Lovett or Leave It - Bunker Inspector

Episode Date: June 6, 2020

Peaceful protests and police backlash spread across the country. Trump "inspects" a bunker and waves a bible. Osita Nwanevu joins to discuss our collective response. DeRay Mckesson discusses policy changes that can save lives right now. And we hear from protesters and listeners. Plus, ONE Lea Michele joke. One.

Welcome to the 13th episode of Love It or Leave It Back in the cloud, yeah. Just with skeletons and random shit. Back in the cloud, yeah. Yeah, I just love it because I can't leave it. Honestly, what the fuck? Back in the cloud, yeah. That song was sent in by Kim and Fred, also known as... They're known as Shark Tits. That's what they're known as. Okay.

We want to use a new song each week. If you want to make us one, send it to hey at cricket.com, and maybe we'll use yours. You can also tweet it at me. Later in the show, we'll be joined by Osita Wenevu from the New Republic, Pod Save the People's DeRay McKesson, and we're going to hear from protests and listeners directly. But first, let's get into it. What a week. So, look, obviously this has been a very sad week for the country, but I did just want

to take a moment to tell you what I've been thinking about before we get to interviews and voices from the protest, because just thinking through what we've been seeing was useful for me. economy erupted in protest in response to the murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor, and an endless catalog of racist abuses in the justice system and incidents of unchecked police brutality and violence. And, you know, I feel like the question that's been on a lot of people's minds is like, how did we get here? How did we get to the point where peaceful protests are attacked by police from a park in front of the White House to make room for an improv authoritarian to take a picture in front of a church, and peaceful marches across the country are terrorized by militarized, unaccountable police forces. How did we get to the point where unmarked soldiers stand guard in the nation's capital, lined up in front of the Lincoln Memorial, young people shot with dangerous so-called

non-lethal bullets, pepper spray and tear gas fired into masses of human beings, marchers corralled and trapped, seniors shoved to the ground, video capturing the crack of their skulls. And I think the truth is that white people ignored police brutality, or at least many didn't take it seriously because they were conditioned to not care or to believe it was necessary. And it would never come for them.

And I'm not saying all this to be self-righteous because I haven't lived my life like this is the emergency that it is. It isn't always front of mind because our entire society is built to make sure for people like me, for people who look like me, it doesn't need to be front of mind. And not just police brutality, but the broader disregard for the humanity of black and brown people. And that is true of most of the mostly white people listening to this. That is true of you listening to this. It's not just about confronting a Trump supporter

at Thanksgiving. It is deeper than that. And it's harder than that. I went to the protest on Saturday and I was inspired and I was glad I was there and glad to see most in masks, even as I tried to remain socially distant because the coronavirus doesn't know the difference

between a march against injustice and a MAGA hat who wants to get her nails done. And I saw how peaceful it was. And I saw the aftermath of police unleashed on peaceful protest in my neighborhood and the looting that followed. A bunch of restaurants and small businesses already hanging on by a thread were just able to reopen on my street and were destroyed. And that is sad. It's genuinely sad.

And I'm sad for the gay baristas at the Starbucks that's closed because they've been scattered to the wind. We don't know where they are. We hope they return. But any focus on destruction of property is a distraction from the destruction of lives at a moment when acts of looting or vandalism are being exploited to tar a vast peaceful movement by some of the worst voices in American politics. There is a genuine debate right now about how to channel this energy into real change. Police reforms that are needed right now to stop violence, reducing the role and funding of police and fundamentally reimagining the relationship between government and the governed, a broader

conversation about injustice and opportunity. It's okay to be unsure. I feel uncertain. And it's all heightened because we're in the midst of a pandemic because so many of the ordinary outlets for conversation and interaction and kindness have been restricted. And by the way, also putting the health of protesters at risk. I want to talk about whether Lea Michele is racist or just shitty to everyone in person. I want to talk about Trump claiming he's a bunker inspector at the office. I want to talk about white people posting a black square on Instagram and then deleting it 15 minutes later because they got yelled at by black people on Twitter at a California pizza kitchen. I miss my friends. I do. But being out there, going back out there this week, being with people, seeing how many people are out there right now, and knowing that the protests nationwide

have spurred charges against some of the police officers responsible for murder, though we know that in the case of Breonna Taylor, that hasn't happened yet. And the fact that these protests have helped create as a first step, a shared sense of what is broken, even as many have lashed out to maintain a grip on a kind of power slipping away, that is important and that's a reason for hope

in a dark time. So I just wanted to share that. At the top of this episode, you're gonna hear from the protest. I recorded some conversations I had with people I met. Elisa, our producer, recorded some conversations that she had. And I also was glad to be able to talk to Osita and DeRay about not only some of the reforms that are needed right now, but the larger context for this movement and these protests and what should come next.

When we come back, we'll be joined by Osita Wenevo from The New Republic. Hey, don't go anywhere. There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. And we're back. He has written for The New Yorker, Slate, and is a current staff writer at The New Republic. Please welcome Osita Wenevo. Hey.

First of all, thank you for joining and having this conversation. I was struck by a piece you wrote that talked about collective amnesia that you've seen in the coverage of these protests. And so I just wanted to ask if you could talk a little bit about what you meant by that. Sure. So in the early days of the Floyd protests in Minneapolis, you had this big discourse about whether the protests were being conducted in a way that was politically productive, whether the looting and the vandalism you saw break out in some places was going to be

destructive to efforts to get people to understand what was happening and why people were angry. It was going to overshadow the peaceful protests and so on. It was, to my mind, a replay of the kind of discourse you see time and time again with these protests where initially the reaction is very sort of fluid and explosive and spontaneous. There's a lot of hand-wringing about it. But ultimately, over time, things get smoothed out. You have a more controlled series of protests. And then people in hindsight say, well, this was obviously always going to be a good thing. Protesters were great. They were noble.

They were very MLK-like. This is what happened in Ferguson. I mean, I remember I was working as an intern at Slate that August, and I remember trying to find live streams and people on the ground tweeting about what was happening because it wasn't initially being covered by cable news media. But, you know, there was a lot of chaos in those early days. There was looting, there was vandalism, there was all the stuff people have criticized about Minneapolis protests then too. But I think over time, all of that has sort of been lost in our understanding and interpretation of

what happened then. I think in very similar ways to how people sort of erase or elide the fact that, you know, the LGBT movement, for instance, there was a riot at Stonewall that was very important in organizing that, gathering that. There were suffragettes who were radical and, you know, were engaged in proper discussion and all this. ever really define movements as a whole. You'd be hard-pressed to think about a movement that was always pure and everybody was doing the right thing in the eyes of opinion leaders from the get-go. There's always a lot of messiness to it. And I think understanding what's happening now in response to the killing of George Floyd, in response to the years of instances of high-profile police brutality,

if you really want to sort of get at the fundamental dynamics of the movement here, I don't think you can let yourself be distracted by expressions of anger and anguish that might seem radical to you now. But in two or three years, I'm sure people will sort of say it wasn't that definitive. So because these protests are so vast, we've seen a wide range of policies being advocated. There's obviously calls to defund the police. There's targeted reforms that can reduce police violence right now. There's advocacy and something you've talked about around sort of targeting structural inequality in housing, education, the economy. Where do you hope the energy of these protests is directed? Where do

you think is the most fruitful place to point this incredible amount of advocacy that we're seeing? Well, I think there are two levels. I think on one level, obviously, you have to talk structurally about policing in this country, whether there are small board reforms that might make things a little bit better. You heard former President Obama talk a little bit about that yesterday. But also whether there are ways in which we should sort of more fundamentally rethink the role of policing in our society. Is it really right for us to have a particular institution that is the sort of catch-all place you go to if you are dealing with a problem? Should you be able to sort of get on your phone and call in a person who's going to

come into a situation with a gun if somebody is accosting you in Central Park over leashing your dog, as we saw the other week? I think that's a question more and more people are kind of asking. Are there other models for how we can solve the problems that we have police solve right now? Are there rules for expanding support for social workers and other kinds of professionals that might be better suited to dealing with problems like addiction? If there are other ways in which we can bring in different sets of people to deal with social issues. That's one level. The other level is something people have talked about for a long time. I mentioned in that piece the Kerner Commission after the riots in 1967.

In 1968, in the wake of another series of riots, publishes a report that says if you really want to get to the underlying causes of black anxiety and despair and crime, you really have to talk about funding education adequately, desegregating our schools, making sure people have better access to economic opportunity. Big, sweeping changes to address the fact that you have a population in this country that's been immiserated, repressed in every conceivable way for, you can say, hundreds of years. You know, that is the scale at which you have to think about addressing root causes.

And so I think that ultimately, you know, you're going to see people talking about policing, but I think you're going to see the protests now compound conversations that were already being had in the Democratic Party about this scale at which Biden, if he's elected, will have to deal with some pretty big problems as the conversation people were having with coronavirus. I guess it seems like forever ago now, but just a couple of weeks ago, it was, you know, Biden is talking about dealing more structurally with American health care and inequities than he was talking about over the course of the primary. I think all of this is going to sort of compound that energy and that interest in crafting a more expansive presidency. I think you're going to have more and more people call for a larger set of solutions to the problems we're facing. You're seeing all these calls now about abolishing the police, defunding the police, and the reaction is, you know,

from people who, you know, it's an unfamiliar concept to them. They're like, well, how are you going to manage like murders and car thefts and this kind of thing? And it's like a valid criticism, but there are all kinds of ways in which the police are sort of entrenched in people's lives. And, you know, in some places they're just sort of doing street patrols that like create situations in which abuses can happen.

And meanwhile, we have a deeply underfunded, under-resourced social services infrastructure in many, I think most of the country. There's a balance that should be struck. And I think striking that balance means that you radically reduce the number of armed people you have in this country responding to basic problems. It's for a lot of people who are not familiar with the topic and are coming to the topic, to fund the police sounds so radical. And when actually the policy is reform the police, demilitarize the police, and focus the police where actual armed security, armed safety officers are required. And for mental health interventions, addiction interventions, social welfare interventions, there's other conflicts between people in parking lots over parking spaces. There's a whole host of

other responses that are possible. No, I think it's true. I mean, you have this conversation over and over again, I think, in democratic politics, especially over the past couple of years, where someone says something like abolish ICE, you know, and everyone is sort of like, well, that's, you know, nobody's going to go for that. It's going to lose you the suburb. It's going to lose you this or that constituency. But then the response to that is, well, what can we do? Like, how can we move in this direction and sort of take some of the fundamental problems people are pointing at with that slogan? How do we take them seriously and get to a different set of policies? And so in the wake of that, you had people say, well, you know, let's reorganize. Let's sort of see if we can resign some of these functions.

Let's see if the organization or the agency needs as much money, etc. I think in the near term, that's what Abolish the Police, Defund the Police probably does. I think it probably pulls people to ask more fundamental questions than they might have been asking had people not sort of pushed for the more radical position. But we'll see. I don't think that Joe Biden is going to run on defunding the police. I don't either. I don't expect that either.

But I do think that the energy from activists is probably going to inspire pretty good conversations. And I look forward to them. It is extraordinary that the pandemic is still here. The crisis set off by the pandemic is still here. That if Biden is able to win in November, he will be inheriting a set of problems as vast as any president in our lifetimes, maybe longer. This unrest seems like these protests, this uprising against brutality and inequality is not going anywhere. The pandemic's not going anywhere. The economic dislocation is not going anywhere. What would it take for Joe Biden right now to make you

and make others who are kind of pushing for a more progressive, more expansive, more left response? What would it take for you to feel as though Joe Biden is answering this call? It's a big question. It's a big question, but I also think there's a pretty easy set of answers. I mean, you're hearing things from the campaign now that should be encouraging to progressives in certain ways on a wide variety of issues. I think that policing may well be the next issue where he sort of tries to offer the left something in the wake of these protests. But the main thing that I am looking to hear isn't really a particular policy solution to a specific problem. What I want to hear from Joe Biden is how he is going to reform American democracy so that those policies will

actually pass early next year in the Senate, so that they won't get struck down by a Supreme Court that Donald Trump has now established a durable conservative majority on. I want to hear how the residents of D.C. are going to be offered representation within the next year so that you can't have a president just sort of steamroll over them and try to control their city with an occupying force. Like, these are, I think, structural issues that, you know, you heard some candidates talking about of the campaign more than Joe Biden did. Frankly, you know, even though I was more supportive of Bernie Sanders, but even he sort of didn't really give the basic fundamental structural changes you would need to pass his policies sufficient attention. And I think that's a problem that Joe Biden has even more significantly.

So that is the first thing. I want to hear from Joe Biden that he is going to come in and recommend to whoever the Senate majority leader is, if it's still Chuck Schumer, when he takes office, that the Democrats, if they have a majority, eliminate the filibuster, move to simple majority, and start passing things that the majority of the people in this country want, and actually building a more responsive democracy. That's the only way he's going to get anything he wants to do done. So it's all well and good for him to say that he's moving left or this or that issue. But if you haven't done that, if you're not pushing for that, if you're not making a case to the American people for why those structural reforms have to happen, I think he's going to have a very hard time

actually fulfilling the aspirations people have for his presidency. I do think tied to that too is something you've talked about. It's something that a lot of people are talking about right now, which is sort of our collective pain tolerance for the amount of injustice, emergency that we tolerate. And that some of that is what allowed someone like Donald Trump to come in, that we look past a lot of cruelty. We look past a lot of injustice all the time. I've been to these protests. And in LA, you know, you see the diversity of the city. And I've been struck by the support along the way by people honking their horns, people coming out of their windows, and also by the diversity of the protests. You know, when we talk about what this country can ignore, we tend to talk about what white people have been able to either

ignore or benefit from or like in terms of the lack of opportunity, the systemic oppression of people who didn't look like them to such an extent that it became normal, became acceptable. How naive is it to look at these protests, to see this sort of diverse young coalition that's out on the streets in these cities and say, this group of people doesn't want to go back to that. This group of people isn't interested in ignoring these problems anymore, that maybe there really is a deeper shift. I think it's definitely heartening to see all the different kinds of people who are in the streets now. It's not just a small cadre of activists. It's a sort of broad assemblage of people who make up Democratic

coalition, people who aren't really that engaged with politics, coming together and saying that, you know, we can't stand for the way policing has been conducted in this country anymore. And along with that, making a broader set of demands, I think. I think this is also sort of a lot of pent up energy about things that extend beyond policing. So all of that is very heartening, especially for people who saw the end of the Sanders campaign and were kind of dismayed by it and wondered where all of the energy was going to go. Well, this is where a lot of that energy, I think, is gone. But ultimately, I think the onus is now on political leaders, elected officials, to sort of do something with that energy that will, again, sort of make it so that it matters that the majority of people are mad. Right now, we're not in a country where it matters that the majority of people are mad about American policing,

or climate change, or healthcare. It doesn't. You can win the presidency without winning majority support of the electorate. You can win the Senate without getting majority support from the electorate. There are all of these structures in place that make it so that even if you have millions of people angry about a particular situation, nothing will change unless you have fundamentally reconstituted certain institutions. So it's heartening to see people mad about the policy issues. And I just sort of wish that there was also a kind of, I don't know if you want to call it protest movement or what, but also a kind of a set of demands from this crowd explicitly about reforming

our institutions and making it so that they're more systematically heard. And, you know, the filibuster is not an issue that is going to, that gets people fired up necessarily, but it is like very, very important. And things like that are ultimately the key to whether this movement goes anywhere or whether it sort of falls by the wayside. It's another instance where millions of people were mad about something. They got in the streets, but nothing really fundamentally changed. We've seen it with gun control, you know, in the past couple of years. It's a huge example.

It's also, I mean, you don't need to go to the national level. Los Angeles, New York City, these are cities where the popular majority is electing people who ostensibly agree or at least have paid lip service to a lot of these notions, a lot of desire to reform police, to prevent police brutality. And yet there's this sort of anti-democratic force in these cities. And a lot of times it feels as if the mayors serve at the pleasure of the police unions. There's something about these cities. And in a lot of times it feels as if the mayors serve at the pleasure of the police unions. There's something about these protests. It makes sense that it would start on police brutality because it is such a stark example of an undemocratic force and a bunch of people all of a sudden saying, wait a second, we're in charge. Yeah. Yeah. You know, one of my least favorite phrases in American politics is this is not a partisan

issue, which, you know, inevitably is describing a lot of partisan issues. This is one instance where, like, genuinely policing this country is not a partisan issue. You have Democratic majority cities like Minneapolis, like Baltimore, where you have these abuses happen in part because, as you say, leaders in those places are often deeply enthralled to police unions and police as an institution. And so, you know, there's a frustration there that can't really be resolved by saying, well, you should go out and vote. These people have been voting for Democrats, you know, forever. So there's a lack of accountability here that is kind of structural. It's not just a matter of

people going to the polls, although going to the polls is important. You have to make sure that there are people at the polls you can vote for who take a more structural view of why things have gone wrong and are willing to push bold reforms. And frankly, it's often not hard for those people to get ahead if you have establishment politicians sort of poo-pooing proposals that they see as radical about reforming the police. Ultimately, you're going to have to see progressives, people on the left wing of the party actually prevail in these elections against some of the more entrenched leaders in some of these cities. Yeah. Either it's going to be people taking that power from them or the pressure from outside reminding them that they have power to begin with. Osita, Wenevu, thank you so much for joining us.

Such a great conversation. I really appreciate it. Yeah, thanks for having me. This was great. When we come back, we're going to hear directly from some of the protesters who were marching. And I was really glad I was able to go and hear what they had to say. Don't go anywhere. This is Love It or Leave It, and there's more on the way. And we're back. Earlier this week at protest in Los Angeles, I went out and talked to some people. Elisa, our producer, went out and talked to some people and gathered some conversations we thought you might want to hear. Travis didn't go because he looks like a cop and he supports the cops.

Let's go to that audio right now. Hey, do you mind if I ask a question just about why you're out here today? Fighting equality and the police and discrimination. I'm here today in support of all the black and brown people. We gotta all stand together in order to fight this corrupted justice system. I believe that we should all be treated equal and right now we're not treated equally. I have a 20 year old son, black man, I'm protesting for him, for his rights. I was here on Sunday, I'm doing the same thing today.

I'm here to stand by my brothers and sisters to stand against police brutality. We can't let this go on her, we can't let this go on said. Because of the injustice that's been going on for many years, and I'm finally just with George Floyd. I just finally just fed up him, Breonna Taylor, it just felt like a personal attack, like these are my people. So I'm a public defender, and we, my boyfriend and I are both public defenders.

We came out for like a public defender walkout from court, but we also just wanted to come support the protest, support black lives, speak out against the killings that keep happening of unarmed black people in this country. As a public defender, I feel like we are kind of at the front lines of social justice and kind of being the last protection between the voiceless, the disenfranchised black and brown people in our community against the police, against the district attorney, against our fucked up justice system. Most of the people out here behind their feelings and emotions,

behind this injustice, this corrupt-ass system that they call equality. The rest of us out here for a future. See this eight-month-old baby in my hand? This is for her, the future. It's not an overnight process, but this is what we're working towards, a change, equality, justice, for everyone. Thanks to everybody who talked to us at the protest. When we come back, we'll be joined by DeRay to talk about some police reforms that can help reduce violence right now. Hey, don't go anywhere.

There's more of Love It or Leave It coming up. And we're back. He's an activist, co-host of Pod Save the People, and one of the founders of Campaign Zero. Please welcome back DeRay McKesson. It's good to see you. It's good to be here. And it's Pride. So happy Pride.

I keep forgetting that everything is closed. I know. Pride isn't going to be a thing. No, it is. It's just going to be digital. We're going to wear our parade on the inside. Did you just make that up? I did. Just now.

It just happened. That was good. Look, I'm glad you're here. We spoke when you were on Pod Save America. But in the last few days, you've launched with Brittany and with Sam and with Campaign Zero, Eight Can't Wait. So can you just tell everybody what Eight Can't Wait is? So we zoom out a little bit. We we start with recognizing that the police have killed a lot of people. Right. Police kill an average of 1100 people a year, have killed more people since the protests in 2014, not less.

And I could go on and on. So when we try and figure out what to do to stop it, it's a twofold strategy. One is reduce the power of the police. So as long as there are police, we reduce their power. Like we take as much power away from them to inflict harm in communities today. And the second thing we do is that we actually shrink the role of the police. And we do these at the same time. These are both and strategies, not either or strategies. So let me talk about shrinking the role first. So when we think about shrinking the role, we sort of enter this space from an idea of experts do what experts do. So when somebody's having a mental health crisis, who responds? Who should respond? An expert, right? Are the police mental health? No, right? So we should actually remove all those responsibilities,

take all those resources and put them somewhere else. And we sort of keep doing that until we get down to sort of the barest bones because like most of what people need is not really in the police department anyway. They need like a set of resources. Some people talk about that as like defunding the police. There's a great campaign in LA that is rooted in defund, but it stems from this idea of like experts do what experts do. And you know, the police are the first people to be like, I'm not a social worker. It's like, you're right. You shouldn't be responding to homelessness, right? We should have a whole set of people who deal with those issues that don't have a gun and that aren't

police officers. The second bucket, Nate Can't Wait, is this idea of as long as there are police here, they should have dramatically less power than they have today. So we identified eight policies that, when in place, change the landscape of how police officers can inflict harm in communities. So it's things like exhausting all alternatives before using deadly force. It's things like making sure that there's a continuum so that the police department is sort of identified like when force can be used for what things making a duty to intervene so if an officer sees another officer engaged in wrongdoing they actually have to do something so they're like a host of things that we've identified that when these eight things are in play like less people die and in some ways it is harm reduction right it's like saying we can actually reduce harm today and let us do it today

and i think you know i've heard some people trying to put these ideas in conflict with each other that like, you know, you choose reduce the power or you shrink the role. And it's actually like you do them both at the same time. So as long as police exist, we have to reduce their power, you know? Yeah, no, I've seen some of that too. So, I mean, these are concrete steps and you can actually go to eightcantwait.org and you can go to your city, your area, and you can go to your city, your area, and you can say which of these eight policies are currently in place. So you can start pushing your mayor, pushing your local leaders, pushing the police department to implement those policies. And, you know, according to what you've put out there, when these policies are in place,

violence that results in death can be reduced by 72%. But I've seen some of the people criticizing this idea as saying, well, that's not enough. That's not good enough. You know, that's still too much harm. That's still too much danger that we're accepting in our communities. We need radical transformation of the role of police. Like, what do you say when people kind of push back on you

for pushing these actions? Yeah, so we say that, you know, the reason why we call it Campaign Zero is that we believe we can live in a world where the police don't kill anybody, where we put zero resources towards policing because we put it in other places, and where we sort of understand that we don't need to create a whole apparatus of people who have guns, right? So when people say that this isn't enough, we agree that it'll take a whole host of steps to get to the end of police violence and to move beyond the idea

that the police are a necessary part of the public safety equation. We've never disagreed with that. We've said that there are a set of policies that we can implement today, don't require legislation, don't require, like mayors can change these things today

and they'll save people's lives today. And importantly, they do it without increasing the power of the police. They do it without increasing the budget of the police and without increasing the scope of services that they provide. This is about saying we can do it today. So I've seen some of those criticisms, too, and I've been sort of like confused by some of the things that other people support that is not the end of police in and of themselves.

Right. Right. But it is the acknowledgement that we push and push, knowing that we push from all the directions at once to get us to the place that we want to go. What I'm heartened by is that there are a lot of people who have never talked about the police before, who talked about it can't wait. And what now we're trying to do, and this is only day two, which is so wild. Right. Like it feels like this day 3000 is we're trying to help people. I think that people are confused and I like I own own that. I, I think the messaging on it, I think people, I didn't anticipate that people would feel like they had to choose one of the strategies, right? Right, right, right. People feel like they either are in the eight can't wait or they are in the defund the police, shrink the rule. And it's like, no, no, no, no. You're in both, right? We are just saying that like today there are police officers and we can reduce the

power they have right now. So it is a both and it's not an either or. And I think that got lost in our communication. So, you know, look, you've been in this fight for a long time. And on the ground, we've seen in all 50 states and so many cities, a ton of organizing. It's work you're familiar with. What is the role that these organizers can play in campaign zero? And like, how do you integrate this work into the campaign? We maintain the most comprehensive database of police violence in the country. So we support protesters all across the country and organizers who want data about their communities. We also maintain a scorecard of all the police departments in California.

We maintain the only database of use of force policies in the country and police union contracts in the country. So we are a resource hub for activists all across so that they have the information they need to go into the room and be prepared immediately. So I think about our work in Austin, helping them get the police union contract voted down. I think about our work in a host of places that has allowed people to sort of understand the system in a way that allows them to walk into the room and make demands that are focused and clear. And what's really powerful too, is that so many activists that pushed us have helped us

think differently about the work. And because we manage this large data set, we're able to do analyses. Like, you know, we do that one analysis that's like, how many days did the police not kill somebody in a given year, right? Like we do these sort of interesting cuts of the data to help people see the consistency with which the police are violent. I just had a conversation with a writer, Osito Wenevu, about just how much forgetting has gone on even since Ferguson. It's amazing. You see people talking about how, oh, they can't believe reporters are being arrested, or reporters were arrested at Ferguson. You see people worried that the protests will be marred politically by some of the unrest that follows or some of the aggressive actions by police that caused there to be confrontations

or police being aggressive and then denying those actions and blaming it on the protesters. And all of that happened in Ferguson. You were a witness and part of that in Ferguson. Do you think that what's happening now is different? Do you think that this will stay with people, that the effects of these protests are in some ways larger or different, that more people are participating, more people are watching? Has this movement grown, I guess is my question. Yeah. You know, every night I go out this go around, I see a whole different crowd of people who

were there before, right? This was not the people who sort of identified as activists and identified as protesters. I think there's a whole new wave of people being radicalized. There are people I know personally who were always like, they supported our work and they supported me and they support other people. They had never really been in proximity to the violence of the police though. Like it was sort of a thing they saw on TV and they sort of supported people like me and a host of other activists.

And now those people, they saw it, right? They saw like the reporter get tear gassed. They saw the person get hit with a rubber bullet. I have a friend who thought he was going to die

because he got hit at such close range with a rubber bullet. I have another friend who permanently lost her eye because she got shot, right? So I think that there was a part of it

because the protests were the wildest in Ferguson and they were bad in other places, but you know, we were in the street for 400 days, whereas now the protests are wild in like a host of places, right? It's like, you just see the police be amped at like 3 p.m. in a way that is just so different, you know?

I do think that's different. I think that like there's a generation of people who are like, you know what? I didn't really believe it and now they get it. I feel like for me, even just observing this, that I feel like, you know, I've known you, I've known your work for some time. You know, we've we've talked on this show. We've I've been someone who sort of paid attention. But I think that there is these two ways of knowing something. You can know it and then you can really know it, really internalizing it either by seeing it yourself or by seeing this footage. It's remarkable how, just how much these protests have elicited from the police a response

that proves the point, you know? So much of the news covers the big cities, right? But when we look at the data, police violence is decreasing in cities, but it's increasing in rural and suburban areas. And I'm interested in like what's happening there, right? What happens when the media is so coastal? It's so LA, it's so New York, it's so DC that I worry that we're missing a whole set of things that are happening in rural America where people are being killed by the police in record numbers and suburban America.

So that has been on my mind as we think, you know, even in the conversation about solutions, most of what you heard has been in like a coastal city, right? Yeah. Like when we think about the sheer raw, like the raw numbers of the problem, it's not in cities right now. Like cities have gotten a little better, but suburban communities and rural communities have not. So I am interested in like, I want to understand that better, you know? Before I let you go, where can people go?

Just tell people what they can do to get involved. They can go to 8can'twait.org, but what else can they do to kind of support the work right now? They can go to 8can'twait.org. You know, there are a lot of people. If you're in L.A., the people's budget is the rallying cry around shrinking the role of the police and doing it dramatically. So you can look at that resource. And there are incredible people organizing all around and would love to help connect you to them. And that's really good work, you know. Like, I think this is the long haul. And I think that we're in a moment, John, where like, I think we can get some wins that'll last for a long time,

right? I think that we can get some wins that really change the game. And I'm excited about that. Well, thank you DeRay for coming on to talk to us about it. And I also just want to say, you know, this is the second time we've spoken this week and, and I know how relentless this work has been for you for a very long time emotionally, and also just in terms of your time, in terms of your effort. And I think at a time when a lot of people feel very bad, they feel sad, they've been isolated, they feel angry about what they're seeing. I just want to say that I find it remarkable how not optimistic, but energized you are by the work, by what we can actually do. So thank you for that.

I appreciate it. When we come back, we'll hear from listeners and end on a high note. Don't go anywhere. This is Love It or Leave It, and there's more on the way. And we're back. Thanks, everybody, for listening. I know this was a serious show, but I felt like it was important that we dive into some of these issues this week. And because we all need it this week, here it is, this week's high notes submitted by you, the listeners. Hi, I love it. This is Amanda and Ian from Salt Lake City, Utah. And we're calling with our highlight for the week, which is the fact that we graduated from medical school and

from public health college. So now we will be a physician and an epidemiologist, and we're really excited. And we hope that everybody who's protesting is staying safe, and we want you all to know that we stand with you and that Black Lives Matter. Hi. So I am just leaving a protest in New York City. And what gave me hope this week is at one point

we passed Mount Sinai Hospital, and all the hospital workers were standing outside for us clapping as we marched by. And we stopped and clapped for them and chanted, thank you. And it's a pretty dark world out there. And being able to witness that just gave me a lot of hope. and being able to witness that just gave me a lot of hope. Hi, Lovett. This is Kirby from Richmond, Virginia. And my high note is that after days of peaceful protests in the capital of the Confederacy,

they're taking down the monument of Robert E. Lee. This has been a huge statue in Monument Avenue. Not only that, but they're implementing a citizen review board of the police. And so we're really making progress. And if we can do it here in Richmond, Virginia, where the Confederacy thrived, we can do it everywhere. So yay. I love it. This is Kirsten from Seattle, Washington. And my high note this week is that my first act of community organizing was to adopt Florida through the Vote Save America Adopt campaign. And I was actually able to get more than 10 friends and family members

to adopt across all six states. And they've actually sent it on to their friends as well. Thanks, everybody, for listening. It is 150 days until the election. Sign up at Vote Save America right now to defeat Trump, keep the House, and win back the Senate.

Thank you to Sita and DeRay for joining. Thank you to our listeners. Thanks to everybody at the protests who talked to us. Thank you to the protesters on the ground all over the country. Thank you to our grocery workers and truck drivers and delivery people. Thank you to our doctors and nurses. And thank you to our whole staff working to keep this show going out and crooked going strong. Have a great weekend. Alicia Carroll and Peter Miller are the writers. Bill Lance is our audio editor and Stephen Cologne is our sound engineer.

Sydney Rapp is our assistant producer and August Dichter is our intern. Our theme song is written and performed by Sure Sure. Thanks to our designers, Jesse McLean and Jamie Skeel for creating and running all of our visuals, which you can't see because this is a podcast, and to our digital producers, Norm Melkonian and Yale Freed for filming and editing video each week so you can.