I
tweeted about it, checkpoint gone and I'm like, you know,
here's here's an unfortunate reality they do things like this.
And this is something I've realized just as a black
the difference between what my experiences what we're with the
(40:17):
landlords or police based on when I was in law
school versus being an attorney. It's very different the way
that they treat us, and they engage us as though
we have no power, because usually we don't. We don't,
so they treat us like we can do these things.
It doesn't matter because they can do it over the
cover of night and there's nobody.
Speaker 3 (40:31):
To check it.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
So what I realized in that moment is like, oh,
that's messed up. It bothers me significantly that the only
reason y'all were going to do this every night, and
because even as illegal as it is, they did it
every single night for a month, and the only reason
they stop is because one black yall there happen to
have a lot of followers or lawyers say something and
they don't want the little bit of attention. And as
much as that upsets me, that's also what makes me realize, Okay,
(40:53):
if I can do that, and me and my mentork
can now say hey, let's go Sue, let's go request
documents whatever for Weddy, these checkpoints is supposed to be.
Imagine if we all have if we're all educated in
a particular kind of way, and the other ones of
us that are in our communities can point out, can
do this, can get involved, can do these things, that
does give us a lot more power. And I don't
mean the power. We cannot change it all on our own.
There's no individual one of us, and there's not even
(41:13):
us in totality. Black people just do not have that
power in this country. But we do have the power
to get more educated, to get more involved in where
we can demand as a collective wahere we can place
and what we call for from them because the picture.
Speaker 3 (41:26):
We have to stop leaving it.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
I think at sympathy because what happens is, you know,
you'll see with George Floyd and you'll see all these
people and all everybody join hands with you, like they're
so outraged by the problem.
Speaker 3 (41:34):
But they're not outraged but a problem.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
They're outraged by one symptom they saw, you know, that
video shocked their conscience. They'll tell you, oh, they're so
sadically proudered, are so sad. But then a post bail
reform opposed, you know, any efforts to decarce rate the
way the community is in, any of the things that
lead us to actually prevent these outcomes. So what I
think it becomes is let's educate each other differently, because
what we call for becomes differently.
Speaker 3 (41:56):
Like I could easily be this person and be a prosecutor.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
It'll be on the opposite and being terrible if I
didn't have a mentor who handed me Angela Davis right.
So I think that's what it becomes us to get
involved in our own communities and do our best to
shift our social consciousness to advocating towards the right things,
like hey, it's not good enough. I don't need you
to name the street after me. I don't need you
to do any of that. I need you to put
money into this community. The same way you want to
(42:18):
give ten point six almost as we give ten point
four billion dollars to NYPD, and they're also on track
to spend over eight hundred and twenty million dollars in overtime.
And we have thirty five thousand NYPD officers and they
hired in a thousand more, but they cut money on education.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
I'm like, I'm in this space of like thinking about
our communities and I'm thinking about all these kids who
are who have to grow up in these situations when
are criminalized. And I'm thinking about cops and who are
working in the system who are like, the system is corrupt,
but everyone in that system is necessarily corrupt.
Speaker 3 (42:47):
Right, Like no, but it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
So it's like what to do, what to do? And
this is an ongoing conversation. But I love the idea
of the education piece because I think even me coming
in with like, isn't crime higher? Isn't it a result
of bail reform? And knowing that the data even as
I look at the data, that there's conflicting data and
we always have to check our sources. So becoming I
(43:11):
think the biggest piece is becoming more educated about what's
going on, so that we can have accurate information to
mobilize and to mobilize our communities. So that feels like
a big takeaway from this conversation that we can give
the listeners.
Speaker 2 (43:27):
Yeah, And I think something hopeful is to remember is
that you know, Audrey Lord said it, but there there
are no new pains and there are no new ideas,
just new ways to make them felt. And I think
it's sad, but it also something that's our benefit. The
reality is our history and our thinkers and our leaders
and our ideas have always been suppressed, right, Audrey Lord,
Angelie Davis. The other day I posted a Tony Morrison
video and someone on one of my followers real life
(43:48):
said to me, who is this great person?
Speaker 1 (43:50):
I'm like the girl they don't want us to know
around the same and abbit. They don't want to.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
They don't want us to know. But the reality is
that we can tell them.
Speaker 1 (43:58):
We can tell them, we can we have new ways.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
It's out them.
Speaker 1 (44:04):
I have to end with my last question, and my
last question for every podcast is what else is true?
And it comes from my therapy and the idea of both.
And even when the world is on fire, even when
things are very difficult, that is true. But there's also
something else that's true in my body. You know, if
there's pain in one part of my body, there's one
part of my body where it's neutral and positive impact
can focus on that part of my body. I can
(44:25):
shift my nervous system. I can reregulate my body. So
for you today, oh lie me, oh Lauren? What else
is true?
Speaker 2 (44:34):
What else is true? That I'm going to go see
Beyonce in July because I'm blessed.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
You got your tickets already, I brought where is she
here in New York?
Speaker 2 (44:44):
I'm going to Chicago. You know, I got to get
to Texas where you could get them.
Speaker 1 (44:48):
I saw Formation for the first time in Chicago because
I didn't know where I was going to be in
twenty sixteen. So I was like, girl. So I went
to Chicago, and then I moved to la and then
I'd done the Ivy part campaign and she invited me
and I got to see Formation twice.
Speaker 3 (45:02):
Yes, no, one won't be able to talk to me
no more.
Speaker 2 (45:04):
If I was you, I would talk to nobody no more.
Speaker 3 (45:10):
I'm so brand new.
Speaker 2 (45:12):
Oh my god, my bio would say, be high approved,
speak to me, girl.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
We're both strong and be high deeply thank you. It's amazing,
olim Oh Lauren. Sometimes a person comes along and they're
just so charismatic and smart and insightful and passionate and
they just have something. I just think she's a superstar.
(45:44):
I think she's a superstar. What was interesting for me
doing research about this is like finding statistics that said that,
you know, there was a relationship between bail reform and crime,
and then checking the source and being like, Okay, this
source is corporate funded, like right wing institution, and then
like checking another source that had some similar information but
(46:06):
very different information, and so being willing to cross reference
sources is so important, and like looking into the political
potential political bias of a source, and most most media
is politically biased. If they say they're not, they're lying
to you. We all have our biases and they're cooked
(46:26):
in what we decide to cover, what we decide to
talk about. That's bias. So anybody saying that they're not biased,
then don't believe them. And it's double triple check sources. Yeah,
that's a big thing for me coming out of this,
just like misinformation and just like triple checking sources for me,
public safety as a transperson, as a woman, as a
(46:49):
black person, I have never felt safe in the world,
and most of us, I think we're all hardwired in
our nervous systems to crave safety. Much of what we
do when we're in flight or freeze is about, like us,
feeling safe and needing to feel safe, and a lot
of us don't feel safe right now for a lot
(47:09):
of reasons. Do we not feel safe because of propaganda,
because of misinformation that we've been fed, or do we
not feel safe because of the material conditions of the
world around us? And then how do we regulate and
find spaces within ourselves where we can feel safe in
the face of all of these challenges. Thank you so
(47:40):
much for listening to The Laverne Cox Show. Please rate, review, subscribe,
and share with everyone you know. You can find me
on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok at Laverne Cox and on
Facebook at Laverne Cox for Real. Please check the show
notes for resources and a lot more information on this subject.
Until next time, stay in the love. The Laverne Cox
(48:08):
Show is a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to The Laverne Cox Show, a production of Shondaland
Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
The reality is the fact that you were raised into
that you were born into that community, into that neighborhood
where this is what you have to contend.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
But that's on purpose. It's not the system coming in like, WHOA,
how do I deal with this? This is a problem.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
The system is like, ah, look at that, round them up,
and it's on purpose.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Hello everyone, and welcome to the Laverne Cox Show. My
name is Laverne Cox. It's a really interesting time in
the world right in this post twenty twenty era, where
there was, you know, some of the largest political protests
against police brutality that we've seen in our nation's history,
(00:58):
and some reforms came out of that, not a lot,
not as many as a lot of people would have
liked and post that. There are a lot of media
outlets and even conflicting data that suggests that veil reform
(01:19):
is directly correlated with what feels like a rise in
crime in major cities like New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, etc.
And I wanted to have a conversation with someone about
that with nuance acknowledging the inherent white supremacy of our
(01:41):
criminal system and how it was designed to disproportionately incarcerate,
you know, black and brown people, and the corruption and
how inhumane people are treated in prisons. I believe that
everyone is a human being, no matter what they've done,
and they should be treated with humanity, no matter what
they've done or accused of having done. That is a
(02:02):
core value of mine. And what about people who are
experiencing higher rates of crime, who are victims of crime?
What about public safety? And when I discovered Oliami oh Lauren,
I thought she might be the perfect person to talk
with about this subject. O liamy oh lauren is a
(02:24):
movement lawyer, political commentator, and writer originally from Nasau, the Bahamas.
O'lauren is a public defender at the Legal Aid Society
in New York City and a leader in the movement
to close Riker's Detention Center. She's a frequent media presence
and has appeared on outlets like The Breakfast Club, Last
Week Tonight with John Oliver, MSNBC, CBS, NPR, NBC, and
(02:48):
many more. She also co hosts The Leftist Mafia on YouTube,
as well as her own call in show Tea Time
with Olay, and she has a monthly essay newsletter called
Laura Naughty, where she critically analyzes different issues of our time.
She received her jd from Saint John's University and her
BA from Ohio University. Please enjoy my conversation with Oliami
(03:14):
Oh Lauren, Welcome Ole to the podcast. How are you
feeling today?
Speaker 3 (03:23):
I am great. I'm feeling good.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
So okay. First of all, I have to say that
I don't know when it was that I became obsessed
with you. You're so much fun and so unexpected, like
the dragon ball z in the background, like you're such
a nerd, but like you're so fly, and you happen
to be a really smart, well researched, brilliant attorney. Can
(03:49):
you tell us a little bit about that work. Let's
start there that the work that you do as a
public defender. Are you still doing that work because I
know you're doing a lot more in the media now
and you're writing a lot more.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Yes, I'm moving Lauren, political commentator. I like to call
it like a professional loud mouth. Make my life easy
to encapsulate at all. So I am not in the
court day to day as a PD anymore, but that's
as a very recently right now, what I'm trying to
do basically is advocacy has to extend beyond the courtroom,
right Like, if you're in the courtroom, you're doing your
best to contend with what the circumstances already are. But
(04:19):
if I want my clients to be not between that
rock and the hard place, I need to be out
in the world trying to shift social consciousness. And as
much as I love to I love the work that
I do, I am still just one person. But there
are lots of other incredibly talented people that are doing
the same work, that have the same advocacy, but they
don't have their foot in the door in these media spaces.
So what I'm currently doing now is basically locating and
plugging them into the media and stuff so that we
(04:40):
can do better at combating these narratives that basically keep
us incarcerated.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
So I consume a lot of Most of the media
I consume now is with be independent media, would be
probably leftist media, a lot of Internet stuff everyone on
leftists Mafia. I watch regularly for the most part, and
it is rare to see black faces in that space,
and on Young Turks, we have shot Richie and we
(05:07):
have Nina Turner, so there are black faces in those spaces.
But it feels, I feel scattered, and a lot of
the conversation on the left left feels class reductionist to me.
I don't know if you get that sense, and doesn't
feel intersextionual enough. And so it's like and then it's
almost like race becomes inconvenient to talk about or too
(05:31):
divisive and it doesn't feel intersexual enough. Intersectionality has become
a really bad word, especially with the governor of Florida,
and it's so necessary one little like soapbox. I want
to just kind of go on. I was thinking about,
you know, Ron Santus is like trying to ban AP.
I think he basically has, or at least they've changed
the curriculum for AP African American studies and high schools
(05:53):
in Florida. And he was like, they have stuff like
queer theory and intersectionality, and what does that have to
do with history? And it's just like that is history.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
That's literally the epitome of history.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Like well, some like you know, by rusting, like you know,
work with Martin Luther King organize the March on Washington
is black and gay. Yeah, and even the intersectional piece,
Like there's so many conversations I see now going on
about like what's going on with men and and and
the crisis for men, and a lot of a lot
(06:24):
of them are white men. And it's like, you can't
have that conversation without intersectionality because you have to talk about.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Class, right, But they don't want to do that.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
So it's like it's it's just a way of analyzing things.
It's like a way to have a complicated approach things.
But I guess the nuance isn't like, isn't helpful to
maintain the system as it is?
Speaker 2 (06:46):
No, America America is all about that. America loves to
carve the problem up into parts, right. They love to
criticize a part of the problem. That way, you don't
talk about the overall structure that you need.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Right.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
That's why they won't talk about prisons, but they'll talk
about private prisons, right, They'll talk about non Liverpool wages,
but they won't talk about capitalism overall. You know, they
love to break it up like that, And I think
it's because it's not to me a coincidence that you
see when you see movements are successful, the first thing
that they do is they start trying to prohibit what
information we have access to. Right you see the Black
Lives Matter protests take off and George Floyd and then
(07:16):
immediately what you've seen them do is make this concerted
effort to keep everything out of the books because they
recognize that if you know certain things, it changes your position.
Like a few days ago, I had someone say to me,
I tweeted out a Hue Newton quote and they responded, some,
you know, you know our community, how they can be
with their homophobia and the transphobia.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
So she she can wait to jump in as an opportunity.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
She was like, do you think Hughey Newton would have
been a transactivist? And I was like, first of all, actually, yes, probably,
And I supposed to a screenshot from his book when
he had a whole chapter an essay about needing to
join in with the liberation of LGBT people and women.
So I was like, one, yes, but two, if you hadn't,
that would not be a position. I wouldn't be like, ah, right,
he's a transphobe. Gotta get on that but that's what
(07:57):
they do, right, So we were not informed. But if
we learn more about things and people realize, hey, this
is not actually new the thing that you're pretending just
because it's the first time you're hearing about it, or
it's being used as a political pawn in this way,
it's not actually new. There's actually a lot of information
and people change and you see that over time. So yeah,
they don't want any any form of intersectionality.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
Well it gets deep. I mean I think about the
piece of you know, I just focused on the Breakfast Club.
I loved your appearance in the Breakfast Club. You were
there before me. Were wow, and it was a beautiful interview,
and the comments on YouTube were great. And then they're
you know, some of the excerpts on Instagram were so transphobic.
And I'm not you know, I'm I'm used to it.
(08:37):
I'm not bothered. I and none of it's really even
new anymore. Part of me, it's like, can you come
up with something new? You know, and they're just misdondering
me or whatever. But like that resistance too, it's so
deep to me. But like for black folks, for us
who understand in a deep way, systemic oppression would then
(09:00):
and go and participate in the oppression of other people.
I mean a lot of black fields are really conservative too,
I mean religion, Christianity, I mean just how conservative a
lot of black folks is. It's interesting, even though we
vote mostly Democratic, a lot of us are rather conservative.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
It's because the race.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
If Republicans for one second decided they weren't galvanized around
white identity and racism, they would probably be able to
get a lot of black people on their side. As
someone who's from the Caribbean, incredibly conservative, incredibly conservative in
terms of quote unquote value systems, And I think that
actually goes back to the whole thing of you know,
wanting to criticize a part, but not the problem. The
problem they're having is not capitalism, it's not systemic oppression,
(09:41):
It is not a class. They don't have a problem
inherently that there are these class devises or that everybody
doesn't have access to the same things or don't have
equity with.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Their problem is is that they don't.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
And that's something that's why I think it's important in
the way that we educate ourselves that we have to
be critical of the entire system and be critical of
all the ways in which oppression functions, because what happens
is we come to educated around only what we deem
as having to do with us. And I think that's
why they've made such a concerted effort to always constantly
act as though the black community is separate and apart
from the LGBT community and just erase black were people,
(10:12):
because if you for one second have that inclusive moment
and you think of it as are our shared thing,
then you realize that there's no way for us to
actually do anything that benefits all of us or creates
equity for all of us without attacking the system overall.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
So much of the work that you do around I mean,
the piece you just wrote about my incarceration being slavery,
and then the teen Vogue piece about the Tyree Nichols
case very, I mean, very different pieces, but similar in
the way in which you call out structural white supremacy
(10:46):
and the way that the criminal system. You're careful like
to say the criminal justice system, but the criminal system
was formed. And I think when we I think those
of us who've done work, you know the history of
policing life, We know that policing started his slave patrols.
And you talk about the thirteenth Amendment and your Peace
and how that made slavery legal. Basically it outlawed it.
(11:11):
A family member of mine when I was doing my
genealogy or like great great grandfather Manuel Cox was like
he was basically like in the nineteen hundreds, was got
arrested for stealing a dead cow. That made the family,
his family sick, Like they found a dead cow on
the like found a dead cow on the road, took
the dead cow, they cooked it. Everybody got sick from
(11:32):
the cow in the house. And they tracked him down
and arrested him for stealing this dead cow. They made
everybody sick. He went to jail and then out of jail,
he was sold into indentured servitude. Like this happened in
my family. So in that moment, I and it's so funny.
I didn't know. I've watched The color Purple multiple times,
but when I watched it, and when Sophia goes to
jail and then she comes out and she's forced to
(11:53):
be someone's maid, that's the system that we were dealing with.
That if you were incarcerat then you could basically be
sold into slavery. I mean, it was literally being sold
back into slavery at that time. Now it's just that
the prisons themselves are you know, in genery servitude.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Yeah, no, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Can you talk a little bit about your piece that
you just wrote about mass incarceration being slavery. Can you
expound on that.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Yeah, So, you know, I feel like people often don't
want to have like very plain English conversations about the
criminal system or the state of racism in America what
needs to be done, because the reality is the answer
is very clear. But if you and if you don't
want to do that, you want to push back, and
it has to be all this nuance to it. And
I think that's why they don't want to call mass
incarceration slavery. Why they like to be like, oh, it's
(12:40):
modern day slavery, or it's slavery two point or all
these things.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
I'm like, no, it's.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Actually explicitly slavery, like you have slavery. Your government went
and recognized, hey, we'll aballish slavery, except except we can
enslave people that we convict of a crime. And then
they made a conscious choice, a conscious policy decision to
engage in mass incarceration. And you know, when you're raised
in a society where you of policing and you think
of prisons like you think about water and air, you
(13:03):
don't realize it as a man made institution.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
Or these are policy choices that you.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Don't have to live in a country where they have
two million people incarcerated, Or it doesn't make sense to
say you're innocent until proven guilty, but four hundred thousand
people are locked up pre trial. So I like to
engage it from that perspective and recognize that people are
not going to even if you tell them that and
you present them with the facts, they are not going
to just abandon their entire worldview. I expect it to
be like abolition and really come in to internalize these things.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
Has to be a process.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
But reality is that is that mass incarceration is slavery
and it doesn't make us safer beyond the fact that
it's morally bankrupt.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Can you parse that out more? And I mean, I
read your piece, but I would love you to talk
specifically about the labor, what prisoners get paid for their labor,
how much money they're generating, Like you have all these
facts that are cited in your piece. What was we
should link to this in show notes. I forget where
you wrote it, but we'll link to it in the
show notes.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
It's the appeal.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
The appeal.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
Yeah, this is the thing.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
America spends more money on policing and mass incarceration than
anywhere else in the world. And there's no other place
that constantly complains about being not safe and crime hysteria constantly.
And it's interesting because America will present it, you know,
the news and the media will treat crime waves or
all these crime problems as something to reflect to negatively
on progressives or activists or people who are abolitionists. And
(14:23):
it's like, well, that makes no sense because the only
method that's in place in this country is policing, is
mass incarceration, is tough on crime. So if you're saying
that we're not safer, that is a reflection on that
system being not successful. But importantly, it's not meant to
be right. So the whole purpose of our legal system
is to make sure that we reproduce these kinds of arms.
America has made a business over this. America makes billions
(14:45):
over eleven point six billion dollars on goods produced from
prison labor every year that's not expob.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Eleven point six billion dollars on goods produced by prison labor.
That's that's an important thing for people to just digest
that there are people who are incarcerated who can make
like maybe they make four hundred dollars a year like
in their pennies, you know, and they won't make that,
and they won't make that because living costs will come
(15:10):
out of that. Yeah, do they even do? I think
they tax it too, it's good.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Yes, they absolutely do tax it, and most states don't
even pay. So I think on average is somewhere like
on a riot state. If you have a state that cares,
you might get twenty one cents, and most states just
completely he.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Went since a day or twenty one cents, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Twenty one cents, twenty one cents a day, twenty one
cents and that's if that. But most states, most states
just don't even engage in the pretense you're just not
paid period. You just have to engage in this labor,
and that labor is what is used. And on top
of that, so if you have eleven point six billion
dollars in goods that they're producing, and that's in private
and public prisons. I want to make sure I make
that player because people will be like, you'll say that,
and they'd be like, Oh, these private prisidents gotta go
(15:47):
turn into a business. The whole thing is a business,
and that's important because a business is meant to expand. Right,
that's literally, that's just not and that's not a theoretical one.
That's what America's actual like corporation laws are and what
their whole feasis.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
Around business is. Right.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
So if a business is meant to expand, they make
that much money off of prison labor, they make another
twenty eight billion dollars in fines and fees associated with
criminal convictions. And I think that's important because the vast
majority of everybody in the US criminal system is represented
by a public defender, which means they're too poor to
afford an attorney. And I need is to understand what
that really means in terms of poverty. I, as a
(16:20):
person could not afford my own lawyer. If right now
I had to pay a lawyer'll be sick. I'd be like, Oh,
this is going to hurt me. It is going to
cut me dry, and I would not qualify for a
public defender. And I was even at my brokess, just
fresh out of law school, dead broke, I still wouldn't
qualified for a public defender.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
So to qualify for.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
A public defender, you have to be underneath the poverty line.
Statistically speaking, most arrests nationwide, most people who are arrested
made less than twelve thousand dollars annually prior to arrest.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
So this is dead poor.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
So if the majority, the vast majority of when your
criminal system across the country are literally underneath the poverty line,
what does that tell us? So, now, if you're arrested,
you already live in the poorest communities, the most underresourced communities.
And once you're arrested, you have a criminal case. You
can't get a job, you lose your housing, you are
fines and fees. If you have a criminal conviction, you
go to jail. Now you and your family are sidled
(17:07):
and what is quite literally billions of dollars nationwide of debt.
How could you ever possibly escape that? How could you
ever turn your life around?
Speaker 3 (17:15):
How could you ever be wealthy? You can't. You can't,
and neither can your family and your loved ones.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
And what's deep to me is how often black and
brown people are criminalized so early. Yeah, we get us
in assistant so early. There was a beautiful podcast that
I posted in twenty twenty that looked at the history
of policing, and I forget the professor who did the podcast,
but it looked at the history of policing, and his
research started from being arrested. I think it was in
an Ivy League school. He was arrested for like putting
(17:42):
some posters up. They didn't realize he was a student
at the school, and then he like sued and they
tried and eventually they dropped the charges. But what just
stuck out to me, this is years ago that I
listened to it, is that the police were like, there
has to be a record you're black. There has to
be some kind of record on you already, because there's like, yeah,
the assumption that we've because we were often criminalized so early. Yeah,
(18:09):
this is a good time to take a little break.
We'll be right back though. Alrighty, we're back. Luckily I
haven't been profiled by a police match. But the first
time I went to Vegas in twenty twelve, I was
stopped on the strip and a police officer said, can
(18:32):
we see your ID? And I was like, what, you know.
The funny thing is, I just met these white girls
at Pure if Pure nightclub. We were going after hours.
I was, you know, I met these white girls and like, oh,
this is Laverne from VH one I just met. To me,
I'm sure mbH one, this is Laverne. They're drunk white girls.
This is Laverne. Reached one to the cops and they're
like ah, and they're like, we need to see your ID.
And I'm just like, well, what is this about, sir?
And I'm like, you know, like, what is this about?
Speaker 3 (18:54):
You know?
Speaker 1 (18:54):
What's going on? Yeah? You know, I get very you know, proper.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
One, Yeah, you get your nice voice.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Yeah, what's happening? What's going on? You meet the description
if someone were looking for. And I was just like,
really right, you are really I look real cute. And
so I give him my ID and they're gone for
like twenty minutes or so, and then I'm just kind
of like when the girls are like, what's going you know,
and so, and they come back like twenty twenty five
(19:21):
minutes later, so they're taking a minute. They bring in
my head and they say, oh, you've been a very
good girl, and they just kind of look at me,
You've been a very.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
Good because they can't believe it.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
That's what I'm saying. His reaction was so he was
so surprised. He was so surprised that there wasn't a warrant,
that there wasn't some arrest, that there wasn't something. In retrospect,
I'm thinking, like, Okay, they didn't want a black trans
woman on the strip. They probably thought I was doing
sex work and they were trying to like that's what
I'm thinking, that's probably what was going on. Yeah, But
(19:50):
he was so upset that I hadn't been arrested, yeah,
and that there wasn't something they could their warn outstanding
warrant that they could get me on. And it was
that was deep to me. That was like, I'll and
so it's just the assumption. So they criminalize, it's so early,
and then it's just like it becomes this cycle.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Yeah, because the reality is, I mean, listen where our
environments and how we are perceived in this world and
what we have set up to what is made normal
for us has everything to do with who we become. Right,
Like the reason why I went to school I went
to college is because my daddy went to college. Both
my parents went to college, so it wasn't I didn't
even have to think about it. There were certain things.
But by the time I got to America, and I'm
all these white environments and they're saying all these things
(20:32):
to me that are so interesting.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
People who don't know you're from the Bahamas. Yes, she's
behaving and darling, that's the beautiful accent. Thank you, go on, and.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
So you know you're very much what becomes normal for you,
well what seems likely for you is based on that.
And like so and what I went when I moved
to America. I went to Florida, then West Virginia, then Ohio,
than New York and by myself my parents a home
in Omahama's no concept of America, no speech, no warning,
no nothing, right. So I'm kind of like learning as
I go, and I'm realizing this is really racist. And
(21:01):
I remember my senior year of college, my English my
senior high school, my English teacher called me into her
classroom to tell me how I was gonna.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
Fail out of college.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Like She's given me this whole speech about how I'm
not gonna be success successful.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
And I remember it goes on.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
For so long because she clearly when she played it
out in her mind, you know, she thought she would
say a couple of little things, and I would like
fall apart, or you would see the impact of me
really internalizing that.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
And you're a senior in high school. What and what
was she basing this on that you would fail out
of college, not a senior.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
In high school at a college preparatory school with the
most college acceptances in the senior class. But nothing other
than you know, if you she expects this way that
you know her inherent you know about whiteness and centering
itself right, is that she her opinion should be in
so much more to me than it will.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
It will dictate beyond what are the facts, what are statistics?
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Whatever my family believes, because if this is West Virginia,
you should be raised in the world. In her mind,
you should be a raised in the world where you
think that you were beneath, where you already have these
low self esteem. That I should be able to come
in here and and plant the seed in you and
it should really take hold.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
But for me, my dad, he.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Want to Oxford, he's an architect. My mom is a CPA,
my big sister want to call it. So I'm sitting
there looking at her, trying to process it.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
But you were also raising the Bahamas. I think there's
something when I when I look at like a Grace
Jones and any mon in a Naomi Campbell and people
who are not I mean, certainly these are, you know,
colonized places, but there there's a real specific way that
racism operates in the United States to like exactly, to
(22:32):
like break black people down.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
And when you see it, when you see a Grace Jones,
I just remember reading her book, her memoir, and like
she gets here and she was shocked that you know
when but she never internalized this sense of less than
a man, oh the bringing them on. She always knew
she was a queen. Yeah, Naomi, you know Rihanna, like.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
When you don't and that is a privilege.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
It's a privilege. And there's and I think so we
have to as African Americans, as black folks raised in
the United States, many of us have to unpack the
ways in which we deeply internalized racism and deeply been
told that we're less than and that we should expect less.
It is so deeply ingrained, and you see it when
you see people black folks from other countries come here,
(23:19):
I just need to say.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Yeah, no, exactly exactly, and we're not and we're not
informed in the same way. So you'll see people that
and that's a conversation that I had to learning. It
was years of really figuring out that out because I
remember in that moment, I'm like, what is what's going
on here? Why is she even saying these things? It
takes me a minute to process it. And then throughout
the years you start to be in this America where
again a lot of that and it starts to seep
(23:42):
in right law school for the worst years of my
life because of the ways that they psychologically, they were
constantly trying to convince me that I don't belong, that
I'm not going to do well. And I thought to myself,
I have the benefit. I have the benefit of being
come from a country where I'm not being told with
my blackness.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
I wasn't raised.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
You know, we have we listen, calling ass we have
a lot of problems, but it doesn't present in the
same way. Yeah, But I'm like, I had the benefit
of not being raised to think these things are not
feeling like I have these particular kind of limitations and
I'm this close psychologically to you know what I mean.
This is unraveling for me. And I thought to myself,
if you're raised, if you grow up in a country,
it doesn't matter like you could. People look at America America,
(24:19):
and I think a lot of black immigrants or black
people elsewhere will make the mistake of thinking because you're
from your own country and you're looking at the most
of what America has to offer, but you're looking at
that of what America wants to offer to white people,
and you're looking at that for me, a black country
is so that's from everybody right your feet in your
believe the diversity melting pod lie. And then you don't realize, like, yeah,
if you're being raised in a country that is like
(24:39):
systemically keeping you out of every single door's making sure
it goes out of its way to not only not
let you know about opportunities, but should you happen to
find out, they will do everything that they can to
tell you that it doesn't belong to you.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
It doesn't this you are being set up to never
escape that.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Speaking of crimes of poverty. Though. I really wanted to
talk to you about this because it's something I've been
thinking a lot about and I met you. I just
thought about Khalif Broward, that horrific situation where he was
held I believe it Rikers Island for a couple of years,
just because he didn't have bail money and eventually was
(25:18):
you know, I think his case was dismissed or something.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
They falsely accused him of stealing a backpack when he
was sixteen years old that he didn't steal, and they
kept him at Rikers for years, most of which he
was in solitary confinement, and even once the charges were
dismissed and he was released, he never recovered from the
psychological impact that experience and he eventually took his life.
And that's kind of what spawned the Closed Rikers campaign
and a lot of what you see for bail reform.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
And so I wanted to So I remember talking with
someone in law enforcement about that case, and what they
said is Khalif had a warrant, so it wasn't just
that he couldn't afford bail, it was that And I
looked it up and I was like, oh, there was
a warrant for his like he had a warrant he
had been something had happened, and for whatever reason, there
(26:03):
was a warrant out for his arrest for something he
had done or been involved in hanging out with the
wrong people.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
But that's how a system legitimizes itself.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
And so then I'm like, Okay, But then the question
seems to be and I've looked up statistics, and the
statistics are saying different things. There's anecdotal evidence that there's
a lot of anecdotal stuff. I know a lot of
people who are experiencing a lot of crime right now
here in New York and Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Crime seems to be up in terms of how it's
(26:34):
affecting people. I know there are different statistics that say
certain crimes where Baire reform happened went up twenty percent.
You know, different stories. They are saying different things, right so,
I feel like the data is inconclusive right now, But
it feels to me like so for me, I want
to be careful. I want to acknowledge that our criminal
(26:58):
system is deeply flawed, based in white supremacy, broken that
many people are incarcerated for crimes of poverty for just
not having money. That schools and certain neighborhoods have been defunded,
people have just been demoralized. You can look at there's
a direct relationship between neighborhoods that were redlined and the
(27:20):
worst schools. Right, So there's all this history like stuff
that it's like, you know, we can see, But it
also seems as if that because people are committing crimes
and are out in a few hours, that they're going
on and committing more crimes. And for me, the question
(27:41):
is a lot of a lot of abolitionists and defund
folks talk about the humanity of those folks who are
accused and those people who are incarcerated, and I believe
in that. I believe everyone is a human being. But
what about those people who are victims of crime?
Speaker 3 (27:56):
Okay?
Speaker 1 (27:57):
So you who were steeped in this work, what are
your thoughts on that and taught to me?
Speaker 3 (28:03):
Okay, so listen, Yeah, there's a lot of things to unpacked.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
So first of all, we're inundated with coppaganda twenty four
to seven, and that's something that's important. We are inengated
with copakanda to make us ouppose progressive reforms copaganda. And
there's a website. There's a beautiful website called Justice not
Fair dot org where they debunk all of the myths
when it comes to baill reform and specifically New York
and in Chicago.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
Here's the reality about bail.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
The purpose, the legal purpose of bail is to make
sure to ensure someone returns to court. The media loves
to talk about it to us as though it's this
public safety analysis and whatnot. That's not what it is.
The purpose of bail is to ensure someone returns to court.
If you have money for bail, you'll be out. Has
nothing to do with dangerousness. The five cops who kill
Tyrie Nichols are out on bail, on cash bail.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
It's about money. Rittenhouse posted as cash bail. He was out.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
Every white person, every rich person, they are out. So
that's one two. Statistically in New York City, it has
not led to a rise in crime. The purpose actually,
we like I said, the legal purpose is to make
sure your return to court. In actual returning to court
has been high since passing bail reform, and in terms
of rearrest for any level of violent crime, it has
been less than two percent statewide. And it's important to
(29:07):
know that eighty to eighty five percent of all felonies
in New York State end up getting resolved as something
far less than that anyhow, and over eighty percent of
all arrest nationwide are not for violent crime. It has
sensationalized to us in that way, but that's just not
the reality of what's happened.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
And so that's the one. Two.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
We all care about crime. There's a way people think,
you know, oh, only they care about crime. Caring about
crime does not mean that you have to believe that
the way to stop crime or to prevent crime is
to keep expanding and putting more money into policing and
mass incarceration. At the end of the day, that's not working. So, yes,
we all care about crime. That's what we're doing. They
love to focus on places like New York State, which
is also a dog whistle. They love to focus on
(29:42):
New York City, focus on Chicago, focus on La focus
on any places where there is a large black population
that is being criminalized. Meanwhile, you would never know that
New Jersey under Governor Christy, eliminated cash.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
Bail in twenty fourteen fourteen. You ain't hurt a peek.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
But New York City does it in twenty twenty and
you can't hear about nothing else. Chicago even suggests doing it.
It's not even implemented as law yet, and they're lying
and pretending like that has something to do with the
spiking crime.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
So that's one too importantly.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Oh, I don't know what number we're at, but when
it comes to crime in the communities the community is
most impacted by crime, are the ones telling you that
they don't want more police.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
At the end of the day, when you see these
news articles and you see.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
People, oh, I'm so scared and so crime, they're never
the victims of crime. They never live in these neighborhoods.
They're never calling for more police in their neighborhoods. They're
calling for it somewhere else.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
Right.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
It just as reality is that the safest communities are
not the most police and the most resourced. If that
was the case, we wouldn't have the same community as
the same black and brown poor communities being the high
crime areas.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
For generation and after generation.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
So I think it's important to listen, like, yes, we
do want us to listen to the people that are
most impacted by crime the people that live in the
black neighborhoods that are dealing with the police. And that's
who's telling you, Hey, what I don't need is a
police officer stationed out my house like it is every day,
conducting illegal stops, are harassing blacks that come off the
subway or doing that. What we need is that's same money,
the same willingness that you have to put into policing.
(31:05):
You should put that into mental health. You should put
it into housing, you should put it into education, You
should put it all these things, because that is what
causes crime. And I think you know, when we think
of crimes of poverty, people think of it as just like,
did you steal some food because you're hungry, that's crime
of poverty, or you stole some money. But crimes of poverty,
poverty impacts your psyche, It impacts your life, It impacts
how you deal with problems, how you respond to things,
(31:27):
how things compound you. I always tell people, in twenty fifteen,
I was more likely to knock you out than in
twenty twenty three because I have money and disposable income now.
And I think people have to think about that. It's
a lot of what the criminal system is is us
judging people for how they respond to circumstances that we're
in and in like we will we will say non
violent crime will make carve outs for a non violent
crime is understanding how that's linked to poverty, but not
(31:49):
violent crime.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
When some people are.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Living in communities where they have to fight for their lives,
where they have to engage in it, so where they
feel like they have to take for others, so it
has to be a more holistic picture. So I recognize
it and not going to and I'm not necessarily asked
fornat a world where they are going to open up
all the jails every day and open up the courts.
But what I'm saying is, right now, you have invested,
you have hyper invested into policing and mass incarceration. What
if instead, by bit by bit, you start divesting from
(32:13):
that and giving people the money that they need. The
same way white communities, it's treated as an opioid crisis
and not the crack epidemic or the war on drugs.
Speaker 3 (32:20):
Right, it's an opioid.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Crisis or oh, mental health or you see the kind
of things they're raised in court, like I don't know
if you've ever heard about the affluenza defense. I'm too
affluent to understand my accic. Oh, that was amazing, and
that's realize and realized. I know that gagged me. I
was like, are you girl?
Speaker 1 (32:37):
I mean yes, if you have money and this I
think it feels like if you have money black and white,
then you are more likely to like not spend.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
Time and you're in a different position.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
You're in a really different position, still class but intersectionality.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
So then.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
So okay, I hear you, I'm with you. But what happens?
So there are people, I mean I know someone who
were they they police a really high crime one of
the highest crime areas in Long Island, and you know
a lot of gangs, a lot of drug you know,
(33:15):
drug dealers. They leave them alone a lot they're just like, okay,
chill whatever. There's a lot of warrants out on them.
Then sometimes it's like you know, there's guns and there's whatever,
and they have to arrest them and then a few
hours later they're out.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
And then that is a bit Can I dress a
re quick with a few hours?
Speaker 2 (33:30):
That is not the case, Like, let's just if you
get arrested in New York, you are going to be
in jail. You're looking at least the next sixteen hours
or something before you get a rave. It's like a
day's process one. But to most of everything in New
York City is still bail eligible. The only thing in
your York.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
Maybe that's Long Island then, because in line, because.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
Long Island is even worse the case I'm hearing about it,
don't mind them that like the next day they're out.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
This is what I've been.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
Told, if it depends on what it is. But again,
this is propaganda. They literally they lie. They lie, just
point blank period. And I know that's hard to understand,
like to believe, because we should be able to rely on.
Speaker 3 (34:05):
And also Long Island.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
Let's also look at like the areas Long Island is
incredibly segregated, like incredibly segregated New York City in general.
People don't talk about that. Now New York City is
the most segregated schools in the country. That is a reality.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
It's not a coincidence. Long Island.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Yeah, they basically have relegated their entire black and brown
and poor population to one little area and they police
them and they treat them this way, and whatever it is,
and they saddle people with criminal convictions in New York,
hen New Jersey. If you have a gun and they
arrest you, you're want to jail, especially without cash bail,
without the cash bail system, it's worse for you because
they're not eve gonna set a bail costing you. They're
just gonna remind you and you're going to be You're
(34:40):
not only you're going to be in jail pretraul, but
you're go into jail for at least three years.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
So that's just not true.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
And it's also just not the vast majority of what's
in our criminal system at all, like at all. I
wish I've reached that omber a thousand people in New
York now wan Gung Gays.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
Wow, Wow, Okay, it's that time again. We'll be right back.
We are back. So then I'm I'm I don't want
(35:15):
to say a victim. I've been compagandized. I've been propagandized
around crime, and but I do also know a lot
of folks who are experiencing crime. The staffs and a
girlfriend of mine was like hit by some homeless person
who obviously was mentally ill and was struck by them.
Another person I know was struck by someone who is
mentally ill and homeless. But when I think about those communities,
(35:37):
right that are over policed and under resourced, and I
think about like the terrible schools, the terrible schools, and
then like the kids who will come up and they're
just there's gangs everywhere, and there's just not a lot
of even options around, Like you're just kind of like
gotta get in this gang or like leave the neighborhood, right,
you got to somehow get your kid out or something like.
(36:00):
So it's like, how do how does one even begin
to when there's inner generational trauma neglect just inhumanity, right,
these generations and generations, How do you begin to make
inroads when like the education hasn't been valued for generation.
(36:22):
You can and you can't.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
And I think that's the no.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
And I'll tell you America has this way of convinced,
especially with black people, convincing Black people that is on
us and on our shoulders to hope that you are
the one person that makes it out. You know what
I mean that it's an incumbent on us to try
to figure out a magical way to treadd through adversity
that nobody else would have to.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
But the reality is you are being set up. You
are set up to fail.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
And the way that the system legitimizes itself is by
not recognizing its role until after that. Right, Like, the
reality is the fact that you were raised into that
you were born into that community, into that neighborhood where
this is what you have to contend.
Speaker 3 (36:55):
But that's on purpose. It's not the system coming in like, WHOA,
how do I deal with this? This is a problem.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
The system is like, ah, look at that, round them up,
And it's on purpose. There's a reason why you know,
NIGHTSA buildings are seviled the way they are.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
They put up all these rules.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
They arrest people for lobby and they have gang databases
where oh, you kids are hanging out together, gang, I'm
gonna charge you for this. And if you do that
enough times, people have enough rap sheets. What people do,
come to believe, what their options are, where they come
to believe about each other, where they come to value,
and all these different things will work in tangent. So
eventually you see a system in a society of total
or you see a community that appears to be in
disarray and it appears like it's just the community that's
(37:32):
in this disarray. But you were thrown into disarray and
you were told fight figure it out. And when you
get to when you get to the door and you're trying, however,
you are trying to fight your way out, I'm going
to be there to decide or you don't want to
let out. Are you somebody that goes to jail being criminalized? Listen,
in the Bahamas we have massive poverty, but a six
most expensive place to live in the world. We have
(37:53):
a minimum wage of five dollars and twenty five cents
a dollar is equal. So I know what it is
to see black people be impoverished, but I'm not.
Speaker 3 (37:59):
I don't.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
I don't know what it is in terms of growing up.
I can see the difference in what it means to
be criminalized in that way in which you're taught about yourself.
Because we could be poor in the Bahamas, but there's
not a boot to my neck. You see what I'm saying.
There's not a boot to your neck. They're not the police.
The Royal Bahamas Police Force is not there trying to
make it their every business to put you in and
out of the jail system in America, the average black
man at some point in time will be arrested by
(38:21):
the time he's twenty nine years old. That's not a
black reality. And a lot of black nations that are
black majority nations that are dealing with poverty, that are
third world, but they don't deal with what it is
the day to day criminalized experience. So I think it's
important for us so when we look at that, like, yeah,
that is how they have being set up.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
So if we can't so if we can't make interventions,
you know, dilapidated schools and underresourced and there is higher
crime in those communities, then what do we do then
if we can't heal that.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
I think it's incumbent on and that's why I said one.
I think is important that we be educated to what
is the larger structures than what we need to go after,
and the fact that we need to make it clear
like no, it's not a boot strap thing, it's not
ouriat if it's not something that we individually can pull
ourselves up about. It's about what we had the ability,
the privilegion, the structures that we need to be placed.
Speaker 3 (39:06):
In our money is and our efforts there.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
It's also incumbent black people that do have the benefit,
like myself of you think you know better, do better
you live in those communities like me and my mentor
lives two streets away from me. We live in Flatbush,
and for a month, they were conducting an a leegal
checkpoint right outside my window.
Speaker 3 (39:21):
And every day I'm recording.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
Every night I'm this, and I'm like, me and my
mentor are talking about this, and eventually we're like, we
just gon be two black.
Speaker 3 (39:27):
Lawyers in this neighborhood and see it, and this is
what's happening.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
It's like, let's sue, can you break to any legal checkpoint?
Like what are they checking for? Are these stopping and
frisking people or.
Speaker 2 (39:36):
So what they've been what they were doing in Flatbush
for a month until I tweeted about it and then
they stopped immediately.
Speaker 3 (39:41):
So every night for a month, the.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
Police were they would wait until like two three in
the morning when they think people are like going to sleep,
and they would come and they would literally pull out
checkpoints like ciscar and they would just pull over every
black guye that drives by, every single black guy specifically.
Speaker 3 (39:54):
I've been recorded.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
Recording it for a month and the only reason I
didn't tweeted the videos was because I was like, it's
writing in front of my house and I'm like, okay,
let me, let me, let me tweet about this. And
then the minute I tweeted about it, the minute I
tweeted about it, checkpoint gone and I'm like, you know,
here's here's an unfortunate reality they do things like this.
And this is something I've realized just as a black
the difference between what my experiences what we're with the
(40:17):
landlords or police based on when I was in law
school versus being an attorney. It's very different the way
that they treat us, and they engage us as though
we have no power, because usually we don't. We don't,
so they treat us like we can do these things.
It doesn't matter because they can do it over the
cover of night and there's nobody.
Speaker 3 (40:31):
To check it.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
So what I realized in that moment is like, oh,
that's messed up. It bothers me significantly that the only
reason y'all were going to do this every night, and
because even as illegal as it is, they did it
every single night for a month, and the only reason
they stop is because one black yall there happen to
have a lot of followers or lawyers say something and
they don't want the little bit of attention. And as
much as that upsets me, that's also what makes me realize, Okay,
(40:53):
if I can do that, and me and my mentork
can now say hey, let's go Sue, let's go request
documents whatever for Weddy, these checkpoints is supposed to be.
Imagine if we all have if we're all educated in
a particular kind of way, and the other ones of
us that are in our communities can point out, can
do this, can get involved, can do these things, that
does give us a lot more power. And I don't
mean the power. We cannot change it all on our own.
There's no individual one of us, and there's not even
(41:13):
us in totality. Black people just do not have that
power in this country. But we do have the power
to get more educated, to get more involved in where
we can demand as a collective wahere we can place
and what we call for from them because the picture.
Speaker 3 (41:26):
We have to stop leaving it.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
I think at sympathy because what happens is, you know,
you'll see with George Floyd and you'll see all these
people and all everybody join hands with you, like they're
so outraged by the problem.
Speaker 3 (41:34):
But they're not outraged but a problem.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
They're outraged by one symptom they saw, you know, that
video shocked their conscience. They'll tell you, oh, they're so
sadically proudered, are so sad. But then a post bail
reform opposed, you know, any efforts to decarce rate the
way the community is in, any of the things that
lead us to actually prevent these outcomes. So what I
think it becomes is let's educate each other differently, because
what we call for becomes differently.
Speaker 3 (41:56):
Like I could easily be this person and be a prosecutor.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
It'll be on the opposite and being terrible if I
didn't have a mentor who handed me Angela Davis right.
So I think that's what it becomes us to get
involved in our own communities and do our best to
shift our social consciousness to advocating towards the right things,
like hey, it's not good enough. I don't need you
to name the street after me. I don't need you
to do any of that. I need you to put
money into this community. The same way you want to
(42:18):
give ten point six almost as we give ten point
four billion dollars to NYPD, and they're also on track
to spend over eight hundred and twenty million dollars in overtime.
And we have thirty five thousand NYPD officers and they
hired in a thousand more, but they cut money on education.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
I'm like, I'm in this space of like thinking about
our communities and I'm thinking about all these kids who
are who have to grow up in these situations when
are criminalized. And I'm thinking about cops and who are
working in the system who are like, the system is corrupt,
but everyone in that system is necessarily corrupt.
Speaker 3 (42:47):
Right, Like no, but it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
So it's like what to do, what to do? And
this is an ongoing conversation. But I love the idea
of the education piece because I think even me coming
in with like, isn't crime higher? Isn't it a result
of bail reform? And knowing that the data even as
I look at the data, that there's conflicting data and
we always have to check our sources. So becoming I
(43:11):
think the biggest piece is becoming more educated about what's
going on, so that we can have accurate information to
mobilize and to mobilize our communities. So that feels like
a big takeaway from this conversation that we can give
the listeners.
Speaker 2 (43:27):
Yeah, And I think something hopeful is to remember is
that you know, Audrey Lord said it, but there there
are no new pains and there are no new ideas,
just new ways to make them felt. And I think
it's sad, but it also something that's our benefit. The
reality is our history and our thinkers and our leaders
and our ideas have always been suppressed, right, Audrey Lord,
Angelie Davis. The other day I posted a Tony Morrison
video and someone on one of my followers real life
(43:48):
said to me, who is this great person?
Speaker 1 (43:50):
I'm like the girl they don't want us to know
around the same and abbit. They don't want to.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
They don't want us to know. But the reality is
that we can tell them.
Speaker 1 (43:58):
We can tell them, we can we have new ways.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
It's out them.
Speaker 1 (44:04):
I have to end with my last question, and my
last question for every podcast is what else is true?
And it comes from my therapy and the idea of both.
And even when the world is on fire, even when
things are very difficult, that is true. But there's also
something else that's true in my body. You know, if
there's pain in one part of my body, there's one
part of my body where it's neutral and positive impact
can focus on that part of my body. I can
(44:25):
shift my nervous system. I can reregulate my body. So
for you today, oh lie me, oh Lauren? What else
is true?
Speaker 2 (44:34):
What else is true? That I'm going to go see
Beyonce in July because I'm blessed.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
You got your tickets already, I brought where is she
here in New York?
Speaker 2 (44:44):
I'm going to Chicago. You know, I got to get
to Texas where you could get them.
Speaker 1 (44:48):
I saw Formation for the first time in Chicago because
I didn't know where I was going to be in
twenty sixteen. So I was like, girl. So I went
to Chicago, and then I moved to la and then
I'd done the Ivy part campaign and she invited me
and I got to see Formation twice.
Speaker 3 (45:02):
Yes, no, one won't be able to talk to me
no more.
Speaker 2 (45:04):
If I was you, I would talk to nobody no more.
Speaker 3 (45:10):
I'm so brand new.
Speaker 2 (45:12):
Oh my god, my bio would say, be high approved,
speak to me, girl.
Speaker 1 (45:20):
We're both strong and be high deeply thank you. It's amazing,
olim Oh Lauren. Sometimes a person comes along and they're
just so charismatic and smart and insightful and passionate and
they just have something. I just think she's a superstar.
(45:44):
I think she's a superstar. What was interesting for me
doing research about this is like finding statistics that said that,
you know, there was a relationship between bail reform and crime,
and then checking the source and being like, Okay, this
source is corporate funded, like right wing institution, and then
like checking another source that had some similar information but
(46:06):
very different information, and so being willing to cross reference
sources is so important, and like looking into the political
potential political bias of a source, and most most media
is politically biased. If they say they're not, they're lying
to you. We all have our biases and they're cooked
(46:26):
in what we decide to cover, what we decide to
talk about. That's bias. So anybody saying that they're not biased,
then don't believe them. And it's double triple check sources. Yeah,
that's a big thing for me coming out of this,
just like misinformation and just like triple checking sources for me,
public safety as a transperson, as a woman, as a
(46:49):
black person, I have never felt safe in the world,
and most of us, I think we're all hardwired in
our nervous systems to crave safety. Much of what we
do when we're in flight or freeze is about, like us,
feeling safe and needing to feel safe, and a lot
of us don't feel safe right now for a lot
(47:09):
of reasons. Do we not feel safe because of propaganda,
because of misinformation that we've been fed, or do we
not feel safe because of the material conditions of the
world around us? And then how do we regulate and
find spaces within ourselves where we can feel safe in
the face of all of these challenges. Thank you so
(47:40):
much for listening to The Laverne Cox Show. Please rate, review, subscribe,
and share with everyone you know. You can find me
on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok at Laverne Cox and on
Facebook at Laverne Cox for Real. Please check the show
notes for resources and a lot more information on this subject.
Until next time, stay in the love. The Laverne Cox
(48:08):
Show is a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Host
Laverne Cox
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