 My name is Don Farrish. I'm the president at Roger Williams University, which is located in two places, Bristol, and then across the street. The across the street part is still a work in progress, but we'll be moving in early May, and we anticipate in this larger facility that we'll have to be able to do even more of these kinds of partnerships with both the Providence Public Library and many other organizations in Providence. So this is a bit of a maiden voyage for us right now, but we're very pleased with how things have gone to date. So I've got a few things I need to avoid forgetting, so I've got my notes with me. So first of all, for the past year and a half, Roger Williams University has been regularly convening conversations about civil rights past and present. It's really part of the 150th anniversary of the signing of the 13th Amendment, and that's now coming to an end, and this is pretty much the last event, but we've learned in the process that this work never ends, and so a lot of things are still going to be going forward. Just last week, the university down in Bristol hosted a symposium titled Black Lives, Activism in the Past and Present. I'm really proud to say that that whole event was catalyzed and organized in large part by members of our student body. They did work with faculty and university staff, but it was really their initiative, and I'm really proud of the work that they're doing. Collectively, the university is guided by a new core purpose that we came up with just last year, and that core purpose is to strengthen society through engaged teaching and learning, and this idea of strengthening society we think is terribly important. How do we make a mark as an institution through the people who populate the university to make the world a better place, and the world in this case starts with Rhode Island, where we are located, but it doesn't end with Rhode Island, but while we're here in Rhode Island, it's important that we feel that we're moving the dial in a positive way. The issues that matter to society are therefore the issues that matter to us, and more importantly, thoughtful conversations about race in America are clearly conversations that need to be had, and we've seen that through the Black Lives Matter movement over the last year or more. We're seeing conversations sometimes happening spontaneously in university campuses, and we're reminded all the time that even 50 years after the Selent to Montgomery March that there's still enough lot of work to be done, and that Selent to Montgomery March, by the way, for those of you who haven't been in the library in recent months, is commemorated through the work of a remarkable photographer who was a college student himself at the time, who was on that march, and taking photographs of people who will be very familiar to you, such as Martin Luther King, but in images that for the most part have never been seen before. So if you have the time after we're done tonight, the library's open till 8.30, I really urge you to take 15 minutes, or however long you want, just to see those images, because it's history in America. It's right there, and familiar to those of us old enough for it to be familiar, perhaps new to some of our younger members, but very much an important, really a seminal event in the history of this country. I wanna say, before we get started, I wanna say thanks to a few key individuals who made tonight's event possible, and first I've gotta recognize Bank of America. They are corporate sponsors tonight. We would have a very difficult time pulling this off without them. So in particular, and here tonight is Bill Hatfield, who's the president of Bank of America, Rhode Island, and Bill, I've lost you, you're here somewhere. There you are. Okay, Bill, that's the guy, so he made this possible. So as you go by in the way out, just, I don't know, fill out a bank deposit or something. Just open an account, that would be good. And the Vice President for Enterprise Business and Community Engagement, Sondagesse, is also here, and they've really been great to work with. I wanna also acknowledge and thank the Providence Public Library through its executive director, Jack Martin. We really appreciate working with Jack. Jack, stand up for me. Even as we were looking for a new downtown location, we met Jack as he arrived in town, and he's been right from the very beginning just a terrific guy to work with, and we look forward to lots of collaborations because across the street in One Empire Plaza, we don't have a room like this, so we may wanna prevail on Jack. Help us out occasionally when we need to get a crowd together. Jack worked with us a lot on the Freedom Journey exhibit that I referred to a moment ago, and it was great working with Jack and his staff to put that together, and I know that many, many people in Rhode Island have had a chance to see those photographs, and we think that's all for the good, so thanks again, Jack. As we look forward to the culmination of both Freedom Journey, it's the exhibit, and Black History Month, which is February, it's critical that we continue to have thoughtful conversations about race in America as we engage in the tremendously important work toward achieving racial equality in the United States, and we at Roger Williams University are committed to facilitating those discussions well into the future. In fact, in just a few weeks, sort of shout out to our students here at five o'clock on March 16th in the Global Heritage Hall Auditorium. This is intended for the campus people here, but I said I would do this. Four student organizations will host a forum called Justice in the Classroom, and the intent here is to create an opportunity for students to share instances of classroom and non-classroom bias interaction with faculty and staff in an effort to encourage those groups to be more conscious of these issues and to take steps to address them. And I encourage all the faculty, staff, and students here and back on our Bristol campus to attend. It's important we engage in these kinds of discussions in a proactive way and not wait for things to force us to be responding more defensively. So the more that we can do to be upfront on these issues, the better off all of us will be served. And now to introduce the panelists for the evening, I'd like to welcome Wilbert Hicks. Wil is the Assistant Vice President of Global Corporate Accounts Payable at Bank of America, Rhode Island, and Chairperson of the Bank of America's Black Professional Group in Rhode Island. And he's the recipient of the Bank of America 2015 Diversity and Inclusion Award. So please join me in welcoming Wilbert Hicks. Hello, everybody. I'd like to thank Don. And on behalf of Bank of America, I want to say how proud we are to be partnering with these partners here and hosting this event. I think it's just a remarkable thing that we're allowed to do this. And I want to thank Bill Halfield and John Dodges as well for allowing my organization to be a part of such a great event. And I make sure I don't forget anything you do, I got my notes. One of the things that President Ferris noted, which was very important, is that we must always remember and reflect back on our history. It's very important for the folks who were here and maybe of a vintage age to remember and live through it, but it's also important that the children that we educate today understand that we're not just, and they're not just growing up on their own. They're standing on the shoulders of giants who paved the way for you to have the ability to be where you're at today. With that being said, I'd like to introduce our two speakers for today. Joining us tonight to continue this conversation is Ed Fitzpatrick and Jim Benson. Ed Fitzpatrick, the Providence Journalist, columnist who's raised from Rhode Island, serves as, stirred lively debates throughout the ocean state. Earlier this year, Ed traveled to Alabama, the former president of the province NAACP, Fifth Montero, on the 50th anniversary of the summer to Montgomery March, which I hope he talks about and gives us some detail on. Joining Ed in leading this discussion in this event is the current Providence NAACP president, Jim Benson. Jim is the recipient of the Rhode Island Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Commissions Living the Dream Award, and also serves as president of the East Bay Communication Action Program and the Rhode Island Affirmative Action Professionals. In addition to serving on the boards of a number of Rhode Islander organizations. Ladies and gentlemen, this is sure to be a captivating conversation. Please join me in welcoming Ed and Jim. Thank you all for coming out tonight. Seems like we're just here. It was December 9th, this exhibit opened, and we had the former chairman of the Providence branch of the NAACP, Cliff Montero here, who is Jim's mentor. And I had gone down to Selma with Cliff, 50 years to the day after he'd worked over the Edmund Pettus Bridge with Martin Luther King, and it was quite an experience, quite an honor, and to see him relive all the emotions of 50 years ago and to talk about what's changed since then and what needs to change still. So I've got 20 questions here for Jim. That's all? Give or take. And then we're gonna open up to Q&A. So be thinking of the questions you wanna bring afterwards. But if you haven't seen the exhibit, by the way, it's here through Sunday, and it's open till 8.30 tonight. I highly recommend it. I got to see it through Cliff Montero's eyes and Stephen Summersteen brings a whole new perspective to capture a lot of the moment. And Jim, I was wondering what to begin with, what struck you the most about the exhibit? Before I talk about the exhibit, I'd like to thank Rush Williams University, Bank of America, the Providence Public Library. I'd like to give a shout out to a very dear friend of mine, Anna Conor Morales of the Roger Williams University, the Tino Policy Institute, which does great work out here. So thanks for coming on. What struck me was the earnestness in the faces of the people. You could see that they were very determined in terms of seeking freedom, that they had endured enough and they were going to do something about it. Now, the faces in the crowd were different, of course. I was struck by the number of white people that were on the march, people that were from the clergy, other interested people, students that also felt that enough was enough and that something had to change in this country. So too often, I think people forget that these marches were very integrated marches. It wasn't just black people, there were all kinds of people. How old were you at the time? Okay, I guess I'll have to give it up now. I was 13 years old at the time and that's the other thing that struck me, the fact that there were so many people and so many kids in the pictures, 12, 13, 14, my age. I was living comfortably in the city of Boston, relatively comfortably in Boston. So I could relate to it. It wasn't something from another era. It was in my lifetime. I definitely could tell that it was not that long ago because of the fact that some of those kids that were in that picture probably went to college with me. They just didn't say that much about it. And the other thing is that unlike Emmett Till who would have been 74 or 10 years older than me, I'm basically the same age as the four girls that were in Birmingham that were bombed that Sunday morning at Sunday School Practice. So that struck me too. Those girls would be my age now if they had lived. That march led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act. So how far have we come in those 50 years and what is the biggest challenge regarding voting rights now in America? Well, the 1965 Voting Rights Act of course was a landmark decision by the Supreme Court. However, the Supreme Court just made another decision a couple of years ago to gut pre-clerics. So there's a good chance that a lot of the good work that was done by so many is gonna be unraveled. I don't think it's a secret that there's an effort in this country to roll back voting rights. Before Barack Obama was elected president, about two states had restrictive voting laws. Right now there's about 32 states that have introduced restrictive voting laws. So there's an all out effort to roll back voting rights across this country and it's really disturbing. Yeah, you're talking there about the case then that 2013 case Shelby County versus Holder. And in the majority decision the Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that our country has changed while any racial discrimination in voting is too much. Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions. So what do you make of that? Have conditions changed sufficiently? Well, sure, no, conditions have changed. I mean, we don't have people riding in the back of the bus. We don't have white color only and we don't have a number of things like we had back in the 50s and the 60s. But things haven't changed enough. We still have a lot of problems with race in this country. So John Roberts, the Chief Justice has a part right. Things have changed. But what he doesn't understand is that they haven't changed enough and hasn't changed enough to gut the Voting Rights Act of 1965. And what did you make of the dissent from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg? She said, throwing out pre-clearance when it is work and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you're not getting wet. I think she hit the ball out of the park with that comment. That's a good way to put it. I think with some of the members of the Supreme Court that voted to block pre-clearance, 5-4 decision, but they don't understand is that it's because of the Voting Rights Act that we had the progress that we had in this country. And it just didn't happen magically. It was because of things like pre-clearance because the states would have done what they're doing now, eliminating same-day voting and early voting and making it as tough for people as possible to vote in this presidential election. Do you have any hope of getting the umbrella back? Is the Supreme Court's 4-4 right now? Is it something I'm gonna see through a judicial route or is there a legislative fix that you think is feasible? I'm gonna answer it two ways. One, President Barack Obama has a responsibility, a responsibility to nominate somebody for that Supreme Court this year. This year, he has a responsibility to do it. And the U.S. Senate has a responsibility to act on it. Now, they don't have to accept anybody, but you cannot say I'm not gonna accept anybody. I mean, that's the height of being irresponsible as far as I'm concerned. For a party that talks a lot about the Constitution, it just really is disingenuous to now look the other way in terms of what the Constitution says is the responsibility of the President of the United States. So I think that, however, there is gonna be a justice named and it's gonna be named, if not this year, it's gonna be next year. And I think whoever that justice is is probably gonna be probably more predisposed to putting back pre-claimers than not. Maybe it's more wishful thinking on my part, but the way it looks today to me, I think the next justice is gonna reverse that 5-4. So you look into the courts as opposed to Congress to fix that? Yeah, I think right now, I definitely look to the courts. I also think that the states also can do what they can do. I know here in Rhode Island, Secretary of State Noligo Baer has some legislation in terms of making voting easier. And I think that there has been at least 24 states that have also passed laws to make voting easier. So we need more of that to counteract those states that are making voting harder. Well, yeah, after the Supreme Court decision, many states passed laws, voter ID, other things, putting new restrictions that weren't in place before. Rhode Island, many were red states. One was a deep blue state known as Rhode Island and we passed voter ID. I was just speaking with the author of a book called Give Us the Ballot, Harry Berman, and he said Rhode Island's a bit of a head scratcher. How do you explain that? It's very difficult to explain that because that is a head scratcher. I mean, I don't know what to make of it. I mean, I think that there was some people that thought it was a good government thing to do to have voter ID. They did no due diligence. They didn't know who that would affect negatively because if they did any kind of study or survey in terms of the people that would impact, then they wouldn't have done it. They just wouldn't have done it. It could have been irresponsible to do that. When you're gonna make voting harder for people of color, for the homeless, for the poor, for the elderly, for students, you're gonna do something without any evidence of on-site voter fraud whatsoever. And then you go out and pass a law. That's the height of irresponsibility as far as I'm concerned. Usually you have to have rims of evidence to pass laws, not anecdotal evidence that doesn't happen to be substantiated and you do all kinds of studies to kind of figure out who's gonna benefit and who's gonna be hurt and to not have done any of that smacks at just some fears. Fears of maybe the increasing Latino vote, for example. I've heard that as a theory. You have other theories that there's a courtyard, there's a feeling among the general assembly to kind of help each other pass laws when you think it's not any big deal. So I think there was some of that, helping certain reps get what they want. Didn't seem to be onerous at the time. So you have some of that. And it just was just poor thinking. It just, you know, we're just gonna do it because it sounds good, you know. It was unbelievable. I know the NAACP and a lot of other groups fought tooth and nail so that we wouldn't have photo ID here, but unfortunately we were not successful. And the Secretary of State of Time, Ralph Mollis, was arguing that, well, it's different than the voter ID laws in other states. There's more forms of ID. How do you respond to that? I told him once, I said that's like taking a test and I'm bragging because I got a 58 and the other person got a 30 and you need a 60 to pass. Failure is failure. You know, I don't care if I got a 58 or a 28, you know, just because it looks less onerous in Rhode Island and that it's the best of a bad situation, the best of a bad situation, that's nothing to celebrate. You know, the whole thing shouldn't have happened in the first place. And to say you're not as bad as other places, you're not as bad, that to me is ridiculous. And I think he should have really looked at that look a little more closer before he did that and maybe he was still being in public office today. Are there any, the legislative session's underway. Are there any proposals coming forward to modify or even repeal voter ID? Not that I know of. You know, the thing that really is a sticking point is the photo part of the photo ID. I think people find that you have to have, having some identification is reasonable enough, but the fact is not everybody has a photo and not everybody can easily get that photo. Not everybody has a passport or a driver's license or should they need to have to have it if they choose not to live with it. I mean, I have a driver's license, my passport expired and I'm sure I'll renew it, but that's my choice. You have to look at the impact, how it's impacting people. Voting is a right, it's not a privilege, it's not like cashing a check at a liquor store or taking a trip to Paris, that's a privilege. And you need ID to do that. Voting is a fundamental right. People fought, bled and died for the right to vote. So it's very serious, very different and we start playing with rights. Fundamental rights, as if it's something that can just be turned on and off, I think it's just dangerous. You noted that, and Rick Hasen has written about how it's very, very rare for in-person voter fraud to sway an election. It's much easier to steal an election with mail ballots yet at the same time we're passing voter ID here in Rhode Island we're also making it easier to use mail ballots. How do you explain that and what's been the impact of that? That's another head-scratcher. It's much easier to commit voter fraud by mail ballots, so what do we do in Rhode Island? We made it easier. It's much more difficult to commit fraud in terms of in-person voting, so what do we do? We made it harder. So it's time, two things don't make sense. However, there is fraud in terms of mail ballots I think the Secretary of State has a bill that's going to help with that. I think the problem there is that too many hands are involved in the current system, and I think that needs to be restricted because there's too much that can go wrong when you have just anybody handling a mail ballot. So I know that maybe in certain states mail ballots never talked about because it affects military people more, or the elderly more, and maybe they don't want to get into that fight, but fear is fair if it's fraud in mail ballots and let's make sure that that doesn't happen. If there's no fraud in in-person voting, then let's not talk about fraud when what you really want to do is keep certain people from voting, and we all know who they are. I don't know if there's any state legislators here, but if there are, if the legislature's listening, what's the most important thing the General Assembly can do this session regarding voting rights? Past Secretary of State, Snelly-Gurbea's legislation, which has three bills, past those, and if somebody in the legislature wants to repeal photo ID and a group of people think that's a good idea, then they're not to support that too. I don't see that happening, but I think that photo part of photo ID or the photo ID part of the identification just needs to go. And what's the Secretary proposes in it, online voter registration? Right, online voter registration, I think same day voter registration, I think, and then also there's some reforms in terms of absentee ballots, which are needed. So yeah, 50 years have passed since the Voting Rights Act passed, but a basic question about voting rights just came before the Supreme Court in the case of Ebenwell versus Abbott. The justices are gonna decide what the court meant when it established that principle of one person, one vote. Should voting districts have the same number of people or the same number of eligible voters? Well, the court meant the same number of people because if you remember, down south, they were trying to increase the numbers of people so they decided to count their property as three-fifths of a human being, if you remember. And those were the slaves, they were counting them as three-fifths of a human being for the purposes of voting, in terms of not voting, but in terms of the voting jurisdiction. So it's always been about population, not about eligible voters. And I think it's probably better to keep it in terms of the population versus the eligible voters because there's certain populations that are younger, they have bigger families, and they will be more disenfranchised than other populations. So it's just a slippery slope. Do we look at different groups that have bigger families, younger families, and then say that you shouldn't be voting or you shouldn't have as much power as other people because they have smaller families or they have older families? Now I think that's not the way to go. Let me ask you about a couple of matters that have been in the headlines recently. Just the other day, 50 Providence College students staged a 13-hour sit-in at the president's Shanley's office to protest what they called anti-blackness and racism on campus. And the president agreed to make progress and issue a comprehensive plan by March 7th. Can you tell us more about what sparked that protest and what you think of the college's response? In general, it was perceived to be inaction by the administration at Providence College in terms of the demands of students or not the demands of them, but the concerns. They go back years or even decades about racial profiling on campus and insensitivity of professors on campus, lack of curriculum that meets all the needs of students in a diverse society. Different things that have been talked about over the years that really fill on deaf ears. We have a chapter on that campus in NAACP being the way. And so we're a little more closer to it than a lot of people. What kind of really spurred action, I think, is what happened about a month ago. Five African-American students, females, were trying to get into an off-campus party and they were told, we don't want your kind here, you people, go back to where you came from. And they said, well, okay, we have a girlfriend who was really light-skinned, I guess. They thought that she might have been white. They let her in. We want to go get her so that we can keep going. We don't need to be in your party, I guess. So they basically had some people upstairs that were gonna dump some water on them, allegedly. And then I heard that even beer bottles were thrown at them or water bottles were thrown at them and missing one very close to her head. So after that incident, there was a big meeting on campus and I got wind of that incident and I said, well, let me have the five students meet with me and the police chief and the NAACP executive and see what can happen. So I also said I'm gonna have a meeting with Father Shanley and I got that meeting and he assured me that he was gonna investigate that incident, he was gonna hire a special attorney to do that and have his campus apparatus look into the incident. So I told him that that was good and that I also was working with the province police. I said, I also thought because of what was said and then the assault in terms of throwing out a bottle, I said, I got some friends that I wanna investigate it. They're called the Federal Bureau of Investigation. So I've called my friends to investigate this and the FBI and so I said that we'll keep contact, we'll see how that goes. What I wanted to do is meet with some of the professors and some of the students and try to get a meeting with Father Shanley so that we could talk about these demands but before we could even do that, the students took over the office and forced the issue and got the meeting that they wanted to talk about the demands which I feel are reasonable. Talking about curriculum, talking about multicultural center, a diversity officer, things that seem very reasonable to I think most people. Yeah, what's the most important thing that you hope comes out of that? I hope that there's an action plan in terms of the demands that Father Shanley said he is gonna put together an action plan and meet with the students on March 7th. He's gonna look at each one, each item individually, put together some kind of plan of action around that. I have student input and have a good talk on March 7th but I think a lot of this could have been avoided if that talk or that discussion would have happened maybe a year ago. You know, when the students first brought it up, he would have said, okay, let's meet with the students, let's have a task force, let's do something. Then it would have came down to a takeover of his office for 13 hours. The students were exacerbated because they couldn't get a meeting and they just said, you know, we don't know what else to do, we gotta have this meeting, we gotta have this discussion. So we're gonna do this. Couple months ago, the town of Johnston denied the King's Tabernacle Church approval to use a 124-year-old church as a second place of worship for the congregation and the pastor said the town said no because he and his congregation are primarily black. The pastor cited a recording in which a building official refers to him as an expletive black owner of the church. So what's the latest on that episode and what does it tell you? Well, the very latest just happened about an hour ago. There was an anonymous letter that had, you know, we don't want you N words here in Johnston and whatever. But I told the folks that I work with, let's be cautious about that. It was an anonymous letter. You don't know who put that together. Let's have a wait and see. I told my people to let the police chief now, let the mayor know, and you probably will see it and go local tomorrow as well. We'll actually go local now. Just happened about an hour ago. So that's the very latest. But what happened was that the church people went to a zoning hearing and I guess they needed to work certain things out in order to move into this abandoned church. So it's a church going into a church. But the way they were treated at the zoning board, they felt that they didn't get any interaction by the zoning people, that the hearing lasted less than five minutes, that they just kind of looked at the people and kind of just said denial. They just felt that they weren't treated with respect and dignity. So it was more the attitude I think of the zoning officials. They might have been some things that needed to be done but when you just look at somebody and just say deny in very little conversation, takes five minutes. Everybody was kind of like, what happened? Usually a zoning hearing. If you have somebody that comes before the board, there's maybe 15, 20, 25 minutes of discussion back and forth and then there's either a decision or there's some counsel in terms of what needs to be done but not looking at people in five minutes. So they kind of felt something was not right with that. Then the building inspector, that was another incident where they had already purchased the property and they were trying to do some work and they had a bad encounter with the building inspector so when they were to meet with the building inspector a second time, they decided to record him and then in recording him, the building inspector unfortunately came out with you blackness that and the other and it kind of confirmed to them, the church people, that there might be some real racial problems in Johnston. So what's happened since then is that the mayor has suspended the building inspector for 30 days. He also has to diversity training and so that was an action in terms of the response to the building inspector and what we thought was gonna happen because I had a meeting with the mayor, with some of the other community leaders, we thought that the attorneys, the city solicitor and the church attorneys were gonna try to work something out but I guess the church was so exasperated by just everything that they hired another attorney to file a federal lawsuit because they felt that the Rhode Island law that prohibited a church from going in a church because I guess the church was abandoned for a year and I guess now you have to go through the same thing you would go through if the church you were going into was a factory or something, a different kind of use. It's Rhode Island law and I guess they're saying that that law might be unconstitutional because of the fact that you know where the church. So there's a federal lawsuit, I don't know when that's gonna be resolved. And they're not in the church. And they're not in the church. I wanted to ask you about an editorial that was in this Sunday's New York Times. It noted that in Los Angeles and New York City, about 30% of the 20 to 24 year old black men were out of work, out of school in 2014. And the situation was even worse in Chicago where nearly half of the black men in that age group were neither working nor in school. So the editorial argued that the country should have stuck with the unemployment subsidy program that was passed as part of the Recovery Act in 2009, subsidizing jobs. So what do you see as the solution to the high, those kinds of high unemployment levels that you see throughout the nation but also here in Rhode Island? It's the complete marginalization of people of color. I mean, it's much deeper than just a subsidy program. I mean, what do you begin? I mean, you have schools that are not on a par of what people deserve in terms of the facility, to the faculty, the instruction. You have to have people that get the same kind of education as anybody gets, you know, so that disparity in what kids get is part of the problem. And this whole thing of school to prison pipeline when kids are getting suspended three, four, five times more than their peers for the same thing. And then people want to say, well, maybe it's because of poverty. And then you say, well, how do you explain Barrington and East Greenwich, suspending black kids in higher proportions than Providence and Central Falls? How do you explain that? Kids go to school hungry in Barrington and East Greenwich. Those lawyers and doctors, those parents that don't feed their kids. So, you know, it's deeper than that. It's basically based on race, I feel. And that proves it in terms of having a higher suspension rate in the suburbs and the cities. But even there, it's beyond even that. It's institutional. Some of the parents, you know, they can't get jobbed because of discrimination or because they don't have the kind of skills that people that are young that have, that are old enough don't have the right skills for the new economy. So you have to have skilled training. It's a whole host of things. I mean, segregation, it's got to be worked on in a comprehensive fashion. But we have to agree that, you know, we still have a lot of problems with race. It's not, it doesn't explain everything, but it explains too much of it. And if we don't come to grips with the fact that we have a racial problem still in this country in 2016, then nothing will change. The Southern Poverty Law Center identifies three hate groups here in Rhode Island, including the militant knights of the Ku Klux Klan. Should that come as a surprise to Rhode Islanders? I think it is a surprise to most Rhode Islanders, but those groups are in every state. You know, they're in every state and they're growing. The Southern Poverty Law Center says they're growing rapidly. You have people in this country that are in fear, they're anxious, they don't know what's going on with the country, they want their country back. You know, they, you know, they say things. So, you know, their natural reaction to some of that is to have groups, people that wanna, you know, change, you know, things, bring it back to where they used to be, back in the days of Ozzie and Harriet and leave it to Beaver in those kinds of days, you know. But we're not going back to those days. Those days are over. I like those shows, but we're not going back. We're not going back. Can't go back. Gotta go forward. So, you know, to the extent that those groups haven't done anything really crazy here in Rurali, I thank God for that, but. It's tied to some of the flyers we've seen in East Greenwich on the East Side of Providence. Possibly, possibly. I'm almost cautious with that because you never know. I mean, it could be some kids, but, you know, could be them. I mean, I don't know. Nobody really knows. I know there's been some investigation, but nothing conclusive. But we should be concerned. You know, there are people that are anxious and they're looking for scapegoats and looking for people to blame for their own situations. And, you know, they're in denial and in large part in terms of things that are really going on. So we have to be careful out here. Key member of the sounding board for last year's recent Rhode Island series that the Providence Journal did. And one of the highlights of the series is John Hill reported on the criminal justice system that blacks account for 5% of Rhode Island's general population, but they make up 30.6% of the people at the ACI and 20.2% of the people on probation in parole. So talk to us about what accounts for that disparity and what we can do about it. Well, you know, it's a little bit of poverty, a little bit of racism, a little bit of failure in terms of acknowledging the fact that, you know, people are not treated the same when they go before the courts. They tend to get black and brown. People get longer sentences for the same crime. There's targeting by police in terms of certain communities where, you know, you look at marijuana, for example, the usage is the same in terms of a black and white community, but arrests for marijuana are three times higher for blacks than they are for whites. So to me that is targeting, you know, it's conscious targeting of people, you know, but there's always been an attempt to marginalize people. I think you're gonna ask question with the new Jim Crow. Yeah. I'll wait there because I have something for that. Yeah, thanks for queuing me up. Yeah. And there's a book, The New Jim Crow. Okay, segue. Michelle Alexander writes that the United States imprisons a larger percentage of its black population than South Africa did at the height of apartheid. So I don't get to that point. And again, what can we do about it now? All right, well, this is an excerpt from The New Jim Crow. It's only a couple of paragraphs if I can just, if you could just be here with me. Michelle Alexander says, it's an excerpt from the introduction. She says, Jarvis Cotton cannot vote. Like his father, grandfather, great grandfather and great, great grandfather, he has been denied the right to participate in our electoral democracy. Cotton's family tree tells the story of several generations of black men who were born in the United States but who were denied the most basic freedom that democracy promises, the freedom to vote for those who will make the rules and laws that govern one's life. Cotton's great, great grandfather could not vote as a slave. His great grandfather was beaten to death by the Ku Klux Klan for attempting to vote. His grandfather was prevented from voting by Klan intimidation. His father was barred from voting by poll taxes and literacy tests. Today, Jarvis Cotton cannot vote because he, like many black men in the United States, has been labeled a felon and is currently on parole. So she argues that this whole criminalization of black men is a new way of being racist. You can't say, well, I'm gonna deny you health and housing and education because you're black, but I certainly can if I say you're a criminal or you're a next felon, I'm not racist. That's your felon. You can't get housing, educate, you can't get anything because you're a criminal. So it's a new way of being black. And in terms of what to do about it, the governor and Governor Armando's created a justice reinvention working group to suggest changes in the law and policy regarding Rhode Island's criminal justice system. So what is the number one thing you want to see come out of that? Well, and I was on that panel. I guess the main thing that I think that the group wanted was to reduction of parole, I mean, not parole, but probation. Probations in Rhode Island are amongst the longest in the country. All right, so third? I think we have the third longest probation in the country and I guess there are reasons why we do it that way, but there's a sense that it's not working and it needs to be shortened and they're working on it. But I like to see more black and Latino and Asian and Native American judges. We have a problem with representation in this state. We have 90 magistrates and judges in Rhode Island, roughly 90, maybe 89 or whatever. But we only have four magistrates and judges of color in this whole state, four. And you know what we call that in Boston? Disgraceful, that's disgraceful. You have an Hispanic judge in the district court. You have a black judge in the Supreme, I mean the superior court, never been a black judge in the Supreme Court or even one family court or work in compensation court in the history of those courts. But you don't, you have one in the superior court. You have a black person that's a judge in the district court and you have a black magistrate and I think he's in family court. And that's it. So we don't, I mean, this state is 25% of people of color at a minimum, maybe 30% and growing. And yet our representation in terms of judiciary is like non-existent. So that's a problem. That's a problem. It's the same thing in terms of the Attorney General's office. You know, I think he has 90 different prosecutors or attorneys, three or four people of color, attorneys of color. You know, I mean, you know, you got to do some outreach. You know, there's a school in Boston called Boston University Law School. There's a Columbia Law School. This is those places. Yeah, talking about the pipeline, right? Because when we had Governor Ramondo end to talk about the race and rural violence here, she said, well, I've got the two lists she had in front of her. There weren't any people to call her on the list. And she said, I've got to have, I'm trying to encourage more diversity in the pipeline. So what's the key to doing that? Well, the key is to get people to believe that it's worth their while. I mean, people are so frustrated in terms of the process because there has always been a pipeline that people feel that why bother? It's going to go to somebody else. Is it because of the perception is that it's a Noah Guy state and I don't know a guy? That's part of it. That's definitely part of it, you know? And if you look at who becomes a magistrate or a judge, you know, I think that to some people they would agree that part of it, not all of it, of course, because I don't want to, you know, denigrate a whole group of people. You know, it's not all of that. Everybody's qualified. But, you know, clearly, you know, you have people that would like to be judges and I think we need to take it seriously. We have to look at the judicial nominating panel. We have to look at other panels that might be out of the control of the Supreme Court Chief Judge. And we have to make sure that they're reflective of not just diversity of skin color, but diversity of thought. I told the Chief Judge of the Supreme Court, look, you know, you don't have to have somebody who looks like me on the traffic tribunal panel that overlooked a person that I thought was eminently qualified to be a magistrate. You know, that person looked like me. You can have a six foot, 10 foot white guy like David Logan, the former dean of the Ride Room Law School. He'd be fine to be on anybody's panel because he's looking to make the state more inclusive. We need people on that JNC that understand that we don't have that and you need to look at that. And when you have a person of call that is eminently qualified, you can't pass them over for any reason. For any reason. I don't care how well connected your friends are. We can't do that anymore. We have to put our best team on the field. And right now we're not doing that. And do you have a minor on how much diversity there are in the current field of candidates for the, I think there's four other vacancies? I'm not sure. I know there was somebody that didn't get, that was one vote short of moving on to the governor. That actually was the same person that got denied from traffic tribunal. I think this person is eminently qualified. I mean, everybody agrees to it. And it's just a shame what we do to people, you know, the state that are qualified. You talked about Boston. On February 22nd, the Boston Globe reported that the Boston branch of the NAACP had called for ousting Boston Latin School's headmaster for failing to adequately respond to racially charged incidents at that school and on social media. In one incident, a male student called a black female student a racial slur and threatened her with a reference to lynching. So while the administrators disciplined the male student they didn't notify his parents or the parents of the female student. So what's the takeaway from this episode for administrators everywhere, including Rhode Island? Well, that administrator clearly was totally insensitive to the issue. I mean, given those facts, I mean, why wouldn't you take it very seriously? Why wouldn't you inform the parents? Why wouldn't you take action? Boston Latin is the flagship public school in Boston. It's an exam school. I went to the other exam school, Boston Technical High School. So, you know, it has a certain image in the city and you just can't have that kind of stuff go on. You got to deal with it decisively. You can't look the other way and imagine it's gonna go away. You know, if there's a problem in that school, then you got to take care of it. So that's why, and when the person didn't and looked like they weren't interested in taking care of it, I guess, because I'm not there, I think that's when my counterpart in Boston at the NAACP asked for their termination. Some in Rhode Island, including some members of the audience have called for a constitutional amendment that would guarantee every student a right to a high quality public education. Do you agree with that idea or if not, what do you think is the main thing we need to do to better serve students in our urban schools? Well, on its face, it sounds reasonable, you know, to me. I mean, you know, how can you be against something like that? I mean, unless I'm missing something, you know, it sounds reasonable. I know there's a group of people that are trying to make that happen. Matter of fact, they met with me about a week ago at NAACP general body meeting. So I'm aware of that. But we need to do just so much to try to bring everybody, you know, up to par, you know. And we have to, we can't be a denial. 40% of the public school students in Rhode Island are students of color, 40% in growing. And you know, businesses come into a state because there's a trained, educated, and motivated labor force. So if you think you can ignore 40% of anything and have a desirable result and you're kidding yourself, they're gonna go to Massachusetts, Connecticut, and wherever else. So it's in all of our interests to work together to make sure that we do what we need to do in terms of educating everybody so that businesses will look at Rhode Island as being attractive in terms of the labor force that they need. So then when the discussion comes to taxes, at least there is a discussion as opposed to no discussion at all because we don't have the labor force that is required. Just as I was coming over here today, so our headline that said nearly 20% of Donald Trump supporters disapprove of Lincoln's freeing the slaves. That's all, just 20%? You gov economists, Paul and January asked respondents if they approved or disapproved of the executive order that freed all slaves in the states that were in rebellion against the federal government, that's otherwise known as the man's pace in proclamation. 13% of respondents and nearly 20% of Trump supporters compared to 5% of Rubio said they disapproved of it, but it gets worse. 17% said, additional 17% said they weren't sure. So what does this tell us about Trump supporters and this year's race? Well, I don't wanna talk too much about the likely Republican nominee. I don't wanna talk too much about him, but since you're asking the question, it's really sad. It's a sad state of affairs in America where you have 20% that feel that the man's pace in proclamation was a bad idea that maybe that people look like me should be slaves in this country just because of the way we look and they actually believe that and willing to tell somebody that, 20%, I'm surprised it's that low. And I'm sure that, and I've seen studies of other groups that say that 70% believe that President Obama's a Muslim, that 70% believe that he's from Kenya. I mean, you have people that actually do believe that and they live in the United States and they are voting age. So be aware of that. You have people that might not think like this, but they do, and he's tapped into something, he's tapped into some anger and they have certain beliefs and it's combustible. And wait and see, we don't have to put on our seat belts because it's gonna be hell of a ride. Danger of going over my 20 question limit. So one final question, what is the number one thing we can do walking out of the Providence Public Library tonight to address the manners of quality and justice we've been talking about? Well, the number one thing for me is always the great equalizer, education. We gotta get it right in terms of our kids. They're up against it. They're not getting the education that they deserve in Rhode Island. I think the education system here is much worse than we think it is. And I'm from the Boston. The Boston Public Schools, I came from an era, I think I was in the 10th grade, Jonathan Kozal wrote a book, Death at an Early Age, The Destruction of the Hearts and Minds of the Negro Children of the Boston Public Schools. I come from that Boston Public Schools and I heard in terms of the park exam that the students in Boston are performing the students in Rhode Island on the park exam. And I know that my high school, I think might be 80% people of color, a lot of them single parent households, public assistance. I don't think there was a high school in Rhode Island that I performed my high school. Not one. And that just shows you when you put apples to apples, just where we're at. And that's just Massachusetts right over the border. So we have a lot of work to do for all the students, not just students of color, and we better get busy because it's a lot worse than we think it is. And we can pretend that we have, it's okay and point to certain successes and those successes are legitimate. But overall, we have a major problem here and that 40% number is gonna go up. Students of color, so we better do something, we better do something fast because we can't have economic development unless we have people that can do the job. So it's in all our interest to make sure that we educate our kids in a way that they deserve. So just another reminder, the exhibit is open until 8.30 tonight. It's here until Sunday. I highly recommend it. And now I'm sure you've been coming up some hard questions for Jim here. Come on up to the microphone and fire away. Okay, I know there's about 10 people at least. Don't be shy, the Providence City Council coming to the, to the floor. Providence Branch of the NAACP. It seems as if your profile's going up in the last couple of years. And some of it is because we have more awareness from the media, the Providence Journal covered the area. And I'd like you to talk about, has that, is that actually true? Is more going on? Is that a good thing or a bad thing? How much of it is being part of progress, playing offense? How much of it is responding to problems, playing defense? If you just give us an overview of the state of the NAACP right now, the Providence Branch. Well, thanks for asking a question, Sam. It's a little bit of both. I'm really friendly with the media. I think that the media are good people. So I try to forge a positive relationship with all media, print and television, radio, you name it, I think it's better to have those relationships. So that's part of our profile going up. The other thing is that when your profile goes up, you get more calls. People tend to know who you are and they want help, especially in terms of employment discrimination. Most of our calls are of that nature. And they feel that we can do something about it or we can be their advocate using the bully pulpit. So I don't know if things are getting that much worse than they were, let's say, five years ago. I haven't done a study or a poll or whatever, but it's steady. We get calls to the office every day. I get at least one to two calls every single day about somebody feeling they were discriminated against in the state of Rhode Island every day. So I'm not saying that that's better or worse than what's five years ago. I know what it is today. Can I have another question since no one is? OK. I'll tell you this exhibit. I was only seven years old in 1965. But in addition to seeing what was accomplished back then, there was this sense of progress. And it just seemed as if we were heading on a path where we were going to solve a lot of problems. And now, in the last year or two, it's a Black Lives Matter. It's not about victories. And you have some thinkers, I'm thinking of Tana Hasee Coates, who say it's just not some problems that we can solve. And maybe you just share some thoughts about how you view that and how it's viewed within the NAACP. Well, obviously, the rolling back of things like the Voting Rights Act and all the incidents in terms of police community where you have all these unarmed young Black men being killed by law enforcement under the most questionable circumstances imaginable is a concern. But we're living in a global economy where the middle class is being squeezed and people are anxious. And we know that, and we know that they're also anxious in terms of the diversification of this country. And we know that that was punctuated in 2008 by the election of President Barack Obama. So there's a lot of things going on. And people are very anxious, the economy, the diversity. I mean, a lot of these things have people really uptight. So people are acting out and doing things and out of anxiety, fear, bias, racism, a little bit of everything. So we're living in a different time. You get a sense that we're kind of going backwards myself because of all these incidents that remind me of years ago. So hopefully, we can get it right because we can't continue like this as a nation. Keep up the good work and thank you very much. If I could follow up on his follow-up question. What a, it's an organization more than 100 years old. I saw at the annual meeting, there was a big emphasis on trying to engage with young people. So what's being done in that regard? Well, thanks for that question. NAACP is over 100 years old and the inside joke is that we've got some new members. Oh, we've got some people under 50? And when I first heard that joke, I kind of laughed. But then I said, you know what? There's too much truth to that joke. I looked around at the National Convention. There was too many people that looked like me. And I'm not talking about my skin color. I'm talking about gray and bald and look like me age-wise. And I said, you know, we can't sustain ourselves as an organization, you know, with everybody being in their 50s, 60s, and 70s. Just that dog won't hunt. So we need to have young people. So I've doubled and tripled down on that. In New England, we have 16 different branches. We have, we had one high school branch. Now we're going to have like four. Three of them are going to be in province. One in Boston. So we're going to, my goal is to have 80% or 90% of all the high school branches in New England, all the college branches in New England, to have the most vibrant youth council in New England, if not one of the most vibrant in the country. And I think I'm well on my way. I'm doubling down on the youth. Half of my executive committee is under 35. I have about 25% of them are under 30. Which is definitely atypical of the NAACP. I'm rushing to the other side, which is a youth. And I just think that it needs to happen in terms of our sustainability. It needs to happen in terms of people understanding what's going on with civil rights at a young age. We're even trying to form a junior high school chapter. So yeah, I think that's the way to go and that's what we're doing. Jim, thanks a lot. I really appreciate your perspective on this stuff. Now I'm going to put you on the spot a little bit. You were referencing the sort of discriminatory practices around marijuana use and those kinds of things with folks of color. And I'm just curious if you're willing to make a statement or a stand about the legalization of marijuana and the treatment of it more like alcohol and regulated in those terms. And if you think that's a move in the right direction around some of this stuff. Well, I'm on the record as being a favor of the legalization of marijuana. And I'm on record of being a favor of it because it's a social justice issue. I mean, it's different issues to different people. I mean, it's a medicinal issue. It's also an issue in terms of raising taxes. All legitimate in terms of talking points and issues. But I look at it as a social justice issue. It is tearing apart our community. This whole thing of incarceration for marijuana is hurting the individual, the family, the community. We can't, you know, this war on drug, we can't, our community can't withstand it any longer. You know, it didn't work. It's not working. And all it's done is creating that criminal class so people are not being discriminated so much now. Well, actually they are, but in terms of race. But now that they're a criminal, then people can say, we don't have to give you a job. We don't have to give you a house. We don't have to give you health care or whatever because of the fact that you're a criminal. It's just too heavy a burden to carry in this country. So if we can regulate it for adults 21 and over, then I think that it'll help have less people in our community have that criminal label. And I think having less, it'll be better for our community. Hope I answered that right. Jim, how are you? Scott Wolf from Grossman Harbor Island. I know Scott. Good, thanks. Couple observations. I'm old enough to have been very affected by the turmoil of the 60s and the progress of the 60s. My dear mother took me to a fair housing hearing at the State House in 1964 when I was 11 years old. So I think there's been a lot of progress as well as a lot of continuing challenges, huge continuing challenges. Two things I'm noticing that give me some hope and I like to focus on the hopeful side of things are the relatively tolerant attitudes of our young people regardless of their race, about racial issues and about social issues generally. And the increasing amount of interracial dating and interracial marriage. Are these things that augur well? Do you think for our future, despite all the challenges of education and discrimination, or do you think that these people are gonna become grumpy old Trump supporters when they get to be 50 or 60 years old? Well, we'll have to wait and see how they are. If you remember, we used to have a saying on campus when I was in school or when you were in school, don't trust anybody over 30. Right, right. Remember that expression? I do, but I've repressed it. For the last 30 years, I've repressed it. And you remember our saying, don't trust anybody over 30. So we don't know what happens when people get older. But I think it does bode well for us as a nation that you have that kind of tolerance and you have that kind of openness about people of different races, different genders, different sexual orientation, different religions. Of course it's better. And that's why it hurts so bad when I hear about things that Boston Latin, Providence College, and Missouri. Because I think of millennials of being better than us baby boomers in terms of race. And so when you see that stuff, you're hoping it's an aberration. But then you look at Charleston, South Carolina and the nine people that were gunned down. They were gunned down by a 21-year-old. That's a millennial. It wasn't some grumpy old white person that was wearing a hood. It was a 21-year-old that was fairly well educated and I had done his research over time. So he wasn't crazy as people would try to make him out to be. It was planned. I'm hopeful. I see all the signs that things are gonna get better in general. Hopefully they can run for office and be in the legislature and change things in terms of our country and do the kinds of things that we need. But right now, we're at loggerheads. Amen. And we can't wait for progress. We can't make it happen. We gotta make it happen. We gotta make it happen. And you're right. We don't have the luxury of time to wait 10 years for them to now be fully in control of things. So we have to have it now. And so I'm a little pessimistic because of the way things have gone, especially over the last couple of years with all the unarmed young black men being killed under the most questionable circumstances of my law enforcement. That certainly is very, very disheartening to me. Thank you. Okay, who's next? Hi, I have a segue to your last comment. Much of the trauma we've experienced in the United States has been because of the police community affairs and young black men being murdered. What have you done with Hugh Clemens and the community to help Providence see our way through all these tensions, specifically with police and youth? Good question. I have the police chief of Providence and the state colonel of Rhode Island. I have one speed dial on my phone and they have me on their speed dial. We communicate a lot together. There's a lot of meetings between law enforcement and not just the NAACP, but a lot of other community groups. There's been an acceptance that community involvement by law enforcement has to happen in Rhode Island. So I give them fairly high grades, especially the command staffs here in Rhode Island. I've had at least 10 police chiefs wanna come on my show because they have openings for new officers and they wanna make sure that everybody knows, so I'm encouraged. I think here there's open lines of communication, at least in terms of the command staff and then the chiefs and the colonels and the commissioner, commissioner Perry. So I think that's helpful and there's a lot of coming to each other's forums and academies and whatever, so a lot of communication, which is always good. However, in terms of the rank and file, it doesn't always filter down that far. Still people that probably should not be police officers. I'm not saying that bad people that just not suited to wear the uniform, to wear that badge, to have that gun, they're not suited to be there. They just are not made to be a police officer, they don't have to temper them in terms of being in diverse situations. So we just have to do a better job in making sure that people that should not be a police officer don't ever get a chance to and those that are police officers that don't do the right thing, we have to make sure that they can no longer put our communities in danger. They have to go and the police chiefs know that. They say that the policeman's bill of rights is the issue and I can't disagree with that. So we have to do something to make sure that the police don't look at it. This person that's racially profiling is not helping your department because community looks at all of you as bigots. You want this guy who's gonna put your life in jeopardy to keep his job. You should be helping me to get rid of this guy. He's hurting your department, the reputation. He's putting your life in jeopardy and you want to protect this guy? Why? I mean, there's a thin blue wall or blue, whatever, but it shouldn't extend to a bad apple or bad apples that don't understand that. You know, police work depends mostly on community, police relations and tips and being able to work well together so that you can solve crime. And when a community retrenches and doesn't want to deal with you because they're afraid of you and they see you as an occupier, then it's gonna be harder to solve crime. You're a police officer to solve crime, that's your job. So anything that makes it harder, you know, you should root out. So we have those discussions all the time and I think that's one reason why you don't have any bad incidents here at Rhode Island. Not yet. Hey, Jim, how are you? How you doing? Good, two things real quickly. I'm Don Mace from the Graduate Williams University Intercultural Center and earlier you mentioned that you want to bring more young people into the NAACP. You talked about how it's important for the survival of the NAACP. Can you share a little bit with us about why it's important for young people, you know, why it's relevant for young people? And also, second part is, I saw a picture of you with a group of young people at Bryant University. This is Roger Williams University. Got some young people up here and, you know, you start a chapter there. I want to start a chapter at every single school in Rhode Island. So I'll get to Roger Williams. Every single school in Rhode Island. You know, I'm not going to skip over Roger Williams. You know, that's not going to happen. I think right now we're at Providence College, we're at Brown and we're moving. So what can the kids get out of it? Well, we want to have kids, first of all, be involved in programming, you know, programs that, you know, take them to the White House, take them to the Schomburg Museum in New York. Those are the kinds of activities that we have our kids doing. Activities that they might not be able to do otherwise, because their family doesn't have the wherewithal to do these kinds of things. Things that kids in other areas of the state get to do. We want to level the playing field so that our kids can do whatever any kid in Rhode Island can do, no matter how wealthy or how well to do. We want to level that playing field. So we want to give our kids that. And we also want to give them the idea of structure and organizations and, you know, we feel strongly about having a president, a vice president, a treasurer of all our organizations, the high school level, college level, the youth council, all has presidents and they have executive committees and they have meetings. And that's important because you're going to have to live that life, you know, when you come out as an adult, so you might as well get to learn how to do it now. And you might even have an advantage over certain people because they're not doing it at that level. So, you know, black history is taught daily, 24-7, 365 days a year, as well as the history of other groups as well, people of color, others. You know, so we feel that they're going to get a lot out of being a member of the NAACP by just what we do in our programming. And it's a good thing. I mean, I know I was helped by groups, when I was a kid in Boston, there was the Harriet Tubman House, there was Morgan Memorial Youth and Children's Center, there was the South End House. And you know, Lord knows where I would be if I didn't have that kind of support after school growing up in Boston. So I know how important those groups can be because they helped me. Right after this, we're going to meet in the back, okay? How's that? Hey, Angel, AS220 Youth. I was really interested about, when you started talking about representation, something that frustrates me as institutions talking about the need for diversity. Yet, I think there's a piece missing. So, because it's one thing to talk about, diversity and inclusion, but what are you doing to ensure that it's systematically a part of what you do? So I wanted to know if you could elaborate on that and if you've seen any institutions do it right in Rhode Island? Well, there's one organization that I've run into that does a better job than most organizations. I don't want to name any organizations because I want to have a chance to work with each and every one of you. So I don't want to start putting certain groups on pedestal, whatever. Every group can do better. And it comes from the top. It comes from the leadership. It comes from the president of an organization or a CEO. And it really depends on that person. If that person takes things seriously, it'll be done, it'll permeate downward. And if that person hasn't bought into diversity and inclusion, then it won't. I mean, you have more HR directors that don't do a good job because they know that the CEO is not committed. The president's not committed. There needs to be more diversity at every college campus in terms of faculty, staff, across the board. Nobody has done a job where they can stop. But if the president of the university, if the CEO of a company doesn't demand that this is a business imperative, that our business is gonna suffer unless we do this, it won't happen. People are gonna just fall back and do what they normally do, which is not much when it comes to diversity and inclusion. And inclusion is important because it should be part of the day to day. And I don't want people to just feel that because they have a certain amount of black and brown and red and yellow faces that that's the end of it because it's not. There's retention and it's that inclusion piece that people should feel valued. And they should feel that what they bring to the table is important. And all of that has to be part of it. It's just not numbers. Well, we have 10% and we used to have 5%, so we're doing good. Well, you're doing better than you did in that one aspect, but it's multifaceted, and the job is not done until people really feel comfortable in their space. And more often than not, people call it don't. What they call the mask. They have to play like everything is okay, but inside there's suffering, dying inside because they're not being taken seriously. They're being overlooked for promotions and they're more qualified than lesser people that tend to know people. That doesn't help anybody. You're the best people to have a job and to move up and that doesn't happen. More often than not, people get overlooked and it's just not helping anybody. And we just have to be honest about it. I always like to say that when people are trying to apply for a job, the average white person is assumed to be qualified unless proven otherwise. Average person of color is assumed to be not qualified unless proven otherwise. And I think that's pretty accurate no matter who the HR person is. Even if the HR person is of color, I think it's still accurate. So we have to work, we have a lot of work to do. General, I know you, you know I'm gonna call you and tell you what a wonderful job you did tonight, but I'll just say it publicly, you always do a wonderful job representing the downtrodden. And I happen to be a member of the NAACP for those who may not know. I'm not sure if it was a book or a movie or both, but there was an entity that one time said, none dare call it treason. I'm sure you probably know whether it was a book or a movie. But I think somebody needs to write a book and call it none dare call it racism. Because it just seems like we dance around that word so much and I know this isn't a question. I guess the question is, is there a reason why since we have finally elected an African-American president and since we see so many racist things going on, the gentleman who stood in the, when the president was making the State of the Union message and yelled, you lie, he would have never done that had the president been a white Democrat or Republican. I don't hear people calling the reasons why there's so much opposition to the president, racist. And I wonder if, and the question is, do you think this is, because I don't think it's by accident, is this a good thing? Is this a strategy? What should we do with it? Well, nobody wants to think of our country as being racist in 2016. I mean, I think most people, they don't wanna, it's hard to acknowledge that. I mean, I think it's, you know, we've come so far, I mean, you know, it's almost like being a denial of sorts, you just don't wanna believe that we still are not there yet, you know. Even with an African-American president, we still have all these problems. And in fact, there's been a backlash because, and I call it a black lash, because we have an African-American president. Everybody was happy with that election. There were some people that said it would never happen in their lifetime, and some of them were hopeful that it would never happen in their lifetime. You know, and they didn't, and now they're saying it. And you know, as long as people, you know, being taken care of, that's one thing, but I don't want you to be my boss. You know, no, that's a little bit much. You know, and I think that certain people have a problem with people of color and authority, you know, people that are color in charge, people, you know, I'm not a racist, but you know, they're not comfortable with that whole notion and brings up the worst of the people. I think the diversification of America, this fear of America being different than what they're used to, you know, they don't want change, they think that things are not great, but you know, they kind of like the way America is. They've got all these different kind of people that they never saw before and in positions and they just feel that if this person gets this and that means I'm losing something. They always think it's a zero sum game. They never think of the pie getting bigger. Never, or sell them, you know, and that's a problem, you know, because you know, there's enough for everybody, you know, just because certain groups are getting what they should have. Anyway, that doesn't mean you're gonna, that doesn't mean they're taking it from you. It's like he's taking my job. There's no my job, your job. There's a job, you know, and we're gonna create more jobs. So he doesn't have your job. This is whole notion of entitlement and it goes into white privilege and I don't wanna get into that because we've been here for a while, but some people feel entitled. You know, they said, I should have this. You know, and there's no such thing as it, being entitled, you know, they gotta work for it. And to some people, it's just disconcerting and I just think that they don't even see what they do sometimes, you know, and some people do, but it's, you know, with the economy being the way it is, I know that, you know, usually when things are good, things are, you know, you have less incidents of racism or whatever, things are not good in the economy for the average American. For the top 1% or 5% things are as good as they've ever been ever, including the Gilden Age or the Robert Barrett, it's better than that, you know, never been better. But for the middle class, things are worse than it's certainly in the last 40 years and maybe ever, you know, since, you know, who knows when. So there's a lot of anxiety, economic anxiety and when you have that, you know, people say, you know, I got my own problem to deal with, you know, I can't deal with their problems, those people, I got my own thing up against it. So there's a lot of anxiety, there's a lot of demagoguery, you know, I don't name any names, but, you know, there's people that, you know, make a living of others not being as aware of their surroundings. They'll blame those people or the reasons why you are in your situation and those people don't believe it. They don't believe that, you know, and we see it every day, scapegoating. I know this is my 21st question, but we just had dueling demonstrations over the State House. How do you think Rhode Island should respond to the Syrian refugees? I think Rhode Island should take in the Syrian refugees. America has always taken in refugees. No question about it. I mean, it's like another one of those topics, you know, these people, I mean, we need these people. You know, we once in this country in the 40s, there was a boatload of people that we said, well, now you gotta go back. You gotta go back. We can't take in, gotta go back. And those people were Jewish during the war. And they were turned back to who knows what. I don't wanna relive that episode in my lifetime. That was before my lifetime, but hearing about a boatload of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany being turned back by Americans, to me is unbelievable. Just thinking about us and who we're supposed to be. So for us to turn back, anybody that's fleeing oppression and persecution, you know, thinking people, I'm sure agree with me, but others, you know, they'll listen to the demagogues and they'll blame the refugees for all their problems. I have a cold today, it must be the refugees. I mean, whatever, my kid can't get braces. It must be the refugees. And they'll believe that. And that's the problem. You know, there are too many people that are just not as aware of what's going on that we would like. And they're prone to believe anything and do anything. Hi, my name is Charlene. I also work at AS220 Youth. Going off what you were talking about is people taking advantage of people who are less aware. One thing that's been on my mind recently is the idea of net neutrality and the different, the bills that are being thought about. What's your opinion on that argument right now? I'm not, I'm not, I'm not sure if I'm familiar, net neutrality? The idea that the internet can be regulated so that people who pay more money can have access to the full internet, whereas people who pay less internet can have access to some type of a filtered internet. No, well, you know, I haven't really thought about it, but you know, I want people to have full access of the internet regardless. You know, I can't, I'm always more in favor of inclusion and those kinds of things. So without even having really looked at that, I wouldn't want anybody, because of the ability to pay to have less access to something like that. I wouldn't be in favor of restricting internet access. I'm not sure if I understand the issue totally, but from on this face, it seems like it would not be a good thing, I'm not sure. Open it up. Hi. Actually, I just wanted to go to your comment about the refugees, since you mentioned it. I just read in the newspapers today that Canada has announced that by the end of the year they'll take in 50,000 refugees. So, I mean, it's interesting, our neighbors to the north. I was interested in asking a question that I've just recently become aware of. I've been reading some stuff around the term diversity and it seems a little like semantics, but they're making some very compelling arguments around the way the term diversity has been appropriated where everyone now represents themselves as being diverse. So for example, recently on television, you had at Congress, I can't remember what it was in relation to, but you had a bunch of congressmen come forward and the gentleman said, can you imagine a more diverse group? It was very peculiar to see what struck most people as a bunch of middle-aged white men and he had some version of diversity as being present. And the argument is being made, that everyone is sort of claiming diversity because it's easy to sort of have a few representatives of different groups and kind of imagine yourself as diverse. So here's what they're talking about. They're saying that we need to think about using terms like equity, which have a social justice component and demands us thinking about social justice in a way that, yeah, anyway, I wonder if you could comment on that a little bit, if you have a chance to think about it. Yeah, well, I would be more in favor of that as well, equity as opposed to diversity because too often that term is used, we have diversity in our department. We have the one Latina, we have the one African-American male, we have diversity. You have a hundred people in this department. What are you talking about? And diversity actually means a lot of things and it's not just ethnicity, it's just not gender, it's thought, it's whatever. So I get it in terms of with the diversity but just using that word and having numbers of people and not thinking about the inclusion and equity and all that as being part of it, to me it's just being dishonest. So if you really want to truly have a diverse unit or workplace or whatever, you need to see people at all levels, not just at the lower level, you need to see them at the top level. You need to see people that can fully exploit their talents and skills in a way that is conducive to helping the company or the agency or the institution because more often than not things on paper look diverse but the people are marginalized, they're not considered seriously. It's not an honest effort in terms of term diversity for a workplace or an environment. So equity to me would be better because it's more what I'm trying to get across and maybe sometimes words get so used for a while that they do change meanings. But yeah, we all can do better with diversity. Rhode Island, I named the numbers of judges, I talked about the number of attorneys in the attorney general's office. I mean, you could look at the number of teachers in our public schools, I think only maybe 20% of the most of color. We gotta do a lot better than that. We gotta do a lot better than that. And I know that I need help in that effort and I will but more often than not there's no diversity in a lot of areas in Rhode Island just isn't. I go to meetings all the time and I'm the only person of color out of 50 people. I go to meetings a lot. Only one color, 50 people in Rhode Island. You know, I don't know how that can happen but it happens and I think people in the room are oblivious to it. Everybody in that room should say, Rhode Island's 25% of color, I'm in a room with 30 people and there's only one person, maybe no people of color in here. Something's wrong because we're trying to plan for the whole state. They should be asking the question. You know, what's wrong with this picture? Because if they don't, nothing will ever change. Yes. My name's Ashley Sanchez, I work with Bank of America and I know why I was here a few minutes late so I'm not sure if this is a topic that you touched upon but I think a lot of the issues that we're having has to do with the community. It takes a community to raise a child and I don't think there's any union in the communities and like me growing up thinking when I was 11, 12 and my brother's now growing up, it's a totally different atmosphere. So what are we doing to change that? I don't know if we could ever have the kind of communities we had. I remember growing up in the south of Boston. It was the poorest community in the city but we never thought of ourselves as being poor because we all looked down for each other, we kind of had parents that raised each other's kids. Nobody had a lock on their door. It was a community in the best sense. Very few people moved. Jobs seem to be more stable, I guess, to a certain extent in terms of people being able to work one job for 34 years. So I think we'll ever get back to that so we have to manage the new normal. And we just have to respect each other more and just care for each other more and try to understand each other and not be so easy to put the finger at somebody in terms of that stuff or we're not trying to understand them. There's no easy answer to that. It's just that we just have to be more tolerant of each other and understand that we're all hidden together, we can, we all pull together and we're not going to a great state but if we're all blaming each other for this, that and the other and thinking that this person's taken from me and that person doesn't deserve it because he doesn't know my cousin or my uncle. All this madness has to add, it really has to add. Good evening. Good evening. Thank you for being here and for your dedication towards the effort. My name is Adrienne Apner. I'm a law student at Roger Williams. So I'm kind of like a little transplant here for a few years. My question is, what collaboration is being done with the faith-based agencies, the churches, mosques? Because this whole issue with racism, not having inclusion, diversity or whatever, it's a heart issue. And until we change our minds, until our hearts are changed, all of these other things are only going to be band-aids. So I'm just wondering, what is the collaboration that's being done with faith-based institutions? A lot of collaboration. I work closely with the Council of Churches. A lot of you know Reverend Don Anderson. So I work with him. One of the issues that came up recently was the whole thing about Muslims and how they were being treated in the state. And so we work with Farid Ansari of the Muslim community community. And there was a couple of different sessions to help people understand. I've been involved in a lot of business and church services, in terms of tolerance, that the NAACP has worked with different ministers on. There's a ministry alliance that I like to work more with that historically has been here in Rhode Island. So I realize that it is important to work with the religious community or the faith community. NAACP has always understood that in our history. And you have those alliances, about Luther King coming out of the church working with Lori Wilkins of the NAACP, for example. So there's always been that. So I understand that in order for me to be as good as I can be, I need to work with people that are in the faith community as well as other communities to work collaboratively to solve these tough and thorny problems. So yes, you're right. You gotta change people's hearts and minds before it. You change anything because if they don't wanna do it, they're not gonna do it. Any other questions? I have one. Right now, you talked about some of the laws that were recently changed and one of them, one of the laws I often think about it, Brown versus Board of Education now, you said that separate what equals not fair. When you think about it, we fund our schools based upon our taxes and taxes in that community. So then in turn, what you have is a lower income community, you know, less funding, you're getting less education, which in turn feeds into the problem of the prison system. And now prison's a big business. Like it's not like we're incarcerating individuals, we're incarcerating them and working them. They're actually working for large companies while they're in prison. And that's a tremendous workforce that these companies have right now that they're not paying a lot of money for. Are they gonna be willing for you to reverse that cycle so that that workforce now becomes a paid workforce that has voting rights, that can make a union, that can do all these things and make those people actually people instead of just laborers. Well, Michelle Alexander, the new Jim Crow says, all this is by design. It's all by design. This whole mass incarceration is to almost re-enslave the children and grandchildren and great children slaves. It's just a legitimate way to do it. So yeah, we can't support a system like that. That's lunacy. It's transparent in terms of what's going on with that kind of system where they actually exploit prisoners. It's just a new slavery, it is a new Jim Crow. But getting back to the original point in terms of the schools, right now, and I was a part of that funding formula that we just have to do a better job in terms of not just making sure that we don't forget the most vulnerable. I know we have English language learners and we have the disabled and we have people that invoke it. We have to make sure that if we need more resources then we have to spend more resources. And that's where the constitutional issue comes in, to make sure that there's more resources to educate our kids. Because if we don't, then we're not going anywhere. And if we don't do it fairly, we're not going anywhere. 40% of the public school students are students of color. So if we think we can marginalize a group based on color and still be a great state, a 40% group, I just don't know how smart you are if you think that's logical, that can actually work. That's not gonna work, that math does not work. You gotta do something or else when the state's not going anywhere, period. Businesses are telling you that every day. Believe them, believe them, they're not coming because you don't have the educated, motivated labor force. You have too many people of color and others that don't have the skills. So you don't believe them. They'll keep going to Massachusetts and Connecticut. Believe them and do the right thing and educate everybody and feel that you know everybody equally. So if we don't get it right, then we'll all be suffering, all of us. We're inextricably linked here in this state. It affects each and every one of us. The taxpayer's paying $60,000 a year at the ACI per per AMA on average. That's taxpayer, that's me, that's you, taxpayer. I can't afford it, I don't want it. Most of the people that suffer from addiction, let's take $20,000 and put them in drug treatment programs and lower their recidivism, I don't want to pay 60,000. I'm a taxpayer, I don't want it. I can't take it, I'm conservative, okay? I don't want it, it's too much money. Close it down, close that system down. Close the ACI down, it's taking too much of my tax dollars. I don't want it. So maybe this is a good time to say thanks very much to our speakers, Ed and Jim, for what certainly was an interesting conversation. Thank you again for coming. Let's say thanks. Thank you.