Let's Find Common Ground - Black History Month: Achievements, Change, and Justice. Special Episode

Episode Date: February 10, 2022

Black History Month is a celebration of the remarkable contributions of black Americans to our nation. Some of our guests share their personal thoughts and stories about the lessons of history. We learn about the legacy of the civil rights movement, and recent calls for social change, justice, reform, and respect. This episode includes extracts from past podcasts and a Common Ground Committee public event.  Podcast guests featured: Professor Ilyasah Shabazz, the daughter of Malcolm X and the author of the memoir "Growing Up X", Dr. Brian Williams, Associate Professor of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery at the University of Chicago Medical Center, Hawk Newsome, Cofounder, and Chair of Black Lives Matter Greater New York, Errol Toulon, Sheriff of Suffolk County New York, and Caroline Randall Williams, a poet, author, teacher and Writer-in-Residence at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. We also share moving extracts from a conversation between Donna Brazille and Michael Steele for a Common Ground Committee forum in 2018. As the first Black chairs of the Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee, respectively, their views represented different perspectives. But in tackling essential questions of race and governance, they found many points of agreement.

This is a special edition of Let's Find Common Ground for Black History Month. The event which runs all through February is a celebration of the contributions of Black Americans. In this episode, some of our guests share their personal perspectives on what Black History means to them, how it's influenced their views of current events. We include excerpts from podcast interviews and a common ground committee public forum. This is Let's Find Common Ground. I'm Ashley Melntite. And I'm Richard Davies. In the summer of 2020, we spoke with Professor Ilyasa Shabbaz, the daughter of Malcolm X, together with trauma surgeon Dr. Brian Williams. It was in the months after the murder of George Floyd

in Minneapolis. First question from Ashley. How do you think the national discussion about racism has changed over the last 50 years or so? Well, I think that, especially seeing I think that especially seeing the slow, horrific murder of George Floyd, that people are certainly more open to hear about and learn about the injustices and the complaints that many people were talking about. Even when we look at the phrase, Black Lives Matter,

prior when you hear that, a lot of people that I know, they would say, oh, come on, all lives matter. But now they understand why people were saying that Black Lives Matter, because for so long, it just didn't seem like it did. Brian, how do you feel things have changed? Do you agree with Iliasa when she says that more people are open to this phrase, Black Lives Matter. I definitely agree that people are more open to discussing racism in general, and also

what I think has changed is the variety of voices that you're hearing from that are condemning this act that happened with the murder of towards Floyd, and also connecting the dots to other incidents like that in the past, because what I've seen in past events is that they were always looked at in isolation. We looked at Michael Brown as one in Freddie Gray as another incident. But for me, these were a continuation

of a much larger narrative that I felt was lost in this discussion. So that's the huge change that I see with this current climate. Do you think the police are the problem, the primary problem? I think it's really important how we frame that narrative. So when you ask me, do I think that the police are the problem? I can say emphatically, no, the police are not the problem, but policing and the lack of understanding of the history of policing in this country and how it has been meant to isolate and control black

Americans, that lack of understanding and reform is the problem. And yes, there are bad police, right? And we sit in a focus on those individuals with incidents like this happen. This one officer, his actions have had huge international repercussions, but also we can bring some good of this by taking this collective energy from around the world to reform policing and reform systemic racism. The theme of 2022's Black History Month is health and wellness and how the health care system has underserved African Americans. Brian Williams told us about his own medical education as a young man and what he was not taught about the past. You know, as a doctor, having gone through medical school

and all the education, I always thought that the extent of experimentation on black Americans began ending with Tuskegee. It was about, I think, the 20-year study, they had a cure for syphilis, which is penicillin. Anybody can get this, but instead of giving this to their black research subjects, they gave them placebo so that they can study

the natural course of the disease, which can be deadly, it calls neurociplis and many other complications. And this was run by the United States Public Health Service. So this is the US, the federal government, denied an existing cure for this disease. And as you can expect, many suffered and died. Their children and partners were infected with the disease as well.

So most people are aware of that. But there are so many other instances of exploitation and experimentation on black Americans that occurred before, it even occurred after. For example, in the antebellum times, they were performing surgery on black women, vaginal surgery without anesthesia to perfect a technique, which is now the standard repair for vesicle vaginal fistula, which is a connection between the vagina and the bladder, but the surgeon that did this would have the woman held down and restrain and do the surgery over and over again without anesthesia.

When anesthesia was available, up until the 80s, there was still performing unauthorized sterilization on black women and teenagers in the South. It's part of the eugenics to better the race. So, you know, within our lifetime, like the 80s not that long ago, this was still happening. However, I never learned about any of that in medical school. And it seems to me to be a real luckyance to take a look at the mirror and see all the

awards and bruises on American history. Elias, you've said that when we teach people to hate others, we also teach them to hate themselves, and we must do better. Well, absolutely. I mean, why are we teaching our children to hate? Right? It speaks to my mother making sure that we love ourselves because when you love yourself then you know how to love and then you love others. When you love yourself and you see injustice or suffrage happening to someone else, then you want to do something to help because you love that person because you've been taught loud. And so if we're taught, hey, we're never going to solve any problems.

Iliasa Shabazz and Brian Williams from episode 6 of Let's Find Common Ground. Black Lives Matter is a phrase that's been heard around the world. Next we speak with Hawke Newsom, leader of a local Black Lives Matter group in the Bronx, a New York borough where more than four in ten residents are African-American. What I want is black people to be able to build wealth and do business within their communities and do business with outsiders but seek to take care of home first. Why is that important? You look around on neighborhoods and we don't own the businesses.

We don't own the homes we live in. I want to change that, right? You think about changing our habits and you think about violence and incarceration in our communities. Area codes with the highest murder rates had the highest unemployment rates. So if we make our people healthier,

they'll be less prone to violence. If we make our people more employable, they won't feel the need to go out and commit crimes to raise money. It just opens up so many doors for us. And we also asked talk about the need to look for common ground. I would love to sit down with poor white folk in rural settings across America

and talk to them about classism and really have an open discourse and draw parallels on how we are worried about the same things. We're worried about our kids' education. We're worried about rent or mortgages. How we're worried about health care. And then we could sit back and come to the conclusion that it is the 1% and the people that they hide and represent them, I'm sorry, the government, who are keeping us pitted against each other. I would love to find common ground with people who have open hearts and open minds. I'm not going to sit there and have a discourse with people who only want to hear things that they

want to hear. I tried that. I dedicated a year out of my life to these conversations and a lot of them did not want to hear anything that they didn't want to hear, but for folks who really want to see change, who for folks who really want to see this government be governed by the people and for the people, I'm always willing to sit down. Next we hear from law enforcement. Arrell Toulon is the first African-American sheriff of Suffolk County, New York. Most of the voters there are white. Arrell was reelected last November. He first spoke with us in 2020. In 2009 I ran for elected office here in Suffolk County.

And as I was walking through the neighborhood, someone called 911 and said there was a black man with black gloves breaking into a home. Now, I didn't know that this was occurring. And I'm going door to door, trying to inform residents of my ambition of being a county legislator. And all of a sudden I hear police cars coming and I see a police car drive quickly down the block into the coldest act that I was walking into

and turn back around and drive towards me. And he gets out of his car and he starts walking over to me. And I hear other car doors start to close behind me and they're police officers. They're not running. They're not even walking fast. and he starts walking over to me and I hear other car doors start to close behind me and they're police officers. They're not running. They're not even walking fast. They're walking towards me. And I reached out my pocket to take my retired shield and ID card out of my pocket because

I knew that that would at least help ease the situation if there was a situation. So I was asked what was I doing in a neighborhood and I said, well, I can walk anywhere I want. What was the problem? And they explained that there was a call of black man with black clubs breaking into a home. And I said, well, it sounds like Hojee Simpson to me. And meanwhile, an aviation unit now is above me. And you know the course of putting a bird in the sky

is those aviation units. So a helicopter is up in the sky above the ground. So you have a helicopter, you have eight or nine police cars, no one drew their firearm, no one ran at me aggressively. They were extremely professional, thank goodness. But you know, that could have been a very contentious moment. If I was a different individual and I was a button down shirt with slacks and loafers on walking through the community, it wasn't like I had a bag over my back with a mask on.

So that was a little chilling in itself. And then unfortunately, every other time I walk through this particular community, I would go to the police precinct, I would tell them where I would be walking, the time I would be walking, just in case there were other residents that would make a complaint. Suffolk County is a majority white county in New York on New York's Long Island. You were elected as the first African-American sheriff, the top elected law enforcement official, what do that feel like? I did not realize it until the election was actually confirmed because on election day,

I was only a hit by 1,300 boats and they had to count over 22,000 absentee ballots. And as they got closer when I realized that I was going to win, several people were forming not only the first African American to be elected to sheriff, but the first African American to be elected to a countywide position in Nassau or Suffolk County, so in Long Island history. And you know, it comes with a lot of pressure,

which I didn't realize until after I actually assumed office because there are many people that are looking for me for leadership or mentorship and African-Americans that are aspiring and hopeful that I do well on a job. You have some that hope that I don't do well because then they can say the old adage. Well, that's why we don't elect them. And so, you know, there is some pressure to perform or even outperform, you know, previous sharves that have ever held this office. And how's it going? You know, it's the culture change was easier than I thought. And I think part of the reason was because of my previous law enforcement background

That the staff respected that I have worked my way up through the ranks that I have done the jobs that I'm asking them to do and That we're in different times now, you know, we're not in the 1960s 70s or even the early 80s when I became a young correctional officer Where things were different? You know, we did monitor mental health. We didn't understand domestic violence. We didn't understand human trafficking. You know, those terms really weren't used back then. So now we're learning more, we use more evidence-based

with our training to ensure that our staff are the best trained possible for whatever circumstances they may encounter. Sheriff Errol Toulon, who spoke with us from Suffolk County on New York's Long Island. Next, Caroline Randall Williams, a poet, author, teacher, and writer-in-residence at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. She comes from a mixed background of white and black ancestors. They included enslaved people and Edmund Pettis, a grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan and a US senator from Alabama. Caroline identifies as black.

In part of the interview, we discuss the growing movement mostly in the south to take down monuments to Confederate soldiers. What should happen to them? I think that they belong in museums. I think I have had very powerful experiences at, but the Civil Rights Museum and Memphis in the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. You can see Nazi iconography, you can see Jim Crow propaganda, you can see Ku Klux Klan ensembles, you can see Nazi uniforms, but they're in context. They're put in the context of how they were used under what conditions. The monuments, sure, if people want to see them, let's have a place where people can see them, but I don't think that it makes sense to leave them in a place where people can see them, but I don't think that it makes sense to leave them in a place where people can see them and not have to think about what the men who died fighting and then

got to be memorialized in them, what they were fighting for. I don't think we should forget that that happened, but I think that we should certainly reframe how we remember it. Some people say, leave them where they are, but put up a plat to provide some context to the issue. What do you think of that idea? I'd come to the table to talk about that. I think that responsibly implementing a plan like that would be complicated. And I think that it leaves it open to any number of things. Cecration, protests that create more divides than they create healing. Who decides what responsible context is when you leave it up? A healing gesture is an important one. It's the other part.

I think that taking something down because it is pain someone is valuable. If I have a belief that is important to me to some degree, but somebody that I'm speaking to, here's that and says, that hurts me. It hurts me that you want this, that you like this. I stop immediately and I'd say, how does it hurt you? Why does it hurt you? I've got to examine why something that I need or want is costing you something. And I think that the people who want the monuments to stay up because of some sense of nostalgia or pride, they have to examine why they think that they're a sense of nostalgia or pride outweighs generations of pain.

You mentioned the Holocaust Museum, which prompts this question. Do you think that the United States could learn from Germany over how it dealt with its Nazi past. Yes, it's a very delicate conversation to have. And I have a few friends of German descent and not just German descent who are from Germany. And one of the things that I have found so striking is how to a person, they are so prepared to discuss the legacy of their ancestors with swift and vigorous reproach. I spent a lot of time thinking, well, where are the southerners, like the thoughtful, right-minded, white Americans who are prepared to do that same thing that the Germans did.

And then I thought, well, what I really want is a descendant of Confederate soldiers to say, I don't celebrate this. And then I thought, well, I'm a descendant of Confederate soldiers. So I guess I'll do it, right? But my desire to do that came from my sense of, you know, My desire to do that came from my sense of, you know, that collective German instinct towards saying, we did this. We are sorry. We must repair and reframe and acknowledge our responsibility. You say the campaign to remove Confederate statues to take them away is not a matter of airbrushing history, but of adding a new perspective, how can we do that?

How can we add that new perspective rather than just simply removing something? Well, there is an argument to be made for leaving up the statue and putting up a statue of Frederick acknowledge the system that those men were fighting for. They only speak to not even just one side of the war or not, but one side of the South in that time, because the war was fought to keep people enslaved. Even if it's a question of economics, the South's entire economic backbone was based on slavery, right? So even when you say it was about this, still the root of it was about slavery. So when you look at the monuments out of context, they're celebrating men who were fighting and dying to preserve this thing. So in order to reframe the past instead of airbrush it, we have to talk about this thing that they were fighting and dying for

and why it's right that they lost. So yeah, there is this much wider discussion now about whether monuments to founding fathers like Washington and Jefferson should also go. They owned slaves, they slept with their slaves, but a lot of people would say they also did a lot of good things and that they are in a different category from some of the Confederates. What do you think? I think that we are going to have to have a long conversation about that. As a country, my short answer is one, what makes the Confederate monuments distinct and an easy first step is the simple necessity of acknowledging that the men who fought and died for that cause had declared war against the United States of America

and we are not as a country otherwise in the habit of erecting monuments to traders. You know the question of Jefferson the question of Washington I don't know what the answer is to how we reckon with them, but I think they do need to be put into a lot more context and under a lot more scrutiny than we have put them under in the past. Caroline Randall Williams from Episode 9 of Let's Find Common Ground. This is a special edition of our podcast, marking Black History Month.

I'm Richard. And I'm Ashley. The rest of this episode includes portions of a common ground committee public forum on the government's role in bridging racial divides. It was held in 2018. The moderator was journalist Wendy Thomas, the founder of MLK50, a nonprofit digital newsroom, with the goal of reporting on economic justice. The panelists, Donna Brasile and Michael Steele.

She's a former chair of the Democratic National Committee. He had the same job in the Republican Party. Part of their conversation was about the role of government in dealing with hate speech. The event took place in Charlottesville, Virginia, where the year before white nationalists had marched at a unite the right rally. At one point, a car drove into a crowd of counter protesters. One person was killed and over a dozen others injured. Moderator Wendy Thomas asked this.

Donna, my question to you, are we at a place in our nation where our hate speech laws need to be re-evaluated by the Congress of the Courts? Well, I think we're in a place now where all of those values that we cherish, whether they be constitutional amendments are part of the bill of rights, are part of our, what I call, the platform of our freedom. They need to be reexamine, re-tult, so that there's a common understanding of what we mean

when we talk about freedom of the press, hate speech, right to assemble, etc. We have to give back to a place, I think, in society where we can foster civility in our conversation. We need new, what I think in the 21st century, we need a new vocabulary to talk about race. We need a 21st century vote. Right, that we need a 21st century way of looking at all of our laws as well as our speech. So I don't know the legal answer to it, but I know from a political perspective, we need to teach civics. We need to teach the common decency and values that allowed our forebearers to be able to come up with this great enterprise called, you know, we the people, a government representative

form of government. We've lost it. I would agree with that, but here's the rub. Who's going to teach it? Am I going to teach it? Or is rub. Who's going to teach it? Am I going to teach it? Or is your mom and dad are going to teach it? What we see right now and what we witnessed last year in Charlottesville

was learned to behavior. Young men and women and their, you know, khakis and eyes odds and their loafers, they didn't have a hood, they weren't a hood, they didn't have a white cap on their head in a cross, they had teaky torches. I agree 100% with Donna in terms of moving back into that space where we have a civil conversation,

but folks, it's got to start in a neighborhood. It's got to start in a community. It's got to start most especially in a home. What are we teaching our kids? So I feel like I hear you both saying there's a role for families' communities to kind of... Did a absolute role for my perspective. But when we get to the point where they're

with the Tiki torches and the khakis, what would be the government's role then? As long as there's not violence associated with it They're protected with their Tiki torches to go and protest and say whatever they want to say and I will defend their right to to gather and protest Carry their little teaky torches, and say whatever they want to say. But when you get in your car and drive it into a crowd of people, that's a whole different conversation,

and that's a whole different level of engagement by the government at that point, which should rightly step in and do its duty. But I don't see the government having a role in limiting your ability to go out and make that protest. Just as you show up with your Tiki torches and your inflammatory language, I'll show up with, you know, my friends

who will stand with the Constitution and say, this is not America, this is wrong. And so I think that that space has got to be protected. I agree with Michael and it has to be protected, but we also have a role to play because I also think in our churches and our community and our public homes of discourse, we also have to reinforce the notion that bigotry in all of its form is wrong. You know, Michael, 50 years ago, this month, when Dr. Cain was assassinated, that evening, when my parents came home, along with my grandmother who was there, to call all of us in her

room in the out of our births, Cheryl, Sheila, Donna, Tate, Chet, Lisa, Demetri, Kevin, Zill, I told you we were careful. Right, right. I mean, we sat down, we started praying, and she said, we have to pray for Dr. King, and we did, we have to pray for his family, we did, and then she said, and we also have to pray for those who committed this act of violence.

And she didn't say that way, we have to pray for the person who murdered him. And I raised objection because I had the biggest mouth of the nine, and I said, why, why do we have to pray for the, you know, the person who shot that again, you know, back then I was a little militant. And she's a little.

Oh, OK. Just a little. It's tiny as my feet were back then. But I wanted to know why. And my grandmother said, because that's what Jesus would want us to do. We had to pray for everybody. And that taught me something.

And that in them, here was my grandmother, who was born 22 years after slavery ended. My grandmother, who had spent all of her adult life living in the segregated South in Jim Crow. She was still filled with enough compassion and love to teach us that as children. And that sticks with me to this day, that we're not called to hate, we're called to love. And I'm telling you it's hard. I found myself

last Easter, every Easter I go to church, and I pray for someone. And last Easter I was praying for Donald Trump. Oh no, no, no, no. Dr. King said, do not let any person, any man, bring you so low as to hate him. And I was reminded of my grandmother again last year. And I have been praying for our president ever since. Don't a Priscilla in 2018. The conversation at the forum then turned to the question of trust between African Americans and the police, and where police officers live. Michael Steele.

When I was growing up, the cop who walked the beat of my neighborhood knew me, and he knew the other fellows in the neighborhood, he knew who the troublemakers were, right? So that if something happened, he knew not to look at me because I wasn't a troublemaker, because my mama had a belt with my name on it, and that was enough. Didn't need to be in the trouble with the law because at home was worse than anything the police could do. Right?

But that's not necessarily the environment today for a whole host of reasons. But the one constant is still the presence of the police. And the lack of community engagement where they actually know these young men and women who are growing up in this neighborhood. But you can't do that when you don't live there. You can't do that when you live in the suburbs

and you're policing the city. And that's a big part of it when you don't know where the trouble is and who the trouble makers are, you begin to look at everyone and every community as part of that problem. And so when you walk into it, and we've seen too many examples of it, where, for example, you look at a Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old kid who is in a Walmart or some store with a BB gun, and he's immediately seen as a threat because what's called in about him makes it sound like he's a threat.

And instead of stepping back and assessing the environment and that cop looking and saying, oh, it's Tamir. Tamir, Tamir is not a problem. He goes into it thinking that all he sees is an African-American individual, doesn't matter, child, adult, doesn't matter. African-American individual with a gun. And then we know the rest of that story. So for me, it's how the community and the police as law enforcement come together.

And the center of that is gonna be our city councils, our mayors, our governors, our state legislators, who are assisting them in putting in place the kinds and putting the money behind, to be honest, the kinds of programs that focus on rec centers, community centers, that can be gathering points, constructive gathering points where police and kids can come interact, putting a police officer in

a classroom or a school, to me just creates a further barrier. And this idea now we're going to arm teachers on top of all of that, it's just, it's downright stupid. So you sound like you're saying state local involvement. Donna, would you agree? 100%. I mean, after all, we pay their salaries. There's a federal role because they're federal police. There's a state local role. And we have to train our offices. Yes, I mean, I grew up in a household, Michael, you had a belt with your name on it. We had switches.

I have switches too. Oh, Lord. I mean back then we didn't even have a 911 with that rotary phone. No, I don't. Thank the Lord. There was no 911. What's your emergency? My mom is whipping my you know what? But we were taught as children to respect law enforcement. We were taught to respect anyone

in really in a uniform. I never forget when the male man was walking. Hello sir, goodbye sir, the milkman. Hello, I was afraid because apparently they drilled it. We also grew up in a house where my uncle Nat was a policeman. You know, my cousin, Ethel May was married to a sheriff and God knows we didn't mess with him. Not in the parish, I grew up in. And so there was a healthy amount of, as you said,

the police lived in the neighborhood, we knew them, and God knows if you were out at night, and they saw you, oh, they were going to talk to you. Now they said, we're disconnected. And the fear is just over the top. I have 17 nieces and nephews. And I have eight nephews under the age of 21. And I can't tell you how often I pray all the time, anyway. But I am so worried. I try to instruct them the way my mother and father instructed us.

I try to reinforce it with my brothers and sisters about how to act when confronted, and yet there are times when I just want to break down and cry. Because I just feel that things are at a tipping point now. Donna Brasil with Michael Steele at a Common Ground Forum in 2018. The whole event is on our website. Go to CommonGroundCommity.org.

You'll find links to discussions, blogs, podcasts, videos, and more. Under the Explore tab at the website, you'll find a whole section on race and equity. There's video, audio, and a newsfeed on racial issues. That's our show to mark Black History Month. Let's find Common Ground is a production of Common Ground Committee. I'm Ashley Miltite.

And I'm Richard Davies. Thanks for listening. known tight. And I'm Richard Davies. Thanks for listening. This podcast is part of the Democracy Group.