 Welcome to Cooper Union. Today we'll be having an exciting conversation about some of the most important issues taking place around the world, and we're going to be looking at the title of today as the whole world is watching human rights in the United States. I'm fortunate enough to be joined today by two amazing advocates, Greg Jackson, the National Advocacy Director for Community Justice Action Fund, and a gun bound survivor in Washington DC, and DREC Ingram co founder of Warriors in the Garden. Both of them are speaking with us today because it's an important event happening at the UN. Today, we will be on the eve of the High Commissioner presenting her first oral update to the UN Human Rights Council on the preparation of the report on systematic racism and police brutality, especially those incidents that result in the death of George Floyd, and of other African American people of African descent, as well as government response to anti racism peaceful protest. The High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland will share her initial findings, and that will take place tomorrow. So we're excited to be able to meet today to discuss the state of systemic racism and police brutality, and more importantly, what we can do about that. I'll want to thank Greg and introduce him and ask him to please share his story a bit, and why it's important that we focus on this important issue. Well, thanks for having me, Josh. So I'm Greg Jackson, the National Advocacy Director for the Community Justice Action Fund. Our entire mission is to end gun violence and black and brown communities by lifting community based solutions and really centering the people who are most impacted by violence. I come to this work, frankly, because I'm a survivor of gun violence. And I was shot in 2013. And even seven years ago, there's still some really big memories that stand out to me. One, you know, when I was shot, my nurse shared with me that every day, there are young black men like me that come through those doors. In America, over 100,000 people are shot or killed by guns every year. And over 70% of homicide victims are black or brown. Another big thing that stood out to me was as a survivor of gun violence, there were so many challenges and trials that I faced, whether that was mentally, financially, housing, economically, etc. But the services provided to me were purely medical. And over 66% of people who are shot in America survived, but the resources they receive are typically only medical. So we also know when we think about this cycle of gun violence is happening. In order to reduce violence and reduce the pain and trauma there needs to be more resources invested in those people that are impacted. The last big thing though, that really stood out to me was that gun violence, even as old as 2013 was seen as a political football and something that was passed back and forth as a hot topic or an issue. But in the African American community, in the black community, in our brown communities, our Latinx communities, it's not an issue, it's a reality for us. Unfortunately, I was nearly shot four other times growing up here in America. And I knew that this was a crisis that was a big deal, but I didn't understand that it was only as big of a deal to us, unlike our white comrades in the country. The other big thing I wanted to share is that, you know, when I entered the hospital I was met by three investigators before I could meet my doctor. And when we look at gun violence in America, the approach to addressing gun violence and just violence in general is not to proactively prevent it, but as to pour in more policing more crime control more law enforcement, higher prison sentencing, and really the incarceral approach to addressing gun violence. But we've seen that move before. We saw that with the war on drugs, we've watched this for decades, where policing and higher sentencing and law enforcement is not the way to end a crisis like gun violence. The way that we do it is by investing in proactive solutions and proactive community based solutions on programs that focus on those who are most at risk to committing a violent crime, and helping them get out of that situation and away from the desperation that creates that conflict programs that support people who are most mentally impacted or socially impacted by gun violence in their community. But most importantly, making sure that neighborhoods and communities have the resources and the opportunity to live a quality life, a healthy life, and a life full of opportunity and not desperation, like we've seen before. The last thing I'll just share, you know, a lot of what we're seeing during COVID-19, we're seeing big spikes in gun violence across the country, and it's not because of more police, it's not because of harsher sentencing. The reason we're seeing spikes is because people are really hurting. They're hurting when it comes to housing when it comes to finances when it comes to lack of education lack of access to safe spaces. The way that we can reduce violence in our country is not more policing. It's not more law enforcement, but it's investing in these communities to uplift them. And so I would love to talk a little bit more about the challenge with policing and law enforcement. I think we've seen some of the crazy and dark shortfalls of a focused approach to supporting communities are dealing with violent crime, but I'm sure we'll come back to that after my fellow panelists. Absolutely. And I think what you're talking about there is also the human rights based approach. It's a proactive participatory, but also trying to prevent that if we actually focus on prevention, instead of punitive measures and this police state, we'd actually have a much safer society for everyone and can eliminate a great deal of the violence as well. So I really think we'll get into that and discuss it. If there's one thing you'd like to add to that, I'll definitely let you continue. Yeah, I mean, I think the major thing that I'll share is that we've seen the outcome of decades and decades of policing communities that are hurting the most. And that results in one, the ineffective ability, the inability to reduce violent crime, especially gun violence and homicide. But most importantly, we've seen how the instances of police violence, police brutality can not only harm people, traumatized communities, but also take lives and destroy the trust between a community and government. And so, you know, this summer and this year has been a big eye opener for so many people across the country about how police violence and brutality is playing out in our neighborhoods every day. And I think it reinforces the need to do more than police these neighborhoods. I mean, my neighborhood, you know, in every block you can find a cop car, but the high school four blocks down the street is literally falling apart. You know, we have a 41% dropout rate. There's the one grocery store we get to never has fresh produce. You know, we don't have a rec center that's walkable. Our school systems are struggling. The actual economic opportunities are non existent, but yet we have police police officers with cars bicycles, even horses, sometimes parading through our neighborhoods of folks who are struggling with poverty, struggling with desperation and struggling with interpersonal conflict that a lot of it is a byproduct of the neglect of these neighborhoods. I really want to push back on the concept that violence is happening by criminals or gangs or no it's not these are a lot of these incidents are interpersonal conflicts to escalate out of frustration out of stress, out of, you know, inability to resolve conflicts. And then most importantly, pain, you know, people that are in pain and conflict is one of the worst things you can do. And our government can change that by simple things like investing in our communities investing in our schools investing in programs investing in our mental health, investing in our access to health care. There's little that's being done that there's there's nothing too small that can be done to invest in these communities to make a big difference and we've seen certain cities like Stockton California. We've seen just different areas across the country who have started to invest and have seen drastic reductions in violent crime. And it's not because the the the actual neighborhood members have changed it's not because the community has changed it's because the community has actually focused on lifting every person in that state or in that city. And that's what we want to see all over the country. And you highlighted so well in this country focused on civil and political rights, but also that economic social and cultural rights, the right to housing the right to health care the right to education. It's essential. And if we focus on those we could see changes that are positive in people's daily living. And I think that's one of the other aspects is also this pandemic COVID, because we had been with each other in Washington DC, meeting with embassies, preparing for this universal periodic review in February, and really this pandemic just exposed all of the cracks in the society, and all the challenges that were being ignored. And gun violence is definitely one pandemic and so is racism. And that's really what we're getting into next and at the Human Rights Council, they organized an urgent debate and reorganize 144 families of victims of police violence and over 360 civil society organizations from around the world. They sent a letter to the High Commissioner for Human Rights, saying that there must be an examination of human rights in the United States, and it must look at systemic racism and police brutality. And because of that advocacy, the Nations of Africa put this on the UN Human Rights Council agenda and there was an urgent debate this summer. And of course it was focusing on George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Philando Castle and Michael Brown. And it was an important first time ever that the whole world is watching and the US would receive such scrutiny. Normally the US loves to talk about being so exceptional. But this was an example that the world said we must be really focused on the human rights situation. Our next speaker, D-REC Ingram has an amazing amount of experience as an advocate from Ferguson all the way unfortunately until most recently, organizing in Hell's Kitchen in New York. And I'd like him to share a brief bit about some of the reasons he got involved and what he's still doing today and why we have to continue organizing. Yeah, first I wanted to respond to like something that Greg said. Just, I believe it's a mentality that we believe in and that we push a lot in terms of investing in communities. But a lot of those systems, even once we invest in them, they're inherently racist. Our education system, our housing system, our political system. In a lot of economic sectors, even if we funnel all of this money into them, they're Eurocentric, they're still going to be discriminatory against black people and we still won't get equity. So I think it should be focused more on reinvesting but also reimagining these systems completely. People ask if Warriors in the Garden, the organization that I help co-found is reformist or abolitionist and I don't like to use either one of those words. I believe that, you know, it's way more nuanced than that. But I also believe that funneling money into systems that are already broken, that are already inherently biased and racist against black people, doesn't necessarily activate the equity and the equality that we want in those systems. But yeah, I agree with everything I'll say you said. So, my name's Dirac. I co-founded Warriors in the Garden. It's a collective of progressive activists. We're all 20 to 29 years old. And we came together on the front lines in New York City on May 29, the first day of the George Floyd protest. And we all came together and connected over this visceral pain and trauma of just becoming used to seeing black bodies vilified and killed by police on social media as well as the news. I started my political journey personally in Ferguson while I was in college completing my MBA in St. Louis, Missouri. And I became very active in the Black Lives Matter movement. I got to meet a lot of important influential people like Cory Bush, who just was nominated for, she's the first black woman in Missouri to be nominated for a congressional district, which is super excited. But I left there and since leaving St. Louis, I moved to New York and I've immediately become active in this community here. And Warriors in the Garden has led countless nonviolent protests, like I said, after George Floyd's death. And we've been featured on every major news outlet. And we've activated our community, done a lot of community events, engagement, and things of that nature. And we were on the grounds for three months straight, holding rallies, sit-ins, demonstrations, engaging our community for food drives to everything. And what happened to me after that was on August 7. I had been surveilled by the police for a little bit before that, but it came to a forefront on August 7th at 7am. I was awoken to police banging on my door. I immediately called other people in my group and informed them that the police were banging. They told me that they had a warrant. And they told me to go on Instagram live. So I did. I returned to the door and asked the officers to slide the warrant under the door. And they informed me that they did not have a warrant. For the next five hours, dozens of officers harassed, berated, and terrorized me by taking over my street, neighboring buildings, and demanding without calls or warrant that I surrendered to them. They were on rooftops. They brought drones, dogs, fire trucks, emergency vehicles. There were sharpshooters in the building across from me. They set up barriers and shut down traffic. I was filming the incident the whole time. People came out, including my neighbors and other people in my group and other activists to stand in solidarity. And they began chanting and marching up and down my street and stood in solidarity with me, but the police were unrelenting. I was on the phone with my attorney trying to get everything figured out to arrange a peaceful surrender. And to say I was terrified is a complete understatement. That incident reminded me of one of my friends, Thaddeus Mercuro, who was also an activist in the Ferguson movement, who was having a mental health issue answered his door. The police tried to enter without a warrant and he ended up being shot and he passed away in 2015. And that moment and his spirit were definitely with me during this incident. But thanks to the support of my neighbors, my community, my organization, Warriors in the Garden, my attorney, the news media, and as well as Amnesty International, the NYPD eventually backed off. I was able to surrender the next day. I marched to the precinct early in the morning. And everybody was outraged by what had happened to me, especially when they found out what I was being accused of, which was allegedly screaming loudly into an officer's ear with a megaphone. To me, it was obvious that this was an act of intimidation. It was inherently political. And our police department and law enforcement are supposed to be apolitical. And it was Tennessee all fear and me and other activists. And sadly, I'm not the only activist that has been targeted by the NYPD. In the decades-long history of doing this, of harassing and disappearing activists without due process, police departments across this nation have paid millions of dollars in lawsuit settlements. And yet people like me, black people who are fighting for racial justice continue to be targeted, arrested and persecuted for demanding the right not to be killed by the police because of the color of our skin. So that just reminds me how black people have to navigate society differently, how black boys and girls grow up with this inherent fear, maybe having gun violence within their neighborhood, but also having police intimidation and police brutality into their neighborhood. At Warriors in the Garden, we have a vision statement that talks about us warning a prosperous nation where empathy and justice is paramount. A progressive society where all lives are valued in each citizen, giving the opportunity to succeed without having to navigate any form of systemic oppression. A nonviolent republic free of police brutality and all other forms of violence against people of color. A world where young black boys and girls can live freely and fully without apprehension or fear, a nation where there's truly liberty and justice for all. And to me, until we have that, until the next generation of black boys and black girls don't have to fear walking down the street or interactions with police, we have to fight for justice and we have to fight for that equity and equality. And yeah, it's a continued fight and I think we need to focus on strategic dismantling as well. That's perfect and I think that gets to the point of human rights is it's really a minimum that no one should have those rights violated and anyone's life should not be go below a certain level of dignity. You said it's also horizon. It's what we're aiming for and what we want in this world and how things can be so much better. And I think that's really the point of what we're looking at as well as the Human Rights Council meets three times a year. They never looked just at the United States before so this urgent debate this summer was quite significant because you did see the marches take place even here in Honolulu 10,000 people on a weekend. I know direct you were born here so welcome home again. It's amazing to see that 10,000 March tier in the middle of covert but in a safe way as you talked about and organize using those human rights the rights freedom of assembly freedom of speech to then demand dignity and use these tools to transform the society and we know when the High Commissioner for Human Rights presents her report tomorrow, it'll be a first step, and we know that we should still push for a commission of inquiry, looking into systemic racism of police brutality in the United States. I was quite a poor news. We were on a side event today in Geneva, and that was at the UN Human Rights Council, because that is what will happen tomorrow but then on November night, the universal periodic review will take place in the United States will be reviewed for three and a half hours. So for three and a half hours, all 193 member states can ask us questions and make recommendations. Are there any recommendations that you would like to see countries make to the United States to change the daily conditions here. We have to acknowledge that police brutality is just one piece of a corrupt puzzle like it's literally just one bolt removed from a racist apparatus, known as the American criminal justice system. Our lives are bound to dismantling that system while creating new ones of equity in a way. So I think acknowledging that there's that there's just progress that needs to be made that black people have been historically victimized by this country, because of what we've gone through and a request to reimagine policing and I think that starts with reallocating a lot of the police funding. I know in St. Louis, Missouri, black man have the highest death rate out of the top 50 major cities in terms of their interactions with police, but St. Louis police officers are one of the highest paid in the Midwest. So I think looking at how we structure policing, how we fund policing, as well as reallocating not only some of the funding, but reallocating some of the responsibilities. Being a police officer is hard. My sister was a cop, but I also know that being a social worker is hard, that being a therapist is hard, that being a teacher is hard. And I think some of those duties and things that we're asking police officers to do should be reallocated to individuals who are more properly trained. So those would be my two requests to kind of deconstruct our current police system, reimagine it, and reallocate funding as well as job duties as well. Thank you. And the good aspect is universal periodic review. It allows countries who are doing policing in different ways. Many would say also better, also a human rights based approach to actually make the suggestions showing what's worked in their country and why that could be applicable to America. Greg, I'll hand it over to you. Yeah, I just, I think it's important that we recognize that America is going through two public health crises right now. Gun violence, again, over 100,000 people are shot or killed by guns every year. And when we had similar numbers with COVID-19 the entire country shut down. But this type of crisis has been going on for decades and we haven't seen any major political policy or financial adjustments to address this. And so the first big thing is we really need to bring home the urgency of this crisis and remind folks that because this is majority black of brown folks impacted it does not mean it's an acceptable crisis for America to overlook. The second big thing is, you know, I think direct talks a lot about policing and law enforcement how we can allocate those funds to people better equipped. I want to just reinforce that because there are community based solutions that work that will reduce violence that will address crime, especially violent crime, more effectively than law enforcement, but puts the dollars in the hands of the community. And invest in the people who are most at risk to help them lead a healthier lifestyle, and not just let's just arrest them and put them away. No, why don't we get to people before something bad happens, invest in their life and their situation, and help them have a healthier and more positive pathway to their future. And these programs exist. They're highly underfunded America puts over $3 billion federally into law enforcement that does not include state level funding or local level funding. But when you look at funding and community based violence reduction programs is less than $100,000. So that just shows you very clearly how we are trying to address this problem and the incarceration approach is simply not working. And here, politicians on both sides of the island all over the country parade their law enforcement statistics, but never parade how these communities are starting to thrive the never parade the live saved the most at risk youth who, who now is an over performer either in school or in the workplace. And there are programs that are committed to doing that that are effective at doing that and most importantly, cheaper, cheaper and easier and more cost efficient in ways of reducing violence. So please don't let folks continue this, this cycle of feeding to us to the world that law enforcement is the way to address violent crime because in reality it is the lead it is not the most effective way to do it. And at this stage, it's just me of our community. I think yeah law enforcement is the quickest way when communities are already struggling to to keep them disenfranchised and disengaged. And to me this system like again to talk about how systems work. I believe the criminal justice system is working exactly how it's supposed to, which is to keep a minority group disengaged and uninformed about exactly what's going on across this country. And for me, this gun violence is a public health crisis, but it's not being addressed because of who the victims are black Americans are disproportionately impacted by gun violence they experienced nearly 10 times the gun homicides 15 times the gun assaults and 15 times the fatal police shootings of white Americans. And I believe if it was white children dying at those rates. This address, this would be this crisis would be addressed. Very, very quickly, very quickly. Can I just add one thing. It is the number one cause of death for black youth. Think about that. If there was anything preventable that was the number one cause of any type any demographic of you, we would be jumping through every who possible to address it. And it's been like that for decades. And so I definitely want to thank direct for just highlighting those different statistics but this is not, this is not, you know, some crazy, you know, crime television show know these are our kids are children our future that are dying by something that's preventable. And we have failed as a country to address it. And so there's anything that you can bring home is just pushing forward. The urgency of addressing this public health crisis with public health solutions and not more law enforcement. Thank you so much and I think what you're talking about really does address the situation those statistics are stunning 100,000 but more powerful are your stories and speaking truth to power. I would like to thank you both for joining us on Cooper Union. This is the whole world is watching and human rights in the United States episode, and we thank all our viewers, and we definitely hope this isn't the last time that we can meet and discuss maybe we can have a follow up after the UPR and more importantly maybe after legislation is adopted that improves the situation in the country. And I know we will be part of that solution with the organizing that both of you are doing and thank you for dedicating your lives to human rights. Thank you. Thank you. Mahalo. Mahalo here. Thank you again for tuning in to Cooper Union.