 that did all of that planning, these folks that are running around and these like yellow looking shirts, the volunteers and all of these folks that are around us that are serving us right now just thank you, thank you, thank you so much. Also I want to make sure that I'm calling out you know some of the other supporters how am I doing in juggling these pages? How about Seventh Generation, Northfield Savings Bank, Parmalo Real Estate the Vermont Community Foundation also with some support from other folks like dillard.com I'm going to miss some but I just want to say some because they actually invested in what it is we're doing it's fair, we should call them out Switchback, Darn Tough, VSCU, Citizen Cider the YMCA of Greater Burlington and so, so, so, so many more so thank you all for your support thank you for what you have done to make this first Juneteenth Celebration possible making this first Juneteenth Celebration possible now I wanted to also add to that for those of you who didn't know that the Racial Justice Alliance will also be hosting First African Landing Day for the first year, for the third year here coming up on the fourth Saturday I believe it's the 21st of August that venue is yet to be determined I know our time is short but this will be the third year that we've done that and that is to remind folks of the resilience, the contribution, the experiences, the power of black folks starting from 1619 at what was then Point Comfort when 20 or odd so black folks jumped off a ship called the White Lion and what is now modern day Hampton, Virginia so we tell that story and we also invite a lot of folks to come out and be a part of that experience we had a blast at Intervale last year we were at Studio 180 a year prior so I'm curious to find out where we're gonna be this year time will tell so we will have a number of other activities happening in the parks I know we've got one called Nation in Crisis coming up June 26th we're for the BIPOC community we've been sharing out of darkness we'll be doing the third part of that over at the Soda Plant that is July 1st and we always do what we refer to as First Friday that's when a lot of BIPOC folks are getting around and talking about opportunity and talking about empowerment and many many other things so that being said what I wanna tell you now is as we go into this Juneteenth celebration we must acknowledge we must acknowledge a few things it is hard to process it's hard to wrap one's head around in terms of how we got to this place what do I mean by that how do we got to this place what we're working with here is is we're working with an awakening of a nation where some of us are just coming to terms with understanding that there was a time there was a period in time where in which there was a a nation called the United States that actually institutionalized the the apparatus of slavery into this nation so it was it was constitutionalized slavery for this nation and I think a lot of folks I think they forget to teach us that in school is that no, no, wait a minute it was in the constitution and then for those of us who did learn that thank God I think I did but it's it's hard to get to a point to where we're also you know understanding some of the other nuances that went into that and I think chronology is probably one of the things that I've struggled with most in terms of not just what happened but also when it happened so hopefully we can unpack a couple of things today again, I'm Mark Hughes executive director of the racial justice alliance our mission is to sustain to secure sustainable power ensure agency and provide security for American descendants of slavery while embracing their history and preserving their culture that's what we do how we do that is in four separate ways platforms and initiatives outreach and education community engagement and support and cultural empowerment which is why I'm here now back to that chronology here's what I've come to figure out in July of July 8th, 1777 a constitution was written it was the Vermont state constitution the Vermont state constitution was written eighth of July 1777 and in that constitution there are two exception clauses now you must be reminded that the state of Vermont was yet to be even a state at that time because we would not incorporate until I think it was 91 I think it was 1791 or something like that so you have what would come in a couple of years is the constitution of the United States the constitution of the United States arrived on the scene 17 September 1787 and then of course there are a lot of things to fill in those blanks about things that have happened over time and what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to just contextualize at least factually when we know certain things happen we can argue about a lot of other things but much of them are known but what we know is that the civil war started on April 1st, 1861 I'm just painting a picture for you I'm just trying to get us all to get along this chronological mindset well the Emancipation Proclamation was actually signed in January 1st, 1863 so this was almost about two years into the war and the war would last four years, right? Two years into the war it was signed January 31st, 1865 January 31st, 1865 what we know is is that the 13th Amendment was signed the 13th Amendment and within the 13th Amendment it said slavery is prohibited except for the punishment of a duly convicted crime so what that left is is that left us a little bit of a loophole one would say why is that necessary? Well, you got to understand there's a lot of stuff going on it's complicated, you know because you had these warring factions there were folks who believed different things and they were adversarial toward one another probably a little bit since they killed each other 620,000 people died in the Civil War because they couldn't quite agree about one major little thing slavery so at this time during the war the proclamation was actually pronounced to recruit some of the southern black folks to be a part of the Union Army and to be able to incentivize them to run that's what was going on at that time so just so we get the context of the Emancipation Proclamation right although we're talking about chronology as long as we get the context right is important so what happened after that? the 13th Amendment in 1865 that's that loophole the Emancipation in 1863 Civil War ends in 1865 April President Lincoln is assassinated less than a week later John Wilkes Booth says the South would be avenged after he killed him sounds like a hate crime to me and here we are, Juneteenth there you go that's what I came to tell you so no it's not what I came to say so what you see is you see the Civil War being central to this conversation of course we see the Civil War being central one of the things that we go into this conversation to understand it is is that no slavery was never abolished and I hate to stop by and tell you that today because slavery existed from 1887 at the beginning of the Constitution all the way 1787 all the way to 1865 upon which time the 13th Amendment allowed it to continue in another form with that particular loophole that I told you about that loophole has been in the 13th Amendment since 1865 making us a nation that has never been without slavery ever so why is that significant? I don't know I just kind of wanted to know nobody told me in school so what I came by to tell you is is that there's this clause in the Constitution and it says this neither slavery nor involuntary servitude except for I think I might need one of those papers back neither slavery nor involuntary servitude except for the punishment of a duly convicted crime where have the party shall be it says except for the punishment of a crime where have the party shall have been duly convicted shall exist within the United States or any subject to their jurisdiction it's so exhausting to look at that I understand that yes we are in fact that but you're probably saying everybody's walking around saying that's ridiculous, bunkers because what's going on is we got this thing going on and nobody knew about it and those guys are kind of dumb because they didn't even know about it and it's like what in the heck were people thinking you know why in the heck did it take almost two and a half years to get the word down to Galveston and how is it that nobody even knows about this 13th Amendment thing maybe some people caught on to it because Michelle Alexander in the movie 13th maybe some people may have began to understand it but literally what this was for what it was the purpose of this it was a compromise that nobody ever talks about and I always like to say whenever white people say that they're compromising it's always bad for black people and I use the compromise of 1877 as an example of that when you had Rutherford B. Hayes and James Tilden and it turned out that Rutherford B. Hayes he got the White House Tilden didn't but they pulled the troops from the south and reconstruction collapsed there you go there are other compromises that were made along the way back to my point though what I came by to do is really to challenge Vermont and to challenge us because really it's not it's not so bonkers it's not so out there that people could have gone for two and a half years without knowing this after all many people in this park have gone their entire lives and not known that the constitution of the state of Vermont has two exception clauses in it and that no we are not the state that first abolished slavery they cannot coexist you cannot have English in the first paragraph of our constitution that clearly states that there are two exceptions for slavery and at the same time say that we're the first state to abolish slavery and I think that is a that is really a you know incredibly important hard stop because therein lies the rub the rub rather because what we're hearing today where you know you got this critical race theory nonsense and all this other stuff you know folks on the far right telling us you know don't tell the true story if we don't tell the true story then how are we how are we going to be able to understand where we are today if we don't understand where we came from oh just forget that everything happened if we're not careful about that we'll find ourselves tell me if this sounds familiar with a revolt that happened out of hate that divided the nation and nobody wanted to pay attention to and as a result the nation was almost ripped to shreds it sounds like a January 6th moment to me so I guess what I'm getting at here is is it is important to talk about a little bit about who we are as a state and oh by the way there's some interns that are here and I told y'all I was gonna share this with you because this is this is out of Senator Merkley's office who's a he's a Oregon Senator and this is relevant to the 13th amendment it says this it says that Friday, July 18th, 2021 I guess it's important for us to say dates when there's some kind of proclamation just in case we catch it two years later or something like that it says as Juneteenth approaches this weekend Oregon's US Senator Jeff Merkley and Congresswoman Nakima Williams have introduced the abolition amendment which would strike the slavery clause of the 13th amendment that allows slavery to continue in the United States so if that happens when it happens then and only then will we be a nation that does not have slavery in this nation what does that mean I mean maybe some haven't quite put it together but from convict leasing at the end of slavery when laws were made in different states to criminalize blackness to criminalize poverty stop why are we talking about poverty because the institution of slavery created wealth the institution of slavery also created poverty wealth is generational poverty is also generational so if you look at the numbers and you look at the proportion of blacks who are poor and you look at the number of white people that are poor here's a race class mind drill for you watch this most black people are poor though most poor people are white yeah process that process that for a minute so overwhelmingly probably somewhere around of the 140 million people who are poor about 60% of all black people are poor so when you create laws that criminalize poverty then what you do is you get the first and worst impact on black communities you get a broader you get a larger impact in numbers in terms of quantity in white communities but in black communities the vast majority of that community is impacted is everybody with me so far okay so let's talk about our constitution not a perfect world I'd have this slide thing up behind me and I'd be showing you this but if you are on Twitter we tweeted it at two o'clock so you can just go and grab it even if you're not following us just search Vermont allies Vermont allies and then you can just go ahead and grab that presentation that's up there and you can go follow along with me because it's right there okay so we're gonna cruise through this but this is what the Vermont Constitution says it says that language in the Vermont Constitution okay this is article one so when I speak to elected officials and they tell me they didn't read it I asked them what they took the oath to because it's article one so you don't have to read very far so time me as a matter of fact and let me know how long it takes me to get to the part that's problematic here I go as persons born free their natural rights slavery prohibited that all persons born equally free and independent and have certain natural inherent and unalienable rights amongst which are the enjoying and defending of life and liberty acquiring possessing protecting property and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety therefore no person born in this country or brought from overseas ought to be holden by law to serve any person as a servant slave or apprentice after arriving to the age of twenty one years unless bound by the person's own consent after arriving to such age or bound by law for payment of debts damages fines costs or the like that has been our constitution for the last two hundred and fifty four years with small exception how long did it take me to get to that part anybody timing thirty five seconds okay so i i guess you know when i when the hundred and eighty legislators in the five elected uh... statewide officials in the three congressional delegation when they take their oath maybe they can pay attention uh... for as much as thirty five seconds i caught it though because i was persistent because i was trying to find out more about me in this document because it seems like every time we go to the legislature it seems like it's about everybody else so i was just trying to figure out where's the part of the conflict constitution about us that gives us the protection that we need so we don't have to keep going back every year begging for crumbs and i found something but it wasn't quite what i was looking for so what happened was the year before last colorado did a very similar thing now we are affiliated with the abolish slavery national network uh... that is tied in the support of murkley's bill uh... that i just read a minute ago and what we came to understand eventually was is that these constitutional amendments across these states are playing out all across the country as i said colorado did one utah just did one uh... as well uh... and they're emerging i won't go through the list but i just would tell you at some point or another this conversation does become important uh... i've heard many people tell me that it's just oh it really doesn't matter uh... it's it's just it's just words uh... you know there's really there's really no slaves today and i've got some information that would kind of push back on that now here's a spoiler alert if you don't want to know how to story in just go ahead and stuff your fingers in your nose right now i'm not your nose your ear your nose okay so we had the racial justice alliance what we were able to do in in in two thousand and nineteen years as we did start a constitutional amendment now i noticed may come as a surprise uh... because by god i mean if there was and this kind of goes back to that galveston moment because you know if you want to keep something secret all you got to do is give one group the power all the absolute power and then and then give them the ability to control the narrative you'll never hear about it hello galveston that's why you haven't heard about your constitution that's why you don't know about the fact that this thing is three quarters of the way through the legislative process that this thing has uh... it has been in the legislature three years it's been voted on in the senate it's gone to the house it's had public hearings it's been voted on in the house it's come back to the senate it's been voted on in the senate it's gone back to the house and you didn't even know about it why because the narrative is being controlled that's what i'm here to tell you that's not very attractive that that that we that we by god i've been here twelve years and i'm just as much of a firm as a firm on or is anybody out here although i'm an i went to but yet we got my god we could not you know come to terms with this being like a reality i mean certainly what will we tell our children we've already taught them i'm off script but i guess what i'm getting at here is that folks this is our constitution how many people knew what i just told you here's the history seventeen seventy seven constitution revised and adopted seventeen eighty six since seventeen ninety three conventions eighteen twenty eight eighteen thirty six eighteen fifty eighteen seventy constitution revised by the people eighteen eighty eight nineteen thirteen amendment uh... age change for women to change the age for slavery for women from eighteen to twenty one commensurate with that of men nineteen twenty four gender adjustment in two thousand and in nineteen ninety four agenda adjustment in the constitution that quietly remove terms related to freemen how many people have taken the freemen's oath come on voters i've only been here twelve years and i've taken the freemen's oath so that has gone we'll talk more about that later and then there's twenty seven additional amendments most recent amendment to the constitution was two thousand and ten and that language has been largely left intact in two thousand and uh... sixteen it was uh... racial justice it was the uh... it was the uh... justice for all the organization one of the organizations that we started as well as black lives matter we interviewed a number of washington county and yes your very own chitin county candidates and what we discovered is this very few of them had any knowledge of this uh... issue in the constitution at a very much democratic party you know i'm going to just cop a plea here and say i was a i was actually in the leadership in the democratic party and was able to uh... move that this was put placed on the uh... the democratic parties uh... that it was placed on their platform so that we were successful there i won't go through all of the details here but i will say racial justice reform our predecessor the organization that actually turned into us or we turned into it we asked for the senate the senate leadership uh... and we urged them uh... to uh... we asked them to urge the two thousand and nineteen senate to propose a constitutional amendment in two thousand and eighteen i know it sounds weird but in two thousand and eighteen what happened was is that there was an election and we needed to uh... what we knew that the constitution would not be able to be amended until two thousand and nineteen because that's the cycle it only happens every four years so what we were able to do is we were able to convince the house to pass a resolution requesting that uh... senate the following year take this up because the constitutional amendment can only begin in the senate so the house did uh... introduce it but it died in the house it was nothing ever became of it you didn't hear about it either it is our state history though because it's called uh... hr twenty five in two thousand and sixteen and it was the first time in two hundred and forty four years that a body of our legislature requested that our senate amend our constitution to remove slavery so it's a part of our history although you don't know about it there are many other things that i can tell you about the history uh... but i think suffice it to say uh... that if you like i said if you go out and you take a look at that presentation we've tweeted it week you know we can also get it posted up we've been very busy we don't have a lot of things uh... happening on social media today but we can certainly get that that pdf slide deck to you uh... you can take a look at that it'll be coming out uh... also if you uh... if you care to you can also come up and see me after this and scan the qr code that'll take you directly there okay i have a qr code on those papers that were blown away uh... so yeah uh... wanted to uh... just get you get some shout out to the vermont the pissable diocese uh... who unanimously approved uh... the release of a letter uh... to the senate government operations committee supporting uh... this uh... uh... this is years ago so you don't know about it happened like two years ago uh... also uh... the governor's workforce equity diversity console uh... unanimously voted in two thousand nineteen uh... to approve uh... the language of p r two uh... it kind of goes on so now i think well take you now is is uh... just the the challenges that we had moving it through is because we thought it would be you know without you know without issue and and uh... actually we had some people pushing back on his day we did have some folks on the opposition who will who did believe that you know it was perfectly acceptable to have this language in this document but you didn't see it because that's how they do um... and uh... they came into testimony and uh... so god bless you uh... senator dick mccormick and and professor peter teach out uh... for coming in and providing your testimony we respect your opinion uh... and uh... and but disagree uh... because there's uh... we don't believe that there's room in our constitution our constitution is not a historical document that's what uh... that's what libraries and museums are for uh... our our constitution is the bedrock of every everything that lives and moves in this state concerning law legality all branches of this government and how we how we rule that's how that's how we do right so so anyway we did get a good draft from the console there's a lot i can tell you about the process along the way uh... before i'm done i'm going to tell you more uh... more about not just history because people love to come in here history and people you know and i'm sure there's people sitting here right now they're like uh... that that ain't that no uh... what you talking about now so that's easy to do uh... but do your homework but i will say that the um... the challenges that were associated with trying to get this thing moving and trying to get the attention on it they were unexpected they were quite unexpected uh... but we we did we were able to get this uh... as i said pass through senate twice and house uh... another another uh... once this is what you need to know you think i was almost done but i'm not okay uh... they told me i can talk to you till seven this evening so i'm going to keep going okay maybe not seven but here's what you need to know from a procedural perspective what's important is that you get on the bus right now so i know it seems like a long time away but what's going to happen is is that the house government operations committee uh... they are going to have to take into consideration of public hearing on this by constitution they must so i encourage all of you all of you uh... to pay attention to what's going on with this uh... process this procedure to uh... engage uh... we the ramaud racial justice alliance we will be making folks a notifying folks on the process in keeping folks aware of the status and updates again if you want to get on the mailing list uh... i think we got a cure code for that to get a cure code for everything so if you want to come and scan and get that you can you can just come up to the stage you can get that done as well what's going to happen after that is is that it's going to go to the full senate uh... the full senate will have to make a vote on it the last time it came to the full i'm sorry full house the last time it came to full house it was a hundred forty five and nothing uh... because about five people were checked out after it comes back out of the house what happens is it'll go back over to the senate procedurally uh... there'll be some things that need to get done on it you know get some eyes dotted you know ledge console blah blah blah uh... and then what will happen is it will go to the state secretary's office and it'll be important that the language that we get on that thing is reflective of the intention as well as the actuality of what we're trying to get done with the constitution itself the reason why i stressed that is because colorado's first try they failed they got this far and they put it out to the general public and this is why it's important for you to understand what it is we're doing the reason why we're doing this is is to begin to deconstruct systemic racism from the ground up the bottom the bottom floor okay that is our that is our intention it's it's not about because we were bored and we didn't have anything to do this language is critically important and if we are going to talk about dismantling systemic racism it seems appropriate we would start with the constitution how many people believe that so we had about five recommendations that came forward uh... one of those recommendations was to you know amend the language the working language that we spoke about i'm not going to get into language in particular uh... except for at one point another piece of that was about uh... in chapter forty two everybody's not chapter forty two what the hell's this guy talking about so chapter forty two uh... just trust me because chapter forty two in your constitution directly undergirds title seventeen of your statutes which has everything to do with voting voting chapter forty two of the constitution so yes the constitution there are different areas in the constitution that undergird all of our statute that's why we're having this conversation for crying out loud okay so um... there's some language in forty two it goes into the term freemen it says freemen uh... you know and in the in the committee everybody's like well i don't know why they were saying freemen beats me it just seems like i don't know why they would say that you know uh... i mean if you've got if you got freemen then you got folks who are not freemen you got a constitution that says you got folks that are considered to be slaves all framed in the historical context of a nation that was founded in slavery and you can't tell me what freemen is oh yeah but we never had slavery here we're the fourteen state and we didn't have it so when we joined the union it was all good when you joined a nation that was a racist nation that had slavery you inherited and you had in in your constitution the language predated this states this nation's constitution by ten years by ten years this is the granddaddy of all constitutional slavery here in your state my state this is what we own we're fixing it okay the other thing is is we did we asked them to create a joint resolution uh... calling for the united states uh... the united states legislature to uh... a man that rescinded and replaced the thirteenth amendment so i just read to you what merckley was doing remember that some people like i don't know what you're talking about mark i forgot what you talked about i haven't been listening when's the food here when's the food listen to me i'm almost done um... so um so yeah we did do that and then what we also asked for remember title seventeen does anybody remember title seventeen okay my god thank you sir thank you thank you i'll pay you after this title seventeen again which is undergirded by chapter forty two which is all about voting we also asked for some changes in that too because throughout this title throughout the language of voting in our statute freeman freeman freeman freeman freeman freeman freeman freeman freeman freeman so what we did know by the way they never did take on our proposal to amend chapter forty two of the constitution we have to start all over again is going to because another four years to get to that but we'll come back to that we got the rest of our lives right but this whole thing about uh... seventeen chapter uh... uh... title seventeen the reason why it's important to embrace what it is we're seeing and if nothing else just to understand it and to acknowledge it is because what it does is it tells us more about our past it tells us more about the truth of our past it tells us more about how it explains more about how we got to where we are it is important it's incredibly important it's important to change it but it's also important to tell people when you're changing it and to tell people why you're changing it now imagine this hypothetically you're in a state in this state there is one category of people that have the ability to vote for and be elected as all one hundred and eighty of those people all five of the statewide offices and three of our congressional delegation and vote for referendums on the constitution itself only that group can do those things over years what would that create it is important to understand the existence of these constitutional challenge but also to begin to drill down into the implications and statutes as well okay so yeah we did that and even now if you go to rule eighty four of the senate you will find that rule eighty four says and this is that one general referendum the last part of a constitutional amendment it refers to us as freemen here's the catcher for those of you who are in burlington it's in our charter too it's in our charter and that's the appendix of title twenty four it's in virgin's charter as well have we been talking about it yeah you know what are people saying about it i didn't know the gun was loaded he did is she did it they could they can take care of it they're gonna take care of it but nobody's really talking about it and how many people here knew max tracy there's one so why is this so doggone secret why is this so secret is this a matter of national security some people say well who cares then make and then make any difference and then amount to a hill of beans mark clearly you are bored and you don't have anything to do and you got so much time on your hands you're you're wasting time with all of this other stuff let's talk about some of the implications one of those implications is obviously you know those people are incarcerated now think about this think about this just just think clear headed for a minute they're slaves period so the constitution says they're saying in fact that's what the thirteenth amendment says they're slaves they were slaves even if we didn't say they were slaves they're slaves folks who are incarcerated are slaves there i said it how many people here want slaves except for you ma'am no i'm just kidding how many people want slaves how many people want to be associated with a state that has slaves but we have slaves olives we're tax players they belong to us there are those folks who are incarcerated they are our slaves thank you very much we have slaves and so do many other states across the united states in fact there is a statute i didn't bring that title with me that is tied into natural national statute that is that is uh... undergirded with with a uh... the private prison industry i didn't come completely prepared but it created an entity here in the state called vermont corrections industries vermont correctional industries v c i vermont correctional industries how many people heard of that vermont correctional industries what is that what is that there's a statute that says that we can sell the labor of our slaves that's what it says why because it's constitutional i mean there are slaves of course we can do what we want with our slaves we can sell our slaves labor why not have a statute that says that it's okay to sell their labor why not in fact have a little small business department within the state called vermont correctional industries and that what we do is is when you call dnb you get to talk to a slave when you put a plate on your car you get to do you get to deal with the services of a slave when you visit your government offices and you look at their furniture and you look at their their hanging their hangings on their walls we know that our slaves did that is that cool with you huh human trafficking over 200 200 plus inmates slaves that are down in massachusetts of mississippi right now so we took our slaves and we moved them across a state border what is that at the beginning of 2017 everybody said oh my god they're going to take all the migrant workers out of here all 1500 of them all 1500 of them are going to go and that dairy industry is going to collapse because god knows there's nobody else to do that so you know what they said i was there at the table in the state house let's train the prisoners why not there are slaves department of children and family uh wood side the list goes on okay wood sides probably closed list goes on yeah we're doing that we're doing that we can't act like we're not doing that so is the constitutional language important is it important because at the end of the day what we could be saying is is no we could be saying no i mean think about title 13 this guy everybody says this guy a lawyer no i'm not a lawyer okay uh title 13 not that there's anything wrong with that okay um but uh title 13 says a person fined for the breach of a penal law or other offenses shall pay such fine or give sufficient security for the same or shall be imprisoned by order of court before which the trial is at hand before the time the trial is at hand and provided such blah blah blah blah if you can't pay your fines you are a slave what do you mean i'm a slave because because when they incarcerate you that makes you a slave they can incarcerate you if you don't pay these these fines and debts and in the like okay they can do that and it's completely justifiable and and therefore you are i mean think about that the this is this is classic criminalization of poverty criminalization of poverty when you criminalize poverty who gets hurt first and most first and worse black folks systemic racism that's where we started that's why we're here and we're going to stay here we're going to keep kicking this thing so that's title 13 let's just say if our constitution said slavery is prohibited under any circumstances now we know that the 13th amendment says that criminals are slaves those folks who are deemed criminal we'll talk about who's making those laws later that's another subject is another class who's determined what criminalization who you know who decides what criminal is that's another law probably those with power um so what i'm getting at here is is that this this law would not stand constitutionally does that make any sense at all to you that this law it would not even be constitutional if our constitution says that slavery was prohibited under all circumstances i know you're probably trying to get your hand around that but it's really not that complicated here's what the united nation said on poverty they said the united states this is the united this is the united nations i think sometimes we ought to pay attention to them this is the human rights council under united nations this was three years ago it said united states remains a chronic it says a chronically segregated society it says that blacks are 2.5 times more likely than whites to be living in poverty their infant mortality rate is 2.3 times that of whites their unemployment rate is more than double that of whites they typically earn 82.5 cents for every dollar earned by white counterparts their household this is the united nations their households earnings are on average well under two-thirds of those of their white equivalents and their incarceration rates are 6.4 times higher than those of whites these shameful statistics can only be explained by long-standing structural discrimination on the basis of race reflecting the enduring legacy of slavery the united nations three years ago so we get ready to turn the corner and i came to tell you something and i think i did but i want to make sure that i just leave you with something so if you go to vtracialjusticealliance.org again it's vtracialjusticealliance.org or meet my colleague up at the stage or me i don't know we have a qr code that you can scan that qr code we have multiple qr codes that will either direct you for donations they'll direct you for information they will direct you for god knows whatever else is on there maybe something you don't even you're not even interested in but if you go to our data page on our website you will see um you know where it is depicted that 1.5% say for example this population is black and maybe 0.2% of farmland is owned by black people in this state and the list goes on and on and on and on so in the reason why this is relevant is because what we're talking about is we're talking about a system that is historically created that which it is that we're dealing with and we have to acknowledge not just the historical context of where we come from as a nation but we also have to look at the quantitative data that's readily available now for us to take a look at because you know one thing is common about all of the qualitative data and that is is that it's consistent that there are disparities across every system and I don't believe in coincidences like that especially when you have the historical data that backs up the story of a history of racism in America um this impacts our statute it impacts our rules it impacts our institutions it impacts our government it impacts our legislature it impacts our courts so what i'm telling you here is very important there are some here who do not hear me and you cannot okay go get something to eat or something like that for those of you who can hear me and are listening to what i'm telling you it is incredibly important that you're engaging on issues like this okay systemic racism when it's defined it says and we need to share a common understanding of systemic racism this is Joe Fagan and Kimberly Ducey Kimberly Ducey the book is called Racist America I guarantee if you get it maybe you might get an education and says systemic racism includes the complex array of anti-black practices the unjustly gained political economic power of whites the continuing economic and other resource inequalities along racial lines and the racist white ideologies and attitudes created to maintain and rationalize white privilege and power so systemic racism here means pretty much if if it exists anywhere and exists it pretty much exists everywhere I have another quote for you from the United Nations before I get out of here it says there was a profound need to acknowledge that the transatlantic trade in african and africans enslavement colonization and colonialism were a crime against humanity and are among the major sources and manifestations of racism racial discrimination afrophobia xenophobia and related intolerances past injustices and crimes against african americans need to be addressed with reparatory justice in addition to the above the working group urged the government of the united states of america to consider the ratification of the core international human rights treaties to which the united states is still not a party with a view to removing any gaps in protection and full enjoyment of rights therein it also encourages the united states to ratify regional human rights treaties and to review the reservations related to the treaties that it has signed or ratified so just bringing you up to speed that it's easy to look at who we are as a nation from the inside out but every now and then you need to stop and take a look at what what this nation is looking like from the outside in this is the report of the working group of experts of people of african descent in its mission to the united states of america that was 2016 that is the human rights commission of the civil that is the human that is the civil rights commission okay you know what i'm saying human rights commission so in conclusion in our work as we created the racial disparities in the criminal juvenile justice system advisory panel uh as uh as that work emerged to that um title that uh act 54 in that report from the human the attorney generals in the human rights commission that outlined that outlined racial disparities across all systems of state government which led to additional work that we've done in the creation of the racial equity executive director and panel that position and work through the work that we've done uh in moving h 210 which is a health equity bill which recently passed which is now act 33 as well as a a joint resolution of the legislature which recently passed and you didn't hear about it uh on the 20th a joint resolution declaring racism as a public health emergency across the entire state you didn't hear about it though did you we'll tell you more about it because they won't so um i got to get out of here um but i just wanted to let you know that you know if you can't wrap your head around this thing any other kind of way and you're thinking about how we as a state can say we're not going to do something that the united states is doing say for example the 13th amendment we don't mind doing that when it comes to immigration we don't mind doing that we don't mind turning our eyes the other way when we know that economically there's 1500 people here who can help us with our with our um dairy industry we'd like to say it's humanitarian so we can tell ourselves we did a good job but we don't mind we don't mind doing that we don't mind doing that when it's time to to open up the hemp and cannabis industry we don't mind doing that because there's money involved there's some there's some profit to be made we don't mind we know that that's that's a title one drug and on the federal register and black people have been going to prison for and probably will continue to we don't mind breaking the law with that we don't mind when it's a right to choice when it becomes about a woman's body when we say we're going to put a law in place before these guys in the supreme court even make a move on us in fact there is another constitutional amendment that is called pr5 that is for the rights of women's bodies it's in place and it should go through the same process that pr2 is going through you'll see that happen as well but we didn't hesitate to do that and we didn't hesitate to tell people about it but when we want to talk about slavery for some odd reason everybody wants to drag their feet or they want to keep it a secret so what i'm trying to tell you today is is that this is the linchpin of everything that we're dealing with because as we continue to unpack all of these policies we'll find more and more because how systemic racism works is as you can't see it until you get right up on it i really appreciate your time those of you who've come go on our site look at your twitter come up here get your qr code scan watch the legislature watch the work that's happening that's coming out we're looking forward to seeing you engaging in the work enjoy the rest of juneteenth it ain't over it ain't over because the 13th amendment still has a loophole in it it ain't over we got a lot of work to do but thank you for being here tonight folks thank you