 to see you, Jennifer. Thank you. Yeah. All right. Let's see. Okay, welcome, Alexis. Welcome, Dr. Rhodes. Welcome, Dr. Shabazz. And Ms. Bridges. Let's see here. All right. So given that it's 202 and welcome, Pamela. Nice to see you. Happy New Year. Let's see, I'm going to go ahead and call our meeting to order. This is Wednesday, January 11, a meeting of the African Heritage Reparation Assembly, and pursuant to Chapter 20 of the Acts of 2021, this meeting will be conducted via remote means. Members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so via Zoom or by telephone. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means. And I will also announce that this meeting is being recorded. I'm going to do a sound check. And I will begin with you, Dr. Rhodes. I'm here and I can see everyone. I can hear everyone. Excellent. Good to see you. And Dr. Shabazz. Yes, connection solid. Good to see everyone. Excellent. And Alexis. Hi, thank you. I'm just I have my video off because of show lunch down my throat really quick. Good for you. Okay, well, we can hear you. So that's good. And Ms. Bridges. I can see me. I can hear you, but nobody know why no one can see me, but I can hear you. I'm trying to figure it out. All right. Thank you. Okay. And yes, we can hear you. And how about you, Pamela? I can hear and see everyone. Excellent. All right. I will say that Yvonne will not or will she will be with us, but she'll be late. And Hollow will be unable to join us today for our meeting. Okay, well, welcome everyone. This is our first meeting of the new year. Hope everyone is healthy. And looking forward to this meeting, we have a lot to cover here. And oh, I just I called this meeting to as a January 11th meeting. And so I want to correct the record. I pulled up the wrong agenda. It's actually the January 9th meeting. So sorry about that. That was our agenda for Wednesday's listening session. So that is a good segue. We have our listening session on Wednesday. I am told that it is getting out there the word is getting out. I heard from Carly token. Ah, the last name just went out of my head. I think is how you pronounce it or Ms. Bridges. How do you pronounce Carly's last name? Hard to call. Hard to call. Yeah. I spoke with Carly today. And she said that she had received an invitation to the event from multiple different people and channels and groups. So that's really great. And I thank you for all your efforts in getting the word out. You should have received an email from me with information for our slideshow. And so I want to make sure that we get that we get the program pieces of the session settled today. So before we kind of move into the details, are there any general questions right now about the program? And is everyone is there anyone who is unable to attend the program? Okay, great. Pamela, will both you and Jennifer be in attendance? I believe so. But I will double check with with Jennifer. I know that I plan to be. Okay, great. I think I'll have to talk to Jennifer then just about she's going to the person that's bringing folks in. So just to give a broad overview of the way that it's been set up, it's set up as a webinar, which is similar to a council meeting in that there will be the panelists that you can see. And then everybody else will be in the audience. And so when a person raises their hand to speak, I have asked that Jennifer bring that person into the room. If they would like to turn their camera on, they can. They can also be in the room, but leave their camera off. So there's an option. If they want to be seen they can but they don't have to be. So we'll begin by opening the meeting just like any other meeting would open up. Tomorrow I'll be talking to the congressman's aid, just to verify the way in which the congressman would like to communicate. So I think he would like to give some remarks initially. And then we will move into the five injury areas. Did anybody feel like I identified them wrong in terms of which injury area they had wanted to present on? Okay. And Ms. Bridges, I so the injury areas, the five that I had had placed in the email left me and you without an area. Oh, I find that. So I wanted to speak with you about maybe whether you'd like to give a general overview of what the five injury areas are or what your comfort level was in terms of speaking during that presentation piece. I think I will think about it and get back to you. That's perfect. That sounds great. So either way, we'll get that covered. Did everyone have a chance to look generally at the slide show? Or the slide deck? So what I'll do now is I'm going to pull that up here. Hang on one second, please. Just one second. Having some technical difficulties. Yeah, it's saying that the host disabled screen sharing. So I, Michelle, I just made you a cohost so that you should be able to do screen sharing now. Perfect. I think that worked. Good. Can everyone see that? So this was a slide deck that we use last time. So it's going to get updated a bit. Some of the items were removed. But we have this invitation to brave space that I thought I thought that was really beautiful when Hala read that. Do folks want to keep that slide in for Wednesday? Anyone who would not like to keep it in? And then how about ropes? Do you feel like that's something that we should review again? Or you think, given that we're in a webinar, I don't feel strongly that we have to put this slide in. But if folks would like it in, we can leave it in. Michelle, Dr. Shabazz suggested that you do full screen for the slides. If that's possible. Sure. Let me see what I can do here. Did that do it? That's easier on the eyes. Thank you. I recommend that I said would like to suggest that our operating norms, given that this is a webinar, and we could probably not need the slide, but suffice it to say when we do open up the the public comment listening session, community engagement portion is just a moment to, you know, to highlight our general operating norms. And I don't think any more than that would need to be said. Perfect. Okay, that works. And then we have so when I'm in this. Oh, I see what's doing in the full screen. I'm trying to figure out because I'm in the full screen for for each guy go back to your other. Okay, let me see how I do that. Is that is that alright? Just for now to Okay, here we go. Um, okay, then we had an indigenous statement. And I wanted to check with the group about we so I think what we learned last time is that there was a lot happening in the beginning before we got to the listening and here we're adding the injury areas. So I was trying and with the congressman's comments as well, I was trying to think about what was what pieces we wanted to keep in and what do folks feel about the indigenous statement? And how we would like to go go forward with that? Any, anyone? I'd again, would suggest it's we're we're in a different framework than the in person, first time community engagement program at the Hitchcock Center for the environment, we're we're in a zoom. And I think the reality of, as you say, not, you know, being being more time conscious with the program that a lot of our operating norms, a lot of the this this particular slide and from the slide deck, a lot of that could really be truncated in favor of, you know, just just getting right to what we're what we're there to do. Excellent. Okay, and I see Alexis's hand is raised on us. Hi, yeah. So I guess I was maybe this is a question. I so I guess I was going to ask if there was like amongst the agenda, right? Like, is if this is one agenda item, this entire slide show, including the the points of harm, how long are we hoping for this in entirety to last? And I guess that that was going to lead into a question of like, then we're not are we are we speaking our own words to towards the areas of harm? Or are we reading off of that piece from Twitter? And I guess that that I think would help me to think about how what how much time we have and whatnot. That's a great question. So let's back into it. Let me just welcome Ivan and make sure that Ivan can be heard and can hear us. I hear you and I and I hope you can hear me too. Yes, excellent. And Ivan, you're going to be able to attend on Wednesday. Is that right? Okay. Yeah, and I kind of was going to ask the same question, Alexis. I mean, I prepared something, because you said we had about a minute, and it incorporates some of what was in the list. But I added some of my own to it. I mean, it's still within a minute, I think if I talk fast. And I can share it with you if you want. Yeah, that would be great. So I was hoping we could each go through. Hala sent me what she put together as well. And similarly, she took some the outline that I sent you, and then she included her own pieces as well. So I think that as long as and also if if one would want to speak to their own personal experience, I think there's flexibility, but I think keeping it to a minute and a half max. I was foreseeing 15 minutes for the sort of, you know, first segment, but it's probably going to be more like 20, I would imagine with just sort of getting people in and all of that. So why don't we do that? Why don't we go through, Yvonne? Do you want to? Do you want to start by sharing with us just to give us a sense of what you did? I'm looking for mine. Give me a second. I'm navigating between two computers. So sure. And so, you know, I think that if you all send me what you have for your bullets, to answer your question more directly, Alexis, I think we can have a slide and we can have, you know, maybe not overwhelm the slide with a bunch of bullets, but have some bullets on there, but then you can present and use the slide more as a reference than necessarily going through each item on it. Did you say we were going to create a slide or that we're just going to talk over the slides that you created? Yeah, I think if we use this slide deck here, so like, okay, for peoplehood, which I think is Alexis, we'll get to that. So someone will do an overview of the five injury areas, then we'll, when peoplehood, which will be the first one, we'll get to that. And then Alexis will present on peoplehood. But she'll have given me in advance whatever she would like to be included in the actual slide. I don't need to see what anyone is planning to present verbally. I just need to get the slideshow ready for the packet, essentially, and for the public. So, okay, well, I found, I found what I wrote. I mean, if you want me to share, I could, I don't know if you want me to email it to you, or you want to just read it out loud? Yeah, I'd love for you, if you're comfortable, just to give everybody else a sense of, you know, what you're doing, and then that might help us to come up with some kind of questions to fine tune things a bit. So yeah, that'd be great, Yvonne, if you want to read what you can I share my screen. Yeah. Yeah, let me unshare. I think that's going to require you being Pamela. Can Yvonne share? So I tried to change the settings so that multiple panelists can share. So Yvonne, try sharing your screen. And if it doesn't work, then I'll can make you a cohost and you should be able to share that way. But yeah, it shows for me that there's multiple sharing allowed. Can you see my screen? No. Oh, hold on, maybe I need to switch it. Let me see here. Yeah, I think you need to stop sharing, Michelle. Oh, I do. Yeah, and then that will allow. Yeah. Oh, we have a chat in this. I've never seen a chat in our meetings. I don't think it's not allowing you to share. Hold on. I'm finding the, okay, there we go. Now I'm going to try and share. Yes. So far so good. Yep. I can't make it. I wish I could make it bigger. I don't know how to do that. Can you see it? I'm just going to read it. Yeah. So I had my topic as poverty is wealth and poverty, right? As I understand for people for black people, slavery established a wealth gap between people of African descent. So that's right from the from the deck you sent me. And the labor of the enslaved made the slave owners even more wealthy over many generations. And black people continue to endure discrimination in employment, housing, health care, and other economic areas that perpetuate poverty and cut off access to building wealth. So pertinent factors include, so I listed them, because these are all the things I feel like make it so, I mean, some folks are talking about these things anyway, before we get to mine. But I basically put, you know, limited access to quality education in our communities, a direct result of like redistricting, racist city planning practices in town city politics, discrimination in the job arena. So black job candidates are scrutinized with different requirements than their white counterparts and are often overlooked for promotions. Many families then rely on minimum wage jobs or multiple part time jobs to support their families, discrimination in loans and lending practices, laws that result in black incarceration at enormously higher levels than our numbers in the general population, which limits resources and opportunity for a whole population of black people for many generations. Number five is our communities are struggling with inequities in health care that affect the mental and physical abilities of our people. And number six is being denied access to real estate or land ownership as an asset, as a resource to wealth and limited access to knowledge about how to build assets. And so these issues run deep and are complex and multifaceted and black people have endured. So reparations is just one step in eradicating these issues. Excellent. And you have some examples, were you planning on? Well, I mean, I have a couple of personal examples. I threw some stuff in here about, you know, when black people are able to build wealth and opportunities, sometimes they're at the mercy of white land owners or banks or corporations anyway. And so systemic racism plays out on local levels as black people lose their land or assets are seized by municipalities or, you know, they, oops, sorry, I lost my police, you know. Yeah. And then also, I mean, I know many of you are familiar with the podcast of 1619. So episode six talks about this family, June and Angie provost, who own their family farm in the south, and they were trying to be, you know, applying for loans, floater loans, which is something that's typical with farms, you know, as they head towards a harvest. But the, this family was denied or delayed their loans until they lost their farm. So I think that some of those practices or things maybe folks don't know much about is one of the ways that that black people are denied amassing wealth and adds to the idea of wealth and poverty. So this is an excellent model for how we can. So what would be ideal, Yvonne, is if you send me of this, what you'd like to go into the slides and that can be more broad or you might want to have these specific like one through six pieces in the slide. And then maybe you'll choose to not include in the slide the personal examples, but verbalize those in the moment. And I think that would be if folks agree, I think that might be a good way for us to go through all of them. I do think having some consistency is good. So we don't want one person necessarily, I don't think just speaking solely to personal experience and not including any bullets. We don't want all bullets and maybe no personal in terms of you know just keeping it alive. But a minute and a half or a minute is not very long. Was that a minute? That was too long. But I was curious about, because I'm sorry, while I was writing it, I realized that I touch on a lot of the subjects that we would have been talking about previously anyway. So I felt like it was a good way to kind of sum up things as you know some of those other factors that let's say you know Alexis or you know or Dr. Shabazz is covering will filter into like well this is also how it affects access to wealth and also ways that poverty is you know perpetuated in our communities. Yeah and I do think that speaking wherever we can as locally as possible. I think it's important to have you know the broader view. But I also think speaking to our local experience is really important as much as we can do that. Would anyone else like to just get feedback or talk about what they plan to present on in their injury area? I think so. Okay yeah Dr. I'm always used to speaking from bullet points. So and mine is education. So the correlation of education. Tell me your education attainment level and I can will be able to tell you what you're and especially if you're African-American your health outcomes are likely to be. I can predict that. I can also tell tell you about the rates of incarceration if you are black and in your education level. In terms of rates of incarceration one point under here is that jails juvenile detention centers and prisons are filled with black people who have been diagnosed or misdiagnosed with ADHD. Filled with them. The jails uh jails juvenile detention centers and prisons and for black people they are generally misdiagnosed not diagnosed and or not treated. Also if you tell me your education level I can tell you you know in terms of what your wealth and poverty will be like because of the unequal not only unequal access to education but unequal access to quality education and how that impacts upon black people. Secondly and the other part is tell me your education level and I can tell you what your access to home ownership is and home ownership is and other wealth building tools are. In other words your education level and your and your education attainment level if you are black we can I can or anyone else can look and tell you what kinds of experiences you will have in relationship to health, wealth, poverty, incarceration etc. Excellent okay that's I like I love the way that you framed that and so do you um Dr. Rhodes will you send me whatever bullets you would like to be included in the slide and I'll get them prepared I'll get that prepared. Yes I will. Thank you very much perfect. Would either Alexis or Dr. Shabazz like to and also Ms. Bridges if there's a particular area of injury that you would like to speak about I don't think there's any reason why more than one person can't speak to it so I just wanted to also open up that possibility. Hi I'm sorry I'll jump in I I'm like heading back to work right now so you actually might lose me as I'm driving but I so I'm sorry that I timed this poorly but I'm a little I'm a little distracted right now. No um sure yeah we'll keep an eye out Alexis did you did you want to go over your slide because we can do that if you feel now or later whatever is best for you. Yeah let me let me get back to my my office and then I'll well hopefully I get back in time before we're over you. Okay that sounds great um I'm sorry Ms. Bridges I think you were about I saw you on mute so um were you about to say something? Because no I said that I I heard what you were saying and I'll that's I'm keeping that in mind. Perfect okay awesome um it's it's hard when you're not seeing somebody to to know I probably could have uh intuited that if I could see you but I I don't know why because all the other times you can but then when you're asking the audience they're saying they can hear and see everybody so I don't know if no one can see me or just you Jen said she couldn't. Raise give a thumbs up if you um cannot see Deborah just thumbs up I cannot see Alexis. Oh sorry that was my thumbs up. Okay yeah yeah so I think all of us aren't able have you try turning your camera like going to that little three dots on the top right hand corner of your box and say does it give you the ability to stop video? Well yeah I can see stop video which I just did. Okay and then when you do that is it now say start video or there's not yes try that. I put that and my picture comes back up I'm looking at me and I'm looking at you. Okay three little dots stop incoming video I'll figure this out I don't want to hold everybody up. One other option is you could drop like you could go out like get off the meeting and then come back in and see if somehow that reboots things so okay I'll try that I'll try that. Okay perfect um all right so Dr. Shabazz would you like to review any parts of your presentation? I can but if anyone else wants to go I can I can come later or come now either way. I think Dr. everyone else has and Alexis I think needs to do it a little bit later so ah there you are. With your fabulous haircut. It's a mess today. Yeah I did what you said that worked okay great. That's good I'm so glad okay welcome um all right go ahead Dr. Shabazz. So in the area of criminal justice system punishment the um I think the evidence of of our need in this area is can be located in a number of places. I think we can um look at and or try to as we should ask ourselves for a perspective on uh from the police department we could ask in terms of are the areas you see of disparities of um any particular place where race is entering the picture in terms of the policing in our town. I don't have the exact language at this point before me as others have had. I'm just speaking to the idea that um what we have what we have as far as data. I like the way Dr. Rhodes was approaching it but he put a lot of that on that he can do it he can show you he can show you the the connections of this from the educational level of attainment of an Amherst student of an Amherst family but it's really the data can show that right so do we want to really confront the data do we want to talk about where we are in terms of accessing or asking different units of the criminal justice system the court system I haven't yet put it fully down to Dave Sullivan what we could what we would look for would like to see from the the Hampshire county level from the northwest district office level but they have they do have data with race information it's been a part of lawsuits that I've since I've been around so but if they could uh but when I do really go uh get this request into him we should see data from the northwest district attorney's office um and do we want to and then how do we proceed from confronting uh the data in terms of establishing what's what a reparative justice work in that area could look like um I think of all the areas of harm this one is most specifically linked to particular agencies of government because that's how laws are enforced that's how laws are policed that's how laws are implemented is through the police and through the district and then from there after arrest then we go to the legal process all right arraignment indictment prosecution and then we go from there we may go from there into sentencing and to the actual incarceration punishment you know the punitive approach to then locking people away um we can get that but because we have specific agencies that are involved in that track that track the data uh uh divided by by at least race racial designation won't necessarily get into it would be a deeper level to get into how many of that uh of that black number for this area is people of with ancestry in the united states who are enslaved versus others we might not have data at that granular level but we can at least talk about more broadly from a standpoint of data if we've got some specific um you know agencies that we can ask an approach for what do you have um it's not that we want to racialize the issue it's a matter of is there data in which we can talk about then what are reparative uh responsibilities with the at the state level we have some uh amers was tagged in some of the the data around for example marijuana prosecution because this has come up now linked to the money that our money is being modeled after the cannabis industry right cannabis uh uh use or possession when it was illegal so we have some studies there they didn't proceed to keep amers because of some uh particular reasons but they were still in the general study of of of the matter of over prosecution and over incarceration of african-americans for uh for cannabis related crimes and punishment so um that's the data that i can speak from i know i've gone over a minute and a half so i will have to edit this down into bullet points but uh but i'm also raising a more um i think it has to be raised in this way we can't just speak from generalities we have to speak from where what is where is the data how can we access the data and then from there uh in trying to get really informed perspectives on um you know people who are who are having disparate who's had have had disparate experiences to figure out how do we bridge that prevent that mitigate that um from happening in the future thank you thank you dr shabazz and i just i want to keep in mind that this is a twofold uh is there's two folds to the to the presentation piece of this one is to educate our community and the folks who are in attendance two is to offer some prompts for folks who would like to speak about their experience um so that they have some framework maybe somebody wants to speak to their experience with education or with health so we want to balance our comments um in that light so that we're um not getting so detailed that we sort of lose the point of that um but that we are providing some concrete educational material um dr rhodes uh you know dr shabazz i you know one of the things because this was a minute we only have a minute i didn't cite all the sources but every everything that i'm talking about is backed up by data uh every day i asked one of them and i could cite all of those sources but we don't have much time what i can say is that the data corroborates what i'm about to say uh you know for instance in the adh adhd the uh journal american medicine uh tracked and qualified and quantified the misdiagnosis uh and untreated adhd and african americans and they did that um and that data is there the data is there for education court if you look up coalition of education with housing with um uh with wealth with poverty with rates of incarceration etc all of that comes out immediately and different data sources are there so i guess what i've learned from you uh by you saying that uh dr shabazz is i really need to preference that what i'm about to say is backed up by real data if you want the references for that please contact me and i'll give you great all right that's excellent so um again we'll open up i will have some music going in the beginning if possible we'll open up we'll we will be panelists um congressman mcgovern will also be a panelist jennifer so um both pamela and jennifer will be panelists um pamela i will connect with you and jennifer after this meeting we need to send congressman mcgovern a panelist invite i have the appropriate email address to do that um and then we also need uh the aides there are three aides they're going to be with us that night and they will be coming in as audience members so um i can send them i'll send them just the regular link that everybody else will be using um and then so we're gonna we'll hear from congressman mcgovern we'll go through these areas of injury and then we will open it up for folks to speak i did want to ask you all um your opinion on so our rules in terms of how we facilitate meetings allow the chair to ask first for uh folks who are Amherst residents to speak um and then if time allows for folks who are outside of the Amherst area who may wish to speak um they will then have that time um toward you know the end of the meeting so i wanted to see if there were any strong opinions on that one way or the other or if that sort of following our rules um works for everybody in that sense all right great is and anything even where you do you have um kind of like a schedule for the evening yes so i'm gonna be sending i was just gonna ask you all if you can send me is it reasonable for you to send me your slides by noon tomorrow is that okay for everybody okay so i'm gonna send you all the agenda um and that will include the completed slideshow um so that you can preview the slideshow in advance and have it however you wish to have it um but i generally because we're doing it by zoom um we'll sort of open up with the presentation pieces and then when we open it up it's going to be considered a public comment period just like we would do a public comment period here so folks will raise their hand but i'd like to be able to give some directions in the beginning to say we're going to begin by asking residents of amherst residents and stakeholders to raise their hands first and i'll go in order of bringing people in jennifer will bring them in one by one um if we have a hundred people that raise their hand to speak and we'll have to limit the amount of time that each person can speak if we have five people then we can give people up to three minutes um so it will really just depend on that and then we'll save a little bit of time at the end if possible if there are folks that are outside of amherst who would like to speak i'll then invite them to raise their hand um and have an opportunity to speak them does that work okay for everyone i think it'll be very important yes i think it'll be very important to have a um a clear answer to what are the ways to give us your feedback long form okay understanding the time constraint of this listening session public comment period um we do want to hear and we do want to follow more than you know so if you've got more give us more we need to have that maybe as a slide we need to have that it's just something that's put in the preface um to opening the session to public comment and like you say whether we have three or we have 300 in the audience uh for this the point is um and i don't think we'll have 300 but the point is whatever number we have um people are definitely welcome to put it in in writing to send it in a note uh that that could be more long form um and it will be received and it will be a part of the body of information and feedback and community engagement that we've we've we've had so if we have that i don't know if it's what it is but we need to have that set absolutely yes we have but we will have a slide that has the email address the engage amersight all of the pertinent contact information i'll um arrange with Jennifer and Pamela that we have that so when the meeting's starting we'll have that slide uh welcoming people we'll have the contact information some music going while we're sort of getting you know set up and then we'll have again i think is a great opportunity as we're switching to public comment period and then again toward the end i do not believe we will or should necessarily have a chat function during this meeting um however we have talked about these being live streamed and whether is there going to be capacity for somebody to be monitoring the youtube and the facebook live stream for questions like particularly the facebook live stream um and then like a volunteer for example that could monitor that and then feed us back the information so if there's a question from there or do we want to just not do that piece of things and just say very clearly from the beginning unfortunately we won't be monitoring you know the live streams for questions but then of course give them the contact information again if i could generate three graduate students or three uh persons willing to volunteer to uh in whatever ways we need them to but if to monitor that and then send it to us um you know via a little a little or to one of us to me and i can send to others through through cell phone numbers or or however else we might want to facilitate the uh or just openly just as i'm speaking right now saying okay we have um you know i could be a funnel for that that uh if the volunteer said you know we did get a question over here uh via facebook or we did get a question over here via uh youtube uh what do you think about this then i could i could then feed it via our um uh you know uh just you know say hey we do have a comment if we're interested if that's the case i can get the three uh individuals emails address and submit it to to uh wherever i need to submit it if you do want if we could use that yeah i think that would be great and i could even build into the um as we go through the public comment where i can pause and so like if there's 20 people that have their hand raised we get to number five we pause if there's something on one of the live feeds we take that then we go back to calling on the hands so we can sort of do it that way um evan i see that your hand is raised i'm i'm willing to be uh like intermediary too if that if you want someone else as a secondary or something i mean we did some of this when um when i was working at the fine arts center when we started doing because of the pandemic doing stuff online it's it's really important for folks who can who have the ability it's like we we shut off a whole segment if we don't offer that opportunity for folks to be able to send in questions by live feed or by facebook or whatever that's a whole area of folks we want to be as accessible as we possibly can and you know not doing that means that there's a whole section of folks that don't have access so i think it's a i think we should do it i think also that this is not the first time that we'll be offering this so i think we should have a system in place that we can rely on moving forward so that that it's always something that we can rely on you know and i think we should revisit um maybe at another meeting how we keep those avenues open even when we don't have a listening session like how do people submit questions and who's monitoring or managing that when we're not in a in a session yeah absolutely and so far what we've been doing there is if i or jennifer receive anything jennifer receives something she sends it to me i send it to you all like um with uh something recent we got from the group at UMass so we have different that's what we've been doing so far but i talked actually with athena and brianna a little bit more as we're moving forward especially with the survey that we're going to be working on how much more important this is going to become so i agree with you completely bon um all right great i see that alexis is back and alexis i wanted to check in with you in terms of amorce media will you be doing were you be wearing two hats on wednesday or you will okay yeah just speak to it a little bit more specifically um it's really like a broadcasting this especially virtually is more of a passive role so like once the ball is rolling i don't really have to do anything so i'll be like once i turn it on and put it on the tv i can sort of just like focus on this so perfect and are you the do you make it do you make the youtube live or which live streams do you all do over there which all of them yeah right now so it'll be live on seventeen it'll be live on youtube and it will be live on facebook right okay and what about other media that may be in attendance we did make did i have a quick question about that if we're on those three platforms are we taking live questions on each of those platforms i think there's an availability on youtube for people to make comments and right i think that we had talked about that a little bit last time but we hadn't did we say that someone would be looking on one each i don't remember well that's what we were talking about just before you came back so i think yeah that's why i didn't know what was like so there's there's channel 17 won't they people won't be no but it'll just be youtube and facebook okay so yeah like for example if doctor ship is following facebook and evan is following youtube we can kind of you know something like a long line might work okay awesome um alexis do you have the ability to see on channel 17 how many not who is in attendance but how many folks are in it are watching okay all right um and as far as other media partners last time i sent an email out with just a little disclosure about the sensitive nature of what might be spoken about it is a public meeting any media outlet no matter what side of the political realm there on could show up they could report on it we don't have a whole lot of control about that but i was um thinking about just making that couple sentence statement that i had sent out last time which i think um the folks who did attend um really appreciated receiving just a little feedback on that anyone have any other thoughts on that okay um okay great so alexis did you want to go over your slide before we move on from this um so i have like i i was going to email you a better i have like notes right now a little bit fractured but um i guess it's just like speaking to um being that this is peoplehood it's speaking to you know the destruction of people of african descent's culture and the denial of rights to openly express those cultures um the subsequent displacement and uh intentional displacement and disconnect from those cultures and therefore a infringement upon one's like self-identity um and uh i was going to um i guess it speaks i hadn't come up with like the more personal piece of it but it was going to speak to like the the history of african americans um you know self determination being met with violence and um destruction um such as like um various um towns and cities and establishments and whatnot um whether that's you know places is things like black wall street etc etc so uh that part is a little thing i need to formulate a little bit better in my emails to you but um yeah that's the general vibe awesome and i did ask um if you could get me whatever you'd like on the slide piece so you might you know the presentation may take until six o'clock on wednesday for you to finish but if you could get me the slides by noon tomorrow that would be great really appreciate that thank you um all right excellent so yes evan um i just wanted to comment i mean the thing that i that stuck out to me about your your topic um alexis is this idea of self-identity and um i think it feeds into like the like the the destruction of identity in general you know so it gets right into like all of the other topics that we're talking about it's sort of all in this really you know soup of things you know and one of the ones people don't pay attention to is that that that self-identity part of it or identity and cultural part of it so i'm glad we're covering it you know because um you know lots of our folks are you know they are are tired i think you know particularly get tired you know and you know and then things get lost so um yeah i'm you know i just wanted to add that that that was the part that stuck out to me with what you were talking about and i think there would be a lot of um agreeing and connecting um when you discuss it because the idea is to have people also contribute their own story story telling so and that we're targeted you know that it's about you know being targeted as a group you know Dr. Shabazz well i would say also this is where um under peoplehood i often felt that what's being described there as well is the work of preserving um our history and so in the case of this being Amherst it's how are we preserving our local black Amherst history and ways in which we can increase the support ways in which we're receiving ideas uh and and and we'll be looking to to broadcast those and so i just think that's also a part of um the the preservation of a sense of peoplehood the preservation of a sense of um nationhood is that someone is is is preserving our records someone is is providing as Yvonne would say that that storytelling process um in many ways the storytelling process can happen and be and be better supported here for the local history black history of Amherst and then black history black people overalls the freed people overall that's where those of us who didn't grow up here in Amherst can come into the story as well and and people who came through here and lived here and contributed you know how we how are we making those connections i think it's a it's a big area that we're getting feedback already on and that's one thing i wanted to raise um quick segue the the previous session there were there were points made about local needs how do we begin to i don't know if in other committees g.o.l or this or that if y'all ever use any kind of of drive that the members of this commission of this um uh a h r a could have access to but we ought to be building the record of our feedback sessions um that we can at least all access to ultimately begin to craft our our recommendations craft certain proposals from if there is a standard operating practice of other town councils and committees whatever we can do to facilitate that that there we are developing we had the case going toward the wealth gap area um we had the case of the family that lived on hazel avenue and uh if i have that right or north hampton road whichever it was but lost there you know the home was bought out by amherst college and the ability to have a landed presence and and the wealth and the you know that was just cut out in favor of will let you live here to you till the the person who owned it died and then you know other family members whatever you're you're out after that that's that was a hell of a story and and you know how do we preserve those stories how are we looking to then have those those stories uh a record of this of this body i think we gotta gotta figure that one out so dr spaz i agree and i actually had thought about whether it made sense to ask either a student or students at umass or at amherst college perhaps someone in the student senate we have had students reach out and ask how they might be able to contribute to our work and so even just taking the recordings of the listening sessions and beginning to draw out the themes that are coming up to create some sort of data bank for us and then of course when we get the survey that's a whole other piece of things but i think even just listening through our public comment and meetings and then also um in listening sessions so if if you have anybody in mind at UMass who might be interested in such a job um i'll also reach out to syris at amherst college and see if there's somebody over there um it would maybe be six or ten hours of community you know of volunteer work to go through those recordings and just create something for us that would really pull out the themes all right um great uh yes miss burges can you hear me yes um it's just a question for dr sheba's when you're talking about the homes on hazel avenue um and amherst college buying one and and the stories about it are um to put out there are you talking about no one has done it yet or or the families aren't doing that i didn't quite get it because my computer went in and out so i really couldn't get the end of what you're talking about hazel avenue sure i know i think michelle addressed it it's how do we just extract from our previous sessions comments that have been made digest those and then we have it as an ongoing record because i'm i don't want to summarize it myself i think it's right if we got somebody to just look at that that particular session at the hitchcock center and uh summarize what was presented there then boom that that can go as part of uh you know that's become a part of our evolving record how we want to think reparations can address that that's a that's another question we can we can talk about but but no my i was just saying how do we keep this evolving record of of of what's been presented in our in our session okay and just to follow up on that miss bridges where i think there might have been a disconnect is um so yeah because my my sound keeps going in and out so that's why i heard that and then i wanted to clarify yeah i think the p the piece you possibly missed is um so there was a there was a um story that came through at the hitchcock center that um the resident is not there to be able to speak to it so dr shabazz read their statement they their grandmother had a house on in the snell hazel area and amherst college offered to purchase it um and in return said we'll take care of it for you but when you pass away it will become ours oh i know who okay yeah so that was i think what dr shabazz was was relating to there and so stories like that that come up in our listening sessions how we pull them out and get them recorded properly basically um for ourselves so that okay yeah so that we may um as we begin to look at you know how the funds should be how the plans should be built essentially does that clarify it more i hear it okay awesome all right so um we it's already it's 305 and we do have two other topics that i want to make sure that we get to we can move through them a little bit more quickly though i think um and we also have to have a public comment period um so i'm going to call the public comment period now and um just let me excuse me i'll pull up the um so i'm calling public comment now anyone who is here and the attendees who wishes to make a public comment can do so by raising their hand now and um please state your name and where you live and make your comment and we will not be responding to comments but we will be listening carefully so if you would like to make a public comment now please raise your hand all right not seeing any um miss bridges i see that your hand is still raised is that from all right okay so the two other items are one the survey i hope you have all received the email that i sent that came from the dunahue institute um with a scope work for the survey um so we're going to talk about that briefly and then the other piece because there's some time sensitivity actually kind of two pieces that are within the realm of our community engagement we do need to um get back to meg gauge and the league of women voters racial justice committee about the possibility of doing something in partnership with them and dr sandi derrity and potentially a panel um and so what i'm proposing here and what meg thought would be the best way to go about that is that two one to two members of our group um so that we stay under a quorum meet with one to two members of their group to have a discussion about how that might look and then um whoever on our group was in that was in that um meeting could report and bring that back to us so is there anybody here that would like to volunteer to be one of those two people miss bridges you're muted miss bridges sorry again um would this be also meeting with sandi um no this would just be more of a planning meeting um but i i could see it like kind of leading into as we got closer to the event if we had the event that the folk whoever the folks were that were doing this um would maybe help to facilitate sort of having the program you know because we can't all it would be it would be a great thing for for us to listen to sandy and and he's an amazing person and as far as reparation he's done a lot and knowing him since all through high school and whatnot it it wouldn't be it would be great to just listen to him and and get with him yes definitely that would be a great you can't ignore him no no and i don't think yeah i agree um yeah i agree and i think that um you know the piece that i think and i said this in a previous meeting is um dr derrity has done so much um when it comes to reparations and still he's contributing um in a in a as i understand it a profound way into the california reparations task force doing the economics around that and so um i think that it's really important that we have this connection so many of us dr shabazz has a connection to sandy miss bridges um i think that meg does as well so many in our community do um and so i would love for us to find a way i just one of the pieces that dr derrity doesn't agree with is the reparations um and we're doing local reparations already so we have to find a way where we can sort of bridge that and create a program i think that allows for multiple perspectives to be discussed but also helps us in our community to move us forward with what we're doing um dr roitz yes um if no one else wants to be on this two person committee to meet with the lb i definitely would like to do so great so that's one two in relationship to the legal women voters and us uh collaborating with them it is something that we need to do as a matter of course as related to our charge if you look at the charge we are uh charged with working with other groups um on this so yes i i definitely would if no one else if someone else wants to be a part of that working group i'll be more than happy to step down but if no one else wants to i'll be right there excellent thank you dr roitz yes dr schvass yes so i as well i mean however that's to be um uh i i mean let me just say this story um i have questions that may be of help to the process i uh i'm curious there's nine thousand two hundred and fifty if they both develop the questionnaire and conduct the survey of five thousand if it's just development whoa whoa are we on two different topics here yeah uh dr schvass we're talking about the um the lead of women voters um presentation with dr um darity potentially that's okay okay i was back on the survey that's all right that's all right dr schvass this happens as we go down the road and this really long road oh right well listen on the on the this one man i i agree with with uh sister devra that if we could work to to build out a webinar i mean so the eleventh is going to be so crucial uh to this as getting us warmed up but if we could do one um and and i think that's fully a part of our work fully a part of our charge i completely agree but man just a local conversation with a national and international leader like dr darity uh you know i got a little taste of it when he appeared and spoke at the um uh memorial service for for dr jules chimetski but i think what we have to be clear local reparations work is fighting for and educating about and helping to bring about the the uh the work that sandi is talking about at the federal level so to have a conversation with him about where are we in that process you know is president biden going to create a commission on the martin luther king day uh 2023 or sometime very soon this year going to announce the creation of a federal commission okay if that's happening update us tell us how do we support that i think that's a theme for the eleventh as well with congressman govern okay let's support this at that level i mean to tell us and then to tell us how are we going to get this freedman registration process beginning when is it going to begin because if we could be a test case locally here in amherst for actually bringing in the resources to help people find their genealogical dna connection to where they were enslaved in their in the history of the united states bringing all of those genealogical resources to bear and can begin to register themselves as a freed person part of the freed people of the united states of america let's get that registration process going right here in amherst you if you did you follow let's do it here in amherst so i think you know this project uh i don't think it needs to be just about the book i need to think it needs to be about where are we now and how can we help dr darity to move the the proposal forward on the federal level that you've so brilliantly outlined the basis for and the process how do we advance it right here in in amherst let's advance that vision right here in amherst i'd love to to do that and and promote that locally and on a national level it's totally consistent with that charge awesome okay so i will report back to meg on this conversation and then um it sounds like we have at least um dr roads and and dr shabazz has some questions um i'll certainly try to facilitate um you know some of that as well so um great it's just one question dr shabazz are you saying you would like to be on this two person group because i can step down from it i only was volunteering because i really wanted to have two people and no i think you should go ahead because hey i was already i was back on the survey and i thought we were calling a committee on the survey question you see so that was actually voluntary but that if there was a session if there was something moving forward on the survey piece uh because i know we didn't have a motion to agree to it or anything so i was already there this is separate just know that i'm in a hundred percent support with whatever feedback you want to give or you give to to meg gauge just yeah just keep us all in the loop of course absolutely okay all right so quickly before we move to the survey um i want to share with you a really wonderful opportunity that has come um to us um by dr carly talk to cove um and others at amherst neighbors is anyone familiar with amherst neighbors i am okay um so amherst neighbors i'm gonna just actually hang on you shall yes uh if you would bear with me and and if you could um delay that and let's get into the survey because i'm going to have to leave for doctor's appointment and by the way same doctor's appointment for the first time in my entire life i have a black position and and that's remarkable and only that last week i had and met with a chiropractor down here and he also was black wow you're and that's in florida yes yes that's awesome um okay yes we can do survey so i'm going to share we'll come back to amherst neighbors i do i am hoping that we can um at least because of the date is fast approaching so but let's go to the survey while urv is here because i have i have to leave too in like five minutes okay all right so maybe what i'm going to do then for the amherst neighbors opportunity we have been invited to give a program to the amherst neighbors open to the entire amherst community but supported by them cosponsored by them um and it's such a wonderful opportunity because they're giving us the ability to basically have whatever educational program we think would be good for the community right now um so carlie and i had a great discussion today and what i'm going to do is follow up with you all in an email about that just please don't respond all to me just please respond only to me and jennifer and pamela so that we don't get into any issue with that um so let me pull up the survey of the um scope of work here can everybody see my screen okay great um so here we go so we've been talking now for a few meetings about working with the dunahue institute on a scope of work to to develop a survey and carrie spitzer of the dunahue institute who we worked with on the black census created this scope of services for us and so the next step is for myself and carrie and one other person to meet um to get a little bit maybe some questions answered ultimately this is going to have to go to the town council to to approve the money piece of things so we need to think about that but let's just open the floor up did everyone have a chance to review this yes uh dr rhodes please yeah town council i thought just giving us his problem is going to be under ten thousand dollars can't the town manager do that on his own well he may um he may be able to do so what we need to talk about is whether we're asking for the town to pay for this or whether we're asking for a distribution from our from the reparations fund yes yes yes i i will suggest that we say that we're asking the town to pay for this and then uh that because just because the time period and not having to go to town council and that the uh town council then at some point will be asked to uh reimburse the town out of the distributions uh that are due to uh ahra it's only a timing thing if it takes a lot of time to go through a town council that's the way i've elected i was just suggesting doing it okay i agree unless you know something otherwise i would think that just a request to the town manager um would would would be sufficient and uh because i thought they yeah and then they figure out where they're pulling it from and i think we also need to decide if we want to go with both tasks which will be the 9250 and will include an analysis or the five thousand dollar option which means we have to do the analysis um so i'm looking for comments on that i i i definitely would say that we need to have uh the county institute do the analysis also again because and this is going going to be under ten thousand dollars that both of them involve included that this is a service that we really need to take advantage of and it saves us from doing that analysis ourselves uh and and that data analysis i know i know i mean you can do it thank you yeah so let them do the data analysis i agree no i don't see there and there's any point in like paying for a part of it i think we i mean we're relying on there some of this is their expertise and they can help us look i mean and we have our own particular way of looking at and understanding some of the data but it'd be nice to have someone in the room or someone who you know they can present with us present it in a way so that we can continue to review it ourselves and glean and you know information from it on our own but i i think we should just go all in and have them do their whole job okay great i'm seeing um so dr roads and dr shabazz are your hands still up all right yep mine is because i've wanted to make a couple because i really got to get out of here please yeah is that i uh after going over this uh i i really would like to be involved with this however i i i see that dr shabazz is interested uh so if he really is interested in uh collaborating with you uh michelle and uh carry i'm already with that if not uh if he if he isn't then i will be there uh so the comment that i have is that uh given that this is going to be a uh a uh survey of convenience uh there are some there's there's some issues in terms of distribution and who gets it that is going to be critical and i want to say to you that we need to distribute this so that it reaches a broad audience if you look at our charge and look at the groups that are involved with us that we're supposed to be touching base with it says to me that this should be broadly distributed and say that we can still get the information necessary from african-americans because the way the period talked about this in terms of demographics thank you doctor oh that's what i'm saying is that i like the way she put this out there i like the way that she's uh uh approaching it i do have some questions in terms of distribution who gets it and how they get it and those and those that that question about distribution who gets to respond to the survey is a critical issue that if not handled carefully we could find ourselves and um in a deep controversy absolutely okay so that sounds like one of the key questions that we want to address um yes dr shabazz thank you for me uh it's sort of the same question as dr roe's just given but asked maybe a different way to me it's about what value we're setting on the on on this exercise of a survey and for me that boils down to the end value if we don't set an end value of what will constitute a a um an a credible response rate then uh then then it's it could be it could be money not well spent but if we can set an end value and then uh assess our and then have a strategy of how are we gonna get to this kind of response it's one thing we threw it out at at you know um an 8 000 person mailing or a uh a townwide 40 000 person mailing um but you know breaking that down in some discrete way as to representing feedback of the community of african heritage that's where the rubber hits the road where are we gonna get that particular in not numerical value that end value and if they've got a strategy of how we get to that then i'd like to hear that on the front end if they don't and it's a townwide distribution to a townwide mailing like every resident uh you know can go out from or or whether it's homeowners or whether it's every resident that we have on uh on file then you know again how do we get to the specific end value of people of african heritage um i think we've got to set that at the front end and ask the hard question can you get you know do you have a strategy to get to this this numerical value uh otherwise it sounds like it's just a a system-wide broadcast and we don't have any any assurity of what that's going to bring back okay so i'm thinking about our timing here thinking about multiple people wanting to be involved in this i'm thinking about uh town manager bachelman will likely want have questions the president of the council um will likely have questions so it may be best for us to invite Kerry to our next meeting and see or or to a meeting and see if it's possible it would mean that it would be public um which is not a problem everything would be reported back if we did a smaller committee but i think both dr shabazz and dr rhodes are raising excellent questions uh yvonne also had some input here and everybody probably will as so is would that be a favorable way for folks to move forward if i first instead of setting up a subcommittee right now um of two people myself and one other should we invite Kerry to our next meeting and see if we can at least get these questions that have been raised answered and invite the town manager as well to that meeting yes i think that's a good idea and and we don't necessarily have to have that as a part of our meeting we also could have a subcommittee of more than two nick of the big three and which we can then post that meeting with with with the other uh with uh bachelman and and len for whomever and and the dr shabazz and your your point is well taken how we get to the the number of people that we want the distributors to how do we decide that you know when you read this uh read this uh summary of the proposal it indicates that you know uh there there there is a way some ways that they're there or that we are that are being suggested one is going through the portal itself i.e. under the age r.a portal uh another one through the town engagement uh portal uh but the the central question is how do we get to a credible number of african americans and get their responses because that is part of part of our charge the other part of our charge that relates to that is that we need to find out what other people that think about this uh of of reparations so that's in there also but the way that perry is uh suggested in here is that you capture all of that via the demographics that come back uh when the surveys are turned in uh that on the survey itself there will be demographic information that will be requested yeah and we should think about the fact that we spent a good deal of time and money on the black census with the dunahue institute and so how can we use what we discovered in that process um for this we should be that should be informing um where we're reaching out i would think um yes evan i i have another meeting that starts right now so i have to i have to bounce but i i did want to say that i i'm not sure i think in this document it says that they're relying on us to do the distribution and so uh meeting you know us meeting together trying to figure out what those avenues would be would be more important i wouldn't expect them to know where to distribute anything so i think it's about us figuring out a way or finding the the person or the group that might have access or groups that when i might have access to us being able to distribute it as best as we can and um then the other thing is i think it might be premature to have a meeting until we figure that part out i mean a meeting with the town manager and all that until we figure out what our role is first and then invite him the only plus inviting him is because we're going to ask him to pay for it exactly that's bingo so we have pamela and um jennifer from the town are with us so that i'm leaning toward instead of a subcommittee just inviting kerry to our next meeting and see if she can do that we'll just invite kerry we'll have pamela and jennifer and her jennifer here so we don't need town manager bachelman just yet but um does that would that work for everybody i i i like that a lot um and i'm sorry that i have to leave i just have this like i have this 330 there's one last thing i'd love for us to talk about at some point together and that are the guests who came to our last meeting and some of the things that they brought up i mean i i had some issues with some of the things they said and the way they said it um and i think it it goes more towards um what um i don't know i it's longer than i have time to explain but it would be great to get some feedback um from you and i mean i really appreciated your comments at that meeting um dr shabazz i was like you go on i loved it it was that part was great thank you we'll definitely unpack that for sure yeah i'll be i'll be at the next one bye thanks evan okay um so good all right so we'll invite kerry to the next meeting which will be uh next monday we'll plan on two agenda items one will be unpacking the listening session a bit just to sort of talk through some of that and then we'll also oh we can't do the 16th so it's going to be the 23rd uh just all alexis like hold on um so yeah um it will be the 23rd that we will try to convene um with harry um and so if there aren't and then um i please do respond to the email about the amherst neighbors event because that is set right now if we want to do it in the month of february which would be ideal um then it's february second right now um so that's fast approaching so please do respond by email if that doesn't i'll send something out and then and we won't likely need every member although every member would be warmly it sounds like invited to participate so i'll send more details um dr shabazz is your hand still up yeah i i have uh something i just would like to express to all of my um count uh fellow assembly members here and um you know it's i don't know if it would be any different if like some other committees we had a co-chair a vice chair situation where someone else could be empowered to be able to speak to another counselor particularly the council president but boy i sure would value um i do value and i think our whole committee could should value what the opinion of someone like lind greismar about this our community engagement strategy you know we're i know she like uh counselor uh and chair um miller here they are our ultimate audience for this work um but you know with in the case of lind greismar she brings to this uh having been the you know with the donahue institute and for so many years and engaged in these types of of community development community engagement community survey kinds of processes professionally as a job i mean just as we're looking at the donahue institute as a possible uh entity and two other quick segues here i have been looking at the providence community engagement work uh their truth telling and reconciliation dot 74 page document was based in part on a survey qualtric survey that was done by folks at roger williams university i've been in touch with uh one of the persons at rogers williams in terms of how they were supported to to contribute to uh to the project of surveying the community um and uh i've also been looking at at uh north carolina uh uh gosh the um our folks yeah ashville our folks in ashville and looking at where they are in some of their process and they had a lot of uh um you know they had they had salary support for their for their particular commission efforts these are places a little a little bit larger than ours our place but it's the same work it's the same labor whatever the scale is of the of the municipality um and they had a lot of a lot of support so you know i'm i uh the opinion of lynn grismar on whether the steps we've been taking so far with the black census and now with the question of this survey are they the the the right steps and are we in the right fit in in in terms of discussing with the donahue institute what we're really trying to get at as as a set of um as a way of uh um presenting the ultimate report that we're a few months from from uh being expected to present um i would just really you know whether not and just to say at our next meeting i don't know sometimes people can be more more at ease you know in a one-on-one and but i but i wouldn't want to just do that uh and be the only one getting the information to the disadvantage of my other counselors i'd like to be able to do it in a way that whatever i could learn whatever i could get in that in that conversation with uh with lynn grismar could then be be uh you know shared uh with with everyone but uh she's done this kind of work and um and then she's also one that we want the work to convince so i just hope that we're taking all the right steps yeah and what i would say to that dr schvaz is you should feel free to reach out to lynn and have that discussion with her absolutely um uh you know with respect to her formal formal role as president there is an election tonight um so um whether or not in the future lynn will be the president or not is undetermined but either way i think that having a conversation with lynn would be beneficial um and then you could go ahead and bring that back to us um and of course if given lynn's background on this um whether or not president not president if she wanted to participate in the larger conversation with the dunahue institute um and she has previously that would always be welcome is that does that work okay all right awesome um so are there any other comments or questions right now anything else all right so our next meeting then just to clarify once again will be the 23rd at two o'clock um but we will of course see each other on the 11th if i could ask and i will send this out in an email that folks arrive um by six o'clock for a practice session to the best of your ability if you could do that that would be fantastic um and then otherwise you know if you need to get there later just please text me all right so i'm going to go ahead and um adjourn the meeting at 3 40 p.m and thank you to everybody great meeting see you soon