 Hello, I want to thank you for joining us today. I'm really excited about having Professor Chan here to discuss his newest article. And let me get the title straight. I feel free to call me Bill, everyone. Okay. Bill Chan have wrote an article, epigenetics and reparations, how epigenetics can help federal plaintiffs meet the constitutional article, three standing requirements and reparations and lawsuits. I am so excited about this article. As soon as I saw it, I called him up and pleaded with him to do a chat on this so that we can make this information more available to people so that people who are working in the reparations arena can have his information as something that they can use. So, our plan for the day, it's not, it's not a formal presentation of this whole article. That article is up on my website and I encourage you to take a look at it. The, what I'm thinking, what I've asked Professor Chan to do is to just give us a short 15, 20 minutes overview of his ideas and concepts. And then we will take 15, 20 minutes of discussion, as long as it's not a lot of people who are participating, we will just do questions and answers as they come up. If we end up with a lot of people, we'll take a different, we'll do a different method. And then we'll end. We want to end. He was very busy, but he agreed to do this and so we're going to kind of stay on time and end in an hour. We're not busy, Brunelia. Life is good for all of us, right? Or we're not busy. No, it's great to be here. Thank you, Brunelia. Go ahead, Brunelia. I just want to do a little, just a little bit. Professor Chin is a member of the executive committee for the minorities group section of the association, American law schools, and the award committee for this section on legal writing, reasoning and research. He was a commissioner on the Oregon commission on Asian affairs. He served on the planning committee of the Asian American youth leadership conference, and he was the chair of the Oregon state bars legal heritage interest group. Professor Chan is a member of the legal writing institute and the Asian Pacific American network of Oregon, serving on various committee. I've known him quite a while. He's given numerous presentations on clear writing, team leadership, scholarship, but to our theme, he does a lot of work on race and culture issues. I'm so happy that he has joined us today and Professor Chan, thank you. Thank you, Brunelia, for that introduction. And I'll also teach race and the law, and it's great to be here with everyone, and let's have an informal chat. I'm not going to bore you with recitation of the article, but love to chat with all of you about questions you might have about biotechnology and reparations and the legal issue involving standing. And so, briefly, my article addresses, I think, three concepts that come together. Number one, that's modern technology, specifically, technology in the realm of understanding the DNA, the gene and the genome, which is the field of epigenetics. And the second thing that's connected is this thing called legal standing, that everyone must must must overcome who wants to file a lawsuit. And the third thing that that's interconnected is this notion of justice, right, justice for a large group of people in the United States who in the period of who were enslaved in the past and now with with their descendants might want to seek a sense of justice or semblance of justice and that's why I began my article with a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. who said justice delayed is justice denied. But in any case, I like to hear from any of you if you have questions and we can go through your questions and thereby address many of the points in my article. And again, my article is basically a treatise on how reparation plaintiffs, plaintiffs today who wanted to file a lawsuit in federal court, for example, could overcome the standing issue and just very briefly. The standing issue is a threshold issue. It just means if I or you, let's say me, if I wanted to file a lawsuit now, it has to meet this thing called the standing requirement. And that just means this. I have to argue in an injury, a real injury. Second, there must be a connection between my injury and the acts of the wrong doer. And third, the court, if it rules in my favor, must be able to give me something that redresses my alleged injury. So for example, if, if, if I'm, I'm alleging that someone hit me when driving right and struck me. I, I can't say hey friend, be be in place of me in this lawsuit on filing against a driver, because I don't like to go to court and I'm pretty busy right now. The court would look at my friend and say are you the proper person in this lawsuit. And the court would say, well for standing issues, this threshold issue, you, my friend, you can be here because I'm the actual person who was hurt right with the injury. I can't send my friend to court for me. And so that's just a simple example of the standing issue. I don't want to talk too much. Any thoughts so far on, on the article and this whole notion of. I'm not so sure how, how many people have actually read the article, but could I ask you to just explain what just very briefly epigenetics and how it relates to reparations. Thank you for, for the only one. So if epigenetics is the following it, it basically refers to these chemical markers that are attached to the DNA, the gene. Now the DNA is that spiral helix, right, consisting of four letters and we've seen that that pictorial, since we were kids. Now that's the genetic sequence that which is is basically a blueprint or a recipe for building you and me our bodies right we all have this thing called the genetic sequence, consisting of those four letters. That is like a blueprint at recipe book. The recipe book being how to create a body. Now epigenetics refers not to the sequence of the letters. But to, again, these molecules are chemical markers on top or around the genetic sequence. Those genetic markers can be affected by stressors in the environment, let's say a famine or nutritional deficiency or being in traumatic situation, such as physical injuries, right. And those external stressors famine physical harm to a person can affect what's called the epigenome. And, again, the epigenome involves these chemical markers on the genetic sequence. And these genetic markers can persist over generations from the first generation to the second to third to fourth. And because they persist over time, one can argue that descendants today of enslaved people several generations ago are still suffering from the enslavement trauma of several generations ago. So a plaintiff today, let's say an African American, a black person filing a lawsuit today can possibly establish a causal connection between the plaintiff today and the enslaved ancestor several generations ago through these epigenetic markers, which are in the plaintiff today due to the trauma suffered by the enslaved ancestor several generations ago. And the main point of my article is that biotechnology science, epigenetic science, genetic science, DNA science of today has led us to the point where I argue in my paper, a reparation plaintiff filing a lawsuit for reparations today could overcome this threshold requirement called the standing requirement in court. And so in a nutshell, that's my thesis and you still might be thinking about epigenetics and epigenetic markers. What is that? Let me offer this analogy. Let's say that the DNA that we all have in our body, that DNA, which again is the recipe book on how to create the body or body. So the DNA is the book, the recipe book. Let's imagine a recipe book, the recipe book on how to create our body. That recipe book consists of letters, words, sentences, paragraphs, pages, right? So that's the script or the recipe. In this book, if we took colored markers, and let's say mark certain parts of the pages or a certain paragraph, blue here, pink here, orange there, those colored markings are analogous to the epigenetic markers in our body. If our ancestors had suffered some trauma and they left those epigenetic markers in their descendants and those epigenetic markers, which are basically molecules on top of the DNA on top of the gene sequence. Those epigenetic markers, which are real things, could persist into today's plaintiffs bodies. And those epigenetic markers, which again are analogous to the color coded marks on the recipe book. Those epigenetic markers basically tell a gene whether to be turned on or off. That's called gene expression. Now, whether a gene is turned on or off affects our body, because genes play a crucial role in the development of our bodies. And if a certain gene is supposed to be turned on, but it's turned off or vice versa, it should be turned off, but it's turned on, then the body can develop and manifest diseases and other harmful physiological symptoms. I'm sorry, I keep talking a lot. So stop me at any point, Runelia. And so that's in a nutshell, some details about epigenetics and genes and the DNA sequence. Okay, so I think we can entertain questions, Professor Chen, if you would unmute yourself and ask if you have a question to ask. And again, call me Bill, everyone. Our Bill. Yeah. Call me Professor Randall. I shall, Professor Randall. And again, I'll add this extra point. The standing issue is the first part of litigation. So remember that my paper, my article is very focused. It doesn't say, it doesn't assert that if an African American, if a Black plaintiff today files a reparation lawsuit that she will win in court. I'm not talking about the trial stage that comes later. And that involves a different standard of proof at the at the threshold stage, which is called the pleading stage, which my article talks about at the initial stage when the reparation plaintiff files the lawsuit that that standard merely involves only a general factual allegation. It's not proof beyond a reasonable doubt or anything like that. That comes later. Right. So this low threshold at the standing stage at the pleading stage is general factual allegation. And I argue in my paper that at this initial stage the standing the pleading stage that general factual allegation low threshold can be met. Due to modern science and the field of epigenetics today. And again, any thoughts or comments so far from anyone. Love to chat instead of my being this talking head. I would like to say a few words. Yes. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for hosting this. Professor Randall. I'm a queen mother Nina Womack here in Los Angeles, California, but I'm also a coordinated queen of development in Ghana, West Africa. And so, as a person of African descent, understanding that my personal family background does come from this transatlantic slave trade, and seeing the being able to assess the health disparities that people of African descent are going through not only here in America, but also in Africa. I've been studying a lot about epigenetics and I was on a webinar maybe about four or five months ago. This the scientists these researchers were doing. We're talking about epigenetics and they use the example of the Dutch population who yeah you know they were deprived of food they were starved and how they're still experiencing health issues so I asked on the webinar I said, you know after they presented their findings I said well wouldn't you say is it safe to say that this is exactly what people of African descent are also going through that's why we have health disparities such as obesity and cardiovascular diseases and so forth and they said. Yes, it would be pretty safe to say that but unfortunately, there hasn't been enough research done on people of African descent. So, you know so Michael I would love to read your article bill and my question is, how do we, or who do we need to go to to get the necessary funding to do this research. I'll say, and thank you for for the reference to the Dutch famine situation that event and I referenced it in my article and just just a very briefly two points on that I think in general, that famine event can be supporting evidence. That allows a court say yes reparation plaintiff of today you can overcome the threshold, the standing issue but I think there might be two possible issues with with the famine event one is it's a more recent event, it doesn't extend back multiple generations so. So, so, so a court might say oh the famine event it's, it's a more recent event and second I think was with the famine event it. The current researchers I think didn't probe directly into whether it's an epigenetics mechanism they, they might have looked at other mechanisms to to determine that there's a famine effect that continues on into the current generation. So, I think, I think those current researchers of the famine event were looking possibly at other transgenerational mechanisms, but, but in general I, I agree with you I think the famine event is still relevant to your other question. But who, who do we go to to talk with the relevant researchers. In general, I would say there, there are current researchers who are doing epigenetics research, and I think their research into, for example, using worms or mice or other. mammals, they are relevant and I put some of those research studies into my article. I hear what you're saying what what about what about research involving people humans and epigenetics. And, and one problem with the type of epigenetics research that would be robust and strong is that to have that robust and strong research we would have to do unethical things to people so I know you're not saying that so I know you're not saying. Hey, we've got to put people through these trauma situations and see what happens I know you're not saying that but in general one problem of using people as research subjects is that ethical problem of, well, we can only do certain things right and not other things to people when we use them as test subjects. I'm sorry. No, that's I'm sorry. Did you. I don't remember whether it's in your paper and not which I read but the research on the children who were born out of the storm on the West Coast that were followed for years. There was 1015 years ago I've been 10 and 15 years ago maybe even more. There was this huge storm on the East Coast that shut down everything for weeks. And subsequently that for storm they babies were born, they women who were that they were pregnant during this storm, and the babies were born after that storm, and then they followed the children and compare them to children who were were born, but not in the storm and those children had more illness than the children who, who mothers didn't didn't go through that storm. And so that's one comment I don't know. The second thing is I'm not sure that it's net I mean, I think research on African descendants of Africans enslaved in the United States would be important to helping us figure out the health issues. And how to deal with them from an epigenetic point of view. But do you think, Bill, that it would be necessary to have that specific research in order to get into court. Thank you, thank you, Professor Randall regarding that particular storm event. I don't think I included that in my paper. But but that's not to say it's not relevant. I do believe that real world situations, including your storm event or the famine event and there have been others right there there's research on how to depression during the in America during the 30s also affected descendants. I believe that type of research involving these real world trauma situations can be in general helpful to reparation plaintiffs. The thing with those types of research though is whether they look specifically at Japan epigenetics as the transgen transgenerational mechanism, or whether they look at other mechanisms and there are other mechanisms that researchers can look at. To answer your question, Professor Randall, of whether we need specifically epigenetic evidence and evidence of these epigenetic markers in present day plaintiffs to show a connection of harm from descendants, ancestors, generations ago, I think it bolsters today's reparation plaintiffs to make that type of epigenetics connection. And that's why I focus on epigenetics because, again, in the standing requirement that courts require part of part of the requirement is that the injury must be particular and concrete to the person who's filing the lawsuit, and that that particular and concrete injury found in today's reparation plaintiff, the person filing the lawsuit, must also be causally connected to the descendants generations ago. And to me, and that's why I wrote this article say, maybe epigenetic markers, right, these actual real differences in the person's cell and the person's gene today, those differences today, could maybe serve as this evidence as evidence of particular concrete harm that can be established through a causal connection to descendants to ancestors in the enslaved period generations ago. So Professor Randall, I think, I think finding epigenetics evidence would provide stronger proof, allowing the court to say to today's reparation plaintiff, yes, you have met the threshold standing requirement, you can go forward in your lawsuit seeking reparations. Now I don't I don't want to undermine other mechanisms of transgenerational harm. I think other researchers talking about other mechanisms can can provide helpful evidence also to today's reparation plaintiff. So I think strategically today's reparation plaintiff, who someone today, for example, wanting to file a reparations lawsuit can make several arguments, one being based on epigenetics evidence that my article talks about. But my article focusing on epigenetics evidence should not be the only strategy, I think, for today's reparation plaintiffs. So you make a great point Professor Randall that that my epigenetics focus should not be the sole argument for meeting the standing requirement. Can I just interject here too is what I was saying is, there has yet to be any epigenetic research on African Americans so when you look at, because I've been doing a lot of research on our health disparities so when you look at why are African Americans the most obese out of all the other ethnicities, why are there infant mortality deaths for black babies as opposed to white babies like I know without a shadow of a doubt that this correlate to the damage in our in our genes. That's why we have these infant deaths and all of these health disparities. I know that. I fully agree with you that epigenetic research on certain groups, including African Americans, black Americans would be very productive and informative. And the further question might be, well, why, why isn't there that research. Yet. Yeah, go ahead, Professor Randall. Well, I think that this is the law. This goes in the problem and I'll put it on this to invite someone. The larger problem of why of including doing research that is specific to African Americans and the issues they have and the only really strong area that is done is on the area of sickle sale. But we are not included in research studies research studies are not targeted for us. And that's the wider problem. I, but my, my thought, though, is that that's a set that's an issue that we need to deal with. We shouldn't wait on going into court. To get that saw that that my son shot. Yeah, I, and I know it wonders a little bit from the topic of your article bill in terms of standing, but the idea that even to get standing, there's got to be a connection between your assertion of the claim and harm. How do we, how do we prove that this epigenetics connects to a harm that is and I think that's. I think that's the question that's that that's kind of been brought up is how do we do? How do we connect the fact the existence of epigenetics and the intergenerational impact on DNA of past harms to a current harm? How do we, how do we write that connection? So, and to the extent you're a certain standing, we still have to as an individual plaintiff, I would still have to demonstrate how I was harmed. And would I have to, would it have to be in the same context in terms of epigenetically to suggest that I've had these outcomes because of the epigenetics that we're talking about? How do we, how do we, I kind of feel like there's a gap there. How do we bridge that gap between the harm that we, I mean, I think I'm feel pretty comfortable assuming that we all agree that there's still an ongoing and pernicious real harm from slavery, but how do we connect our epigenetic standing argument to a demonstrable harm? Right. Great thoughts there. Thank you for the question. And there are multiple parts that that have to be connected by the reparation plaintiff of today. And let's go through some of these parts. Let's imagine an African American, a black American plaintiff filing a reparation lawsuit today in court. Here's one possible way and feel free to add your thoughts. This is just my, my, my, my thought process here to answer your question. The African American plaintiff, the black American plaintiff of today could, and I talked about this in my article. There's this part where it says, reparation plaintiffs can undergo tests to show that they have epigenetic alterations. So there, there is that technology available today to look into a person's epigenome, the, the cell, the gene structure to see if there are epigenetic alterations. And that's one part, right? To say, hey, this, this person, this reparation plaintiff of today after undergoing this test has shown that she, he has epigenetic alterations. Then another part would be to use lineage trees, ancestral information to connect that reparation plaintiff of today to an ancestor who lived during the, let's say the enslaved period, and who lived during a period where there were state laws and federal laws and other laws that, that allowed for abuses to, to occur against that ancestor. And in my strength and it would strengthen the case, even if there was documentation of this ancestor having suffered harm or trauma. Right. Or, or some other egregious event that, that then as the, that being the external environment created epigenetic changes in the ancestor. Because we have all this research showing that external stressors, environmental trauma can affect a person's epigeno, leaving markers and such. So once, once we have that, right, that is, that is the, the, the ancestor having suffered external trauma. And we have today's plaintiff showing epigenetic markers or epigenetic alterations and that the today's reparation plaintiff is connected to the enslaved ancestor. Then that, that begins that path to showing today's reparation plaintiff has suffered transgenerational harm due to the harm suffered by the descendant who lived in that enslaved period. We haven't that's the, that's the beginning. That's the beginnings of an answer. Go ahead, Professor Randall. No, we just, I didn't mean to interrupt you. We have another speaker, another guest. Yes, yes, yes, please, please. Yeah. Thank you for the discussion. Please. Okay, go ahead. Sorry. My name is Sipiway Baleka. I am the founder of the Belanta Brassa history and genealogy society in America. And I'm the coordinator of what is called the lineage restoration movement. 800,000 African Americans have taken the African ancestry DNA test to identify who they come from. I am actually calling you from Guinea-Bissau, which is the my ancestral homeland of my Belanta people. One of the things that we are doing and that I wish I could get funding for is we are helping people identify that ancestor that survived the middle passage, and then the village and potentially the families here in Guinea-Bissau and be able to do various kinds of testing on the Belanta people here in Guinea-Bissau and the Belanta people in America. Now, my question was, in trying to make these connections, because I, a year ago, I filed an ethnocide petition that used transgenerational epigenetics at the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights. I've dropped the link to that. Anybody can read it. I dropped that in the chat. And I shared this with Professor Randall when I was doing my research. And at that time, I was trying to take the evidence of the science that we have now. We know that the environmental trauma induces epigenetic encoding, et cetera, and connect that to the legal concepts of preconception tort, prenatal tort, negligent tort, where the law recognizes certain damage from crime at the moment of your conception. I just wanted to know if you had considered this and if it's helpful. And I'll just listen. Thank you. No, I think the research you're looking into is very helpful because, again, you're trying to establish links between people today and descendants from generations, ancestors from generations ago. So I believe, from a legal perspective, following a lawsuit perspective, that anything that strengthens that causal link, the link between today, today's plaintiff and the ancestors generations ago, anything that strengthens that link is helpful, especially at the standing stage where, again, it's a lower threshold. All one has to do is to plead general factual allegations. And I think your type of research would help strengthen that causal connection between today's plaintiffs and the ancestors from generations ago. And thank you for that link. Later on, Professor Randall, I'll try to find that link and take a closer look at what our commentator just talked about. I'll be sure to send you the link from the chat. Do you think that, okay, I was born and raised during Jim Crow and there are a lot of us who are still alive. I've been thinking that we keep talking about reparations for slavery, but we would have a more directly. I'm not moving that. I'm not suggesting that we don't talk about reparations for slavery. I'm suggesting that we also talk about reparations for Jim Crow and that we take the people who are still alive like myself as plaintiffs. Professor Randall, I agree with you that from a standing requirement issue, that is, would it be easier for a reparation plaintiff to overcome this standing requirement in court to argue that my harms are from the Jim Crow era? I believe so. Yes, because let's say there's a survivor today from the Jim Crow era who files a reparations lawsuit. Standing is easily met because that person is there. It's that person suffered harms from the Jim Crow era, right? And so, yes, the standing issue can be more easily be met. I think there are other obstacles, though, when one tries to argue reparations based on Jim Crow era harms. One argument, and this goes beyond my article, but we can talk about it. One obstacle is that some might counter by saying, well, in the Jim Crow era, undoubtedly bad things happen to communities of color and people of color in that area in that era. But the counter argument goes, at this time during Jim Crow, the laws promoting slavery and discrimination, they're gone, right? So there's no formal laws now during the Jim Crow era that said continue to discriminate racially, continue to impose slavery, continue to subjugate entire group of people. Now, that's how the counter argument could go to say there are no more laws like that, right? But there are no more laws promoting slavery, but there are laws promoting Jim Crow. I hear you. And the counter argument people would say, well, sure, there are state laws and things like that, but at the federal level, right? We have new constitutional, we have new amendments now that granted rights and to everyone. And so I'm not arguing against you. I'm merely saying that that's how some commentators or others might argue against the Jim Crow era argument for reparations. But I think there's some, but I think there is an argument there. And I think if one makes an argument for reparations based on the Jim Crow era, it would more easily overcome the standing requirement. I unmuted. I mean, I lowered someone's hand and then forgot who it was. Oh, my apologies. And I had a comment too. I can't even raise my hand on here. I don't see the feature, but this is Queen Nina again, but go on, brothers, Safi way. I think your hand was up first. Yeah, I just thank you, Queen Mother. Well, Mac, I just had a quick follow up. There was an aspect that I didn't want to be overlooked, which is, in the law, there's this concept of prenatal tort, preconception tort, negligence tort, and connecting, you know, that's sort of right now the law's way of kind of acknowledging what transgender generational epigenetics is saying. So, even if, you know, one of the previous speaker was saying as an individual, I still have this burden to connect them. And I wanted your opinion on, even if we can't make the hard connection between, say, that ancestor that survived the middle passage, a specific damage that was done, say in 1701, that now is exacerbated in, you know, 1981, or when you're born, even if we can't get to that level, if there's enough scientific evidence that says, yes, environmental trauma does have damages, then we can say, okay, use the concept of, I was born with this tort damage, this preconception tort, or this prenatal tort. I just wondered if anybody had ever considered that, and how we could use that, are you? Yeah, I think that preconception tort argument, or prenatal argument, might be valid. I would have to take a closer look at that argument, and maybe you can add your thoughts here. Is that tort argument focused on the damage, let's say to the embryo, to that entity? Yes, the idea is that I was born with this. Right, that person while in a uterus was affected by something, right? I think that can work, but that would be an argument for, I think, let's say a Jim Crow type period argument, because if the harm is to that person while that person was, let's say an embryo, then it extends only that far back, right? It would not extend, let's say, multiple generations back to the enslaved period, is my thought. Well, that's actually exactly what I was trying to say, that because transgender is multi-generational, and it affects the DNA preconception, meaning before I was even conceived, there was damage that at the moment of conception is transferred. Right, yes, and I agree with you, there's research showing that to be the case, and that's why my article focuses on the epigenetics alterations that can occur in the uterus, right, in the embryo. And so that epigenetic alteration caused by external stressors, let's say in a descendant multiple generations ago in the enslaved period, those epigenetic markers, those epigenetic alterations can be transferred to that embryo who becomes a parent, who then has children, whose children then have their own children and so on. Yes, I agree with you that that type of epigenetic change that occurs even in the embryo can pass transgenerationally. And so yes, yes, and there is, and my article talks about how epigenetic alterations in other test subjects, let's say mice, or the worms, has shown that epigenetic alterations can survive through the first, second, third, fourth, and in worms, even past the fourth generation. And so I'm agreeing with you that yes, epigenetic alterations can persist over multiple generations, which means a reparation plaintiff today possibly can establish that link all the way back to someone who lived in the enslaved period. And when I mentioned the mice and worm research, some might argue, how is that relevant? Aren't they different? But worm research is very prevalent. Many researchers use worms, and they are very helpful because they have cells also that are analogous to human cells. And also with worms, one can study them for multiple generations in a few days or weeks, right? One doesn't have to wait 100, 200 years, right? With worms, you get multiple generations after being subject, one can subject worms to trauma, see what happens to multiple generations within a short time. And now with mice, mice share many characteristics with humans because both are mammals. And so my studies that talk about that show epigenetic alterations that persist across multiple generations can also be used, I believe, by reparation plaintiffs to overcome the standing requirement. And so when I mentioned worm and mice studies, I don't want anyone to think, oh, why are you going there, Bill, with these other studies that aren't human studies? Well, there's been a lot of studies using them. They are valid studies. Quartz have used mice and worm studies in other contexts. So I think for the reparation attorneys and reparation plaintiffs, they shouldn't shy away from mice and worm studies. And also, yeah, go ahead, Professor Randall. I was going to say that the fact is, is that this is a matter of getting an expert witness who can talk about the strength of, not just in trans, the strength of mice and worm and other non-human studies, the validity of those, and the court would then, once the court accept that the mice and worm studies are valid ways of proving things, then you would be able to get someone on the stand to testify to that. I think that mice and worm studies are used a lot. Non-human studies are used a lot in tort litigation. Exactly right, Professor Randall. And you also mentioned another point that is getting into the courtroom where, at that point, each side hires expert witnesses, for example, right? And so that's part of my thinking, and it's not very explicit in my article, but I'm thinking this, that in 2024 today, I believe there's enough scientific medical evidence, epigenetic evidence, to allow a reparation plaintiff to overcome that pleading stage requirement called standing. And pleading just means, hey, that the plaintiff has to file this document, it's called pleadings, right? That says, here's my harm, here is my allegation. I believe reparation plaintiffs has, they have enough epigenetic evidence to overcome the standing requirement. Now, once we get into the trial stage where each side, for example, can hire its attorneys and its expert witnesses to talk about worm studies, mice studies, human studies, then I think jurors can then listen in and hear the evidence. I think the reparation plaintiff, given all that evidence that Professor Randall mentioned, I think reparation plaintiffs can do a pretty good job of being convincing to the jurors. Now, if you want to ask me further, well, if I think that at the trial stage, there's a possibility of winning when making arguments to the jury, then why doesn't it even get past a threshold stage, which should be a lower stage? And I can share my thoughts here that goes beyond the legal issues. I sometimes wonder, and please share your thoughts, I sometimes wonder if judges, especially the judges in the African-American litigation where that was a 2005 case where reparation plaintiffs, attorneys for black Americans, African-Americans filed a lawsuit arguing for reparations when they alleged that, hey, today's companies, such as insurance companies and banks, their predecessors during the period of enslavement, they gain and benefited from slavery. And so today, in 2005, we're going to file a reparation lawsuit against them. And then the court, the judge said, no, you don't meet the standing requirement. You fail to show a particular harm to you, reparation plaintiffs today. And you fail to show this causal connection to your ancestors during the enslave period. Now, my article goes through multiple points arguing how that court decision in 2005 and then the appellate decision in 2006 were flawed. But apart from the legal issue, I sometimes wonder if judges and courts, they just think in general, the enslavement period was too long ago. It's going to create too many frivolous lawsuits if we allow this reparations lawsuit to be allowed to proceed to the trial stage. This is just too impossible. In fact, one of the decisions said this is an impossible task to show a connection between today's reparation plaintiffs and the harms to descendants generations ago. But I'm just adding my own personal thoughts here. And I'm going a bit beyond on my article. But I'm sorry, did I cut off someone? I just wanted to make a comment on that and to address what Professor Randall was saying. First of all, Professor Randall Robin told me about you and that's how, you know, I've connected with you and got on this webinar because I really appreciate the work that you're doing. It's right in the line with where I'm going to. But what I was, what I had told Robin recently is that I had been doing some public health research on the EPA's website and there is data that shows that in black communities in the U.S. we are more exposed to environmental pollution, you know, industrial warehousing and so forth. And part of the United Nations, our basic human rights is the right to clean air. And as you guys know, housing and food and so forth. So surely our environmental rights, for example, have been violated today, not 100 years ago, 400 years ago, but right now as we speak. So I feel like putting that case together with the Jim Crow, with the epigenetics, we definitely have a case to stand on now because this has been a strategic and the EPA now is giving out funds to underserved communities through the Inflation Reduction Act to clean up our environments because they saw that this is a systemic racist issue when it comes to air pollution. Thank you for those thoughts. And I've done some research on environmental injustice, right? And you're exactly right. For example, there's research showing that in the past and possibly currently, when governments think about where to, let's say, place their freeways or highways, right? In many instances, and also in Portland here, they put that freeway or highway right through the African American community or the black community, right? And here in Portland, the freeway just runs right through what was in the past a very traditional, traditionally African American community. And that increases rates of asthma, right? Increases rates of breathing disorders and all sorts of environmentally based physiological problems. And also, your comment touches upon the siting of, let's say, polluting companies. Where are these polluting companies place, right? And we have many, many accounts of communities of color, including black communities protesting the siting of, let's say, a very pollution producing company in their neighborhood. But that's what happens sometimes. Companies place their polluting producing company in African American communities or communities of color. And we can go into the reasons why some include, hey, it's easier, right? The thought is African American communities or communities of color, they lack the political clout to really fight us, right? To file lawsuits against us and all of that. But thank you. Thank you for that thought about how there are many environmental pollutants based on many reasons that impact African American communities and communities of color. There was a Professor Randall. There's, I think, a question here in the chat. One is, does epigenetics reveal disparate impact based on race? Do you want to get into those, Professor Randall? But go ahead and follow your sequence, Professor Randall. We only have a minute left. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I kind of wanted to start wrapping things up and just the epigenetics, I think what we can do is we can show that there's been a disparate impact on hell that is generational. That's what my research has shown. We're dating all the way from slavery through now. Well, I haven't done anything for the last 10 years, but there's, so we can show that the health disparity. And now we can talk, we have a way of showing why and how that disparity exists, and we can connect it generationally. So we've got those things, those kinds of things that we can show. But I think there hasn't been epigenetic studies on humans. So we can't show that based on race, but I don't think it's necessary in order to, in order to think. We've gone an hour. Do you have last thoughts or comments you want to make? Just a thought that begins with my article that says justice delayed is justice denied and then I end my article by saying, if courts really take a look at the epigenetics evidence and other transgenerational harm evidence, they should allow reparation plaintiffs today to meet the standing requirement so that that reparations lawsuit can move beyond the pleading stage to go into the courtroom where I think that's where it belongs so that each side can present its evidence and let the decision maker, the jury decide at that point. And thank you everyone for being such a wonderful community of concerned activists and intellectual thinkers and just helping me think through this. And thank you, Professor Randall and your son for helping. Thank you all. Thank you, Professor Chen. Thanks all of my guests. I sure appreciate it. This is the first time I've done something like this in a long time, but I'm really pleased with the turnout and definitely do more. Thank you for coming and my son is already gone but I want to thank him for agreeing to come on and help me if I need it. Bye bye everybody. Bye bye everyone. Wonderful discussion. Thank you everyone.