 Good evening and welcome to a conversation about equity and justice in the future we deserve. My name is Tim Waters and as a volunteer for Longmont Public Media, I had the good fortune of hosting this program, The Future We Deserve, which is a series of conversations based on topics that have come out a series of interviews that I conducted last March, April, and May in the early days of the pandemic as part of the Longmont Voices and Vision Project. I interviewed over 70 Longmoners and 67 interviews, and one of the questions I asked them was, what was their preferred future, their best hope for a post-pandemic future, one that they're willing to help create. And in many of the interviews, aspirations I heard from the people I interviewed was that we could move to a post-pandemic future characterized by more equity and justice than the pre-pandemic past. So tonight's topic is based on that set of responses, and I'm joined tonight by an outstanding group of conversationalists, experts who have dedicated their lives professionally and personally to the principles and creation of policy and practices to create more justice and equity in the world. And you're looking at my guests this evening. Our purpose tonight is to share their expertise, build on one another's ideas, see what kind of connections we can make as we go through the conversation tonight. For listeners, you should know that 40 minutes, this is a one-hour program, 40 minutes into the hour. We're going to invite anybody who's listening who wants to contribute to the conversation to call in. So you'll see a number, if you're a listener or viewer, you'll see a number that shows up on the screen. And if you'd like to contribute, we'd like to hear from you. But let me introduce this group tonight. I'm so pleased and proud. Kathleen, I'm just going to look at my screen and I'm not certain what the order will be for anybody else. But Kathleen McGoy is Longmont's executive director of Longmont Community Justice Partnership, Carmen Ramirez, who is the city of Longmont's manager of community and neighborhood resources. Carmen, I have that right. In our community services department and everybody in town knows Carmen and in the good work that she does. LaRona Garcia, who is the executive director of the statewide parent coalition and viewers might know LaRona from some other activity in the last year as a candidate for the United States Senate and ran a strong campaign, the honorable Judge Robert Frick, Longmont's municipal judge, and Brett Shelton, counsel for NARF, the Native American Rights Fund. So thank you. I know you all have a lot going on in your lives, the fact that you would dedicate this hour and one more hour later in the month to this conversation is deeply, deeply appreciated. So these are big ideas and trying to pick the right place to start, because I've been thinking about this as a bit of a challenge for me, like, where do we dip into this? So I just want to start with asking, you live your lives every day, top of mind, and deeply, you know, in your hearts, translating words like equity and justice into practice, into policy. I think of these as principles, but that may not be the right mindset for it. But I want to start by asking you, what do the words mean to you? And we can all facilitate as much as I need to. I know it's hard on Zoom, you know, you don't want to talk over each other. But Kathleen, I'll just start with you and, you know, let's go in the order of the introductions and then we'll free will, let's see where it takes us. I think you're muted. I just noticed. Thank you. I just want to acknowledge Tim for inviting all of us. You know, for me, the term equity is about making sure that people have what they need in order for things to be fair, recognizing that those needs are different and related to individual circumstances and related to often to systemic and historic circumstances. And for my work with Longmont Community Justice Partnership, you know, we work with restorative justice, which really tries to emphasize the importance of meeting victims and community members where they're at when they've experienced harm as a result of a crime. And so in a sense, equity applies to our work, very particularly in the realm of how can we make sure those who have been most affected by crime have a voice in getting their needs met. And of course, that involves also understanding what's the background and experience of the offender or the person who's caused the harm we refer to them as the responsible person. We know that for every, every one of those parties and individuals, they have a unique story, a unique set of circumstances that sometimes in some of our conventional systems aren't taken into account. Sometimes they are, but one of the ways that Longmont has really committed to trying to provide a more just and a more equitable experience after crime takes place is through this possibility of restorative justice. Before we're finished with these conversations, I want to come back and tease out as we think about justice, all the permutations of what justice needs and looks like. And I know it has particular meaning in the work you do. Carmen, I'm going to invite you to weigh in next. Thank you. And I'm glad we're all here because I think we can all really build on what is equity and justice. And for me, it's more of that frontline experience. And so I have to start with the inequities. I have to start with the communities that I'm serving and the inequities that they're facing. And a lot of that is systemic and historical to understand how to bring equity and being that bridge or that servant in that area. But the other piece to that is then how do I translate those inequities to institutions to understand what is the harm? What is the reparation? And what is the change that we need? So for me, a lot of it is starting with those inequities and over the last 30 years have had that frontline of seeing those inequities to better understand what is equity? Because many people confuse equal access with equitable access and they're not the same. I'll leave it at that. Well, I want to come back. We're going to drill down on some of those ideas as well. But just to kind of get us get all these big ideas out here, Lorena, pick it up from there. Yeah, you know, without repeating what's already been said, which I agree with wholeheartedly, I think when I think about equity, I think about action. And I think one of the biggest flaws I have seen in, you know, whether it's agencies or whether it's organizations or communities, talking about equity is that there is a lack of action following their, you know, their awareness that inequalities exist. And the reality is that we will never achieve equity if we aren't bold and courageous and taking really aggressive stances to do so, even if it might be against the grain. Because if it wasn't, then we would have already achieved it a long time ago. Yeah, courage is part of that. Will is part of that. We're going to come back to this. Judge Frick. Thank you, Dr. Waters. And I appreciate your invitation for being here tonight. You know, you asked me what equity is, and I think you have to look at it as an ideal of being, you know, just partial and fair. And you know, you think about these concepts of equity being similar or synonymous with like fairness and justice, but it's more than that. You know, we all come to the table with different life experiences or different reasons why you're here. And it's more than just trying to, a simple state of affairs or reaching a goal as a community, but more directly addressing the individual's needs and going forward. Brett. Right. I think what I could add to what's already been said is just an observation from a lot of my work that it seems like a lot of times I end up having to push back against a hierarchical structure that isn't necessarily justified in a lot of cases and the assumption that power is justified from in the exercise of power from from that hierarchy on those lower in the hierarchy for whatever reason, that's that's part of the problem. And then the existence of privilege, I think, is something that's that's tough to fight to it. It's really tough for those in privilege to let loose of any privilege or admit that they enjoy it. In fact, a lot of times, and, you know, let alone let somebody else succeed to some of the benefits that they might have gotten, it seems like they feel like by birthright a lot of times. And that's the cause of a lot of inequities, I think, in everything that we see going on in the world around us. So that's just a little add in a little more language to the discussion. So maybe we'll just start there and see how we spin out the conversation. For folks like old white men like me, right, who were born into privilege, is there, how do you deal with, for those who would see giving up, right, or yielding to someone else's interest? I'm not certain even to write language, but that's not viewed as a zero-sum scenario, right? Someone else's equity is not at the expense of old white men like me or people born into privilege. Is that, I mean, can you talk about that? Is that a problem in terms of the institutions you're dealing with or those in power? I don't know. I think other people have more to say on this, but, you know, from my standpoint, there's kind of two approaches I can take. One is I can learn the rules. I learned the rules of the game when I went to law school and I, you know, strategically might pursue protection or advancement of certain interests in the face of that structure and those inequities on a case-by-case basis and litigation. I've chosen to pursue a path more of building. So what I try to do is help native communities put in place justice systems that are more reflective of their worldviews and traditional cultures, which are more equitable by nature. That's all I could really say about that. I haven't gotten into the thick of what do you do in the system where I've learned how to use the, you know, how to fight the hierarchy, basically, by playing by the rules of the game. And you've got a bunch of game changers on this panel as well. So I think it'd be nice to hear from them. Well, is that a fair question or consideration for anybody else in this conversation? How do you, how do we move forward with commitments to equity to a more equitable and just world when some might view that as a zero-sum game or is, or do people view it that way? Kathleen? Yeah. I think that some people do view it that way. And there's a lot of resistance to relinquishing power or relinquishing the sense of we know how to do things well because we've already done them and we've done them the same way for so long. In order to challenge that notion, it invites, it requires all of us, but especially those of us who are sitting in positions of privilege and power, to be uncomfortable and to confront some, some things that we might not even realize, beliefs that we've internalized based on the historic context that has landed us where we are today. So an example of this that I would share that relates to justice is thinking about people who have experienced incarceration, right, that's, I think it's widely accepted that we have a problem with mass incarceration in this country that adversely affects those people of color in our country, right? Like we know that that is happening. And so one of the things that I think about, and this is not my idea, but it has been shared in the realms of criminal justice reform that I'm part of is what are all of the ideas and the talent and the resource that we are missing out on, because as a result of incarceration, we lock people up and send them away for so long. And then we don't have adequate systems or methods to be human with those folks post incarceration to really welcome them safely back into our communities, which results in this revolving door, right? In Colorado, 48% of incarcerated people will return to prison post incarceration within three years. So what is my responsibility or why would I be so threatened to think that the folks who have such a different experience than mine that actually is incredibly rich in a different way, what would keep me from entering into a space to listen to their stories and to listen to what they know that's very different from what I know because I come from such a place of privilege. I think that what that requires for me is simply first curiosity, a willingness to admit that I don't know what I don't know, and then also a willingness to sit in some discomfort, because probably I'm going to be confronted by learning things that are so different from what I already know, because the perspectives of people who have a different life experience are going to be challenging for me. Lorena. Yeah, I think that there's an element to the fact that we in the United States, we are all striving for the quote unquote American dream, but there's only so much American dream to go around, because not everyone can achieve the American dream. And a lot of that comes into play because we've been operate, we've been like almost brainwashed that there's only so much resources that exist. And that's just not true. That's just flat out false. I mean, when we think about, and I know where it comes from, right? Like, there's all of this, these progressive agendas of like tax the rich. And, you know, because we can't pay for services for the poor if we don't tax the rich. And it's like, that's actually not true. You know, but I think that one area in which we have failed in addressing the fact that there's enough, I mean, part of it is also equity means that there's enough to go around. And the reality is that we have failed in our education system of actually educating, how does our economy actually work? We're a sovereign economy. Like, what does that mean for us? What does that mean when we're up against like the crazy notion of it's okay to bail out corporations, but oh my God, how in the world are we going to afford supporting individuals and families? Now, that's crazy. We're going to have to like take out a mortgage on the White House. Like, those things are just, those things are things that we have failed miserably in helping the folks, all of us who are just, excuse me, regular people and understanding how our society actually operates. And I think that is going back to Brett's notion, going back to your question. That's because those who hold power want to hang on to it and feel like they will lose something if others emerge. You know, you reference where that starts coming. I'm going to ask you to jump here in just a second. I just reflect bringing my kind of experience as an educator into this and thinking about in the context of schools and in the education system only so many good grades to go around because we're going to grade on a curve, right? Everybody's got the same amount of time. Some need more time. And there ought to be enough good grades for everybody, right? When you have adequate time to learn to high levels. I mean, that whole model starts with a scarcity approach, it seemed. I mean, that's, that was a concern, you know, for me forever. But that's, I think, that's where my brain goes, where when I hear you talk about, you know, systems or models that start us thinking about the limits or the, or scarcity almost from the time people are formally educated. And then it, you know, carries into life. Carmen, jump in. So I think I'll just add that sitting with that uncomfortableness around what is, why do you feel threatened? What is it that you think you're going to lose is so important and especially for decision makers, but the other piece is that we then never look at the communities that we are fearful of or that we think have needs as an asset. We look at them through a deficit lens. You and I had a conversation, a child walks in to kindergarten or Head Start, and they have one language. And the education system usually says, no, your little head can't handle two languages. You need to focus on English. Instead of saying, you already came in with an asset. Let's expand, let's grow that asset and add a second or a third or fourth language. And those messages are really important to around power and privilege in the schools. Who is told that there should be well rounded and they should learn another language, but yet a child that walks in with a different language is told from the beginning, you're a deficit. So I think that's the other pieces. And I see that in our community that there are so many gems that the general community is not aware. If I talk about food deserts, people will talk about food deserts, but I see the tiendita, panería, the mercado that are sustaining those communities. And but they're not seen as an asset. And I think that's another component of when we talk about power and privilege. Where do we not see assets? And Brett mentioned in the native communities, going back to their cultural ways, that's an asset. And I think we need to appreciate that and that expands that resource. Before I utter anything else, Judge Frick or Brett, you want to jump in on any part of this? I was more thinking about, coming from a judge standpoint, and having those hard conversations throughout my practice of law. I've been a defense attorney, I've been a prosecutor, I've been civil lawyer, all sorts of things. It's the focus on criminal justice has changed. It's not just punishment, you're going to look at rehabilitation. You're not just looking at treating people who come before the court with similar situations similarly, but you look at the individual. I think that's probably the biggest thing. And I can say that I've challenged my colleagues both at the state level and the municipal court level. We're having these hard conversations and we're trying to reaffirm, especially out of some of the things that have happened nationally, as you look at different studies around the nation or different things coming out of, for example, Ferguson, Missouri, or some of the cases coming out of Texas and things like that. It's like, we have to challenge how you do business. Now we challenge how we look at the people who come before us. Because everyone has to be treated with dignity and respect. One more directly is we want to dress these biases, address these communities, and get everyone where they should be. Brad, before I say anything else, you want to jump in? It's just an observation that came to me, especially when Carmen and Lola and I were talking, seems to me that the perception of scarcity has a huge role in perpetuating the hierarchy as well. Only when you assume scarcity do you become more fearful that you might lose your position and lose your access to the power and everything that that brings you, right? So that kind of gets to why we would default or why mainstream society would default towards deficit viewing rather than asset viewing of certain things because it helps maintain that structure, basically. So it's scary to let go of that structure, let go of that control, just throwing it out there. Well, a scarcity view versus an abundance view, right? There's enough to go around. We can continue to create opportunities. I've heard several of you use the word fear and how fear plays out in our mindsets and how we react to the things that we see going on in the world. I want to come back to different ideas of justice as well. But this whole series of conversations are based on a question to people in Longmont about their best hopes for the post-pandemic future. Had I asked the question, what's your prediction for the post-pandemic future? My guess, I would have heard very different responses. I would have heard people's worst fears being expressed. But I wasn't interested in that. I was interested in people's best hopes because the potential for, it seems to me, a future of greater equity and justice has to be born out of best hopes. And it is the worst fears that we have, right? To which we react, that we activate our resistance to creating a worst fear, which typically creates the worst fear, right? You make it a reality. So what's your advice? Well, how do you think about this? How do you, what do you advise others to let go of the worst fears? And to reset, you know, what's the mindset of abundance thinking or best hopes and what that has the potential, where that has the potential to take you or the people with whom you work? Lorena. I think Judge Frick was about to jump in. Go ahead, you're fine. Okay. I think what's interesting about the whole conversation around the pandemic and what's happening is, you know, and all these inequities being exposed and exacerbated or whatever that word is, you know, the reality is that like, our communities, communities of color, this is nothing new. We live through a pandemic of racism and of a poverty and of lack of opportunity, whether we have a health pandemic or not. This is our reality. And I think the fact that there's all of this conversation now, lends to the fact that now people who have been in privilege, a whole bunch of white folk, a whole bunch of people who have money are now finally experiencing like, oh my God, this is what it feels like. Holy crap, what do we do? You know, and like naturally so, we should all be experiencing that. But I think that what I'm getting at here is that our communities, and this is something that we should be absolutely proud of, but it's also a detriment to us. Our communities are so powerfully resilient. We know how to get through this. We know how to make ends meet when we lose our jobs. We know how to find resources and scarcity. We know how to do this. And it is hard, but that's how we've lived for decades and centuries. What I would love, and I think what's necessary, is that we forget the concept of returning to normalcy. We cannot return to normal. If we return to normal, we return to our communities continuing to experience all of these inequities for those in power to continue to say, we are striving for equity, but not really doing anything, and that those with will continue to gain and those without will continue to lose. We need to get to a place post pandemic, where communities like mine, the Latino community, where communities who live in poverty actually have the tools and the resources and the opportunities that everyone else has to achieve economic self-sufficiency, security, continued education, that our health isn't worse just because of how we're born or who we are. We need to turn our society up on top of itself. Well, before I comment, Judge Frick, did you want to jump in as well and connect with what Karina was just saying? I'll follow what Lorena said. She kind of took my steam a little bit. She said that we have such a resilient communities. I mean, look at, this pandemic has turned our world upside down. You know, whether it's school education, how you work, how you go home, how do you take care of your family members? And so I think we're such a resilient community, especially the city of Longmore. I look at all the people. And so, I mean, there is our strength and that will guide us through this. We think about how we've changed the way we do business. And I must admit, you know, there's clearly been some inefficiencies and that we're stumbled along the way, but I think that is our biggest strength is resilience. Lorena, for what it's worth, the interviews that I conducted that were the predicate for this whole series of conversations. Of the 70 some people I interviewed, one person aspired to go back to the pre-pandemic normal. Virtually everyone else aspired to move toward a different kind of future. It was more just, equitable, shared, a distributed, sustainable, kind, generous, you know. So you're in good company, as far as I'm concerned, in terms of how people have been thinking about the future. And we just need to be bold enough, I think, to figure out, to stay with us and figure out what that means and looks like. And that's what I'm hoping you're gonna help us do here for the balance of this conversation and in what we do in February 24th. Who wants to pick up, Carmen? So, picking up on what Lorena said is we know that resiliency is there in communities of color. And I will give you an example. So we went through a flood and culture, the idea of resilient communities, 2013 a flood, 2016 the state decides, hey, I wanna look into those vulnerable communities and see how they were resilient. What we did with the Resiliencia para Todos, we identified cultural brokers. There was an investment that was made into cultural brokers, into training and formalize or making their network more formal because it's been invisible and it's been underground. We knew about that, Jim, but the general community didn't realize that. The pandemic hits and we're sitting at those tables where they're going disparities and like, I knew we were gonna be there, we've been here before. But I think that the difference in that hope is how are we gonna take the action to invest in building capacity so that that resiliency is more shared and not just placed as a burden on some communities. The burden is you were resilient, you survived, keep surviving. And I think we need to flip that and invest in our communities and address in a manner that is more culturally appropriate to our communities. Do you wanna say more about, I'm not trying to put you on the spot here, but if we could drill down just a bit more on the kinds of investments based on your experience that will be most meaningful and the kind of capacity that those investments should be or hopefully creating in the community or in individuals or in families. So I'll give one example. I was in a conversation about investing in early childhood education. And I asked the donor who had quite a bit of power and privilege, you're gonna give some money and what is your expectation? And what that person said was that my hope is that at the end of the two years of investment, Latino parents will be empowered and own be advocates for their children's education. So in two years, you're gonna overturn what a system has done for many, many years. So I think that's one thing that we need to do is are we truly investing in building capacity so that we can have that access and really move forward? That means generations, that doesn't mean a two-year grant, a five-year grant. That means long-term sustained investments so that we are really checking that equitable box on that. If that makes sense. Sure, well, it makes sense to me. I'm gonna see who else now wants to weigh in and build on those ideas. Kathleen? Something that comes to mind for me about challenging that fear, I think that's where you started with your question, Tim, is our willingness to listen to each other and especially to hear about the experiences directly from those who have been affected. So I think Carmen's work with the cultural brokers is a great example. I think those are the voices of the community members that need to be elevated more in terms of equity, giving more space, giving more priority to the voices that we haven't typically always listened to for generations when making decisions. And so something that's really that I've noticed because of restorative justice is that it is through dialogue that people often start challenging their own assumptions and their own biases about others that may look or appear different than they do. And so if the same people are always holding the microphone, it's easy for those biases to continue and those biases perpetuate fears and also perpetuate those other pieces that we're talking about, the scarcity, the deficit, the holding onto power. So yeah, my question would be on the other side of this, where's the congruence? Like Lorena said, there's this aspiration of equity, but where's the action and the commitment? And I think a big piece of that is for those of us who have been holding the microphone so long to take a step back and to listen and to listen to those who have ideas and have that resilience from their experience and to put more faith and more action and commitment into those ideas. Yeah, as one of those who's held the microphone a lot, I can relate to the need to be quiet and listen, although people would say I don't listen enough, I'm sure Brett. Yeah, just to kind of build to or add my own spin to it, it seems like, in terms of talking about the hierarchy and the maintenance of privilege and so on, anytime you start to undermine the hierarchy or starting to threaten the stability of it, that's what triggers fear from those in positions of privilege over others. And I think we see that play out time and time again. I mean, that's just part of doing the work is some people are gonna react with fear when you start to undermine a structure that isn't just. And I think that's led to some of the bad events that we've seen in the United States in recent times too. I think the previous administration was based in its messaging a lot on fear and it was fear-based messaging that led to the insurrection on the Capitol and so on. I'll take the heat if anybody wants to disagree, that's fine, but I think it's pretty clear. And if you look to the spiritual traditions, I think every spiritual tradition in the world that I'm aware of talks about this battle between fear on one hand that people have to overcome and courage or actually love is what courage to love on the other hand, and that's when humans achieve their highest. And so you have to aspire towards the love and towards the courage to have the love. And that means if you're in a position of privilege, you need to actually have the courage to lose some of that privilege, to lose some of that. So that's different from giving from the position of hierarchy. A lot of times like giving and empowering is done in kind of air quotes or just a minimal amount so that you don't threaten. It's I hope I keep people quiet by giving you X amount to help you out and I'll feel a little bit better about myself, but you also won't come and try to topple me is the other thing or you won't shake it up. I think, and this operates at all levels of hierarchy too. That's where racism still comes from in poor class white people. They still want to keep people of color down because at least they're higher up in the hierarchy than that. That's why a black president was a threat to a lot of people and why we saw a rise in racial messaging, racist messaging at that time. That's why a woman running for president at the time was scary to a lot of people and motivated the right wing to extremes to fight her. So just throwing that in, that I think we have to be real about that and the same action that is a giving up can also not be a giving up. And we need to call it out, call out what the real motivations and actions are to make progress. Well, my own experience is that everybody walks around with worse fears. They can bring to any situation. It's important to acknowledge them so we can move beyond them, what those best hopes are and work on those as opposed to hang on to be motivated by those worse fears. I don't want to take this in a different direction and let if there's more, we want to drill down on right here with this part of the conversation. If I were to turn it just a little bit, I would want to go back to as we think about justice. Judge Frick and Kathleen, you've both kind of framed justice not as a thing, but as potential many things, right? Or their permutations or examples of what is justice in the context of situations. So when some people think about justice, it equates to being punitive, right? Punishment, Kathleen, you were suggesting that that's not necessarily justice, right? Maybe there are times for that, but talk about, as you two think about justice, what are the range of concepts or examples of justice in the work of restorative justice, or from your experience, Judge Frick, as a municipal judge, as a key person in the criminal justice system? Go ahead, Kathleen. Yeah, so one way I can answer that question is just to frame one of the ways that we look at the distinction between punitive or retributive justice, which is the sort of concept behind our criminal justice system versus restorative justice is by looking at the three primary questions that distinguish those two approaches. So in retributive justice, we look at what law was broken, who did it, and how should they be punished for what they did? And there's a sentence that determines that, that's indicated by the state, typically. And restorative justice reframes those questions to look at what happened and who can take responsibility for what, who was impacted by that and how, and what can be done to make things right. So some of the key elements, if we were in a class, I would ask you, what are the differences that you hear between those two different approaches? But I'll just highlight that one of them that you just referenced, Tim, is having a more nuanced approach. So looking at the specific, and Judge Frick mentioned this earlier too, looking at the individual, looking at the circumstances, and listening just as much to the impacts to a victim and the community as we do looking at the person who caused harm. Restorative justice really frames things away from crime being a violation of the state, this sort of anonymous state, and instead says crime results in the violation of relationships, harms relationships, and that to have a strong and resilient community, what we need to do is focus on repairing relationships so that we can actually reintegrate and welcome everybody back into the community, back into their families, back into the school, and that we're actually stronger that way. There's richness there, if we can find ways to reconnect and repair instead of creating isolation and separation. And in that case, the victim of whatever the crime was has voice in what would be justice in that case, what would be just from their perspective. Correct. Yeah, both the victim and the broader community that's been impacted. So in restorative justice, we acknowledge that any sort of crime has ripple effects for the entire community and that the community actually can be the voice of justice, what could the outcome be? We don't have to rely on an outside external party or institution to determine that for us. We can actually rely on those who have been impacted including the person who caused the harm to determine what needs to happen next. Judge Frick, you wanna add to that? Yeah, and you ask what type, what are the types of justice? And to kind of break that down a little bit for, there's really four different types of justice. Distributive, who gets what? Procedural, treating people fairly, fairly treating people similarly. Retributive, in other words, punishment for wrongdoing, and then also restorative, which is trying to write the relationships. And clearly there's been a change in focus over time. You know, as a judge, you have a lot of discretion in sentencing, but I look at like my counterparts in the federal court system, they for a long time had very strict guidelines about if you commit this crime, this is the punishment, very severe. Kind of going back, you have to look at the individual. Certain crimes, is there a punitive function? Sure, but you have to look more directly as where they're coming to at the table. Does this person have a substance abuse issue? Does this person have some mental health needs that need to be addressed? How do we, does this person have a home? Does this person have a meal? And every day, I look at some of the cases that come before me and my colleagues and stuff like that. It's like, you have to look at the immediate needs. I mean, let's talk about building relationships and everything else, let's talk about the immediate need of, this person needs a home, this person needs food. And so these are all challenges and I wish there was one right answer, there's not. And obviously every case is unique and every case is individual. I think you have to keep having those conversations, keep having to build that person up. I've often called the local courts the quality of life courts because we're better equipped to handle these day in, day out issues. And I look at specifically the municipal courts and our state courts here in Colorado have much more ability to do so than our federal counterparts. And that's just, you have to look at those simple words as how do you put that person in the phrase we want them to be which goes through a whole conversation of equity. So our distinctions like or between social justice, criminal justice, economic justice, environmental justice are those meaningful distinctions? I mean, they apply obviously in specific contexts but is there a difference in your minds between environmental justice and economic justice or criminal justice and social justice? So those may not be meaningful distinctions. You know, I think they do have different distinctions depending on your conversation. You know, we're all in this conversation we're talking about social justice, we're talking about justice and equity before the courts and that sort of thing. So I mean, I do think there are some nuances. But again, it all goes back to equal and full participation, you know? But I also wanna weigh in just on that. I'm gonna pivot back to equity here. Okay, I have a similar- I was just thinking if anyone else wanted to jump in but I'm gonna dive into this. Go ahead. So the reason why I'm shaking my head no is because when I think about all of these different names that we wanna put to different justices, the reality is that they're all connected. You know, when you think about like the criminal justice system, right? And then all of the considerations that Judge Frick was mentioning, when sentencing and when considering the person's background and experience, that criminal justice element is directly related to the social justice, to the economic justice, the educational justice that that person is going through. So we can't look at a person or at a community without looking at if we want to separate all of them, which we can because then we can have like organizations and people fighting on all of these individual pieces. But the reality is you can't look at an individual and only look at one piece and one side of that. You know, because we are made up of all of that. We are intersectional creatures and we can't get away from the fact that the environmental and climate justice issues impact us no matter where we live. Economic justice impact us no matter how wealthy or not wealthy we are. You know, racial justice impacts us no matter what race and color we are, you know? And so I think that that's the reason why I'm saying they're not, they're sure. We can call them out for different things, but the reality is we can't look at a person without acknowledging that we are all impacted by all of it. Yeah, great observation. Anybody else want to comment here? I do want to say to listeners we're more than 40 minutes into the hour. I think we have a phone number that's being shared if anybody wants to call in to contribute to the conversation or ask questions of these experts here on equity and justice. Let's pivot back to, well, both to justice and equity but it's starting on the equity side of this. In the world, how will you know? When you see, whether it's people or circumstances, situations and you say to yourselves, that is an example of progress in terms of equity, whether it's any of those distinctions of gender equity or educational equity. I mean, I think Lorena what you said would apply as well, right? We're all affected by inequities no matter where they occur or how they occur. What do you look for when you recognize there's an example of greater, a reduction of inequity or greater equity in your work or in your community? Are there examples that you could name? When you see it, that's an example of it. Is that a bad question? I was an archeologist. Go ahead, Judge. I was saying, it's not so much, you have to call out these injustices whenever you see them. And you have to realize, you have to be open and willing to acknowledge those truths but also recognize the dangers that are there. You have to call them out when you see them. And when you see the opposite, not the injustice but justice or an example of progress on equity, what do you see? How do we mark progress? I think it goes back to what Lorena was talking about and the capital. When we're seeing those very communities that have been resilient by surviving on very little and they are no longer just surviving or having to be resilient than those removal of barriers. And I think it's very challenging when you have to call it out. The other thing is you have to sustain those removal of barriers so that race, ethnicity, gender, none of that becomes a reason why you don't have not only access but success in really building your own capital or whatever that is. When I was doing work with gangs, we would talk about that you could go into any prison in this country and ask them, what did they dream of being when they were younger? And then start looking at what's all the things that became barriers to them achieving that dream. And when we hear folks saying, I got it, I've achieved my dream, I can't tell you the number of kids that are told numerous ways that they cannot, they will not. So when that stops being the message and we're investing in those communities, then I think we're closer to equity but it's gonna take a long time. Well, it's not gonna happen overnight but you're all in roles where you have a chance to move the needles, right? On equity in the community or Lorena with your work you're doing with your statewide parent coalition. And reasons to be able to mark progress and celebrate progress is it seems to be an important part of an initiative or an effort in the interest of greater equity and justice. And so know when to celebrate, when to high five, at least metaphorically and build on successes. So that's kind of what I'm curious about. What are the successes that we would identify and which we wanna build? I have some and I just wanna offer if anyone else wants to speak. So I feel like I'm talking a lot on this. Zoom. You're gonna see another hand going up. Okay. You know, I think when we see justice being achieved or we're getting closer to justice or closer to equity, you know, I think about, for example, an initiative that the Colorado State of Parent Coalition is working on right now where in 2006, Colorado passed a slew of horrific anti-immigrant policies, which basically said that if you can't prove lawful presence, then you don't have, you don't get to get a professional or occupational commercial license. You don't get access to any sort of benefits. You can't even compete for grants or small business loans. It's kinda like if you can't prove lawful presence, you are on your own because we don't care about you. That has horrifically, detrimentally impacted Colorado as a whole and much more so individual families for 15 years. Some of the work that the Colorado State of Parent Coalition does is we train informal childcare providers, predominantly immigrant childcare providers, one of those many of them are undocumented to be high quality early childhood educators. Some of them wanna go on to become licensed childcare providers, but they can't because these laws in our books prevent them because they can't prove lawful presence from getting a childcare license and starting their own small business and helping fill the childcare licensed gap that exists. So what we're doing is we've built this really large, amazing coalition to repeal those laws and affirmatively state that the state of Colorado and local communities can in fact provide benefits, public benefits, including professional, occupational and commercial licenses without the qualification of proving lawful presence. When we get rid of that piece of having to prove lawful presence, we are already getting closer to equity because we are getting rid of a ridiculous barrier that has no place in being there and we're offering the opportunity for those who are qualified to be able to participate fully in their society, in the economy and in helping their families achieve economic sustainability and starting their own small businesses and being able for DACA students who graduate with let's say a medical degree to be able to get a doctor's license or a nursing license. I mean, to me, when I see that effort and I see that it came from those who are directly impacted, that to me says we are getting closer to justice. And then we have legislators like Senator Sonia Hawkes-Lewis saying I'm championing this because I believe in it. Then I know that I see that we have people in power who are going to be fighting to help us get to equity and justice. Will we fully achieve equity and justice once this bill passes? Cause I promise you it'll pass. Once this bill passes, are we gonna achieve it? No, we still have a long way to go but we are so much closer than we would be if we didn't even try it. Well, I would say that's a big one in terms of market progress. And I'll be anxious to know when you have a bill number for reasons that we've talked about on other occasions. But that's a big one at the state level. What about at our level? What about at the municipal level? What would be the equivalent of that kind of progress in terms of steps towards equity or the inclusion of a population in a more equitable setting or environment? The examples? Carmen, I talk a little bit about in the budgeting process the city goes through, there's an equity lens. Is there not? The city has a pretty sophisticated criteria for evaluating budget proposals. But isn't there a lens, an equity lens that's used in terms of the implications or impact of budget ideas that might not have an impact on the whole community but would impact segments of the community and therefore are favored or rated as a higher priority in terms of the city's budgeting process? So what I would say is we could do better. I don't think that we have the right equity questions. We are not asking questions about community impact. We have identified areas much too like what you talked about justice, environmental, social. So we've identified areas, economics, we've identified quality of life and that includes neighborhoods. But we're still not asking the right questions around community impact and access. And then there's an accountability piece which for most organizations makes it a challenge when you have programs and services that are provided specifically to a community that's under resourced, we're not seen equitable. How do you compare public safety to early childhood education? Well, I'm gonna start to put a wrap on this but I wanna use that as a place to start. You're all invited to come back on February 24th. I think you've all agreed to do that so we can continue this conversation. And a place to start would be what are your recommendations to move us towards your and my aspiration for a more equitable and just post-pandemic future? So think about what those recommendations are, whether they're in for your nonprofit, for the city, for the state, for the association or others that are served by or have some implications for NARF. That's where I'd like to start on the 24th. And I would like to say to you, thank you again not just for your time tonight but for all that you do in the world and in this community and in the state of Colorado and nationally. You could be a lot of places tonight but you agreed to be here. And I'm deeply appreciative of that, more appreciative of what you do every day. I wanna say to listeners for tonight's program, this group, welcome back on the 24th. If you like this program, tell your friends and neighbors. If you don't like what we're doing, let me know. What I need to do to improve the value and the meaning of these programs. This is public access television and we'll take all the input we can get to make it relevant, meaningful and entertaining for the community. I do want, as a matter of practice, I wanna sign off in these programs by repeating a blog post by Seth Gooden which I think just has a lot of significance what we're trying to do here with this series in the future we deserve. Seth Gooden writes, we can choose to commit to a recursive and infinite path that elegantly creates more of the same. We can choose possibility, we can choose connection, we can choose optimism, we can choose justice, we can choose kindness, we can choose resilience and we can decide to take responsibility. Each leads to more of the same. So think about that. Join us on February 24th for the second of this series. Thanks for allowing us in your home tonight. Long web viewers.