 A century on a cushion The weapons that she wears Are compassion and insight It's not a battle between The good guys and the bad guys We all contain the shadows and the light Take off your armor Let your light shine Break down the barrier in your mind Off your arm Let your light shine Break down the barone in your mind Space We can understand Radical independence of our system It's not a battle between The good, the shadows and the light Hey, thank you all so much Once again, my name is Antonio Lopez. I live here in Longmont, original musician, and we're going to be getting the panel started here shortly. So thank you so much for listening. Good evening and welcome to the Longmont Museum. We're a center for culture in northern Colorado where people of all ages explore history, experience art, and discover new ideas through dynamic programs, exhibitions, and events. My name is Justin Beach. I'm the manager of the museum's steward auditorium and I curate public programs. I want to start off by thanking Antonio Lopez for playing a few songs before our program this evening. I thought there was no better person to set a warm and welcoming tone for what's going to be a rather intense conversation this evening. Before we get going, I want to thank all the folks who make our programming possible, the scientific and cultural facilities district, the Stewart Family Foundation, the Friends of the Longmont Museum, our many museum donors, and of course our museum members. Any museum members with us this evening? Hello, members. As usual, thank you. We simply can't do all that we do without you. So thank you. I'd also like to thank our media sponsors, the mighty KGNU Community Radio, Edda Boulder, and the Longmont Leader, your source for online news here in Longmont. Tonight, we are live streaming on the World Wide Web thanks to the Longmont Public Media. We're going out via Facebook. Hello, Facebook. And to local Comcast Cable Channel 8 and 880 here in Longmont. So if you ever want to return to this and watch it online, you're welcome to do so. It will be up. Add-Infinitem. Without further ado, tonight's program is presented as part of our Voices of Change program, Voices of Change series, excuse me. We've been offering these programs for about about three years now, I think, and this is probably our, this is our fifth one. And each one of these programs is dedicated to an issue of diversity, equity, and inclusivity. And we present these programs in partnership or in collaboration with the Longmont Multicultural Action Committee. And without further ado, I'd like to introduce to you Adriana Perea who will tell you a little bit about ELMAC, as we like to call it, and introduce our panel. Hello, everyone. My name is Adriana Perea and I'm the lead staff for the Longmont Multicultural Action Committee. And as Justin said, better known as ELMAC. We focus on promoting cultural understanding, inclusion, and involvement. We are here today to engage in an urgent dialogue on the recent rise of hate crimes in this country. ELMAC believes in the importance of practicing having meaningful dialogues around difficult and divisive issues. I cannot thank the museum enough for all of their support in providing this space to hold these conversations. My hope for all of us is that today, today's dialogue can help cultivate stronger connections amongst all of us. If our panel can please come out so I can introduce everyone. We'll start from the right to the left. We have Michael Doherty, is our district attorney of the 20th Judicial District in Boulder County. Mr. Doherty has over 20 years of experience as a prosecutor to ensure public safety and achieve progressive criminal justice reform for Boulder County and has provided many trainings and workshops on a wide variety of topics. Thank you for being here. We also have Annette James. She is a mom speaker. She is a mom speaker and advocate for social and economic equality and president of the NAACP Boulder County branch. A native of rural Mississippi, she found her way to Boulder, Colorado to study at the University of Colorado and has lived in Boulder since and that has always had a passion for education, economics and business. Thank you for being here. We have Marty Moore from who is the executive director of Out Boulder. Prior to joining OBC in 2013, Marty was the deputy director of development at the New York City LGBTQ Center and worked as an associate director of individual giving for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Thank you for being here Marty. We also have Jonathan Lev, MBA, MPA, I'm sorry, is the executive director of the Boulder JCC. He is passionate educator and entrepreneur who combines his experience at Jewish summer camps and involvement with the start-up of Boulder based renewable choice to influence his leadership as a Jewish professional. Thank you for being here. And last but not least, we have our moderator, our wonderful Carmen Ramirez. She is the manager for community and neighborhood resources, a division of the City of Lang Lang. She has worked for the city for over 20 years and has been involved in many, many community projects that work to create change within systems and assist in providing more access, inclusion and equity for all community members. Thank you for being here Carmen. Thank you. And I would now like to invite you up on stage to start us off with our land acknowledgement. So I'm going to read our land acknowledgement that we have for the City of Langmont. We acknowledge that Langmont sits on the traditional territory of the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Yute and other indigenous people. We honor the history and the living and spiritual connection that the First Peoples have with this land. It is our commitment to face the injustices that happened when the land was taken and to educate our communities, ourselves and our children to ensure that these injustices do not happen again. And what you can't see is that there's a picture of a bunch of kids that were here at the museum. This was the first youth exchange that we had with Northern Arapaho who this is part of their homelands. Langmont became the first city in the country and actually in the world to become a sister city with a sovereign tribal nation. So but more importantly when we make statements and I think this relates to tonight we also want to talk not just about the issue and look at where there's resources but we also want to look at the action and the community that we could create. What does that community look like if we all work together? So hopefully tonight you're going to hear the wisdom, knowledge and experience of the panelists that are up here to have this conversation that might be a little tough but the reality is that unless we have those tough conversations we can't see clarity on how we can work together how we can value one another and how we can become maybe a beloved community. So I leave you with that and we're going to start with asking our panelists to talk about multiple ways that hate shows up in Boulder County and it's important to think because sometimes we think of something that we see in the headlines but what are the smaller ways that it shows up? So I'm going to ask I'm going to start with Jonathan and ask if he could start talk a little bit about your organization Jonathan and then also then let us know what's the different ways that you see it. Thank you all for being here tonight and I'm honored to be here with such esteemed colleagues and incredible people who are leading this community to try to make it the kind of place we all want to live. So I'm the director at the Boulder JCC and we have been around for a number of years as an organization and many people now know us more who are new campus in 2016. We're here to be able to build community connect people build relationships and provide meaning to each person who steps through our doors. We do that both for the Jewish community as well as for all people in Boulder County and beyond we do that through a number of different programs and services and providing space and connection point for people to be able to gather and one of the key pieces is to be able to create a space that has that interconnectedness that we believe is critical in Boulder County so that there's a place for everyone to see it as their gathering space and to go into the question of sort of the intersectionality and where there's been issues of hate crimes and also just hate in general especially as it relates to the Jewish community it's happened all over both from an individual level as well as an organizational level and I've seen a lot of different ways that that's manifested most recently the times that I've heard about situations a lot of them are on the streets of Boulder comments people made if people are wearing kippars which is a head covering that traditionally is worn by more observant Jewish people as well as in the schools when there's someone who is known to either have a name that is Jewish or somebody knows that they've just turned 13 and they're having something called a bar about mitzvah and it's a time celebration but it's also an identifier and it's called out and so how are other children relating to that and there's issues of swastikas that come out or comments about being Jewish so there's little things like that both sort of on the small level and much larger level we've seen it as an organization a number of different times since I started about 12 years ago a couple of the more severe incidents where we had a swastika with a knife put in it on our campus that on our previous campus we had swastika on our door we would get hate mail and that still happens today and on a national level JCCs have been targeted with bomb threats consistently so much so that organizations have to change the way that we operate and currently we're actually in that situation where there's a someone who is targeting JCCs in the country and we actually had to change a number of the ways that we operate because of it not from a safety and security standpoint but a way of actually connecting with our community on the web so there's a lot of different ways that it's shown up for us and we see it regularly unfortunately so it's really interesting that we talk about how Jonathan just mentioned it affects that interconnectedness I think that's really important to understand the division that hate can create Marty, do you want to? Yeah, thank you Jonathan my name is Marty, I'm the executive director of Outboulder County and we I mean, we can start with the little things like writing terrible things about gay and lesbian people on a sidewalk to spitting on somebody to calling them names we have workplace stuff that happens too that ends up coming our way luckily most of those have been able to be handled through the city of Boulders HRC or through Carmen Ramirez at the city of Longmont because those things happen at work too just not on the street in the right after the former president was elected we saw a tremendous spike in hate incidents and some crimes and those have continued you know last year and Michael's team did a great job on the prosecution but a trans woman was drugged down the street while being called faggot at 10 a.m. in the morning in front of the Boulder Shelter on Broadway the first officer didn't do anything but we had a liaison with former detective Marples who was able to take the report and get it to the DA's office and Michael's team was able to prosecute so there's some pretty ugly things that happen in Boulder County just because somebody's different and they don't like them and so you know we have been we have worked hard to support and Jonathan and I were talking a little bit before we came up here and looking at the extreme numbers there's a survey that's coming out probably next week after this panel that'll show some pretty terrible increases in the state of Colorado around LGBTQ hate incidents and hate crimes the preliminary data shows that gay men are targeted the most in our state and I know that's true and I know that even in our county gay men are at least likely to report and so there's a lot of work to be done but it continues like Jonathan now that we have a space the first thing we did when we signed the paper we had a little party after we bought got the mortgage for the center of the Rocky Mountains so we had a little party we hung the disco ball and as soon as they all left Mitch Trujillo from City of Boulder came in and we did a walk through to find out where our safe rooms were to change some of the locks out so we know to get a ladder if we get trapped upstairs and so we keep our front door locked which I really hate I really really hate that that you just can't walk up and open the door again but that's the world that we live in and that's how we operate Thank you Marty Annette Hello thanks to the museum and of course to this panelist I guess I'd like to first start by thanking Justin he must have been in touch with history because to have this topic hate it's apropos to today today is 59th anniversary of the 16th street bombing in Birmingham, Alabama so hate it's not a new subject and it continues to be reborn and I feel that we are never going to get to that beloved community until we reckon with this emotion this insidious emotion of hate so you know it's kind of like if we're talking about the sensational hate crimes right everyone can get on board but my question would be what about the descendants of hate let's call it the offsprings of hate can we look at systemic racism and make the connection to hate this is when we will begin to make progress because systemic racism is a direct descendant of hate it's less sensational but probably far more creates far more what ills in our society so it is embedded like just completely interwoven in every factor of our society be it policies, legislation procedures this is what leads to all the disparities of the work of the NAACP we are here to create equity equity for all people and so because we have this hate that has been a little bit more dressed up in systemic racism but it still leads to all the disparities and prosecutions in criminal justice system where it's phenomenal but also in education and health outcomes every aspect of one's life where you can live your economic opportunities this is a direct to hate so this is the work of the NAACP we have committees who will look at what's happening locally in our communities but also what happens nationally but just here in Boulder it's not a week go by without us receiving some sort of bias incident report into the branch so it could be I was walking down the street the police called someone treated me poorly in the grocery stores all these little microaggressions that really spoils one's day at the very least so and at the most it causes you to have an interaction of policing which we know for black folks is almost never pleasant so we know these things and it's about how will we how will we own them and what work are we willing to do and so I guess the thought would be we know that hate exists is our history it's our present the question is will we allow that to be our destiny I think that's a great question for everybody to really think about and we're going to talk about ways that you can help us with this but Michael do you want to well good evening and Carmen and to the organizers thank you so much for bringing us together tonight and I want to applaud and appreciate all of you here because it's not going to be any one agency organization or district attorney that's going to put an end to hate it really takes a community and we've seen acts of hate recently here in Longmont we've seen acts of hate in Boulder there's no one community in the United States that is immune from these issues but I appreciate that we're here together tonight to talk about how can we improve the life and the world of everybody in our community as district attorneys since 2018 we see hate crimes coming into our office and hate crimes being reported directly to our office I will say part of what prompted me to focus on this when I became district attorney in 2018 was talking to Marty Moore so when Marty and I first met and I talked about my commitment to rooting out and prosecuting hate crimes that are committed in our community and it's something that as a part of early in my career I was a prosecutor in New York City and I was there when the hate crimes law first passed in New York and seeing that enacted and seeing our ability as prosecutors to respond to some of the more serious offenses that were being committed and to me a list of all the hate incidents that have been reported to out bolder that list is far longer than the number of complaints that have been reported to law enforcement and to me that highlighted the lack of trust that exists between members of the community and law enforcement and where law enforcement and the district attorney's office could improve in terms of community outreach and building bridges and also developing a better rapport and response to anybody who's being victimized by hate so starting in 2018 we developed a bias and hate crimes initiative and it's clear we still have a lot of work to do as a community but you'll see in the handout that's outside people if they're worried about calling law enforcement they can call the district attorney's office directly and we take complaints directly from members of the community and we've also provided trainings for law enforcement and district attorneys to specialize in and develop a better sense of how to handle hate crimes and we're doing our very best to build trust because as district attorney when we have hate crimes come into the office and we've had 32 hate crimes filed with our office over the last year and a half or so those cases I'd like to believe that we're doing a good job in securing justice in those cases and fighting for and supporting the victims the ones that concern me the most the ones that are never reported to law enforcement or the district attorney's office is that long list that Marty showed me in 2018 and we'll talk tonight about some of the reasons why hate continues to exist in our community and what we can do collectively to respond to it some of the things we've done in the district attorney's office and the justice system are good steps but we have a long way to go and a lot of work to do and I look at some of the recent acts of hate including at houses of worship here in Longmont over the last several months it's just a glaring sign that Boulder County needs to do a lot of work so I'm excited to be here with this panel tonight and to talk with all of you about what we can do together thank you you know I think what is so important Michael just talked about the community all the panelists talked about the community but the connection and you kind of see this straight line that goes from community to the criminal justice system but that line is never exactly straight folks have to stop and they have to stop at places where they feel safe where they have trust where they know that people will understand the experience that you've gone through whether it's a smaller microaggression it's a hate incident Marty and I have worked on several cases when it's layered we worked on a situation where an individual actually someone wrote on their door their apartment spick tranny so they were being attacked for two reasons right and police was left with we couldn't do anything right so the interconnectedness is important and I'd like for each one of the panelists to talk about that interconnectedness but I think another piece that sometimes the community doesn't think about is what is that responsibility what is that toll that it takes on you as an individual and I speak from my own experiences when people come and share whether it was a microaggression or all out racism and I'm limited on what I can do for them in justice but they've shared that story and I've heard that story and I have to work with them as best as possible and I think that's really important to share what that is but also the importance of that interconnectedness so wanna start with Jonathan sure there are so many pieces of interconnectedness in our communities I mean it's when I see the who is a member of Boulder County and I'm asked who are the Jewish people here what does that look like it's almost impossible to answer that question you can't define it by what they look like you can't define it by where they live you can't define it by wealth or any of the different pieces that people try to identify a group of people and I think that's really important there was a study that was done about the makeup of the national Jewish community and they found that 10% of the community were people of color and so the idea of what is a Jew who is a Jew I think there's a lot of pieces that we're finding there was even an incident that happened recently that connected person of color Jewish and transgender all in one photo and it was a really it was a horrible incident but handled extremely well by the people who did it by the people who responded we just showed that we live in a time where a person can't be identified in one way and we're finding that the challenges you know even in what you shared about what was on the door the work we do is so interrelated I think Marty and I have talked a thousand times about the ways in which our communities can support and work with one another to be able to make change the other thing I'll just add is it doesn't feel like it's getting any better and the most recent study from 2021 showed that Colorado was the 8th worst state for anti-Semitic incidents in the country it showed 167% increase of incidents and those are just the ones that were reported so it's a big question of what do we do about this but that interconnectedness is an even worse problem that we need to actually address because it's not just this community or that community it's how do we do that together and to answer your last question about the toll I think each of us in our conversations before it's we sit in the roles of community leader we have relationships with so many people individually and they feel so much trust in us and our organizations that the first call that they'll make is to our organizations and we're an ear for them but it's figuring out how to be able to actually help that person make sure that we can actually do something to make change and there's so many times where I get off the phone and all I can think is this is going to go nowhere this person is going to feel this way and while I can be an ear to listen or a shoulder to cry on there's no change that's going to happen as a result of what happened in this incident and that's challenging and it's a big toll on me and others in our organization and at the same time there are organizations like district attorney's office that have made some significant changes like the anti defamation league the ADL that does work in this area to be able to help support people and the work that you're doing in your office there's so many different pieces that are doing great work and at their times where it feels hopeless it feels awful I would I'm still thinking about what Annette said and we can talk about the reporting and we can talk about the hate and the numbers are frightening and they're getting worse and they're getting worse because people are driven by hate and driven by fear and I don't know if you've figured out the kernel of all of it I certainly haven't I know pieces of it and the fear of something being different or the fear of somebody getting ahead of you somebody having more somebody getting something from you and it's gotten all turned around and the public the national debate has been hideous and it continues to be hideous and from what happened on January 6 I mean it just goes on and on and it's like where does it end but where did it start and to be able to be that one person as hard as it is to like take the phone calls at 2 a.m. it's an honor to be able to do it and to be able to be trusted enough that somebody's going to call you when they're at their worst moment and say can you help me and it's really based upon relationships you know Michael gets to work in a broken system he gets to fix and I get to work in a broken system that I get to fix but to know that he's working on it to try to fix it and that I'm trying to do the same to be able to call him and know that you know I've called Michael on a Saturday about a kid in juvenile detention Michael took the call there was no lever I could pull out but he could and so you know it is working in that community that keeps individuals safe but the random acts of hate are real and I don't know how we end it yeah so I feel that or maybe it's beyond a feeling maybe it's a fact that type of brutal unsophisticated hate that gets played out in our society will not be solved by one organization, one DA's office NAACP or anyone else or we would have solved it by now so I think we just have to get serious about the work that we're doing toward making these changes and it has to be far greater and more intentional and strategic unrelenting about around education but holding people accountable and so all of us have a role to play in that if you want to ever live in a vibrant society then it is your responsibility not to be an ally but to have an equity stake and changing outcomes to be unafraid, unapologetic and get to work on it I'm a really nice person but I feel that this is too big of an issue and it has gone on far too long to in any way sugar coated dress it up with lipstick, we have to become serious I want to ask the police department or the DA's office if every time I walk out of my house and someone insults me do I get to call in and report that do I have that right I mean it seems like a petty thing but it's quite annoying and so I'm just working really hard to get people to own to become an owner in this work not to help me not to help me but to help you you need to treat it like it's your business right there's a huge difference between saying I will help you and saying that I own this right so we got to become owners all of us have to become have an equity position and I know you're all investors so you know you're always rooting for your stock price to increase same thing right is demanding the biggest return that you get on your investment and your investment has to be found equity if you don't have equity which all of us are looking for here on this stage right it shouldn't matter you know for me you can look at me automatically right it's not just you know having to for some reason finding out that you know I'm Jewish or that I you know may be LGBTQ so for me it's immediate and in your face so I want immediate reaction in a positive way that allows me to operate freely and fully as a citizen of this community so before Michael goes I want to switch it a little bit because one of the things that I've learned by working in systems is that I need to be educated as a person who's trusted out in the community and so Michael can you talk not only about the interconnectiveness but the education that you give us about the system and how we need to help people navigate that system the pieces that you need in order to as you said successfully prosecute could you talk a little bit about that sure and I think those two things are very much connected Carmen so thank you for asking and I'll take us back a few years before the pandemic hit we had a great example of the kind of work we've done with the folks here on stage and how we can continue to grow and develop as a community the JCC was kind enough to allow us to have a meeting that Marty and I put together with other community groups including the NAACP we had every law enforcement executive so the head of each of the law enforcement agencies in Boulder County of which there are eight plus the FBI was there and we pulled those individuals in for a private meeting to have an honest, direct conversation about what we're going to do to combat hate in Boulder County and throughout the state of Colorado and talking about how to build more trust and develop rapport and Marty had a member of her staff talk about what kind of language to use and interacting with members of the LGBTQ plus community and how important that is because otherwise police turn people off and don't develop trust so to a net's point which is a really good point did a training on the difference between hate speech which is often disgusting and repugnant but also protected under the First Amendment and hate crimes so we did a robust training on that and I think that was really important for law enforcement to have a better understanding of where those lines are so that they respond to every call they get and I would encourage anyone who is subject to hate to call law enforcement or call the district attorney's office we pass out those flyers that you have and my cards outside with my direct line as well but to call us we could do our very best instead of suffering from hate and I can't imagine how difficult and traumatic that is but to call for help and to see what we can do and to make sure that we own responsibility for addressing those things head on and then the JCC again hosted a hate crimes discussion from members of the community different community groups including the ones represented here on stage a host of other community groups and then every law enforcement agency in Boulder County agreed to help host the event and we had roughly, I don't know Jonathan 350 people from the community just like you're here tonight because this issue matters and we all want to see it addressed and we need to see things get better so to have different speakers that night talk about the difference between hate speech and hate crimes and how the process works so to that question I would say the following when the police receive a call one of the things that Marty and I have developed through our relationship is law enforcement liaisons at each one of the agencies to deal with hate crimes and that's something that we need to continue to work on and develop further I would tell you since we're dealing with such a challenging hard topic tonight one thing that I'll share with you that was a positive experience was hosting quarterly meetings for all the law enforcement liaisons what that means is specially designated detectives and police officers or members of the District Attorney's Office who are trained in and passionate about working on hate crime cases so we were the only county in the state doing that kind of work and we'd come together every quarter for the law enforcement liaisons meetings and then the pandemic hits and we go on Zoom which I imagine everyone here is very familiar with we go on Zoom and in the days of the meeting I go on and I see there's a police officer from Golden there and a detective from Aurora and someone else from Denver and I'm thinking I'm in the wrong Zoom room why are these people here and word was spreading about the law enforcement liaison program that Marty and her folks had helped develop and that we had here in Boulder County and other jurisdictions were starting to participate and I just thank you and that's the kind of work we need to continue doing so when a report is made to law enforcement asking to speak to someone who's a liaison who's specially designated to work on hate crimes is an important step then making sure that the complaint is taken seriously and if it's not reach out to the District Attorney's Office so we can connect with law enforcement and ask them what's going on with the case that's something we do very often in fact there are times where community leaders and I'm reminded of one with Marty reach out to me about cases from other jurisdictions so reaching out to me about a hate crime in person county and saying why has this not been filed to hate crime I think that was a Saturday call too and we got that guy prosecuted right and we got him prosecuted having committed a hate crime just because of that phone call and being able to connect people with the resources it shouldn't take all that effort but that's part of the process we can only file charges in cases where the evidence demonstrates that a case can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt so where the police have made in the rest we know not all these acts result in the rest sometimes people get away with it but where an arrest has been made and the District Attorney's Office then takes the case from law enforcement and becomes our responsibility to determine if we can prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt and then the case goes forward we have a tremendous amount of support for victims within the District Attorney's Office so we have victim advocates who are specially assigned to trained in and designated for helping victims every step of the way through the court process or are especially experienced and dedicated on the cases that come into the office hate crimes ultimately cases of course can either end in trial or in a guilty plea we also have a robust restorative justice and diversion program but that's not something we use on hate crime cases so cases are usually going to end in either a guilty plea or a case going to trial so that's a quick overview of the process but I hope I answered your question Carmen you did and I think it's important that everybody here knows from the daily all the way to prosecuting and I think it was Annette that mentioned sometimes things might seem annoying or things are little and if you equate it to microaggressions being like a little sliver and you just can't get it out I'll tell you very quickly I assisted a family that it was a year before we could prove or do anything we were afraid to walk out the front door they would run to the car because the neighbor was harassing them and what did it the neighbor took a picture of her foot on their lawn and we were able to push trespassing and then some other things but for a year imagine that your neighbor is making your life miserable threatening your children that immigration is coming to take your mother and your father they're going to throw you in the so sometimes people don't think about those daily stories that really take a toll on people and then someone like me calls the DA's office and they're going but we don't have this part we're in the gray zone and in that gray zone that's where all of these folks up here are so important because they become that support system but more importantly that's where you all become very important not only knowing the system and the resources but we want to talk about what can you do what would you do in that case if you were the target for a year and the system says I can't help you and you go to an organization and they say that's horrible but there's nothing we can do sometimes that empathy of putting yourself in your neighbor's shoes can be helpful to understanding what you should do so we wanted to talk a little bit about and I love I'm going to start with Annette because she's the one that really pushed us around I want you to be an invested partner I don't want allies anymore so I want Annette to start us off we'll go over to Jonathan and then back to Michael we talked about how can the community be part of that connective tissue how can they be an invested partner so get ready because you're going to have some work to do here and creating a bolder that actively works and values inclusion what would that look like so we want to know from you Annette's going to start we're going to talk about action we're going to talk about how can you really engage but we also want to talk about accountability so Annette thank you Carmen I think when you take on a topic this big I'm making the assumption that the people who have given up watching the football game tonight or something to be out here is interested in this subject matter so my thought is all of the great programs and they are good but they don't necessarily move the needle in a big way and I feel that incrementalism has run its course we've had 250 years to get this thing right and seems as though we are going in a reverse mode so when people come to me and want to be an ally you know my thing to them is I say make a column here's what you would do if you're an ally on one side here's what you'll do if you're an owner and you have ownership of this and just make a list just be true to yourself make a list and if you find something that shows up in both where there's a union and intersection do those things really because I could tell you what to do right I believe me I'm good at that if you don't believe me ask my daughter or my husband so I'm pretty good at that but that would be a passive position right that would be an ally kind of a position I want you to make the decision to act based on what you come up with because that's where your heart is and that's where you'll do the best work certainly allies are important but for something this big allies will not get us there so that would be kind of the approach in terms of a takeaway what you can actively do is you choose it and you'll find exactly where you need to be and if after all of that you haven't found anything contact me or your chore and that do you want to say something about accountability well we all have to be accountable right and we were talking a little bit about you know your example of the family you know there's so many black people who live in and around Boulder who literally if they go out to their jobs they come home they don't do anything it's not a vibrant part of a community they're afraid they just I can't take it you know this is we hear all this all the time so I just stay at home and that is so unfair that this is the fear that comes with just not wanting to face your own community so so we all have an obligation and we all have to be held accountable for our actions you know it's just when you see someone black I think that just a hello is enough because I run into it every single time I leave my house someone has something to say beyond how are you either oh well when did you come to Boulder you know let's see 40 plus years when did you come you know so it's always these little microaggressions that somehow is designed to say you really don't belong you really are you know shouldn't be in this in this town of Boulder and this reputation is carries throughout the country my son lives in Washington DC and went to a yoga class in northwest DC and a few people were standing around the desk talking about Boulder and he said oh I'm from Boulder and they said oh were you adopted so it's just we have to really examine all of us what it means to be full operable welcoming community we are so far from that you know I like to say we have we know more about yoga asanas I mean I like yoga then we know I love yoga my yoga teacher you know but we have to start relating to people as human beings all having the right and responsibility of citizenship so I yeah and so if you say something to me that feels like a microaggression I'll probably come back with something really sarcastic and smart and so please don't call the police no not a joke Marty I was so busy listening I forgot the question so if you could talk to us a little bit about what it means to be an invested partner and to actively work at being a community of values inclusion what does that look like and talk a little bit about accountability well okay thanks the question I'll probably answer some other way you do what you always do Marty but I was I was still thinking about the conversation about how to be with smart people doing great things and when you were talking about I can walk into a space and they're like oh here comes that lesbian again might not happen right I can go undercover somewhat but you're black when you walk into the space right and one of the things that I've learned is we're doing some of our programming working with the youth adults is that their first identifier is race right and there are other identities and I think that just speaks to the web of what you're talking about so yeah I hear what you're saying people aren't accountable anymore I mean what does it mean accountable I don't know if it's like social media, Donald Trump I don't know where it all went bad recently but yeah I finally followed Lindsey Graham last night because all I kept saying was hashtag shut the fuck up and I thought that wasn't helpful that's not a helpful thing to do I didn't feel better after I did it I felt excited in the moment and he's still the same guy today and so I thought this would be a good idea just to unfollow him and so sometimes I'm not that person too and so my accountability is don't do that anymore right if I don't want other people doing that kind of stuff why do I think it's okay for me to be doing that stuff so I don't think people are accountable and there are moments and they're like those moments people are like we should just have good news in the paper it's like yeah but there probably wouldn't fill up you know it wouldn't fill up and it'd be hard to sell ads but there are those moments and it's it's unfortunate that it's not a lifetime made up of the great moments where one person is helping the next person out and that it's a surprise when somebody's like that and I don't know and that mentions civics and you know I don't know where it all went wrong so fast and people thinking they're better than others and then acting out of that but it certainly is prevalent and you know one of the things I think that good people sometimes do really rotten things and part of it's ignorance and part of it's not like going down the road and learning something and like thinking it's somebody else's responsibility to do it and I think it's all of our responsibility like I don't want my daughter who's biracial when she came out that long ago I'm like Lupe be careful walking I didn't feel safe for her going out of the house and you know what she wasn't safe she called me and I went and picked her up and I don't want to live in a place like that you know and the words that have been used up here are vibrant and you can't have a vibrant community when people are hiding out and not being able to bring their full self to it and so we complain, boulders boulders all white it's like actually it's not and once you start saying it's not then you are living in reality and then you can start being part of something that's bigger than you and so I think there's a lot of ways we can change things up I love living in Longmont because it's wholly diverse and I don't know what makes that different than Boulder maybe rent rent's too damn high I don't know but all comes down to that I'm gonna start that party again but there's so much that each of us could do every day to make it a little better and people in this room are already doing that it's like how do you get the message to people who aren't in this room who aren't doing that and that was one of the things that we did a little free session and talking about what we were gonna do today talk about tonight and trying to figure out how the JCC the NAACP and out Boulder could partner and bring the community live and together and we have some ideas and sessions like this are important because we get time to stop and think and not time to put out a fire so I want to thank the museum and Carmen for pulling this together so we're gonna we're gonna get to those ideas but I want Jonathan to answer that and who wants to and then we'll go to Michael too because I think what's really important is when we talk about taking action sometimes it says I'll put a yard sign up front that has meaning it means writing a check it means writing a letter to the editor but is it a one time thing or is it a daily thing so I just want to throw that out because I think it's important to think about do I just write a check once a year and check I'm done contributing or how do I do that how do I show up on a daily basis and Marty said something you're all here because you're interested and we all want to get together so we're gonna have some hard conversations with others that may have different thoughts and sometimes that is hard and it takes a little bit of courage but Jonathan what else do you think there's been so much said here that I just want to just echo and stamp on the idea of ownership and that is just so critical and the interesting thing about ownership is I don't know how many organizations or heads of organizations get calls and emails on a weekly basis saying hey can you just tell me a little bit about your security like why are they calling me about that because they don't feel safe and they're but it's everyone in the community's problem if you can't be safe at the JCC that's a big problem for all of us and so what are we doing to create a community where that doesn't have to happen I mean I would just like Marty I would love to not have an armed guard at the JCC and have security protocols and do drills on a regular basis and have parents reach out well why are my three year olds doing a drill or my six month old and then the reality is I can't imagine a world where we're not doing that which is just really really hard and at the same time I think back to the design the initial designs of the JCC and I the whole plan of what we were trying to create and I wrote a program plan there was one page right at the beginning to give the architects an idea of what we were building and it said everyone is welcome the end of designing this piece that we never built it was an art piece in huge monolith piece that was going to be right in our courtyard of Corten Steel and everything and just on it said everyone is welcome and even the designs up until we actually built the building still had this concept and it was at the core of what we were trying to do with this space but the ownership of everyone is welcome means that everyone actually has to feel that piece and feel connected in that space to be an owner and so I just I know that they're going to put a tinge of possibility here because I think we need it I think we all need to have something I have seen it in glimmers of moments like when we all came together and brought communities together that don't normally intersect in the ways to say you're part of Boulder County too you matter and I think there's more opportunities that we can do to build those relationships I don't think it's going to be the only solution I think there's a lot more that needs to happen but I know that there are places that we can make that possible and as I've said over and over to all the people here we are the space that we want to be able to be a leader and being able to make that happen so those ideas we want at the forefront and we are ready to partner to be able to make it possible and I want to ask Michael to talk about how we can help within the justice system and if you don't have the bias hotline card please pick one up outside but I've had the honor of doing training for victims advocates and sometimes we think this courthouse it's a siloed system and nobody can enter but I'm sure there's plenty of places where everyday folks could come in and help and contribute and invest in that system also yes that's absolutely true and as a prosecutor in New York City the district attorney that I worked for at the time put such a priority on getting out in the community and having just direct honest conversations with community members so prosecutors could volunteer and as a young prosecutor I was out in the community all the time and the opinion of the justice system was nowhere near as high so I'd go into rooms that were I wouldn't say hostile but where people were really angry about crimes in their community and how the justice system treated them and their loved ones and just learned first hand the value of these kinds of conversations and that's the reason why our staff is out in the community all the time I mean at least two or three times a week we have individuals including myself going out and engaging in the community day or night and on the weekends I welcome you to reach out to us I welcome you to come into the district attorney's office or to invite me to your home or to a community setting like this I will never say no I promise you that there's never been a person who shows up at the district attorney's office that I refuse to meet with not once just because I am a public servant and I take that phrase that term very literally I am a public servant and it's an honor to be district attorney I will say when we talk about the justice system I've seen some horrific crimes in my career I mean really terrible things and I've always taken heart in how people respond so whatever the most terrible thing is that I've seen and then had to work on I've always looked to how do we as a community respond and time and time again in Boulder County and I'm not talking about first responders and law enforcement alone I'm talking about community members how do we as a community remain resilient and strong in the face of terror how do we respond and when we look at what the justice system can do I think that's a really important focus and I'll talk about that more in a minute but one thing I'd like to suggest when I hear a net talk and Marty and Jonathan it is so powerful and incredibly sobering I think we need to take one step back from asking what the justice system can do and talk about how do we avoid things ever ending up needing to go to the justice system yes 2016 hate crimes started to increase in this country including here in Colorado and the report that's going to come out the next week or two is going to reflect another increase for the state of Colorado what's driving that increase I can tell you how we respond to it I can tell you what we need to do to improve the response but what I would love to see us do as a community is change the culture so that we require less of a response and that we have more of a community and that's a deep or harder thing to do and I don't pretend to be the one with the answers necessarily but I want to be part of the effort I can tell you that I just think we need to prevent these things from happening and I see it on social media I see it in the cases we have I see it in the reports and you just see it in the lives you live and the stories we hear from those that we work alongside but I think we need to change the culture we really do and we've been living with it for too long people have been suffering with it for far too long so some of the things I would hit on in terms of action steps you could take one thing would be to continue to reach out to your legislators and we have Boulder County legislators in my experience tend to be fairly responsive to community members who reach out to them we took a really positive step recently with the legislature in that we changed the law around hate crimes so previously in the state of Colorado it had to be to prove someone guilty of a hate crime you had to prove that their intent was to act to commit a crime based on hate which is actually difficult when you think about it so for example if this person comes up on stage and punches me in the face and I'm not encouraging you to do it figuring out what her intent was and what drove her to do that is difficult unless she yells here's why I'm hitting you right so what we had done in Boulder with HRC is we worked really closely to get the law changed from that being the soul motive that hate is the soul motive to being a mixed motive so if the punch is followed by racial or ethnic slurs then you could show it's a mixed motive so we changed it in the city of Boulder first through the HRC and then we brought that change to the legislature and in 2021 Senate Bill 280 passed with a lot of support from our office and others so that now it's a mixed motive and I think that was a really important step for us to take as a justice system and how we improved their response I would also invite those of you who have friends and community members here who are immigrants to talk with them about our immigrant protection program that we have in the district attorney's office we will never ask someone where they're from what their legal status is and if we learn it during the course of a conversation we will never report it to the federal government and law enforcement has agreed to that as well because so many people are scared especially if they face immigration consequences and we also changed in our office because we took ownership over how do we handle cases where someone faces immigration consequences so we worked really closely with immigration advocates and attorneys to develop a policy for staff in the office to consider immigration consequences and figure out what's the right thing to do with a case if a person faces possible deportation as a result of this case let's consider that consider it appropriately and still do justice for the victim in the community but for the person who has been accused of the crime too so those are some of the steps that we've taken but action steps for you I would say contacting legislators engaging letters to the editor coming to community events like this it's all these things that we could do to change the culture and I want to touch on something Marty said were you really doing that by the way with Senator Graham were you really doing that by the way with Senator Graham I really was I had nothing but love for you Marty but I will say we have those in our life I think we all do who act with such anger I'm not saying they commit hate crimes but they act out of anger and they're always aggressive and asking them what are you putting on social media what are your kids seeing you put on social media how are you acting who are you calling and threatening how do you behave because we all each of us have a ripple effect on those around us every single day we have a ripple effect on this community every single person and just being mindful of how that effect works and what it's about I think is really important because it comes to me back to change the culture in Boulder County and it has to change now thank you I want to add one piece to you said contact your legislatures for me the impact of hate has probably been more painful in the children that I see in 2016 we filled this room Marty was here because children were being told by their classmates to pack up their bags because they would all be deported so please contact your school boards please talk to your teachers we talk about bullying but we don't see where in bullying race and gender and religion are also part of the bullying it's not just about I'm picking on you because you're weaker there's always more to it and if we are to change the culture in Boulder we're kind of dependent on that next generation to be part of that and if they're growing up with fear and not being able to go out and be their full self then we're going to just continue that fear and I wanted Annette to share a story about a sign that she saw and what that sign made her feel and then maybe Jonathan could talk about an idea of a sign for Boulder County well yeah I think I shared that I had been driving I was in what is it called, Moffat Estates it's El Dorado Springs and it was kind of jam packed in there for some reason I love that space, that area but I saw a Black Lives Matter sign in a window and it was kind of the last place that I would expect to see that sign but there was this just awakening to believe that someone there had a consciousness and a willing to display that so I guess the takeaway is I mean I was actually taken back from it I didn't know that I would feel so warm and fuzzy about this but I did and so it's just a lesson that little things matter to people and you never know who's watching who's observing so I guess kindness is super important doesn't change things, but it's important you're not going to get off the hook that easy I'm just going to be kind kind is important we talked about contacting legislators and that's so important but I also wanted to see people be able to discern and bolder in particular because bolder is filled with elected officials who are really good at being kind in their words and that's important so if you're an ally back to my ally I think if you're an ally you look for those kinds of people the people who say kind compatible things but if you have an equity stake in this you're looking at the outcomes how did they vote how did they water down this bill and then you can look at it more holistically it's beyond that first glimpse of yes they said the right thing it took me a while to learn this why is it that all these elected officials are saying all these really wonderful things but nothing's changing there's a disconnect so as an informed person who's taking on your full responsibility your obligation to build equitable communities you need to really look at that and when these people who said the right thing and voted the wrong way you need to hold them accountable because you're looking for a return that $400 you donated plus the time you went door to door so your obligation to your community so that would be my kind of serious takeaway thank you Jonathan do you want to talk about the idea sure when each of us were talking and it was a great conversation leading up to tonight one of the things that we were really discussing was how can we create something that actually is more universal that really is across the board that does what Annette's talking about that sign that she saw and I'll actually add a little tidbit that I didn't add so we do have a sign on our door and it's not unnoticed that sign says you know you are welcome here I'm going through a litany of things the county health department created it we actually added additional things which we thought were critically important including political affiliation because there were some serious problems that were happening because of people's because of the political pieces that were going into it but one day we were hosting an event it was about resilience it was a Boulder County event and there was a popcorn style piece at the end and there was someone who stood up at the end of the event and said you know when I heard this event was going to be at the Boulder Jewish community center and said it like that I said well you don't understand resilience like you don't understand what we're even trying to do here because you're actually having it in a space that I don't even feel comfortable and then she walked up to the front door and looked at it and this is what she said found herself in three identities that were on that door and said I know why this is here so there's something that we can do and what we were talking about was what if we do have something that is more universal for Boulder County that says you are welcome here like all of you all the pieces of you the different intersections that you have and in some ways we're looking to just design it we don't even know what it says and does and I know the health department I think it was the health department that created that Marty knows more about it complicated we're asking for something complicated here but we do think there's something that is important that we could do as a community to start of really putting it out there and it's not just around election time it's not just when something happens like great right after George Floyd I saw my entire street had Black Lives Matter and now there's two of our houses my house and one other that have a sign on it of saying different things and so what do we do to be able to make that more universal and more universally accepted we need your help that's what we decided did I miss anything so creating a yard sign that maybe would be inclusive was one of the ideas and conversations last night the library held living room conversations talking about race and the first session was about empathy and my husband and I went to participate but Adriana who's here took her daughter and said well it's all adults and I always think it's too bad we can't have these conversations at our dinner tables with younger folks we sometimes don't credit that younger folks really understand and know a lot more than we think and how can we do that so that we're all having these conversations we want to get to some questions I think Justin I'm going to look over there at yours yes but I want to tell you a very quick story of where systems and individuals are really important in 2001 when I started for the city of Longmont one of the first cases I had was 29 quarry workers up in Lyons who had not been paid in four months were living in horrible conditions and they contacted me and literally Nick tried to work with them but what was very interesting is when I mentioned it to people because I was new in the city they said well that's how it's always been watch your back because the person is a constitutionalist because I went up there by myself and then the other thing that was interesting I'm going to tell you the agencies that were involved and I'll tell you had the most power so we had the Department of Labor federal and state we had public health we had the city involved or the town of Lyons and I had the Mexican Council it also involved and I'm thinking this is horrible they're living in horrible conditions I wouldn't even and I know especially a lot of us that love our pets our pets were living in better conditions that they were living and it was a very bad situation and people were telling me that's how it's always been and I was astonished that of all those systems it was public health that had the power to change the housing situation because in Boulder County the environment became the number one issue because 29 men had one outhouse and that's when I came into the picture there had been close to 50 men who had one outhouse who had never been cleaned and so when we think about systems and where we think about systemic racism I was really floored that public health has the power to change the system and go up there and create agreements so I think it's important to think about systems I think it's important how we as a community can contribute how we can ask systems to change as Michael was talking about but we want to get to a couple of questions and I see Justin over there with a microphone and I think are we going to turn up the house lights so we can see people if someone can raise their hand Mr. Davis Hello Hi to the district attorney Michael you talked about a fuzzy line between protected free speech and hate could you clarify that some because it seems like at some point in time hate becomes assault but that's my naive perspective Thank you for that question and it's not naive at all it's a question that we wrestle with all the time in the criminal justice system just recently we had a threat made on social media against the government official and analyzing where does that cross the line of free and protected speech to enact that's a criminal act that we can prosecute successfully that's going to be upheld on appeal and not be struck down as violating someone's first amendment right and again I want to stress the language is repugnant it's deplorable it's disgusting and yet there are first amendment protections for certain levels of speech in certain settings so even in 2020 for example the Colorado Supreme Court issued an opinion or issued a decision with very specific criteria on when a threat like in the one with the government official could actually be considered a crime and over social media did not satisfy those requirements so that's one example of how important it is for us to consider it and I have materials with me I'd be happy to show them to you but where speech becomes a crime would be a couple things first is it done in a manner that demonstrates and this is the language from the Colorado Supreme Court that the person's intent is to commit a crime against the individual immediately in other words something about to happen leading up to it and then that could be harassment so that's why on social media it's more difficult to prove because if I go right up to you now it's easier to prove what my intent is as opposed to if you're sending me something on social media later tonight right also the nature of the words used the manner in which it's used how many times it's repeated is a key part of it as well so all these things are done to protect free speech and it's not something that I find easy to accept and we grapple with it all the time because of how important it is for us to get it right it's the you know I was in New York City and downtown Manhattan the Manhattan DA's office for the first 13 years of my career and I remember the Klan had a march up the street they had a permit and they were allowed to march up a New York City street and I thought to myself how how is this allowed to happen in the United States of America how can they march how is that right and the answer is it's not right at all but they had First Amendment protections but what I looked to when we talk about response there were about 30 people in that group that were marching up the street and I'd say 3,000 of us New Yorkers out there screaming in opposition to them exercising our right to freedom of speech too so the fuzzy line is really delineated by the Colorado Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court and I'd be happy to share with you some of the materials that I have here and also but it really comes down to the manner the time and the place where the speech is being exercised and what the specific speech is I hate people who manufacture and sell guns there's a pretty nasty hate speech my son is a doctor serving the pours to the pour in the Dominican Republic when his son my oldest grandson comes back to visit and he sees black people in the Newark airport he starts speaking Spanish to them when I worked for the Boulder Valley school district I was a special ed teacher and presenting to the first teachers in one of the schools that we were going to bring kids with severe disabilities into their school I was supposed to address them I was supposed to address them these people were teachers these were my people and they were scared to death of me and the kids that I was going to bring so I played them Bob Dylan's all I want to is your friend all I want to be is friends with you so my point is thank you for mentioning the children and the schools because combating a crime once it's happened yes but what can we do to change is to change the minds of the young kids it's going to be hard I could not believe the young faces of white supremacists come on where's John Lennon's imagine I grew up in the wood why are young people thinking so differently than me I thought my generation changed that so can we help by changing the kids are there programs in the schools today to and why isn't there a school board member up here is what my question basically is because that's where I think you have to address the next generation to stop the kids learn from their parents and hopefully they'll be psychologists or people who are trained to gently change the mind of young kids and people that so are we aware of any programs in schools yes go ahead no you go so the ADL has a program called no place for hate it's an incredible program it's in many schools in the boulder valley school district we were just discussing whether it was insane rain or not I don't know the answer to that it's not so it's definitely an opportunity that could be there it really has transformed a number of schools that have a lot of issues over the course of years but it doesn't just go into the elementary schools and I can touch on this just because we we work on anti-bias education in our infant room and you're wondering what that looks like there's all kinds of ways that you can make that happen we've brought in experts in the field to be able to help train our teachers to be able to work in a way that can transform how an infant sees the world who's three sees the world and we need more and more opportunities and programs that do that throughout boulder county more trainings to be able to help our teachers do this because it's not something that they necessarily know or learned in their education we have an opportunity to be able to do more around it so those are a couple of things that I would say Marty or Annette do you know of any other so it looks like that there's one area that we have some work to do you could go to a school board meeting and you could ask those questions yeah right you can also call the ADL and ask for them to come to your school or talk to the principals in various schools and encourage them to participate in that program on that subject actually I'm glad it came up there's a matter before in the education right now that actually deals with this issue of systemic racism anti-semitism homophobia that they are considering removing from the schools and so I would encourage everybody to find out about that and I'm happy to talk to everybody or anybody after this but you're talking about adding things this is a clear display of acting things not good Marty do you want to add about the removal of rights yeah, thank you Neil for bringing that up so one of the things that's happening structurally right now so the legislature passed a law in 2019 that would update the curriculum for social studies in our schools and so that got to the state board of education created a committee of people to look at those social studies standards and said oh no we could never include this and so because I do LGBT work we were mentioned 51 times and they redlined 47 of them they did the same thing with Latino communities black communities I don't know what they voted on the Holocaust it was a debate whether or not it was passed in history and so it looks like we're probably going to lose the state board president is from CD2 Dr. Angelica Schroeder she appears to be the swing vote and so if you're in CD2 please send her as many emails as you can but there is it was in our newsletter today and also on our Facebook page where you can click a link but you can find the state board of education Colorado state board of education and send messages if you want inclusion in your history for the next generation because right now the state board of ed doesn't want it is what it's looking like and they'll be voting on that in November after the election because of course it's a political issue so I have both an idea and a question I like the idea and I was thinking if you had the list and someone was in the building and experienced microgression or hate crime in your building does the sign have a resource where can they call, where can they go and then along with that my question is what internal accountability are you doing within your own organizations when something might come up who wants to take that on first well we try to hire well it's important it's important right, hire well make sure you're mission driven and understand the values of the organization if we're more than likely to run into with volunteers we've had a couple of volunteers not act like we would want them to act and that's really tricky because you can't fire a volunteer but it's around training and it's around having people who work for you who value the mission of the organization so if something like that were to happen in Boulder County people would find me I made sure that I'm on the bottom floor so that's where all the traffic is and it would be addressed immediately so inherently in running a large organization we're going to have situations where people make really bad choices or make a stupid comment or going to Marty's piece aren't trained enough to understand what to do in certain situations or how to act I've seen all of those things in terms of accountability and the pieces around that of how do we respond those any of those situations end up coming to me come to our board and they're dealt with individually each one is a unique situation in circumstance but we're not perfect and I'm not perfect and a lot of the times that we've had something happen I've learned something new that I never knew before and understand ways in which the actions of people in our organization are even my own and how they impact others and so I think that going back to the ownership piece is like me owning my piece in that and also being able to train and teach all those around us as we possibly can I think the volunteer piece is definitely very complicated I think we all deal with that for sure but even from a staffing situation it's complicated and I really appreciate the question because it's something I grapple with constantly of how do we be the best organization how do I be the best leader especially in areas around DEI and it's not easy and we're never going to all get it right and I would just like to say so the NAACP is as most of you know was founded in 1909 by a diverse group of people white, Jews, blacks and so it's evolved in many places it's mostly black but Boulder County is mostly not so it's really unique because our executive committee who basically determines the direction that the organization goes in or the branch how it moves and it's a hard and complicated yet important that we speak truth to power and so when you get white people and black people all operating at the same level of power as you can imagine just by nature or systemic racism even when people don't intend to be authoritarian they are and so I'm always grappling with how do you educate and bring people along at the same time not compromising the values and the mission of this great organization and I have to say I feel like we've done exceptionally well there's been a couple of incidents when I had to invite someone to leave and I feel that that's also important you can't compromise the organization because someone's not ready yet and I've made some mistakes in terms of thinking that people were there and only to find that they have not evolved enough to work in a shared power structure and so that's kind of been what we've seen and of course we get we are a volunteer organization we have a large membership with people for lots of different reasons that they want to be a member of the organization and we welcome anyone into membership as long as they believe in equity or say that they believe in equity but that statement is very limited so we have to work with people and learn and I feel that our executive committee the white members of our executive committee have grown so much and now they tell me what warriors they are and so I and we say that if you want to be on the executive committee you have to be willing to roll with the punches and there's a certain amount of consciousness and I like to call it black consciousness that one has to understand and I'm happy to share that and other members on our executive committee and Madeline Woodley is an executive committee member so we have a group of very no nonsense when it comes to this kind of thing to speak to them and to embrace them and have there been problems have we worked them through we have we expect more too pretty sure Michael do you want to sure I really appreciate the question because it causes all of us to look in the mirror and just be honest with you about what we've seen in our own organizations and I've seen community organizations and DA's offices where they claim to have a certain focus, mission and approach to either in social media or out in the community acting in a way that seems contrary and counterproductive and even destructive to the mission of the organization so I can tell you for the DA's office where we take ownership over our actions and those that work within the office it would be unacceptable for anybody to do that and I do believe that we have a large office but roughly 65 to 75% of all our staff come from outside of Boulder County to work every day in other words they make a conscious choice to apply to our office knowing they're going to have a longer commute and they do that knowing usually fully aware of what our standards are what our mission is and what values we live by in the office so our DEI commitment for example is on our website a lot of things we've talked about here tonight appear on our website and we try to live it every day we just had someone from out Boulder come in to do another training for our staff to talk about the language we use and talking to members of the LGBTQ plus community and how we go about doing that and staff pack the room to be in there for that training and that's the kind of emphasis we put on it so my point being if people are seeking out to work in our office it's usually because they know the values that we stand by and that we expect staff to live by and they make a conscious choice to apply so we just interviewed two people today who said we're the only DEI's office they're applying to so I'd like to think that with that kind of self-selection process by applicants that we're weeding out people who we might have had to fire if they actually applied and showed up in our office I've been in other offices in my career where that problem has come up and it's been dealt with directly and that's what I would always do I don't see how I could sit here and talk to you about this conversation and I'm very honored Thank you Hello I'm afraid that's all the time we have for Q&A I want to thank all our panelists for joining us the district attorney Annette James Marty Moore Jonathan Leff from Mount Boulder and Carmen Ramirez Thank you so much for a wonderful job moderating this evening Thank you We were honored to have you all join us if you have a burning question I'm sure one of our panelists would be happy to answer it for you Thanks for coming Thank you So I just wanted to call out Marta Lochim and our Boulder County Commissioner in case you want to quickly grab her but she's going to say hi to everybody so we wanted to acknowledge her here tonight Thank you