 These sessions, what we're calling these, this is our legislative series. Start from the top, my name is Mark Hughes, I'm the executive director of Justice for All and Racial Justice Organization, I was started here in Cabot, Vermont. And I've been a director there for about five past years. And through our work, most of it would be community outreach and organizing. A lot of what we call relationship management with elected officials and law enforcement and so forth. But which ultimately led to what we desired was the legislative agenda. Where that kind of, we bounce around a little bit. So where that took us was as we created this organization, our group of organizations called the Racial Justice Reform Coalition. Moved a couple of policies there. And then, I'm going to ask you to introduce yourself in the next group. And so that kind of morphed into what we call the Racial Justice Alliance. Which is again, kind of the same thing, but it's really there is a people of color steering committee that we have about maybe 12 or 15 of us. This is one, he's going to talk in a few minutes. He's one of those folks that are running a steering committee. So this session, we're driving more policy. The purpose of the legislative session, I'm sorry, the legislative series is really to be able to bring community in, to gain community perspective, to also teach the educated community about policy and policy positions. And then also the critical piece is to be able to inform the deliberative process of our legislative officials as well. So we're doing all of that in this, what we call legislative series. We've already had one, it was on data that we called it making the justice authority with data that you can find out on ORCA. Or how many people know what ORCA is? So let me just pause there for a minute. Is there anybody in the room who just don't want to be on camera at all? Don't feel shy, because we can just tell them to leave or else we can just not point the camera at you. Okay, great. So ORCA media is one of the many, many community, community television affiliates across this entire state, okay? You have one in Barry, there's one in a couple in Burlington, and they plug into a network, literally a network where what they film can also be, if you will, broadcast across the entire state, and then in some cases even across the nation. So, just in case you're on the federal witness protection program, I just wanted to make sure that we're all good. Anyway, back to what we're doing. I got to go. Okay. So the other thing that we're doing in conjunction with this, and I'm trying to be brief as possible if I'm moving too quickly, just throw something at me. I just want to try to get to the meat of what we're doing here. We're also doing this thing called Hitman Plain Sight, which is a statewide community, kind of a community tour. We've been to Hartford, we've been to Barry. We had to postpone St. Albans, so we're, well, these are all in a couple of libraries across the state. We'll be in Burlington on the 4th, on the 4th of March. I think there's going to be a pretty good crowd there. And again, this community outreach is really about, you know, really getting right up against this conversation about systemic racism and what that is, and it kind of gets into a historical context. And it kind of lays things out. What it occurred to me was that, you know, and also in our discussions, deliberations within our People Color Steering Committee meeting, and just a whole lot of conversations with Christine, you know, who God's probably knows about Hartford, as well, is that the legislators have really done a phenomenal job over the last couple of years at trying to get their hands around this, and some of it is elusive. And some of them have actually, and this is a military term, how fun to recover, so to speak, there are communities across the state who have no idea, you know, who or what the executive director of racial equity is or why she exists, for example. There are communities across the state who have no idea what Act 54 was all about, and we were at, when we did all that work, to try to get in place in racial disparities in the criminal and juvenile justice system advisory panel, and the attorney general and the human rights commission executive director did that statewide tour and produced another report indicating racial disparities across housing, education, employment, health services, access. Well, you know, you go out the hard way, or maybe you go out, you know, maybe over in Franklin, I mean, I'm talking about the town of Franklin, yes, that's the thing, is that, you know, there's a lot of folks who don't know these things. So we are just making every effort to kind of go back out and do the work that needs to be done, and it's not a work, it's actually a blast, because it's good to get, you know, folks in the room who don't agree with you, it's good to get folks in the room who have different perspectives and who have different ideas and perspective and give them that place where they can offer that perspective, and we too can be enlightened by their perspectives, and we can pull that together and make what we've done better. So it's a great opportunity, I'm experiencing it. If there's anybody in the room who wants to take that trip with me, just go on to VT Racial Justice Alliance, that wordpress.com, look at the list of places where we're going to be, or shoot me a note and say, hey, Mark, I want to get on the road with you. I'm glad to take you, that includes you. If you want to come and hang out with us, I'll hang out with you. I'm sure you'll be proud of me. So I went down to the product. Yeah, no, I'm just inviting you, just inviting you, because... Is that like you? So here we go, here we are, and today we're going to be talking about one of... Oh, I forgot to tell you this, these sessions that we're having, these forums, they're all connected to policy, the policy that we've moved forward, the data initiative, the data forum that we did a few weeks ago, is directly related to H-284, in case you were wondering, okay? With the Justice Reinvestment Act coming forward, I think they're calling it $338 or something like that, S-338. And it moving over towards government operations in the house, I'm sorry, judiciary in the house, you know, Maxine Graves going to be keenly kind of anticipating that coming over in conjunction with the work that needs to be done here with data, data in the justice system is pivotal. We've got a lot of work to do, garbage in garbage out, we've got to fix it, so that was that. This year's, this is all about, this whole idea is, is it a good idea to create a task force that's going to go off and consider a state apology and maybe even a proposal for reparations for the state of Vermont, their role in slavery? Because we do know from our work that we've done on PR2, which successfully passed this, just this last, you know, this biennium, that is, the first stage of it will come back to what that details the rest of it, but it did pass, it made the first hurdle. But the work that we've done on PR2, we've come to understand our role in slavery as a state more and more, we've also, we also understand even if, you know, it doesn't make any difference what state you are, if you were a part of the United States, there was always a role. So as we watched HR 40 at the national level, as for the first time in 30 years this bill that was introduced by the late John Conyers in 1989, as it begins to move forward, in the United States House of Representatives, and for the first time gain traction and build the prospect of potentially maybe making it to the Senate, for the first time in history, that's 30 years, why would we not want to begin as a progressive and also as a state that has historically led from the front? Why would we not want to be on that list of folks who are great firsts? So that's what that's about tonight. I'm gonna give you a lot of detail tonight about what's behind this thing, because it's easy to talk about. I wanna give you some more detail about this whole concept of reparations. I wanna give you some detail about what it really means and give you some historical reference on where it has occurred and other places and how it's occurred. I wanna welcome those of you who come from UBM. We've been working with UBM up in Burlington. Class of 28 people became interested in this work and they're behind the scenes and they're pushing as well. There are folks from the ACLU, from the NAACP. We have support from unlikely characters like the ADA. Yes, the ADA, the Episcopal Diocese as well. So there's a force, there's a building behind some of this work. It's important work. I'm gonna go and fiddle around with this thing right here. I wanna introduce my colleague, another member of the People of Color Steering Committee and from that point, if you would mind just facilitating an introduction of the rest of the folks in Burlington. Awesome. Yeah, yeah, sure. So my name is Kumar. I started with, I could just realize on the People of Color Steering Committee about a year ago and I'm still on that now. And kind of transition to become a policy analyst for which justifies and becoming more involved, excuse me, in the policy making that goes on in the state house and how people like students at UBM, so I'm a UBM grad student as well, can get more involved in the process in terms of what matters to them, and what may or may not affect them as well. So now we're gonna next roll the facilitate introduction, so I'm gonna continue to start from this side. Did you say that you were a graduate student? I did, I'm a graduate student. I would start from this side and name and really, however you want to identify yourself. Hello, everyone. My name is Basha Sokoloska. I am an MSW student at UBM. I'm a graduate student at the University of Vermont and I'm originally from Barrie. My name is Michelle. I'm a graduate student at the University of Vermont and I'm originally from Barrie. My name's Adlon. I'm from the Community College of Vermont and I'm a senior at the University of Vermont. My name is David Juckerman. I'm from Hainesburg, Vermont and I'm a former head of the government. And the candidate for governor, let's not forget that part. Yeah. I appreciate that. Typically in this building, I tend to. I know. That's why I think. People are pretty sensitive about it, so they make a big deal about it. Is there anyone back there? There's nobody back. I'm Brian Cina. I'm a representative from Burlington and I'm gonna have to leave soon to go to a meeting in Burlington. I want to bring out the floor a little bit. Let me just add to that, because Brian's kind of a strange animal. I don't know what I'm saying. I'm gonna make it sound a lot better. Side work. Yeah. But Brian is also a member of the People of Colors Steering Committee as well and has a very, very close ally and a dear friend of mine as well. So we do a lot of work in Burlington. I didn't mention it, but there's a lot of stuff. From those of you who've been watching the newspaper, there's a lot of stuff happening. It's the biggest city, obviously, or town, if you will, in the state. Brian's got previous experience working on the inner parts of the government there. It's been instrumental in being able to lay a pathway for us being able to make those, develop those relationships with members of the City Council like Max Tracey and Alan Dane, like Perry Freeland and Jack Hanson, to name a few. We've moved in the City Council a diversity equity and inclusion director position at the city level in Burlington as a result of the work that we've been doing here. We've also established a requirement for mandatory data collection for use of force for our second-largest department in the state. I'm one of the commissioners, by the way, just before you start talking trash about it, for them to please just know that I'm really a representative as well. And in addition to that, we've established a permanent or a standing, if you will, committee of diversity, equity, and inclusion, which is unprecedented on the City Council itself. So Brian, I know you gotta leave, I wanna just give you a shout out and thank you for being in the room and let you know. Oh, by the way, y'all so is one of our key sponsors of every bill that goes through the house. If you see an H in front of it, thank Brian, okay? So. Name's Rick Barstow. Pleasure. Been a friend of Marx for quite a while, following his work in the Judiciary Committee a few years ago. You know, he's been doing a lot of great work here. Saw that he was gonna be here tonight. Gotta come down and kick him. Nice. So my name's Gwendolyn Halsneth. I'm from Cabot, Vermont. We live in an eco village there called the Headwaters Garden and Learning Center. We also are here representing Vermonters for a new economy where we are working on how we pay for reparations, how we pay for Medicare for all, how we pay for all the things that we need to deal with the climate crisis and the human rights crisis and the poverty crisis on the planet. My name's Michael Taub and I'm here with Gwendolyn from Cabot. I'm glad to hear that this discussion is happening. I'm Carter Shapiro, he and pronouns. I'm an undergraduate student at the University of Vermont. I've been involved with various amounts of organizing. I've done quite a few things regarding racial justice and gender inclusion. So, and I'm just, I'm interning with Representative Lucy Rogers in the social equity caucus that's kind of being formed and created. So that's it, that's why I'm here. Do you get paid to be an intern? I could, to the university. The university. They've been pushing that even if you're interning or doing it for credits, even if you're doing it for credits, you should still be able to pay, so. I agree with that. So, yeah. Yeah, I just want to offer that our office requested it together because we've had interns in our office for years to add some of these to our budgets to be able to pay our interns and then decline to give us that money. Wow. In the budget request, but it's been an ongoing challenge because as many people may already know, those who can afford to do internships that don't cost anything, give them a leg up on future opportunities. And since we have a historical legacy issues of income inequality, particularly for communities of color, that then continues to create hurdles for people to get access to opportunities by not having those internships be paid. So there's just so many subtle and not so subtle. They're subtle to those of us who have fair religion that's not so subtle to those that don't. Elements like that, that continue to be inequality, for sure. So, thanks again. Okay, got it. I'm Kevin Cochristi, representative from Hartford. I won't get into my hats that I wear. I'd like to hear a couple of hats, please. Hello, hello, how's it going? Well, they represent the hats. That's right. I guess I like to consider myself as a public servant. I've been working in the state of Vermont on just people's issues since the, excuse me, I'm sorry. It's been a while. I started to go back in the dates and I'm going, wow, man, I started back then. But anyways, it's been a long time. I presently chair the Human Rights Commission. I chair the Hartford School Board. Really proud of the work we're doing there. Hartford has a very similar project like Burlington. It's called H. Corey, the Hartford Committee on Racial Equity and Equality. And we're doing some good work. We hired a consultant that came in and did an in-depth dive into the town and the school district looking at systemic racism within the two bodies. And they're formulating a strategic plan which we should be getting in the next week or so. And it's been a five-year process to get to where we are with that particular group. And then I just try to keep stirring the pot because that's what we're supposed to be doing. At least as long as we can, right? So I guess that's the Cliff Notes version. I have a quick question. Yes. Do you serve on the Board of Trustees, are you here? Yes, I do. I'm here. What is the committee? Finance. And we're still figuring out a couple more. Is that, and does I include the investment? In the endowment, no. Excuse me, in the endowment? We're starting those discussions. Okay. As a UVM student, I can't speak for other people that represent UVM here. But I do not know your stance on this either, but I highly recommend, and a lot of my peers would agree with me, to divest from fossil fuels. Well, you know, I know everybody's, where everybody's at, you know, like with that. And the reality of the situation, because I will always speak the truth, whether you like what you hear or not, but the reality of the situation is, some of those things are well within our purview, you know, as the Board of Trustees, but moving that is kind of similar to moving a massive ship, you know. So the fact that a number of us on the Board agree wholeheartedly with that, the divestment isn't as easy as it looks on the surface, because we're talking in the range of millions of dollars. Oh, that's what I was saying. But it just doesn't happen like that, you know, I guess is the point, you know. Can I say something about this in the entire of the reparations? Yeah. Not to change the subject. You may not need to tie it in the reparations yet, because there might be somebody else who wants to chime in. Okay, well, then there's a sort of a connection of parallel I see. So I've asked legislative council to create a bill for me that would completely divest the state of Vermont from fossil fuels, private prisons, pharmaceutical industry, and weapons production. And they told me that there's, now I'm not gonna remember the exact four layers, but they said- Remember your camera. I know. I'm just kidding. And they told me there were four layers. So they told me there were four layers. I can't remember them exactly, but basically the first layer was the simplest one, which is like saying like, oh, we're gonna not put, we're not gonna buy stocks and put money in pensions that use, that puts money in these things. But that's easy when you're directly investing, but when you're paying an investor for funds where they're putting that fund into like thousands of stocks, that's the second layer where it starts to get really hard because it's hard, it's not impossible, but it starts to get hard. And I think this is what you're getting at is it actually gets complicated the way it's structured. I can't remember what the third layer was, but the fourth layer was the one that was the most disturbing and actually I'm looking at the camera. The chocolate cream pie, the volume layer, there's a layer here. Well, the fourth layer is what I think ties to reparations in some abstract way. The fourth layer is the one that's most disturbing, which is that our entire financial system has been designed so that if you engage in any digital transactions, any digital monetary transactions, you are giving money to those companies. And the reason is that the way the whole financial system's been built that the banks that are running that are like every single one of them is connected, is investing in those industries. So if you're using a credit card, even a credit union credit card if it has Mastercard Visa, those symbols on it, that basically the foundation of our financial system is completely interlaced with those industries and that the only way Vermont could completely divest is to create our own economy and separate from like, this is what the lawyers told me. Nobody, but even then, it's like we would have no outside trade. Like we would literally, it would be like North Korea. You know, like, so then I dropped it because I was like, the idea is like it's, I didn't want to make, you know, I dropped, I dropped it at that point, but I'm just putting it out there because there's layers of investment and the parallel I see with reparations is that if you did deep enough into our economic system, so much of everything we have was grounded in slavery and we don't want to talk about it. You know, it's like, why is fossil fuels so integrated into the financial system? Why pharmaceuticals? Why the prison industry? And if you go back far enough, it goes to the slavery economy. It's the roots of the country. I don't know, it started to go off on it, but I just think to your point, it is tricky. Like I do think UBM could say we're going to not directly invest and they could say we're going to try to find stockbrokers who don't, who are socially responsible, you know, they could do that, but they couldn't completely invest. Well, the thing is, one of the things you'll notice is that there's been some changes in the board structure and in that changes, you know, we're looking at some of those points because it's all layered, like Brian said, but it is the commitment, you know, to move in that direction, you know. So, you know, that's... I was wondering, how do we do that? No, no, go ahead. I also want to add while it's complicated, it's also been talked about for over 10 or 20 years and many states and many institutions have figured out how to get through those complications and even if it isn't the deeper aspect of being a part of the economic capability that we live in, which is interconnected to all this, at least the direct investments, many institutions have figured out how to do that. And that's the rest of it. You know, and the thing is I'm new to the board. I'm not afraid to stir it up because I've already kind of did a few things and they're not happy, but that's okay, you know, because that's what the legislature sent me there to do, was to stir it up a little bit, so. I want to go to Gwendolyn and then I'm going to kind of steer us back on, but we're also going to have a breakout session, if we have time, we're going to have a breakout session and talk a little bit, give everybody a little bit more chance to speak in smaller languages. I'd love to, I'd love to, too, because we have sows and our flowering ones, that's going to be cold. I'm going to be working with Deb to coordinate our next meeting to kind of overlap onto your film viewing so we can just abbreviate our meeting because we're going to be in the building at the same time and I don't feel good about that, so we're going to abbreviate our next meeting, we're going to put it in the same venue, we're going to put it up in front of your film viewing so we can all be together, okay? I appreciate what you're doing. When is that? 26, okay. The 26 of this month and it's going to happen again. That serves me. That's 27. I think, yeah, that, that's a dead wolf. I'm saving it right now. Yeah, dead wolf. Saving it now. Because I'll have to leave you, I'm sorry. I'm learning to live before another day with legislators and elected officials and it's just good that you guys would have the, you know, the presence to stop in and not be a part of this. So don't feel shy about getting up and stepping out, even if you got to go right now, that's fine. I love the years right there. But I just want to hear what, I really want you to hear what Gryddler says before you leave though. No, I was just going to follow up on what Brian was saying about the layers of it because actually UVM, the Gunn Institute of Ecologically Economics did a study of this several years ago and I have some of the materials if anybody's interested. When they looked at what would happen if something like UVM divested from fossil fuels in the current investment scheme that we have, it means like moving the money from ExxonMobil to Walmart, that the embedded fossil fuel costs in Walmart are really high. That's not accounted for in a lot of the ways that people are looking at actually divesting and the conclusion of that study was that if we really do want to divest from fossil fuels and this ties into reparations. Totally, yes, totally. We need to look at the local economy as the alternative to all the big structured Wall Street mutual fund type investments that you can direct your investment a lot more carefully in the local economy than you can in that world of investment which brings me to the other really important point about reparations that if we had public money, public money is bigger than public banks, okay? Public banks are just this little sort of institution that could maybe fit in and play with the big guys if they let us and they don't. You know, let's face facts, getting a public bank is really impossible. It's a paradigm change. So if we're gonna change the paradigm, we need to change it to public money which basically takes the function of money out of the hands of the private banks, bondholders, and the 1% of the world and puts it back in our hands. And that's how we pay for reparations. That's where we could invest as an alternative to all the fossil fuel, Walmart, big money investments that are the only ones available if you're working in the stock market environment. Thanks for that. Well, can you tell us that organization, I don't wanna trash the name of the organization. Which one? For just something economy or something like that. For modules for a new economy. What's the website? Neweconomybt.org, but it's, you know, I'm not very good at keeping websites updated. Yeah, but there's enough information on there for people to get the idea. It's right to me if you're interested in all of this. I'm happy to, I've written books. I've got lots of educational materials. Say your email address here. It's Gwen, G-W-E-N-H-S is in the same, like Gwen Holster at G-M-E-N-E-S. Y'all got that? Gwen H-S at G-M-E-N-H-S. Yeah, you'll want to catch up with her. Yeah, I'm happy to talk to you. You might want to go out to the house for dinner, too. Or ice cream. He just opens that door right now. Yeah, it's a blast out there, and the weather's good. I love it out there. Hey, even when it snows, it's not bad out there. I'm gonna trap it out there in some snow. So that was an awesome pivot. I want to, again, I want to thank you and I want to welcome everybody here. I got Dave's card in my hand and there's braille on him and I'm distracted, because every time I get, I probably have about three of these and every time I get it, I'm like, is braille on this card? I want to read something to you real quick before we get started, I'll get a presentation up for you in a second. This is a report from the working group of experts on people of African descent on its mission to the United States of America. In 2016, the Human Rights Council. No, I'm not gonna put this on the screen. I'm just gonna read part of this. And if anybody wants it, I'll send you the whole report. I'm not gonna, because if I put it on the screen then I'm gonna have to take it down and all that, it's a technology thing because I have a presentation queued up. There's only one report, I'm pointing to a report that I want to refer you to, and that is, you know what, I'm gonna take your advice because folk are visual, right? So let's just get at that, okay? I'm gonna, if somebody younger than you tells you to do something, just do it. Okay? Just do it. So this is in the recommendation section and I want to bring your attention to item 94. It says, the working group encourages Congress to pass HR 40, the Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act, which would establish a commission to examine enslavement and racial discrimination in the colonies in the United States from 1619 to the present, and to recommend appropriate remedies. The working group urges the United States to consider seriously applying analogous elements contained in the Caribbean Community 10 Point Action Plan on reparations, which include formal apology, health initiatives, educational opportunities, an African knowledge program, psychological rehabilitation, technology transfer, and financial support and so forth. Is that cancellation? Yeah. So that, thanks for that. So that's the report that was created in 2016. You can pull this down off of the General Assembly's website. You recall, many of you in the room probably recall that we actually are no longer a part of the Human Rights Council of the United Nations. Nor have we ever been a participant in any treaty that would give any one of Africans any standing with any claim. But the United States, but the United Nations continues to call us out on this and other stuff. So sometimes it's good just to take a look at what, you know, oh, by the way, we were pivotal. We were pivotal in the creation of the United Nations, I think it was in 1946, right? So it's just interesting to see sometimes what we look like from the outside in. So before, I think I'm gonna start this as a course of our introduction in this conversation and moving forward is that before we start taking a look at ourselves from the inside, let's talk about what's being said to us from the outside. Now this was 2016, okay? And there's a lot that the United Nations has to say about us, much of which I won't go into right now, but I highly encourage you to download this and other reports and many of the things that we've been talking about from data collection to discriminatory disciplinary practices in our schools, we're being called out at the United Nations in a really big kind of way. In fact, eerily, I kind of looked at these reports and I looked at the agenda of the current administration and you'd think that they read them too. And now what they're actually doing is just using these reports as a playbook to take us in the opposite direction. Eerily, that's my personal assessment of it, okay? So I wanna talk a little bit about this whole business on reparations and I've got a presentation for you and I think where we start with this thing, we'll start here, see if I can figure out where. We had another presentation here, but you see where are we? Okay, where are we? Nope, that's not it. That's why I didn't wanna put that up because I had no idea what I'm doing right now. Oh, I see, I see where I'm at now, okay? Let's see. There is a, I wonder if this is the right presentation. Let me take a closer look at that. So I'm gonna start talking to you before I get started is that this work that we're doing on this particular bill is really modeled after HR for the bill that's in the United States House of Representatives that we were just, that the United Nations was just telling us about. I know that because I wrote this bill and basically it was just highly plagiarized and I thought it was a good idea because of the work that we've been doing and the trajectory that we're on. And I thought what we would do is at least put it out there. It's taken us as a nation 30 years, 30 years from 1989 until now to actually make any significant movement on this bill in committee to even have a prospect to get out to the floor of the house. Keep it in mind that it has to go to the Senate next, right? And then to the president's desk. So that's kind of where we are on it. How many people remember to Haas, what do you call it, how do you say, to Haas-Nicotes? Tana Haase-Nicotes and Danny Glover and those folks that went up in August and testified on HR 40 over the summer. It happened over the summer. So they actually introduced it pretty, the representative's name is I think it's Sheila Lee or something like that. Anyway, long story short is that it's been moving really slow at the national level and right now, I figured it was just as good as time as any. We're coming off of a conversation where we've discovered that there are racial disparities across all systems of government here. That's what the attorney general and the HRC, Human Rights Commission Executive Director told us. We also understand there are racial disparities across the criminal justice system and we're doing the work to try to get that done. We've yet to return and talk about the former yet, but we got enough momentum to get an executive director of racial equity in place and we have a racial equity panel. So somebody's listening somewhere. We've been trying to get some handle around this whole civilian oversight of law enforcement in the state. And yes, it is directly related to what it is that we're talking about from slave catchers to police today. So we've been really working hard to get that work done. We've been trying to focus more on data collection. How many people saw the race traffic data dashboard that was released? So we weren't able to get the state to do anything about it. So we created a grassroots effort and we have a data dashboard where all 79 agencies that data is aggregated. We've got some data geeks on our squad now. So we created a $6 billion government couldn't do it. So we did it. So we're continuing, but everything converges economically. And we'll talk more about what that looks like. Just tell me if something's coming out of my nose and I feel like something's going on. Am I okay in the camera? Yeah. So what we want to do is try to bring this conversation full circle, the median wealth of African-American family in the United States is at one 13th average, the median wealth of a white family. I said one 13th, okay? And there's no amount of hard work that will ever close that gap, ever. So you gotta ask yourself the question, how do we get here? If you gotta ask yourself the question, why is it that if you're African-American, that you're three times more likely to be terminated by this state's government from employment, that you're six times more likely to be apprehended and that you're like 11 times more likely to be imprisoned. Why is it? Why are all of these things true? Why is it that 50% of the time that African-Americans go looking for an apartment that they're discriminating against? Why? So all of these things converge. There's gotta be something that holds these things together. I mean, there's a lot of freaking coincidences. And it's hard to ignore where we've come from as a nation from the war on drugs, for example. Maybe starting, it's like 68, let's choose Nixon, for example. And just how, not just poverty, but also race as well as activism was criminalized, right? To a proliferation of 2.3 million people incarcerated was one million black people in prison considered a disenfranchisement. It's not, I mean, if that's not good enough, you have to go back between what is called the Great Migration or what I call the most horrendous internal refugee crisis in United States history. From 1910 until 1970, when black people flooded out of the South, running as fast as they could to get out of sharecropping because they found out that it was just like convict leasing which was just like slavery. The old Jim Crow in the South, as well as the North, Menchie, the FBI, vastly Ku Klux Klan. This is our national history. And then in the North, redlining the white GI Bill, the white New Deal. So these are things that are all formative. Before that, we had Birth of a Nation shown in the Oval Office under Woodrow Wilson. So we blatant racism, constitutional racism, racism that was actually codified in our statutes. Redlining was not a commercial enterprise. It was a government enterprise, okay? So we've got to ask ourselves, if we've created this, then we can go back, we can keep going back to even how our own constitution was written. In fact, we can go back to 1619 and talk about, and move forward and talk about how, after that, how in the House of Burgess, that whiteness was created. And it was created for economic reasons. We can go back and talk about the fact that land was freed for a minute. And to be eligible for it, you needed to be white and labor was free as well. I mean, you had to be quite a loser if you come over here and got free land or free labor and not be successful. In fact, it became one of, what would occur is is it was wildly successful beyond the imagination, that any imagination that they could ever conceive the success of the creation, which would cause us to be the wealthiest nation that ever existed in history of this plan today. In fact, it created collateral damage on white people and they had to go back and correct some of that, you know, with our white GI bills and our white New Deals and so forth. And that exists to this day, because there are many, many, many more poor white people than there are more black people. There's only 12 to 13% of us here. It just stands to reason that although most black people are poor, most poor people are white. And that's why we have a shared and a common goal here to call this what it is, because poverty affects all 140 million and nearly 70 million of those are white people. So yes, this is an economic, don't be confused, conversation, reparations, this whole thing that we're talking about right now, it's all about economics. Are we here to figure out what it looks like and how to solve it? No, we're not even asking, we're not even, I mean within this particular session, but what we're asking with this particular amendment is that we would appoint a group of folks to go off somewhere and talk about it and come back with some proposals to talk about whether or not an apology would be appropriate, to talk about whether or not reparations would be appropriate and if so, what that would look like, okay? So I just want to give a backdrop because when I was in, like for example, when I was in class the other day, I didn't really set you guys up very well. I was really flying at internet speed trying to just get everything out, but I think that in conversation about reparations, if you don't have a conversation about the history of this nation, which is exactly what hidden in plain sight, the tour that I told you about across the state is, if you don't have that conversation, that was the slide presentation in fact that I was just paging through before I discovered that I hadn't rung it up. If you don't have that conversation, then this conversation doesn't make as much sense, okay? Because there's a lot of people looking for a problem to solve, okay? That's what we're gonna do today and I'm hoping to be able to have a breakout session, but before I do that, I want to talk about a definition if you can capture this. Reparations is a process of repairing, healing and restoring a people injured because of their group identity and in any violation of their fundamental human rights by government, corporations, institutions and families, those groups that have been injured have the right to obtain from the government, corporation, institution or family responsible for the entries that which they need to repair and heal themselves. In addition to being a demand for justice, it is a principle of international human rights. So that's a definition that we got from in Cobra. I think that was the one from in Cobra. Yeah, in Cobra, as you can see, it's the National Coalition of Blacks in Reparation in America. So they're on the move, they're actually deeply involved in HR 40, they're gonna keep moving. So I want to talk a little bit about the history. I'm gonna stand over here. Talk a little bit about the history because what I was able to discover was that there's quite a bit of movement on reparations in our history. There was a time when former slave holders, maybe 900 of them or so, were able to go back. Now, this doesn't make sense to you because you're not gonna be able to contextualize this is that they were getting $300 for each slave that they released, okay? That was their reparations. From whom? The government, yeah. So that was their reparations. So there was also a part two of that where slaves actually came back and said, hey, nobody claimed for me, so. I get nothing. So there was some of that going on. So that was actually happening. This is the United States of America, folks. So back in towards the end of the close of the civil war, there was this dude named Stanton. Stanton is one you wanna remember because Stanton was kinda instrumental in also creating what they call the Freedman Bureau. Okay, how many people heard of the Freedman Bureau? Because they don't teach that in our schools. Freedman Bureau was established as a part of the reconstruction process. They established colleges and healthcare institutions largely for black and poor white people in the South from which the HBCUs emerged. There you go, okay? So Edward Stan was huge. Now he was fired by Andrew Johnson after Lincoln got assassinated, but that's another story. So what General Sherman was able to do at the close of the civil war, we understand that the civil war was the biggest massacre, internal massacre in United States history. In fact, the biggest massacre that the United States has ever existed in the United States history in battle, 620,000 people died because we were trying to figure out whether we wanted slavery as a nation. That's our nation, okay, that we have to own, okay? So General Sherman at the time, and this was right about the same time because right before the close of the world, Lincoln was assassinated, it was a hate crime. Yes, he was killed because he made the decisions that he made because my history books tell me that John Wilts Booth said something when he jumped off onto the stage that alluded to the fact that it was in retaliation for the emancipation. Did anybody read this in school? Okay, all right, so I'm just, because everybody's kind of looking at me like, really? So he's dead, Sherman's in the field, field commander. He's saying, I'm gonna give you guys 40 acres. I'm gonna give you 40 acres, you 40 acres, you, no, not you, you and you, yeah, just you. Okay, maybe you, okay, not these guys. So anyway, the point I'm getting at is he's walking around and he's, it was a done deal. It was an agreement and all that other stuff. Well, after Lincoln was assassinated, after Johnson came in, he said, no, take it back in, took it all back. So we're talking about all the way down through South Carolina and Georgia. Yeah, this is a real story. So they had actually issued reparations to folks in the South who were former slaves. Lincoln's assassinated. They tried to get it back to the legislature and it was vetoed by Andrew Johnson. The same Andrew Johnson that shares the reputation of our current commander-in-chief who was also impeached, by the way, okay? So there are other instances that I'm not gonna go into right now, but there are other instances where there were attempts for reparations along the way throughout our history. We won't talk more about those, but I won't talk about some implementations because Heart Mountain, because we, yes, we did intern Japanese, we did that. Okay, so there was a reparations that was paid out on that. Also, there's an ongoing reparations that's being paid out from the atrocities that happened in Germany and Eastern Europe in World War II. Many people probably heard of the Indian Claims Commission, which was kind of a nightmare because that money was issued and then it was micromanaged by the government themselves and many of the folks who were supposed to be recipients never saw that money. And there was an actual apology to Hawaii. Yeah, Hawaii. Hawaii is Hawaii, okay? It is Hawaii, it's like, think about it. The people are kind of, you know, you see what I'm getting at? So what they decided to do about that was apologize. So there was an apology. We know about the horrible Tuskegee experiment. Experiment, okay, let's get it straight because there were a many. So there was a payment and it took them maybe another 24 years, but they finally got an apology out of it. OCOE acknowledgement. I'm not gonna go into that right now because frankly I caught it but I don't remember what it was. So that's your homework. The Rosewood Mass occurred, it happened in Florida. What happened? A black guy was accused of raping a white woman so they burned the whole town down. Okay, that's happened probably 40, 50, 60 times across the United States to include Black Wall Street, most with all impunity. Okay, this is the only one that I could find where there was an apology or there was a reparation. And then of course there's a huge uprising. I don't wanna call it an uprising but there's a smackdown of police in Chicago which ultimately resulted in a $5.5 million settlement. What I'm getting at is, yeah, reparations is not a new idea. In fact, the House of Representatives, the United States House of Representatives apologized for slavery. The United States House of Representatives apologized for slavery in 2008. I'll let you just take a minute to absorb that. I think the thing to think about too is that so did the Senate. Now notice their disclosure. Nothing in this resolution authorizes or supports any claim against the United States. Serves as a settlement of any claim against the United States. That's our country. That's what's going on, okay? So you're on the heels of all of this. Somewhere, and this was 2009, 20 years before this, John Conyers introduced HR 40. 20 years before this, John Conyers introduces HR 40. It goes nowhere. It doesn't even make it out of committee as we say here, it's stayed on the wall, okay? It goes nowhere. This is a little bit about HR 40. I'm gonna let you just read that first part. I had enough coffee, but I'm gonna get right at this. So again, to establish, now imagine this. We're talking about a bill that says that they just want to establish, excuse me, a commission to study and consider. I'm gonna say it one more time. They want to establish a commission to study and consider. Okay, a national apology and proposal for reparations for the institution of slavery. 20 years later, no, 10 years after that, just this last year, last August, finally they decided to look at it. I'll tell you another secret. Not one senator in our legislature wanted to touch H-478 to even introduce it, to even sponsor it, this same in your state. And you know what the wording is? Well, I'm glad you asked. Let's see if we can get over there. You can go back and take a look at the findings on HR 40. I'm not gonna bog you down with that, okay? Oh boy, how did I get over there? Oh, there it is. What was that? Anyway, good lord, Mark, what are you doing? Hey, look, there it is! The United Nations human, that's the slide. Isn't that what we started with? Yeah, okay, we'll be there. I'll thought myself. Anyway, this is the statement of purpose of this bill to study, it proposes to establish a task force to study and consider a state apology and proposal for reparations for the institution of slavery and make recommendations to the generalists. I mean, that's almost funny. I'll come right back at you, okay? And appropriate remedies. So, after this next question, I'm gonna tell you how to committee who the government operations committee responded to its introduction and why it's still up on the wall. Great. I'm a little confused between the national bill in apology and the Vermont bill in apology. So, you keep saying 30 years, is that for the Vermont bill? No. Oh, it's for the national? Yeah. Okay. Let me just repeat your question and make sure we're talking apples and apples because Michelle, I know if I get this right, it's gonna be hell to pay for it. So, here's the deal, Adelaide, here's what you've heard, right? What I said was the HR 40 was introduced in 1989 by the late Senator John Conyers and it was not taken up for 30 years. Is that what you heard? Yes. Okay. So, when you get home, talk to your mother and tell her that she needs to listen more closely. But you didn't say national, federal government or state. Okay. So, HR 40 is definitely a national policy. Sorry. You don't have to be sorry. I'm just giving you a hard time because I got a chance. I'm gonna tell you a quick story about Michelle before we move on. So, we were in class the first time I came to UVM a couple of two or three weeks ago and I was giving this similar presentation and I said, I know, I know, I know because nobody really wants to hear this and it's hard to take in. It's really difficult, it is. I know it's, trust me, researching this, painful. Very painful, right? To take a look at this. So, when you're telling people this, it's hard to absorb a lot of this and many people are sitting in the room and I said to this to the whole class, 28 folks in the class, God is my witness on my mother's grave. I said, somebody's gonna want to call bullshit, right? I said, and if you want to call bullshit, call bullshit. Guess what Michelle said? Bullshit. So, that was a good opportunity for us not only to get to know each other, now look who's here. Of all of the 28 people that were in that class. Look who came, of course you only had to come over from Gary, but. No, I live in St. Albans now. I don't believe you. So anyway, but the point here is, I don't even know the point, let's keep it moving. So, the thing with H-478 is simply that we introduced this in government operations in the house and many of the questions involved who's gonna pay for it. Why do we have to pay for this? You telling me that it's gonna come out of my taxes? So, now granted, we didn't really get an opportunity to share with the legislators, maybe some of the upfront stuff that I shared with you at the beginning of this, the hidden and plain sight component. We certainly offered it here because this was the very first place that we offered it when we kicked this series off. It was the very first series event, the forum event that we did in this room about a month ago, okay? And we continue to offer it around the state, and you're still welcome, all of you. So, the thing here is that we're doing the best we can to try to get the word out, but again, it's important to understand that we sat in the class just the other day a couple days ago and there was what, five arguments. Five arguments. I said, what are the arguments, right? And then there was maybe five arguments about what were some of those arguments? You remember? Say your name. Basha. Basha. Yes. Well, the time of, I remember it was that, like a month, because it was such a small state, and we don't really matter. Or, why now? Why now? It's like a dead horse we've been in for so many years. One of the interesting ones was that, Yeah, hold on for a second. I just wanna qualify this conversation because this was the 28 students that are in, this is the graduate class, okay? And probably a good portion of the class are from Vermont as well, right? Yeah. What program is that? The Masters, MSW, Social Work, sorry. One of the things that I thought was interesting that somebody brought up that they had conversations with some African American friends that the African American community, from their point of view, did not want to pass a reparation bill or a apology because they were afraid that the white community would then go, we're done. We already apologized. What else could you possibly want? And that was really interesting. I think you mentioned the fear of white backlash. Yeah, there was one, yeah. And you know what I said about that? Yup, it's exactly what's gonna happen. And bring it, let's do this. You don't just not do something that's right because of fear of backlash, right? I made my mind up many years ago, a few years ago, that I was willing to walk in this, right? And to do the work that I'm doing, no matter what it costs. What was the counter argument that I offered? Do you recall? I'm just trying to test you guys to see if you guys remember. You guys were so happy for it, I don't know. Who was the, what was the counter argument that I offered to all of them? Oh, you were right. Just talking about it, it's just a conversation and to have difficult conversations would cause people to think and be in uncomfortable places and to examine themselves. Almost, almost, that's really close, pretty damn close. My counter argument was is it is a task force. They're going to consider an apology and to determine whether or not it would be appropriate for reparations. What does it hurt to allow some people, understanding that there's been injury, right? To allow some people go and make a decision as to whether or not there's even going to be an apology just to talk about whether they want it to apologize or whether they want it to offer a reparations. And isn't it rather pretentious of one individual to say, no, I don't think that's a good idea. I don't think we should have a task force go look at it. I just want to shut this down right here because I don't feel comfortable because you might come after my check. You might come after my money. Is that resonating with anybody in the room? What I'm saying? It's just a task force. Questions. What does a task force cost? I was just going to drop that pin. What? How much does a task force cost Vermont taxpayers? Just curious. I don't know. I don't know. I think that, I think what's in this bill, what's in this bill, the, I think there may be a couple million dollars tied to it. Because this is a full staffed task force with support, consultative arm, investigative arm, the whole nine yards. This is a task force that's going to get it done. It's not a summer study. It's a task force. So I think what would go to appropriations if I'm not mistaken, and I'm going to charge you for homework to go and do it. Because when you ask me questions like that and I can't answer, since you're a student and I'm not, you should be, you should go in and come back and tell me that when I come back and see you. I'll have the answer. Send me an email too. But yes, there is a cost on it, but what I'm saying, what my visceral response to that question, quite frankly, is we're the richest nation on the planet, okay? And there's clearly has been harm that has been done. We talked about all of the disparities that we're operating against right now. If you, you know, this goes all the way back to where, you know, where we were a nation where nobody was really paying for labor or nobody even asked for the land, you know? And as a person of color, you know, even if a legislator looks at me and asks me how much reparations cost, I'll be honest with you. And I look at the camera when I say this, is it's painful to hear that question as an argument for the argument of reparations, especially from a political and economically, from a, you know, from a person who has political, from a white man who has political and economic power, to hear that question is disconcerting. I asked it because- That's not about you. You're not a white man. Get out of here. Okay. Rick? I mean, it seems to me that we've had free land, free labor, and all this stuff since 1619. How come we don't want to pay that back? That's a, that's kind of the perspective that many of the folks that I've talked to have. And I think it's not even about that. I don't really just want to talk about it. It's my question. Why don't we want to just have somebody go off and talk about it? Come back to us and tell us what you've discovered. So with that, we're gonna break here. We're gonna break off into two groups. You guys can stay on this side, I see Roy, and you guys can stay on this side. And what I want to do is I want to get a conversation going about what, you know, you've discovered from what we've, from the discussion up until now, what your thoughts are, exchange some thoughts and ideas. I'm gonna come back with some, you know, with some additional details about where we are and what we're gonna be doing next. But I didn't want to get you out here tonight without giving everybody an opportunity to process this and to talk about it. And also, let's come back with some tough questions and also some, or maybe just some observations. And if you have some thoughts on the, the legislative process, that would be helpful as well. What's wrong with what we're doing? What's right about what we're doing? How would you want to, you know, how would you want to do this differently? Does this even make sense? What the hell is this anyway? Take some time. Take about maybe 15 minutes, and I'll come back in and check on you, okay? I'm gonna go and find some more coffee somewhere. There you go, Pete's alright. Hmm? There you go, Mike. No, I was just gonna offer up a nugget that perhaps will help to discuss you. Yeah, I'm glad about you. You hooked into, excuse me, the fear factor in terms of reluctance to have a dialogue. Yeah. And I think that is so critical, not only in terms of addressing that in the secular community, but also in the sacred community. Because many times these people in the office of the pulpit or priesthood, et cetera, are main barriers for even having the dialogue. A small example, just a while ago, I wrote a commentary for one of Vermont's so-called liberal denominations, and I quoted Reverend Frederick Douglass. The pastor took it upon himself to pull the commentary, and confronted me saying, I have conservative white, oh, I was the only black person who mentioned this to the particular church. He pulled the commentary and his confrontational response to me was, I have conservative white people in my congregation, and I don't want Frederick Douglass of what you're saying about Frederick Douglass to disturb my conservative white people in the church. Wow. That's bad. Yeah. Yeah, I'll be preaching your own studies, don't worry about that. And this guy is in one of the more endowed churches with a regular congregation here in the state. Vermont abolitionist preacher, this is the squad that he is feeding his congregation, and he's supposed to be in a leadership position. Yeah, yeah. It's very well. He hadn't heard that old adage about how his job was to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Amen. Yeah. Levin Hall's win. Yeah. You have 13 minutes, right? You pause the clock. Pause it? Okay, you've got 15 minutes. Thank you. Apologies or acceptance of responsibilities of forgiveness. How does that really impact the absence of that as a nation? How could it be impacting us as a nation in terms of where we are? It is 2020, okay? And we are at a place where we have more hate crimes and we have more backlash, white-lash, than probably at any time since almost maybe the civil rights movement, post-civil rights movement, the hard of the post-civil, our soft post-civil rights movement. So talk about that. What role does reparations or could reparations play in that, you know, think about that. Talk about that. So, no more questions. I know these guys, man. You guys are talking about the Yankees. They're all in there. So, who's sticking around so we can go out and have dinner after this? Oh. Where would that be? I'm buying one person dinner in the room. Oh, no. He's not watching. It's him. That's my guy right there. He's a student. Yeah, you get tired of robbing an egg after a while, man. I talked to a lot of students, man, so, you know. He probably is better than I do as well. I want to hear from you. Let's take about 10 minutes. Can you guys, you guys want to crank it up and just tell us about, you know, your discussion? You don't have to, it doesn't have to be concise. I would like somebody to capture the notes from the entire conversation, though. So, somebody can, like, capture notes from everything because I'm going to take a picture of those because I want to kind of fold that back Thank you. This is Adelaide, just like King Arthur. I just wanted to let you know. What do you guys, what do you guys, what do you work with? OK, so, we had to do reimbursement. And then we talked about the bill actually spells out who would be, yeah, so the bill spells out who they were, community members, people of minority groups, who would make up the task force. So, and my mom who actually read the old bill so that it actually spelled out as community members, people of color, minority groups, and then gender quality as well, so it's not just a bunch of men representing in their community. And then the state would suck people as well, so then there was state selection and there would be people who would volunteer and then people who were voted in. So it would be a very large group of people and wouldn't be just a couple of people representing others. And then financial, how much would be granted back and what about health care without being included? And then we started talking about who cares if it makes people uncomfortable. And we started talking about the wording of how it's spelled out. And we talked a lot about how currently, as it is, we think that the word slavery shuts people down in conversation because it makes white people feel awkward. And it sounds like slavery, but I've seen slavery. That's the key, right? Well, listen, why are you slavery? I mean, you know, just kind of like unwilling work. What we think is that you can bring it up without that word in the title and then when they get in the room, rip off these paper and be like, surprise. But we were talking about how... We talked about white fragility. Yeah, about how they hear it. Not entirely. Well, no, you get defensive. You said it really well. Well, that's it. You said to get people to open up. To start a conversation with them. Yeah, you're talking about actually freaking out. It's a similar conversation you have about climate change. So there are certain people that, as soon as you say your phrase, climate change, the conversation stops. But if you don't use that phrase and continue the discussion, maybe asking questions like, do you want clean air? Do you want clean water? Anyone who says no to those questions is crazy and should stop talking to them immediately. But those two questions, if you say yes to that, also means you're in support of fighting and mitigating climate change without even that phrase. Now, how to do it in this context is obviously different, but the concept is the same. Got it. Thanks for that. What else? We talked about what kind of timeframe would it look like, how far back would you want to go? We started talking about Australia and how they eventually apologize to them for their Aboriginal groups and they gave free college to children. And then we started talking about Vermont and how Vermont kind of had that with Abnerty and some of the other tribes, but not really a full corporation because you have to apply for it. So, and then we talked about how, we kind of talked about that, but words and how you phrase things, because how you bring up the conversation somebody may be very confattive or they may be more willing to listen to you depending on how you're doing it. Thank you for that. Any other thoughts from the room? Anybody else? Adelaide just took over. Well, she was out of the secretary making up so it would dwell, but what would be, I think my idea was that- We need another album now. I mean, I only go to school. Find a way to approach people in communities so they will be open to the conversation and not shutting down. And one of the things we just thought about is specific language that it really sometimes is accusatory and people take it personally and don't feel personally responsible for slavery. So they feel it's not really your first to them and don't wanna be part of this conversation. Got it, got it. So how do you communicate this in a way that then makes folks feel more comfortable about having a conversation, right? Yes. Okay, what else? Good work, I appreciate that. We're gonna go to the next group. What happened to Mike? Took off? Oh, no, we just went for it. Okay. Oh, I thought you were talking about it. So who's that? Is that your recorder? I think so. We went for you. We went for you. For me? Yeah. Oh, because I was taking some of the notes. Yeah, I appreciate that. Aren't you still involved in this process? Are you just over here? I'm gonna take the notes. She can take the notes. I guess the main thing was that, oh, there was a couple things. The first thing was that, like having your presence in a room to like ask questions about this in the first place is like a very, very kind of minimal but important step in the process of understanding this all. Then we talked about the how much does it cost question, which really should not be a part of the cohesion at all. Like we should be focusing on the end week. I'm not sure what universal week that is, but that's our group kind of. We is good. Yeah, okay. That, you know, the benefits, like what are the results that we're gonna get out of this? Like that's the most important thing. And then the asking that question is kind of like just cuts the discussion. Like kind of the group you're talking about. And then we talked about money and value and maybe like that part, we come in after the discussion or after, you know, you talk about the benefits of all of this. Cause I can see that like talking about money and like going off like the gold currency and all that can be confusing for people to think about and could be a way for people to, you know, not wanting to engage in this type of conversation just cause it's a little bit complex, but it could definitely be part of the consideration. Like, you know, after talking about like the benefits of all of this or maybe included, but I don't know if anybody knows. Oh, and then some books were recommended. Which books were recommended? Which one? I have them in the notes, so I can do that. ABC, one, Edward Baptist's book, The Half Has Never Been Told. The Half Has Never Been Told? Secondly, Abram X, Kendi's book, both of his latest books, 2016 one titled Stamped from the Beginnings, 2019 book, How to Be an Anti-Racist. How to Be an Anti-Racist? And let's see, was there another one? I thought there was three that were recommended. That was good. Okay. The only thing I've asked that we also talked a little bit about your question of what happened spiritually to a country that hasn't addressed these issues. And I think that's a really important question for my part, I did a lot of work in South Africa after apartheid came apart, and saw some of the results of the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission there. And that was a lot of work. I mean, they did a lot, they're way ahead of us, talking about racism and overcoming it, but even though they went through that huge process, the economics has been changed. And so a lot of my colleagues in South Africa like to say that the whites invented apartheid and we're implementing it. Wow. Because there's no real difference in the economy despite all the changes that have happened in the political system. And so I think that points out how, yeah, you need to have the conversations. Yes, you need to think about what it means spiritually, but you also need to address the economic underpinnings of the problem in the first place. Thanks for that. Anything else collectively? I mean, you've had a chance to hear one another. Anybody want to make any additional comments on what you've heard or feel you might? In thinking about the spiritual, we didn't get to that, but what I think of when there's an apology given is the person has to be ready to receive the apology. And I don't know if the black community is ready to receive the apology because it's so much against them. Just so mean that you can't just beat somebody down and they go, oh, I'm sorry. And expect them to accept the apology. I think maybe like with South Africa, there needs to be a lot more work done to show that we really need it. Yeah, thanks for that, Michelle. Also, who's we? Just to frame that because I guess I could do my own research on this, but who is involved really in the conversations in Vermont? And the Vermont House of Repsend in the, you know, in D.C. Because yeah, I don't know. I guess what I feel like I can bring to a conversation is in a micro scale, inclusive movements that have happened at UVM and which ones have succeeded and which ones haven't, kind of. But the one, I was never known for justice, I don't know, yeah, so that was a really special movement where people, there was no tokenizing. It wasn't like, oh, we don't have a black person. We don't have someone from Muslim student union. We don't have a queer person. It was all, the networking was there and it was inclusivist starving. So I guess I'm just questioning, you know, like, I'm here to support and do dirty work and not have my name attached to it if I don't, like, it doesn't need to be there. Like, I can do groundwork or do whatever type of work, but I'm just wondering like, I guess this is kind of a lot of mind jargon, but I don't know. I'm just, I'm having a hard time seeing like the inclusiveness of the unit and like the networks between everything. And maybe that's just because I don't know about the processes, but then like, how this group interacts with other groups, maybe that was talked about last time, but. One of the things that you're saying is great. So I'll segue into three points I'll share. One is, we really don't know what we don't know. And too frequently, we may be sumptuous. You know, as a professional fundraiser, one of the trainings that I've often done with folk going after major donors is, don't judge that person's pocket and potential by what's in your pocket. And too frequently, we as humans do that and it's a consequence, we don't move the line because we too focus on that self, which does not represent everybody. There's an attitude here in the West, especially in medicine, in other areas, with medicine in particular, that, you know, we're the greatest. We're the doctors with all the answers and there was a long time. And I think all of us will admit, before the AMA, the American Medical Association, open up to the reality of cures and advancement in medicine in Asian countries and other countries. We still close our eyes to the education that can, I won't go into the name of the city, it's the nationally, where the education is equal to and superior to what you get in America. The thought is, well, you know, it doesn't cost us much over there, therefore it can't be as comfortable as we are here. So it's, you know, there's some self-importance in superior origin that stymies, who stops the level of collective going forward. Coach, I have your information there. Yeah. I'll read it to you. Yeah, I have notes, too, if you want to. I'm going to respond to that. Yeah. So we're going to have to, don't need to cut everything off, but we're going to have to move along because actually we only got about 17 minutes left. Okay? I want to, I want to, you're out of here? Yeah. Yeah, I'm going to hear you. Good to see you. I'm going to see you as well. Yeah, I'm going to see you at the other scene. Okay. All right, I want to, I want to just point out just a couple of things that I'm sorry to have had to cut this conversation off because I would love to continue this conversation for the next 30 minutes because there's a lot to unpack and it's good to hear and to be heard in this, this is part of the reason why we're doing this is because we're trying to create spaces where folks can have conversations where they know that they're not going to be ridiculed. They know that they're not going to be ostracized, that their opinions are valid, that there is no wrong answers, that we understand that in order to answer some of these questions that we need, the collective. So this is really, really valuable. You're going to say something. Good question. Would this allow for spaces to be created for people who don't know about the certain history in their states? So let's say they've grown up in an area where their family has always been very, very conservative. They may see things a certain way and they have different values. Would they be able to go into these spaces and ask questions? I'm going to answer that question, but I'm going to defer my answer if you just give me a moment, okay? Because what I want to do is I want to tie this up and then what I'm going to do is part of what I'm going to say is actually going to answer that question. Can you ask me a question a little more specifically? So if that person was to walk in and ask a question that most of society would see as something that's a new brainer, obviously everybody knows that. Is that a space where they can ask those questions where they just need to know or they want to learn more about they feel stupid asking people from their own communities? Would that open up spaces where that could happen? Okay, so again, I'm going to come back to answer that, but I'm going to interpret your question as is this particular bill is it going to facilitate the opening of spaces where people can communicate freely or they can ask questions without being criticized and also coming from a space where they may not necessarily have a knowledge base or even experience these particular types of situations. Is that going to come as a result of what it is that we're talking about? Is that correct? Yeah. Okay, so I'm going to come to that, okay? I'm just going to park it just for a second and I'll do respect. So what I wanted to do is before I did that I wanted to kind of create an album of what it is that we just experienced because one thing that I saw is that this is a very complicated conversation. This is a very difficult conversation, okay? This is not a straightforward discussion. The other thing is there are a lot of things that are aspects of what it is that we were discussing that would actually, if you think about it, be a component of, and this rubs up against your question, this would be a component of the actual establishment of the task force itself. So there are questions, there are comments, there are thoughts, there are ideas that I would say that probably upwards of maybe two-thirds of our conversation that we just had would actually be an output from the task force itself. So I want you just to sit with that just for a second because this is kind of the point I was making at the beginning of this conversation or towards the beginning of this is that we need a task force to answer some of these questions and I hope that partially answers your question, okay? But there's another part and that part is is how do we prepare the hearts and minds of people to even engage in this conversation so we can get to a point to where that task force is even viable or possible, okay? And those are some of the things we're working on. In fact, sitting in this room is a part of that answer. In fact, this particular series that we're having right right now, this hidden and plain sight, this statewide tour that provides a context of our historical, our history as a nation and really provides some context for not just definition but the fabric of systemic racism which is a very difficult conversation for any white person to have, okay? These are the conversations that we're having across the state. So it's very, very well taken. The rest of the conversation, the conversation about where are those spaces? How do we say these things in a way where folks are not gonna get antsy? How do we say these things in a way where folks, I mean, at the onset of this meeting tonight I provided a framework and I kind of went backwards from today and I went back through the civil rights movement. I came back through, I went back through the, from 1910 to 1970, I talked about the Great Migration. We went through sharecropping. We talked about lynching and we talked about the Ku Klux Klan. We talked about the history of this nation and the reason why I was doing that was because I was establishing a framework for us to operate from, to be able to give us an understanding of what it is that we're actually talking about so that we can have a conversation about this thing called systemic racism. And here's the homework that I'll give you and I think I said this in the class is, go away from this meeting, walk to one white person who's not familiar with this topic, get in front of them and say, I wanna talk to you about systemic racism, right? And wait five minutes and then they will tell you that they're not racist. It's not about that, okay? The whole conversation about systemic racism has nothing to do with who's racist and who's not racist. It has to do with the constructs, the statutes, the constitution. It has to do with the structure of the United States, the systems that are in place, the things that intrinsically deal an unfair hand to people of color in this nation as a result of how it was built, okay? So those are the things that we're trying to address here and in order to do that, we can't really deal with it without meaning what it is that caused it. And by the way, the United States has indeed, as we covered earlier, already offered an apology and not just from the House of Representatives but also from the Senate. And as you said yourself, Michelle, an apology with no substance is just an apology. So clearly that apology didn't really do as a whole lot of good. There needs to be some action to it. I was reading in preparation for Sermon a little bit about this whole idea of forgiveness and this whole idea of apologies and this concept of when you're going and you're going to worship or you're going to give us a gift or something like that that you just need to step back and think a little bit about who's mad at me? Because a lot of times, not only does that inhibit your blessing but it also inhibits theirs because they're so busy being mad at you that they don't have time to receive what it is that's there for them, okay? So there's a spiritual concept in there as well. So we are not the only ones struggling and that's sometimes that's disheartening but sometimes it's good news. There are many states, California, New York, Florida, Texas, Pennsylvania are all dealing with this theme called reparations, this conversation called reparations and they're all doing it in their own ways. The good news is we also have some national partners and many of them have presence here in the state of Vermont. The NAACP and the ACLU are no-brainers but did you know the National Education Association as well as the Episcopal Church have a national, they've made a national statement on HR 40 which is the policy that was drafted by the late John Conyers at a national level that was just introduced this last year. So we also know that the National Education Association is probably one of the most prominent, wow, prominent humans in the state, that's how my brain's working as well as the Episcopal Church, not only the Episcopal Church have a huge presence here but they also, let's look at this thing contextually because we've already, keep in mind, I told you a little while ago that we've already moved PR2, let's pause there for a minute, PR2 is a anti-slavery constitutional amendment, I think that kind of relevant in this conversation since we're talking about reparations but we'll come back to PR2. But the Episcopal Church actually, they have gone on record unanimously supporting that as well. So we're optimistic that they would support us there. You read a little bit from the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America in their explanation that's in Cobra, okay? So those are just a small handful of organizations that are behind this. Some of these folks are no longer with us. Who is that? Julian Castro, Elizabeth Warren, Corey Booker, Kamila Harris, I forgot to put Bernie Sanders up there. Bernie Sanders actually, the reason why is because at the time I think when I was thinking about this, he hadn't, I hadn't gotten the word back that he'd officially signed off on saying, yes, I support HR 40. So Bernie went in and signed off on that. So he's behind it as well. I just wanted to tell you a little bit about some of, see, because this is, if something is being politicized at a national level, then shouldn't it be important at a state level? So, obviously Bernie's not gonna chime in on what's going on with 8478, just like Coachy didn't chime in on what was going on with 492 with Act 54. But at least we know that he's supportive of the concept. And I'm pretty confident that if he read our bill, he probably would go for it because, well, we plagiarized it for HR 40. I think what I'm gonna do here is just pause for a second and talk in closing a little bit about PR2 before I take your questions because I wanna hear from you about what you've seen tonight. The constitutional amendment process, this is kind of a bonus because I wanna try to build for you just for a moment, if you just bear with me, just for a moment, we're almost at the end here. I wanna build for you what we've created just so you can kind of get an illustration of what we've done here in this legislature. Now, Representative Kevin Coach Christie was here at the onset when we first marched in here, so are you Rick, when we first marched in here with H492 back at the beginning of 2017, which became Act 54. I cannot emphasize how important that particular bill is. I think it was with the help of Representative, former Representative Kian Morris. It was with the help of Representative Deanna Gonzalez. Our current Attorney General, TJ Donovan and others, we were able to march this bill down. We didn't get what we wanted, but we got something that created what existed today as the racial disparities in the criminal and juvenile justice system advisory panel. They just dropped a report last week or last month, rather, and what they're doing is they're taking a consistent and a persistent approach in examining the so-called criminal justice system and determining where those disparities exist and making recommendations on how to go about addressing them. Like I said earlier, the second thing that came out of that was the Attorney General's and the Human Rights Commission's task force which examined all other systems of government. So they formally came back and said, hey, we've got disparities across housing, education, employment, health services access. Are you beginning to see the breakthrough that this bill produced? Because this was the first time that officially and governmentally on record that they came out and actually made these statements, okay? And that's been memorialized. Now, fast forward, the following year, which was in the same biennium, what we were able to pass because we went back and did a second pass at this thing because we wanted to get what we originally came for was we got what we call the racial equity director, the executive director of racial equity, which is Susana Davis. She's here today. She came over from New York. She reports to the governor's office. Actually, maybe Susan Miller, Susan Young. And there's also a racial equity panel. So that is the foundation upon which we built. But from the onset, from the beginning in 2017, this language, we came in to the Constitution and we said, there is language in the Constitution that is unsavory. So this exception where it says that slavery is prohibited except for these conditions, which is basically you're under the age of 21 and also if you're being punished for payment of debts, damages, fines, costs, and the like, then you could be a slave or if it was at your own will. So it kind of blows a hole in this whole false narrative that we have as a state that we were the first state to abolish slavery. Because this says that we are the state with the longest, the state that has the longest standing history of having language permitting slavery in it. And that is, what, somewhere around 243 years. This was originally written in 1777. So we sought off to get this done. There was a house resolution that came out a year before last, which was largely the lower radar. Nobody saw it and never came off the wall in government operations. We started this biennium by trying to get to, by removing this language and this is what we came up with. The constitutional amendment process is as such, you have to go through two bienniums. That's four years, okay? We've gone through the first biennium. The first biennium, you have to get a two-thirds vote in the Senate, then it's locked down. You cannot change the language in it. It must pass the house and then it must come back then following biennium. That's 21-22, starting next year. And it must pass the Senate in the house again. And then in November of 22, it goes on a general referendum on a ballot. So we're almost about halfway there, okay? The reason why I bring this up at the end of this conversation is it's important to understand the context of all of the things that we're doing here. You know, this also makes it, it should make it easier to understand. Why the heck would we be talking about reparations now, Michelle? You said, why now? Why now? And I think this goes to a part of that answer. It's because we've been building precept upon precept on the work that we've been doing. And it's just logical that we would be having this conversation about reparations. That's all I have. I wanted to hear from you. You can get the slide deck, if you guys, unless you just like operating your phone. But you can get the slide deck. It might take a minute. I'll give it to you as well, because you're gonna need it for your editing, I think. I'm here to answer any questions in these last few minutes, or I wanna hear your thoughts about what you've seen tonight and how we move forward. I will tell you this is the bill is on the wall in House government operations where our, the chair is Representative Sarah Copeland-Hanses. We have, Brian Chino, Representative Chino has been in actually introduced and read over the bill with him. And we've yet to have any testimony taken up, and it's our hope that we would be able to at least this session as we close out the biennium to at least get some testimony on the record for this. And obviously, what would be most amazing is if it actually came out of committee, even if it was ugly, if the baby's ugly, it's ugly. Get it out of committee, and let's get an up-down vote on the floor and see who stands where. What are your thoughts? I'm just thinking, because you just said it right now, and you just halfway through, and you said for 30 years that stayed on the wall. Oh yeah, I want to be clear. So this is the constitutional amendment. So we want to make sure that this is completely separate from the conversation that we were having back there. Yeah, I was talking about other conversation. So what do you think made the difference now? Why did you get the problem? I don't understand your question. Okay, like what is a different climate to be more receptive to it? Why is this going through right now I think there's a little confusion between the federal bill and the Vermont bill. Yeah, I thought you were talking about the Vermont bill. The Vermont bill just came into conception now. We're getting into the 2017 session. No, this biennium. This biennium. 2018. 2019. See, it's a two-year biennium. See, our cycle is every two years. Okay. So this bill came into effect. Brian Chanum, myself, Selena Colburn, and a few others sponsored that bill. Okay, the bill that is here right now. Okay, so that's why it's in Vermont now. Right. Okay. So the where we are right now with 478 just for clarity is that the, as coach said, at the beginning of the biennium in 2019, which is why the bill starts with a four. I mean, it was pretty much close to the end. Well, we used to get, we get a lot of bills. There could be seven, eight, 900 bills in a biennium from the house. So this bill came out in 19. We were doing the PR two, constitutional minimum work, leading up to it. So this biennium is the first time it's ever been introduced in Vermont. In fact, it wasn't introduced in any of those other states at that time. So these other states, they just began introducing it just over this last year in Texas, in Pennsylvania. Right. At the same time, on a national level, when I say HR. Is it still in the wall? That's, that was actually introduced 30 years ago. The first time it was actually introduced 30 years ago in the federal bill. So it was only for the first time, and this probably goes to the question that you're actually asking, it was just a federal question. So for the first time in history, well, I think they tried it one other time, but I think this is the first time where it seems as though it's been taken seriously enough, seriously enough that it may actually come out of committee. This is the first time that it's happened. What has happened since then is a good question because this is just a personal opinion, is just like the 12 to 15 years that occurred from 1865 to 1890, 1880, rather. 77, 80, where there was this reconstruction period, what ensued thereafter was a tremendous incredible and a very bloody white backlash, which led to, because at that time, those 12 years or so, black people in America had more political and economic power than we ever had in the United States history, hard stop. We've never been there again, okay? So after that, read the third reconstruction by the Reverend Dr. William Barber, the third reconstruction, because I'm getting ready to walk you through all three of them. What happened after that, it would culminate with, and I won't go through all of the menacing and Jim Crow and comic leasing and sharecropping and redlining and all, but what it would culminate with is what we would call as a civil rights movement. In other words, enough is enough. 54 in a till, what it would lead to is a legislative surge as well, which was met with tremendous backlash. If you read your history books, the Supreme Court, for crying out loud, was telling people what they needed to do and they were set in their ways. They still said no. So we had laws on the books that they still didn't want to obey. So there was a huge backlash that came from the civil rights movement, which was an uprising because of oppression and criminalized by our government, okay, which is why we still have what we call political prisoners incarcerated today in some of Moran and the state, out of the United States. What do I mean by that? I see that look on your face. There are folks in the civil rights movement that were arrested that are still incarcerated and a side of Shakur is still in Cuba as well. So there was a huge, then we're dropping bombs on Philadelphia. Our own military dropped bombs on us. Okay, so this was the second white backlash, the civil rights, and then what happened after that is, is there was an usher in the war on drugs because from 1968, all the way up until present day, starting with Richard Nixon and every president, not just Republicans, played a role in who can be the toughest on crime, because that's what white people want to hear, and the old Dixie Crack South really needs to hear it, and we'll talk about that later, but there's a whole thing called the Southern Strategy. But the point I'm making is, is that where that led us to, is that it led us to an era somewhere around 2008, 2010, and yes we can. Somebody else came into the White House, right? Black faces in the White House, and it was almost at exactly that time when our current president was the head cheerleader for the mass opposition, and what's going on right now is nothing more than a third backlash. This is a white lash from what seemed to be forward progress, which is why half of America's trying to make it great again. So, why now? That's why now. Because right now, we've reached that apex once again, as a nation, we've reached that apex again, and this is who we are, this is who we've always been, and Donald Trump is nothing more than a symptom, not the cause, because he was produced, he's just one of the, he's just the next guy. You know, I told you Woodrow Wilson was showing birth of a nation in the Oval Office. I told you about Andrew Johnson who said, no, we don't want you to have reparations, take that back, and boom, veto. So it's always been like that, you know. Our constitution was written in such a way that said black people aren't people, right? It took the 14th Amendment to make it happen, and it took the 14th Amendment to make black people people, but it's been used to protect corporations more than black people. That's the nation that we are. So now, where we are as a nation today, we've just come to this climax, and there's a fever pitch whereby, because every time you have oppression, there's something that, thank God that we always have, when we have pushback, we have activism, which is why I'm here. There's all, when you get, it was Trayvon Martin who woke me up, okay? So it was Michael Brown who woke me up. So whenever you get that, there's gonna be a put, there's gonna, it's not just in the community, it's not just our activists, but even our legislators are standing up and saying, not on my watch. So I think that's, there was a wrong answer, but. Well, it made a lot of sense, thank God. It made sense, you kidding me? When we're, as we close out, put in your other thoughts, I just wanna hear from you a little bit more. Rick, I know you know all this, your subject matter expert. What you got for us? That's how you put it to Michael. Yeah, it's time to, you know, time to have a conversation. That's what's gonna change, is starting to have a conversation. Yeah, it's difficult too, because there's this balance, because you've got, you know, white progressive liberals who've been trying to have this conversation in a different kind of way for years and years and years. And it's just, it hasn't been working. It hasn't been working. And, you know, so I think that's the painful part of it is, is that they're a part of the conversation. It just has to be very direct. It just has to be. There's no, there's really, it, you know, at some point or another, it's just like Roy talked about in the church. You know, who I, in my opinion, was probably one of the biggest culprits in this whole mess, because it's always been in the name of that. Or, you know, at least. Obstinately fundamentalism. Right, ostensibly. I mean, if you look at, like coaches said, you look at what's going on right now across the nation and who's standing behind this mess in Washington and you'll find that, you know, you'll find that the church Christian fundamentalists are standing behind this mess of 4500%. So, anyway, it's always been about being able to have those conversations and we just haven't had them because we've always thought that if we just talk very generally, I mean, it's even the same thing here. And the beautiful thing about my job and what I do is every day I wake up and I just, I live in a way where I just don't have, I feel like I just don't have anything to lose. I don't, political and economic power, I'm not interested in, I'm interested in, you know, changing people's lives and making things better. So I can say that even like the social equity caucus, you know, I think it should be a racial equity caucus, right? I think, I think they should be talking about it. You know, I think they, because at the very centerpiece of this entire economic mess, this thing called capitalism, is just one little inch pin, right? If this whole thing about, I mean, don't forget about genocide and slavery because it's what created this whole thing called capitalism, which created the 1%. This is still about the 1%, isn't it? This is all still about the 1%, right? And that's the key because if you pull that out, everything else falls. I have a prediction, S23 will not pass. H107 will not pass. I'm talking about, now what I'm talking about is, I'm talking about livable wages and family care. Why? Because they're starting on the wrong end of the conversation. That's the linchpin. It's about race and racism, okay? It's, that's what's holding everything, climate, pretty dull, unimportant. You're not gonna get the money for it until you can dismantle this. When you dismantle this, the whole house of cards falls. And what they're trying to sell us is they're trying to pin us against one another so we never figure it out. Which is why nobody wants to have this conversation. And we're programmed in such a way as to not know that, but still think it's just not a good idea to have the conversation, right? That's how we were programmed, why? Because our mother told us. Because our grandmother told her. Because her grandmother told her, right? For us to really face this thing, we've got to say that our parents were wrong. Right? I'm right. I talk a little bit too much, but I want to thank you all for coming out. I'm gonna go and grab something to eat. You guys are welcome to join. And we can continue the conversation there. And I might even have a drink like this. So thank you all for coming. Can you please take a picture of that and send it to us? I'm gonna write them up. It's in my shopping. So, and then she'll email them to you. Okay. That sounds good. Anybody else, everybody's minds clear here? Was that fun? I had a blast. I want to do this every day. Let's come back and do it again tomorrow. All right guys, thanks for coming out.