 Welcome to our interview show in which we interview LGBTQ guests who are important contributors to our community. We want to acknowledge that All Things LGBTQ is produced at Orca Media in Montpelier, Vermont, which is unceded Indigenous land. Enjoy the show. Welcome to All Things LGBTQ. Today we have Jazz Whitney and she's going to talk to us about their project, Copwatch. So, hi Jazz, how are you doing? Hi, I'm well, how are you? I'm very good, thank you. How did you get involved in this project and are you originally a Vermonter? Yeah, yeah, so I am from Jericho, Vermont just outside of Barlington originally, but then have lived in several other places, including when I first got into Copwatching. I was living in Austin, Texas for just around five months and they have a Copwatch group there. So there are Copwatch groups kind of all over the country and internationally even, but they're all autonomous. There's no kind of centralized. But yeah, the project, the group there was called Peaceful Streets Projects and that's when I started filming police interactions with small groups of folks who would go out on kind of group shifts. And so when I got involved with that, I was visiting Barlington just to visit home for a bit, but it just happened to coincide with the time that some body cam footage had just come out of the Barlington Police Department and cops assaulting Black men, the Mele brothers at the bottom of Church Street in spring of 2019. And so at the time, I really, I thought I was just going to be visiting for a couple of weeks and put an event on Facebook just to host a Copwatch training and small group shift to go out and I was thinking it would be great to get three or four people out to just show the cops that we have eyes and cameras on them. But the Barlington community was just so obviously ready to mobilize on a larger scale. And so yeah, BTV Copwatch kind of formed out of that. And I threw Copwatch honestly, like found really rad community here. And I left Burlington for a little bit, but then came back and have been around Burlington since and so I know you work in coordination with Black Lives Matter. Are there any groups that you're also coordinating with and is this only in the Burlington area or are we going to try to get this all over the state of Vermont? Yeah. So yeah, when we first started kind of forming BTV Copwatch a little bit more formally, we partnered with Black Lives Matter of Greater Burlington, which was really good because first of all, to have Black leadership to be accountable to that because obviously policing is an issue that disproportionately affects Black folks. And also just because I hadn't been living in the community for so long, it was important to build strong ties with folks who had lived here for a long time, not to just have an outsider come in and kind of just go rogue. And then about in March 2020 was when we started partnering with Food Not Bombs, which Caleb will talk about a little bit more later. We've collaborated with the Burlington Tenants Union, with the food shelf here to an extent. We definitely like we collaborate with some nonprofits. We just want to keep boundaries such that we can really stay true to our vision and our mission and values and not really be, you know, not have strings attached with funding or anything where we can't be political and true to kind of, you know, what we believe in. And yeah, Sarah, what was your second question? Well, I think about doing in the rest of Vermont. Oh yeah. Yeah, we have actually, we've reached out. A couple groups have reached out to us interested in starting smaller, you know, small cop watch groups or mutual aid groups in other parts of Vermont. I believe we did a training perhaps last year in St. Albans. And we're very open, you know, folks are feeling, you know, ready to mobilize in other areas. We're really happy to be in touch with folks and offer trainings and just kind of talk about what makes sense for their community. Yeah, we had an incident here in Montpelia, probably last week in some, which someone was coming, a man was coming out of the theater with his boyfriend, and someone drove by in a pickup truck rolled down the window and yelled the N word at his boyfriend. And so, you know, I think people talk about Vermont, like, you know, maybe it's not as racist as it actually is. And so, you know, I really think for me to be the object would be to get this everywhere. I mean, I know if I see a cop stop someone, if I can, or if I will, I'll stop and just observe if possible. So, you know, I really think this is so important. Yeah, yeah, I think racism and also policing in general just really manifests in different ways, in different contexts and communities. And sometimes it's more insidious. And, you know, we've definitely received comments of like, Oh, why does Burlington, Vermont of all places need cop watch. And yeah, I mean, it's been very clear to us now, having spent a lot of time keeping our eyes on the cops, how racism shows up in their work. And, and also just like there, you know, the homeless community is a huge target of policing of harassment and assault. When I first came back to visit Vermont, and just was kind of chatting with people around downtown to get an idea of where the cops hang out and what, you know, they do immediately multiple folks who are unhoused, had stories to tell me, you know, recent stories, old stories of getting harassed and assaulted. And so it was very clear, very, as soon as you start talking to people outside kind of the white rich liberal bubble, you realize that policing is an issue here, just, you know, it may be to different severities, but certainly it's, it's appreciated here to keep an eye on them. Well, you know, as we know, the whole culture of policing and what that means. So, in addition to watching, is your group advocating for different ways of policing also? And are you involved in that movement at all? Are you just kind of staying away from that and doing what you do best, which is watch them? Yeah, so we are an inherently like we are an abolitionist group. And I know a lot of us kind of feel sometimes frustrated or disempowered by some of the more traditional, like, you know, working within the system reforms, things like that. And so a lot of the work we do, and especially as, you know, maybe people involved with Cop Watch will go to city council meetings or things like that, but Cop Watch as a group is mainly staying as, you know, kind of an outside the system strategy. And, and it has evolved into, like, watching cops is certainly part of it, right? So that's like kind of the main, the main thing, you know, had film police interactions for de-escalation and solidarity with the folks involved. But very naturally and organically, other projects have come out of this. And so we have done like some political education events. A couple years ago, when the cops were hosting events like Creamy with a Cop, where they were going into the community to talk to folks and kind of perpetuating their cop agenda, we would show up with a lot of abolitionist literature and be willing to talk to people and honestly just meet people in the community because so much of this work is relational and solidarity building and hearing people's stories and talking about how, what we can do to protect and serve each other. So we're not as dependent on, you know, armed dependages of the state to de-escalate situations. And that has also come up recently, recently a business owner in Burlington was really struggling with someone who was in a mental health crisis and acting very aggressively towards them and their staff. And they didn't really want to resort to using the police because they were worried about this person's safety because people with mental who are struggling with mental health are obviously at risk of being harmed by police. And actually, they did end up going to the police, but the police weren't particularly helpful. And then they reached out to us and asked if we could help with de-escalation and kind of offering an alternative. And we just had people show up in shifts as a de-escalatory presence. We've hosted de-escalation trainings in the past. So, yeah, Cop Watch is kind of just like this ever-evolving project that really serves and care, like offers community care in whatever way that the community needs, which is ever changing. So how do you, how are you getting the word out about your organization and how people, I mean, we'll put up your website or how to reach you when we do the show or when we air the show. But just for people who are listening, if they want to contact you or start another chapter someplace else with your support or however, or whatever they want to do, how are you reaching people? Yeah, so we try to maintain a pretty consistent social media presence, both to maintain those contact share information, again, like a way for to do some more political education, commentary on what's happening locally. So, yeah, on Facebook, if you search BTV Space Cop Watch, you can reach us there. We're on Instagram as well, BTV Cop Watch and Twitter. And yeah, we're really happy to talk to anyone. Great. So, what would you like the audience to know before we leave? Is there anything, you know, like you'd like to tell people, should people like stop if they see, you know, someone of color or, you know, just be observers, even if they can get involved as people in your actual group? There are ways, I guess, that you could help. And so people should reach you about that too. Like if you're driving along and you stop and you're taking pictures, do they send them to you? Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, I mean, part of kind of the mission of Cop Watch as well is to empower folks to feel comfortable filming cops in any scenario. So we do, you know, we have done small group shifts in the past, which is a great way for folks to feel comfortable, you know, filming the police because it can obviously be a scary situation to be in or uncomfortable. And everyone, you know, has different, you know, there's different risk levels based on your identities and the context of the situation. And so there is, there's a training online. There's a YouTube video. It's about an hour long of our Cop Watch training that you can access. Again, if you contact us on social media, or if you, I think if you look up on YouTube, BTV, Cop Watch training, it should be findable, which kind of just lays out some of the like main tips of how to stay safe doing it, the legality of it as well, because we have had instances of cops threatening to arrest us while filming, which is, you know, they're not, they're not in the right there. But like in Austin, Texas, for example, they, over the six or seven years that the Cop Watch group existed there, there were about 20 arrests of cop watchers. Luckily, they had a pro bono lawyer working with them that got every single one dismissed or dropped because that's, yeah, it is legal to film. But yeah, so it's just, the training includes a lot of considerations that people should, you know, really think about before pulling out the camera, because there are risks involved, but also kind of assures you of the legality of it. And let's see, what else? Yeah, really just that, you know, again, Cop Watch does a lot of different things at the heart of it. It's really about community care and showing up for each other. And yeah, just our kind of informal motto is strong communities make police obsolete. And we know that we're not going to abolish the police tomorrow, but the more we can build those foundational infrastructures and like alternative processes of, you know, still holding people accountable in our community when they are causing harm. But also holding them in community in ways that is not, you know, mimicking the carceral system of isolation and exile. And really just, yeah, just really believing that we can, you know, start creating this better world that we can envision. And so if anyone wants to, you know, be involved or has any questions at all, I'm super happy to talk to folks. Well, thank you so much for your activism. And, you know, what you're doing for the world in our community and spreading this word, I think is just awesome. So thank you, Jazz Whitney, for joining us tonight. Thank you so much for having me. I'll see you soon. See you soon. Me too. Okay. Hi, everybody. I'm here with Caleb Yusadi, who is a member of Food Not Bombs Burlington. And Caleb and I have a lot to talk about this afternoon. I'd like to start, if I may, with a description of Food Not Bombs that describes the national, actually international organization. When a billion people go hungry each day, how can we spend another dollar on war? Food Not Bombs is an all volunteer movement that recovers food that would otherwise be discarded in over a thousand cities and 65 countries in protest to war, poverty, and destruction of the environment. This is so, these goals are so laudable. We are not a charity, but dedicated to taking nonviolent direct action. Our movement has no headquarters or positions of leadership, and we use the process of consensus to make decisions. We also provide food and supplies to the survivors of natural disasters and people participating in occupations, strikes, marches, and other protests. That's a great project. Welcome, Caleb. Thank you for having me. I see that Food Not Bombs was founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1980. And this is a particular interest to me because I was living in Cambridge in 1980. And it was involved with the Seabrook Nuclear Project. It was protesting it in New England. So tell us a little about the Burlington chapter. Has it been long-standing? When was it founded, approximately? Yeah, Burlington's chapter of Food Not Bombs has had a couple iterations. I think the earliest one was in the 90s. Then it came back in the 2010s. And the current iteration of Food Not Bombs has been going on since 2017. Let me echo Linda's question to Jazz. Does it serve only Burlington? We are very centrally located in Burlington, but we do interface with other organizations and actually a few other chapters of Food Not Bombs. In Winooski, I think we reach out to Montpelier in certain ways, but yeah, we're primarily focused on Burlington. When and how did you become involved? I became involved with Food Not Bombs at the beginning of this past summer. During the Black Lives Matter protests, there was an occupation of Battery Park in Burlington. And Food Not Bombs was one of the groups that provided food continuously to the occupation. And towards the winter, when the occupation of the park ended, I wanted to continue being involved. And Food Not Bombs was a great way for me to continue doing that. So I've been pretty involved, yeah, for the past year since the end of last summer. So you were a participant in the occupation? I was. And discovered Food Not Bombs that way. That's right, exactly. Are you from Vermont? I've lived in Burlington since high school. But prior to that, I lived in North Carolina. There we go. Does your queerness influence your social activism? And if so, how? It definitely does. I think that there's such a huge overlap between queer people and radical people. I mean, it's a somewhat natural relationship. And for me personally, I think that Food Not Bombs has actually influenced how I do think about my own queerness, especially with regards to activism, because I've come to realize that they're so interrelated. And definitely the community around Food Not Bombs. Yeah, I mean, it's revolutionary, and that's what queerness is. Absolutely. Food Not Bombs isn't a charity, but you asked for donations. Would you mind talking a little about that? Definitely. Food Not Bombs is a mutual aid organization, which is to say that we are not giving to a population, taking from certain groups, donations or sponsors. We're not allying with corporations. The goal of a mutual aid organization and the goal of our mutual aid organization is to lift up everybody. So although we try and do succeed to operate outside of traditional capitalist or hierarchical structures, it can sometimes be helpful to utilize certain resources. And if people want to contribute financially, then that's definitely part of allowing everybody to come in and be part of it and support it however they're capable. And you need money for the social activism too, right? Less than you'd think. We are strongly partnered with a lot of farms, with a lot of restaurants. There's so much food that we make, and there's enough food for everybody. Everybody in Burlington can eat and is entitled to it. So farms, surplus, restaurants that operate with certain government grants, but also with surplus food as well. We do food salvage, none of which depends on financial donations, which is incredible and surprising and surprisingly robust. Isn't your motto to not be hungry as a human right or food is a human right? Yeah, exactly. Makes perfect sense, doesn't it? Exactly. How can our audience best support you? Yeah, and your group? The best way to support food and not bombs is definitely to get involved. If you live in Burlington, you can get involved with our group directly. You can cook, you can come to distribute, which we do every day. We have a hot or cold meal depending on the weather. Every day from one to two at the Cherry Street Park and Garage, Sundays in City Hall Park. You can, of course, donate to the national organization. And if you don't live in Burlington, you can see if there's a chapter that exists wherever you are or get support in starting one. The best way to get in touch with us is through Instagram. We are FoodNotBombsBVT. And the best way to get involved or learn about the chapter as a whole, as you said, is foodnotbombs.net. Very good. Kayla Busati, thank you for joining us. You're doing great work. Thank you very much. So are you. Thank you. As we reported on a recent episode of All Things LGBTQ, there's already been a Pride event in Burlington this year. And it was called People's Pride. And joining us today is Valentine, one of the people involved with People's Pride, to talk to us about what it was and what it might be for our community going forward. So welcome, Valentine. Thank you for having me. Yeah, I am so glad that you were able to join us today. So why don't we start with People's Pride? What was it that people were, what was it that you were hoping it would be and what it would represent for our community? I think in order to discuss that, I have to discuss a little bit of what I saw when I went to like official Burlington Pride, which was banks and cops and supermarkets. And honestly, it's surprisingly few people that actually looked like the kind of queer person that I'd interact with on a daily basis. And for years, I just avoided Church Street in September. I avoided official Burlington Pride because it was alienating. And over the course of years, I just wanted something that felt real, that felt like it was by LGBTQIA plus folks, for LGBTQIA plus folks. And this year, in the wake of a year and a half of isolation, kind of came to a boil. And what I wanted was, at first, all I really hoped for was a march. And after I hit up a few friends, one of whom was Jazz, who spoke earlier, and more and more folks got excited about it, I realized it could be more. And it still ended up being more than I had, than I could have hoped for. Yeah. So what I'm hearing from you is, and I'm going to circle back a little bit that we're going to talk more about you personally, is what you were looking for was the original vision for Pride, which was street activism, and visibility, and radical politics. Exactly. Yes. So, but I also heard you saying that you stayed away from Church Street in September. So that also tells me that you've been around here for a while. I have been. I've been here since 2013, which me coming here and me radicalizing and me admitting who I was in terms of gender and sexuality are all very closely tied together. Because I came here for college and was very quickly shown that poor kids don't really get to do that. It turns out that you can be poor enough to not qualify for financial aid because you're too much of a risk. And after becoming disillusioned and having to leave college, I just started seeing more and more of just the horrendous injustice and inequality that rules everything. At the same time, I was figuring out who I was in terms of gender. So when I showed up at my first Burlington Pride back in 2013, it didn't feel right. It didn't feel like any of the prides that I heard about from my one intergenerational queer connection that I somehow managed to have grow enough. It just felt like, I don't know, yet another pretty shiny college event, quite honestly. It felt as though our history and activism was for sale, but I don't get to bid on it. Yep. I could never afford that. Yeah. So you talk about the one intergenerational sort of queer connection. So if you came to Vermont in 2013, where were you before that? I grew up in the swamps of Rhode Island, raised a hard right evangelical, not a great way for a queer person to grow up. I did have a few ties to actual queer folks, some of my siblings who were not raised alongside me, and an older relative who was bi in California in the 80s. As such, caught what you catch when you're bi in California in the 80s and nobody cares about gay people. It's one of the reasons that we have PrEP from taking part in studies for longer than I've been alive. And from that person, I did hear more about, I don't know, what queer community used to be. And then, yeah, I came to Vermont for college after graduating high school, actually, to jump on the graduating high school and connections to queer history. Graduating high school while being a homeless queer youth, which is very much still a thing. It's really sounding, and it's Anne's question of how your queerness shapes your involvement and your activism. So I want to go into people's pride. Was this a one time event? Are there more things that you would like to see this mishmash of activist focus on and accomplish? And what am I going to be able to interview you about for activism a year from now? Well, to address questions in order, absolutely not a one time thing, already not a one time thing. In fact, although we have recently had to step back from indoor events as coronavirus numbers start to rise again, we've had multiple events since the original people's pride that happened back in June. And we're just going to keep organizing might not be the same folks if folks need to take steps back. But the goal at the very least is to just keep having real pride events. If that looks like once a year and act a real pride march that in and of itself would be a win. But it's looking like it's looking like there's a big ol hunger amongst not just Burlingtonian LGBTQIA plus folks but folks across the state folks outside of the state some of the attendees that made sure to get our contact information came across the Adirondacks to get here for people's pride and talk excitedly about maybe hosting queer get togethers on their farms in the middle of state New York. This is going to keep happening in short. So how do I not miss when you have an event coming up? How will I know about them? Currently the best way to stay up to date is unfortunately tethered social media just because the easiest thing for a lot of folks to use. We are fairly active on Facebook under people's pride Burlington. I believe there were rumblings of getting an Instagram set up as well. In addition to that since we're as emergent from other Burlington activists in Vermont activist groups as we are a lot of the events that we throw are either tied to or promoted by cop watch was interviewed earlier. We also throw up flyers but that's more of a if you're walking already walking around Burlington kind of thing. So currently Facebook is the best way. So to follow up on the questions that keeps getting asked how do we support you in this? That's an interesting one. Since it's such a young project. The best way honestly is let folks know. Spread the word of events. Most of pretty much all except for I think $20 that I spent on some D cell batteries for a megaphone but everything besides that in terms of costs for every people's pride event which just because I don't think I've mentioned this yet was I believe a close to eight hour long event from the start of the March to when until the last artist stopped playing. All of that was funded by donations. Just folks who showed up and sent and sent money over Venmo when we shout that out on stage. And that's that includes renting a generator, renting a porta potty, making sure that we had all of the supplies we needed and paying all of the artists who wanted to be paid. All of that just through folks sending us money at the event. So like the best honestly the best way to support us is to show up and if we ask for $5 just to pay our artists, toss us five bucks if you got it. I'm hearing the fire of old activists in your voice and I have to tell you how encouraging that is. And what I also heard you saying is that this you're not just Burlington that people from outside the greater Burlington community have been reaching out to you. So is it possible that people's pride would also be present to add and sponsor other events? Yeah definitely at least in terms of boosting other events. Sponsor is a word that has a lot of different meanings. We can't necessarily provide funding for other events but we can put the word out. That's one of the things that people are asking us about at the original People's Pride Burlington event. And if someone wants to throw an event of some sort in Burlington outside of Burlington and it holds true to actual radical queer ideas. If there aren't going to be any cops there, if there aren't going to be any banks funding it, if there aren't going to be politicians talking and showing how queer friendly they are and then forgetting us the rest of the year. Like as long as it's by queer folks, for queer folks, and not assimilating, we'll boost it. We'll let folks know that it's happening. And some of us might attend, some of us might not be able to because of the three of us who organized it, I think maybe one of us has a car. We're local poor folks but we'll send folks towards other events for sure. So this all sounds very much like how queer activism started. Thank you for your voice. Thank you for your fire. Know that all things we will publicize. Any event for which you give us information. Thank you for spending this time with us. Thank you for having me. And I hope to see y'all at our events and I hope to see your viewers at our events. Have a great rest of your day. Thank you. Thank you for joining us. We'll see you in two weeks, but in the meantime, resist.