 We're starting testimony this afternoon on H96. We're continuing testimony we started this week, which is an act relating to creating a truth and reconciliation commission development task force. And we have two witnesses with us for the next half hour or so. Mark Hughes, who is the executive director of the Vermont racial justice alliance and Reverend Christopher Cockrell from the Vermont racial justice foundation. And we will start our testimony with Reverend Cockrell and I believe we shared with you both whatever H96 is and the language that have been developed last year through the committee bill and I just like to pass the microphone over to Reverend Cockrell welcome to the general housing military affairs committee. And are you in your muted Reverend Cockrell if you're there, there you go. All right, here I am. Welcome. Good to see you. Thank you. Thank you very much for allowing me this opportunity and privilege to come before you today representing the racial justice foundation and new alpha missionary Baptist spirit. We're here to talk about the to developing a task force for HR 96. We continue to call on the legislators to pass this bill, and not only just pass this bill, but to have established a task force to study and consider the apology and proposal or reparations for critical critical slavery. It's important that we asked the House committee of operations committed to pass this with slavery reparations bill in it as well. We're believing that this will help promote a level of integrity in the state and promoting this we will also, I believe bring human humanity aspect to the state that is so much needed. When it comes to dealing with people of color. The need is well overdue. And we thank you for taking the head on this, but we believe that the committee, once it's in place will be able to deal with a lot of the issues that have not yet been decided. And we hope and pray that the committee will consider our request. Thank you very much. Thank you, Reverend. Appreciate it. Mark Hughes. And and and we'll have questions I think after Mark statement and we'll have a little back and forth in a bit. Welcome Mark welcome to the general housing and military affairs committee. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Chairman Stevens and good afternoon and happy Friday to the entire committee. I am Mark Hughes I am. The executive director of the racial justice alliance and justice for all. It is good to see you all. I'm recognized and almost every face on here. So good afternoon. I am here also to to testify to each one each 96. They said 96, what's in front of us. 96. Yeah, yeah, I think I was talking about 196 earlier or something like that anyway. So yeah, I mean, I appreciate the chair's call. I think it was, I get my days blurred, but it was recent. And we had a conversation about this policy and there is some history that I've had with related policy and, and first of all, regarding each 96 itself, you know as I look at the short form. As far as the intention of each 96 I certainly have a deep appreciation and respect for the intent. I understand the direction that this policies is attempting to go with the ongoing conversation of addressing oppression to various demographics of people you know we have, we must address. Genocide, we must, we must address slavery. There, we must address our toxic masculinity quite frankly, we must address oppression in all forms. And so the concept of a truth and reconciliation approach is not a new one we know the history of South Africa. Desmond Tutu the work, which was largely successful but controversial in some ways. Bumpy and there are various perspectives of the outcomes of that depending on what you read. And we also understand the approach of, and of restorative justice and restorative practices as they exist across our community justice centers and the work that has been done in even in some of our schools. Sometimes we sometimes these practices are implemented effectively and then sometimes in effectively and sometimes inappropriately, depending on the particular subject matter situation at hand. So, certainly respect and appreciate that. Now historically, the perspective that that I come to you from is, you know as as an organization. That is working to ensure that American descendants of slavery are thriving in our safe in our communities across the state certainly you can only imagine the perspective. The perspective that that we will come to you from it is what not was probably not without understanding also that it was the racial justice alliance that introduced H 478 in House government operations last year, which remained on the wall the entire biennium. I'll just note that H 478 was was envisioned, and it was crafted as a result of a, a thorough research on the work of the late john Conyers, who introduced HR 40 in the United States House of Representatives. In 1989, it should also be noted that since 1989 HR 40 has been introduced every single year to to current date and that is about, as we can see about 32 or 33 years. And has, has yet to be released onto the floor for an uptown vote. You know, just want to note that HR 40 is a policy that calls for the establishment of a task force. And in that task force would simply be charged with conducting research. The task force would be a task task with doing a deep dive if you will, into gathering information and analyzing information and making determinations as to whether or not it would be appropriate. And that the United States would consider certain proposals of reparations. If so, they would be. Many don't know but the United States House of Representatives apologized for slavery in 2008. The United States Senate apologized for slavery in 2009. And I think they, the apologies are very similar except for there was an exception clause in the 2009 Senate apology that made it very clear that there were no strings attached. Mind you on his timeline between 1989 and now it seems that apologies have occurred on that continuum. While at the same time, the reparations bill has never been taken up. So, the reason why I make those points is is is really simple is is that there was an apology that occurred in both chambers of the United States legislature while at the same time, there was never a decision to just allow a task force to go and do the work to find if reparations was appropriate. And recommend how that would happen. If so, so I think in 2019 there was a policy there was a bill introduced in the Vermont's government operations and the policy simply asked for a task force to examine the history of this state and to determine, you know, if it was appropriate, based upon the information whether or not an apology would be offered. And if so, if there was recommendations for reparations that that same task force would bring those back to the legislature and make them the legislature aware of that. So, over the last two years. We could not find a political will within the government operations to just allow someone to go and examine the problem to determine whether or not an apology was appropriate, consistent with the last 32 years in the United States legislature. Now, transparently, it's come to my attention that it was because of that. And in conjunction with the difficulties that we were having in our government operations group that the whole idea of truth and reconciliation even arose. It's problematic because you know, obviously there is an indigenous American evil that occurred in addition to the original sin. And also there are political implications which we understand well because I know personally that legislators and even chairs have told me that the reason why this isn't moving is because of concerns about constituents responses to this because they were not ready for this yet. So I was told personally that this particular policy would be coming forward and it would actually be considered by legislators in lieu of any reparation proposal and we were full aware we being our steering committee and our board of directors were full aware that this policy was emerging at the time that we made the determination that we would yet again submit a request for a task force for reparations. So we did it quite intentionally with full knowledge of the work that you would be doing in this. Now, does that mean we believe these policies can coexist? I've been told by some elected officials those who are white with political and economic power that it has been decided or that there are deliberations at a minimum that are underway that would suggest that this is a better idea because what we want to do is is first we have to find truth and reconcile before such time as we consider tasking anyone to do the work of collecting information to determine whether or not there should be an apology. So there's a couple of flaws that we see with the rationale beyond the fact that again it's white people with political and economic power who's making these decisions is that first of all it suggests that this makes it more convenient for you. It suggests that you know because if we can get all of the people that we heard together and take care of them in one tranche then we don't have to deal with them separately. Well from our perspective the harm was inflicted separately. These are separate initiatives. The other aspect of that which is really practical is that as folks are healing sometimes you know even though it is our hope to come together because there's only one 1% at the end of the day but it is our hope to be black indigenous and people of color the truth is that we are separate. There are different groups of us and we have different needs and different cultural backgrounds different histories different challenges different trauma and so forth and there are probably folks on this testimony who probably don't do well in group therapy and I think what I'm really getting at here is is sometimes it's better to focus on one's self before one starts to expand that healing process. In fact you know in our practicality it's not just about healing it's about empowering and there's a lot of talk especially amongst white people about intersectionality and so forth but I think there's very little understanding about cultural empowerment that must happen in each one of these divided in each one of these particular segments and I think that to suggest otherwise is probably nothing more than a venture of probably group trauma voyeurism. So I think that if this word to happen this truth and reconciliation piece happen in conjunction because at the end of the day it's you who will decide it doesn't really I'm sure you're going to consider what I'm saying but at the end of the day let's face it you make the decision you have the power so if you do make this decision I would say obviously it would be important that this would be centered in black and brown centered and directed with black and brown people it doesn't look like that from what I've read and so that's really super super-duper important is just how do we center this kind of work in black and brown now I'm not suggesting that it's going to drop bill as it emerges and it's probably going to drop any minute now on reparations that we're not interested in that in fact I hope you consider it in your committee in fact I wonder if maybe it might have more potential because the question is is not whether 6 out of 11 or 7 you'd never pass anything 6 out of 11 but let's just say 10 out of 10 out of 11 folks passed it 9 out of 11 folks pass it out of here that's let me just back up from that that is really the the largest concern because what I think what I believe is that the vast majority of 180 people would vote for which is why you know this whole process is problematic so yeah so I do believe that center sintering this in black and brown folks you know in directing is important and I also believe that the you know based upon what I've seen of this this work as it goes forward that it's important you take into consideration that there there will be initiatives that you will need to endeavor that are going to be unique to various demographics such as you know indigenous Americans for example such as you know fill in the blank I think those folks who have been historically impacted by the institution of slavery you know there are reams of data from the United Nations Human Rights Commission who accurately referred to this as a crime against humanity and have historically have for decades called on the United States of America to apologize for the lack of slavery and also to move forward with reparations specifically calling out HR 40 by the way I'll conclude with this because I've got to get out of here and I do appreciate the time to come over and chat and I want to give a couple minutes to answer questions but as a result of our work the city of Burlington has implemented a reparations task force that will be completed by the end of this year probably about 60-90 days their work will be completed at the end of this year the sky did not fall the buildings are not burning down there's nobody fighting in the streets this task force from my research there is not one like it in the nation I implore you to take it up and move it forward if H96 is a thing that you want to do center it and direct it with black and brown folks don't use it in lieu of a reparations task force I'll take your questions thank you Mark for your words do we have questions for Mark right now can you tell me about the city of Burlington task force are those meetings public some of us don't live in Chittenden County I may represent a small piece of Chittenden County but I don't live there so I'm not sure what the process is and how the hearings are held yes so this is a city initiative it's all announced and you're also on YouTube if I'm not mistaken representative plumley thank you Mark I'm wondering if you can be a little more specific I just want to make sure I understand what you're saying about centering black and brown people the original the original bill was I think focused more on those who had been particular targets of there was a broader cross section of folks those who had been targets of the eugenics project and so I'm wondering are you and you said harm was inflicted separately which implied to me a vision for a truth and reconciliation process that really addressed different issues in different communities well I think for the first part of that conversation is that a good way to start by centering and placing out the direction black and brown folks let it be their idea that's a great place to start it didn't come out of our community it came from you that's a great place to start you know allow them to be I take that back we're so paralyzed by this false narrative white supremacy but I think that it should be your desire to collaborate with black and brown folks to create something like this and enable them to be important to them does that help it does and I'm wondering then what the legislation would look like given where this session is right now and if there is a process that you have in mind that would be because again we wrote a reparations bill this is your bill I think that respectfully the solutions that black and brown people put forward if you're looking I welcome the invitation for advice listen to black and brown people I agree with that I think that this is a I guess I don't have any more questions right now but later Mark please feel free to reach out to me directly I see you're in Burlington too we can do it over coffee I want to be conscious that Mark needs to go to another meeting but representative Parsons go ahead just a correction my name is not on this bill this is not my bill this is yours not me so I'm in this committee this is not my bill clarification before I apologize can I also get additional clarification you want me to apologize it's fine I'm new to this committee it's possible it may be one of the names on there you thought was mine transparently I didn't take the time to match the names this is a committee bill so right now the draft that we shared with you was dated last year this was started by the committee that was serving last year this is a committee bill this is a draft we had gotten out of committee that had started with the conversation with the eugenics survey apology last year so H96 which is this year's bill was sponsored by representative Colston and representative Christy and myself and because it was a short form bill the draft language which was not completed work the draft language that was in this bill came out of the eugenics conversation and it was only later on in the process prior to us leaving the state house on the March 13th it was a few days before then we had a lot of black and brown people to use your words and that concept was not fully shaped yet because we hadn't worked on it so just to senator Parsons point though and just for further clear for representative Parsons for just talking walk away from this committee having learned something because maybe I made an invalid assumption was the genesis of this bill last year a committee was the intention that it would be a committee bill or was it introduced to this committee otherwise last year I wasn't here last year this is my first year as a representative representative Parsons I know exactly you weren't here last year but I just wanted to I'm just trying to get one question in I know you showed up and your name's not on the bill the draft got you got it all figured out I just want to understand what was going on in this committee last year right so last year we heard testimony again because we were focused on JRH 7 which was which was a proposal to do an apology for the eugenics survey and the cause and the damages it caused the affected communities which were identified in that bill as being Indigenous Vermonters Vermonters with disabilities French Canadian community people who were targeted in the eugenics survey and one of the things that came can just just just for because I got it I got really got to go and I just I really all I wanted to understand is is what is the origin of the draft document not H96 but your admin and you promise you promise you'd send this over to me when we spoke what is the origin of this 311 document 2020 I just want to understand did the committee create this or was there did this come out from someplace else this came out of the conversations that we had with the affected communities when we were discussing the apology so yes we started the bill we started the process of the bill when we after we were talking to the folks who were affected in the apology thank you all right so representative Parsons now this is your committee so thank you so much for your time today and I've got to get off to another meeting and I appreciate I really appreciate it and I'm glad to come back and answer any other questions have a great weekend thank you Mr. Hughes and thank you Reverend Cockrell and Lisa will hold off on that for now okay okay I just had a question for you Mr. Chair about that draft where we can find it because I can't find it anywhere and I certainly can't remember from a year ago what it said it's under Damien if you go to the H96 page I believe that we posted it as the 2020 it should be under Damien on the H96 page if you click on the H96 button under bills all the documents will come up and that one is listed twice actually with slightly different titles there's two different drafts an older one and a more recent one I'm going to ask you to walk me through it because I apologize I have looked and cannot find it so if you go to our committee page and you click on bill and you click on H96 sorry okay and I'm seeing 2021 dates so which one the title of the bill says from okay got it thank you very much that was a convoluted way of finding it but I have it now I'll book like that thank you just to be clear the most recent version of that document is the one from February 24th we're referring to the draft from last session yep that's the most recent draft from last session February 24th and the drafts there of for H91 yeah so February 24 2021 has the H96 TRC draft bill from 2020 and that is the most recent one from 2020 if you wanted to see the language that was added after we've been through one draft it says from 2020 I do see at the end it says from 2020 Damien Leonard but two of them said from 2020 so thank you for clarifying that and Mr. Chair is that the one that our witness had in his possession I believe that's what we sent them is that not right Ron yes that is correct we sent him the version 1.2 or whatever the correct number this one is 2.2 that Damien just he did mention that he was looking at the draft from 311 2020 so thank you this was where we this was created after Representative Hago if you recall after Representative Copeland-Hanses had testified to our committee because they weren't going to get to age 478 and it was a thought of marrying the two concepts together because they were seeking at least in theory or in concept they were seeking the same thing but our conversations didn't go any further than March 11th because I believe that afternoon was when the speaker said drop what you're doing and focus on the pandemic so that's where we ended up with this bill okay great thank you so it does incorporate her testimony the ideas from her testimony stuff when you get to it and see it you'll see a lot of highlighted material and again and then it was all about the bracketing is something that I use a shorthand in this kind of work as drafting like if you bracket it it's not it's not real yet it's just sort of there for discussion yep okay so one last question then H96 of this year are you intending that the two will meld into an H96 that would pass out of this committee the intent was to say you know because we ended this draft in such a unlike JRH 7 which was not complete but had had substantial testimony unlike that bill this one had a lot of new language in it and so when we were considering moving this forward to this year to be the companion bill to JRH what's now JRH 2 Representative Colson came forward and just started and Representative Christy and the conversations that we had we were very uncomfortable with taking this language and plugging it into what is now H96 with the emphasis on saying hey try using a short form it was decided to use the short form to put the proposal of what the purpose of the bill would be with an understanding that this may be a starting draft got it thank you yep alright so thank you everybody for that change Tommy I've just got to say this chair a number of us in this call are active in the social equity caucus and I want to assure you that when that caucus discusses the resolution and H96 both the content and the tone are very different from what we just experienced okay thank you Representative Murphy thank you I just wanted to say that I appreciate Representative Hango's persistence of getting clarification I would have had a little more understanding of the conversation we just participated in if I'd known what testimony what had been given for the for the individual to give us testimony back on because I was looking at H96 short form not really understanding where some of the concerns were coming from and so I'm sorry there was so much confusion and I'm sympathetic with Representative Parsons too who was kind of saying it's not my bill it's because we just it was unfortunate I think there's a little miscommunication that happened and hopefully we none of us hold anything from that we can just keep going with our work no I appreciate that I think that you know one of the interesting things about this process thus far is first of all is to always retain a sensitivity to the work that we're doing and and to who we're doing it with and for and so you know but also remembering that these are incredibly sensitive issues for people and the need to retain a voice and the you know to take the voices out of the social equity caucus and start bringing them into legislation and start bringing them into the world is still you know I am always going to make mistakes myself I'll speak for myself and I'm always going to get defensive at times when somebody criticizes my work but in this particular case which doesn't apply solely to this bill but it really applies to much of our work is that how much how important communication is and how important it is to think that well I you know my we worked on this bill all year and then we worked on this bill just a little bit everybody should know what we're doing and that's just not really a good assumption to make that's not you know that that's just not a good assumption to make and so you know I'll endeavor to keep doing you know my work and speaking truth to what we're doing with that I did have a conversation with Mr. Hughes and I believe it was yesterday as he said time kinds of you know when was time but building those relationships in those bridges or it's not it's not a simple thing so you know how for the for those of you who go to the social equity caucus you know and you know make an opportunity and to make sure we're clear about what we're trying to do and just keep working any further comments to close the conversation on 96