 to Cooper Union. Today we'll be looking at UN resolution 43-1 systemic racism and police brutality acting on Dubois's dream for dignity appeal. Currently the UN Human Rights Council is having its 47th session and while that might not mean a lot to many people it's very important because right now they are looking at specific agenda item number nine that's looking at UN resolution 43-1. This resolution was adopted last year because a great amount of people came together to demand a new way forward. One year ago as the nation writhed in pain from the death of George Floyd in the pandemic a handful of human rights defenders mobilized directly impacted family members and civil society movement in the U.S. and around the world to apply moral pressure to the UN Human Rights Council. The shine of light on the lack of liberty in the U.S. and stand in solidarity against racism over 600 organizations called on the council to mandate an independent inquiry into the killings of violent law enforcement responses to protests. Today I'm fortunate to be joined by four amazing activists who are working on the ground but also bring the cause of justice and racial equality and equity to the global stage. Thank you all very much for joining me. Eliza could you share what happened last year and what's going to be happening next week on July 12th during agenda item number nine. Yes thank you Joshua I'm so happy to. We are about to see what's going to happen but a year ago like you said really the United Nations wasn't really confronted at the volume it was last year with the voice of black Americans really crying for the U.S. to come into compliance that's what their national law stopped killing black people and the African Union really helped put their foot down and insist that something happened and what happened was the great debate there was an official special meeting call where on the record surviving members of families who've lost loved ones to police crime and many human rights violation survivors themselves spoke to the body and what happened at the end was a little it was unique and it's something to celebrate but resolution 43-1 really was just for the first time really deploring this issue and the U.S.'s particular role in it and of course this is in the context of you know the U.S. human rights network together constant battle to really shift who polices human rights and who commits torture which in the U.S. we know is the police so by having a resolution this is you know we hear by the floor this happening in the states and everywhere they also insisted that the office of the High Commissioner look into it and do a report on the steps so now that we have that report we're looking at what will happen at this meeting of the Human Rights Council and that's the agenda item number nine that you talked about Joshua they're going to have to decide are they going to follow up with this last year's resolution are they going to say something stronger are they going to actually name the U.S. as still someone who needs to be held accountable not the leaders spending accountability on this and so you know we've been organizing the organizations here I'll pass the mic to but the U.S. human rights network is hundreds of organizations that's been working on this with many allies globally and nationally so yeah it's really a moment to keep your eye on we're hoping certainly that the international community intervene and the U.N. do so as it's meant to do because clearly the things that are happening to our black people are illegal under that international law but no existing you know mechanism seems to help correct courts so we're looking at a new one and intensified one hopefully you know of spotlight on the U.S. this was Columbia Brazil and places all over the world and then again you know the African Union put their foot down to really ask the U.N. to to stand up with them for African descendants all over the world. Thank you so much Eliza and I was wondering you know we know the resolution didn't go as far didn't ask for that commission of inquiry but many people were surprised with the tone of the report do you think the report is stronger and indicates a more serious approach to what's going on. Just just like the actions a year ago it certainly shows a practice it certainly shows thanks to the people that the truth it can't really be looked away from and so you know certainly we're looking for something stronger and with a clear course for holding our country accountable for international law but thank you so much. Christa I know you're focusing a lot on the issue of police brutality could you highlight some of the challenges that people are facing in Chicago and how using the international instruments has been a powerful tool for transformation in your experience. Sure in Chicago in particular you know we've been well we started in Chicago I guess during the torture the John Burge torture but that John Burge torture wasn't just John Burge there was torture going on across the many different area precinct jails and wherever police were taking them because we have home and square as well as well which was kind of a black upside. So I would say that it probably started with Stan writing his report in like 2007 I think it was he wrote the report somewhere around there could have been 201 and then it picked up with Rikia because Rikia Boyd who was shot while she was walking to the store with her friends shot in her head while she was walking to the store with her friends and I think that kind of gelled it for everyone and then we had Demo Franklin Dominique Franklin who was killed after he was tased because he like I think he stole a bottle of liquor out of the Walgreens and they tased him and he hit a pole and then had to be taken off of life support or passed away and then finally Laquan McDonald which was 16 shots right so all of those together and it goes back to Latonya Hagerty from 1999 right all of those together just gelled and we in the in our history of having gone to the UN in 2000 we just kept using that as a option but I want to make it clear that we did try locally before we went to the UN and that's important because when we went to the UN I remember one of the commissioners for cert specifically asked did you go to your state did you go to your city and we were like yes we went to our city we went to at the time Anita Alvarez we went to the Department of Justice here in the city the federal courts here in the city not the federal courts but the federal oversight here in the city we went to Lisa Madigan you know and you know wrote these letters telling them that this was something that they needed to address we wrote shadow reports women's all points bulletin wrote American police crimes against African women and women of color we had written with the Chicago Alliance a collaborative report on the killings the extra judicial killings of African people by the police it's a longer title but it's it's out there on the usherns website and it it just all gelled together to be able to go to the different us reviews and bring these cases which you know it was it was a question of why the Department of Justice the US Department of Justice had not engaged in at an investigation of the police before uh Laquan right you know so when we were speaking to them when they do the reviews and they invite you out to Washington and to talk to them we were asking you know why they weren't doing that you know so at the point where we're using international mechanisms right um we had already talked to them right so it just solidified it you know I remember that me and Martinez were talking to Lisa Madigan and Lisa Madigan is the person after the DOJ came in we did get the investigation and I can point directly to the work that was done by we charge genocide women's all points bulletin we even had uh Mike Brown's mom uh Leslie was there uh all of this work came together uh to bring us to this point you know but I really believe that it started you know internationally all of this started internationally and just built to this so you know Chicago we still have our issues they just uh shot and killed Adam Toledo who was 13 years old with his hands up they chased down hands up don't shoot I told everyone that this is universal for you know don't shoot me right everybody knows that right you know everybody across all countries and this is the way he was when he was shot and the argument of split second decisions which they like making that argument they go through training called shoot don't shoot that actually trains them to make the right split second decision and they continue to use the excuse of the wrong split second decision knowing that they're trained to make the right one right um and we're gullible enough to listen to them so that's another thing changing the narratives those narratives are changing at the international level and so we're really happy about you know uh the movement that started with uh well I won't say that it started with George Floyd but the the movement that uh just how could the the word for the 28 million people going on to the street right that's the consciousness there you thank you beautiful um and made people get out of their houses and I'm sure COVID had something to do with that a lot of people didn't want to be locked up anymore and said well this is a good reason to come out the house and put your life on the line right um so when that when that occurred you know it it like you said it really woke up the world George woke up the world if it hadn't been woke up by uh Mike Brandt if it hadn't woke up by Laquan McDonald if it hadn't been woke up by Sandra Bland if it hadn't been woke up by Rukia Boy if it hadn't been woke up by Tanya Haggerty if our Oscar Grant it was awakened by George Floyd and so sad how many more names we have to bring up and new names added even since George Floyd there's one aspect uh I want to move on to other speakers but you did a lot of great research as well about police violence towards women maybe we're gonna touch on that very briefly and then we'll move on to Monica but I wanted to allow you to share that because I know that's an important aspect as well of your work yeah well a lot of people uh the focus is on shootings right and so and and being shot there there's a lot of focus that's not on survivors so if you can imagine that they've killed about 35,000 people since the early 2000s the police in America have killed about 35,000 people since the early 2000s and to give you an idea the death penalty is about a thousand people in that same period of time so you know they are extra judicial killers right and they are way better at killing people than than the actual quote-unquote state is you know the U.S. uh government um but with that being said even though they they're representing the U.S. government um but with that being said women we're not just shot we're raped we're killed in car chases when we're the innocents we're beaten in our homes the domestic violence police are number one in domestic violence so when you put all of those things together rape domestic violence shootings beatings they're they've even serious they're serial killers and serial rapists right so when you put all those together I think that women are the number one entity that's affected by the police um and that's we we were trying to bring visibility to that in since 2009 and Andrea Richie you had been out there since 2007 and it picked up with say her name and speak my sister's names and all of the work that we've been doing but it's just important to realize that it isn't police violence isn't about shooting Sandra Bland died in prison right or in jail right so we have what we call extraordinary occurrences that happen when you're arrested unfairly right um and put in jail and the things that happen because of confinement uh and you have to just think of police violence as this really large um set right and then you take the little subsets right um and that will give you an idea of how violent they really are and they're very very violent on all different levels but women are usually even women will write articles and not mention women who have been killed in police custody you know so you know it's something that you have to we have to put in our minds and constantly uh be uh vigilant in making sure that you speak to the violence against women thank you chrissa and the report that was just released introduces an inner four-point agenda to end systemic racism and the human rights violations by law enforcement the first one is to step up stop denying and start dismantling the second pursue justice ending impunity and building trust the third listen up people of african descent must be heard and fourth redress confronting past legacies taking special measures and delivering repertory justice monica do these four steps do they sound like a strong beginning or what else should be taken into account well i'd like i always like to start off and saying as an african-american descendant if i am not free if i am not safe if i don't have a fair chance just like any other citizen my counterparts the problem is there everything else about me my identity my class my age uh my ableism or disabilities all of that is collateral consequences i think that it is so important that we focus on uh ending racial oppression racial violence at a state level and that impact us on so many different levels i remember being in my senior year of high school and being kicked out of high school on the first day because i transitioned and there was no recourse for me there was no resources available for me and at that time i was i was put out into the streets and at that time i encountered police encounter after encounter because i was walking as trans and as a result of walking as trans a lot of times i had to negotiate my body with police for my freedom i was forced into psych act to be free um only to be locked up the following week um and then i was forced to be incarcerated in a man's penitentiary in a man's holding facility um and and i was forced to violence during that time and one of the greatest violence that i remember being forced into was solitary confinement i was forced into solitary confinement for six months and at that time it was the greatest challenge on my psyche because i had never been forced and i had never been in solitary confinement and so for me that was very that was extreme punishment um not to mention that i was being harassed on a daily basis i was denied um health care um my eighth amendment was violated because i was trans and it still happens today i still receive numerous uh request for help from different women around the world in the united states asking for help to receive their basic health care um for whatever their health conditions may be um but a lot of times those requests are for gender-affirming health care a lot of times people are saying that they're at their breaking point because they are forced into solitary confinement they feel as though they have been lost into solitary confinement and i find it ironic that we're still fighting to end solitary confinement as a means of housing um people that are considered to be part of a vulnerable population um and that could be anyone from the lgbt community someone who is disabled automatically being placed in solitary confinement for the duration of their incarceration and i do understand that i cannot ever compare that to a lot of my political prisoners brothers and sisters who have been in prison for their political stand against the treatment against black and brown people in america but however we know what it is like and at that time we are not able to focus on rehabilitating ourselves we are let out back into society the same society that discriminates against us on the basis of our race first and then second our gender third our age and ability and so it the list goes on and on and on and i always like to say respect me as a black person i want to be free as a black person because if i'm free as a black person everything else is obsolete because it's really personal and i have yet to witness a time that i have not had to confront and address systemic racial oppression in my everyday life and i am happy to see that the conversations are where they are i also second christa i was out there for um rikki a boy advocacy we wanted justice for rikki and we did not get um lakwan mcdonnell lakwan mcdonnell we we wanted that justice and we did not get and then let's just continue to go on and on and on and i like to say that george boy revived the people to remember that this is still active this is still happening and today we have it on camera and we cannot let this go by but then following that it was briana taylor and something that is hugely important for us to address is no knock warrant there are so many people of people from our communities are dying they're having their lives traumatized the shovel disrupted broken due to a no knock warrant and a lot of times that no knock warrant is not even for the house whose door they kicked in and so i like to always say that as an african-american descendant it is important that i know what freedom is and look like feels like tastes like as a black person before i can focus on what freedom looks like as a transgender person as a as a a senior citizen or anything else it is my blackness that you see first and it is my blackness that acts that prompts you to act in a certain way against me or in support of me and so i like to see people focus more on race and all the different identity politics i like for us to kind of contain them and in other ways but let's stick to the issue at hand and for me the issue at hand is always race it is race thank you monicon it really does bring us to our our final speaker jihad because i mean i know he was an amazing leader in the black panther movement and also a political prisoner of conscience and that's something that has really been ignored when we're talking about systemic racism it's because the system's doing exactly what it was set up to actually do and i know when we came to the un in 2000 with the different upr reviews with the third and with the cat jihad your voice was really listen to in geneva because you brought up the points that everyone you need to know you talked about the hypocrisy of democracy in the us i thought one of the best quotes i remember i'll always remember it is you know instead of putting that microscope on those other countries that need to work on their human rights that the us needs to really hold up that mirror and look deep into its soul and so i just want to see what do you think of this latest report and if you think it is a step in the right direction and thank you so much for being with us today yeah joshua and everybody else appreciate you very much i can cannot be more profound with that so just adding to a really briefly is that um i think it's a step in the right direction to always have trajectories that reach international and to highlight our issues as human rights issues on the human right on the national international stage is very important uh i think what's oftentimes is remiss a lot is that um as our hot malik sabah said that we have to really we are our own liberator and when i came back from geneva each time i was kind of it was kind of demoralizing to see that we didn't have the infrastructure to be able to capitalize off of all the wonderful work that's being done internationally so um i think that that's something that that we have to build up our national statue our national organizing our strength to make a demand to make to be able to make a demand we have to have people power and people on the same page and working together building viable real co-sincere coalitions amongst each other we don't have that sisters and brothers this is 2021 and when i'm 66 years old and when i was 16 i'd be doggone if i wasn't dealing with the exact same issues and as the same goes the more things changed the more to remain the same we're falling off we're not we're not doing the organizing on the ground so the ask that the ask okay that's on the table has to remain on the table but how do we effectuate it into a demand the only way we can do that is to organize better to make sure that all the wonderful work that we're doing through the united states human rights network that joshua cooper is doing that all of us are doing in our own capacities um and listening to your wonderful powerful voices you know what's remiss and we won't make it that far if we do not muster the strength organizing the mobilization within our own communities to effectuate a demand otherwise we'll be asking the slave master to tell the overseer to treat us better and that's my point that's it and the black panther party was into the community to do these i know it's so retro to say that and this and this is not to overlook the many powerful organizations that are in the community i'm just saying and you know what the landscape looks like you know what the landscape looks like you know how we treat our own and we have to come out of our silos a little more and and really work together to bring about this change other than that joshua i think that we're doing our admiral job on the international level and bringing people into the picture here in the voices of those that directly impacted that's powerful i'm listening to monica i'm listening to everybody that was on early in the book to the um u n presentations today and it's powerful and but you know as i told the african union if you don't know that these exist issues already exist you may not know the sort of detail that you know they exist if you didn't you've been under a rock and you shouldn't not be in that position that you are in and i say that very directly people are dying so i'm going to talk directly to the issue and not sugar coated you know and the united states is very arrogant it doesn't care what we're saying and we all know that that's why our demands has to be backed by people unified people power so that when we hit that international stage those looking and those listening know that we are we represent an organized mass of people not a just a fragmented mass that we are in this present state so i don't want to bring a negativity to the table but it is real talk because we will be on the same page and every year doing the same thing with these stellar presentations and sisters and brothers marching overseas to make it real and people overseas will look at you and they say well you haven't done your homework in your own community and that's it you know so i'm with you all the way everybody um and we just have to stand united and make that work in a broader sense thank you thank you so much jihad and that's excellent point that we do have to shatter those silos and create the campaign and the communications together and it will be an opportunity next monday for the world to really in a way put the us in the court of public opinion the world court of public opinion but then there are more opportunities with the un committee and the illumination of all forms of racial discrimination that review will be coming up uh there's also the anniversary of the durban declaration program of action we definitely need a national action plan and i know we only have like a minute left alize if you'd want to say maybe some of the next steps after the uh discussion on monday at the human rights council what you see the next steps could be briefly oh yes i just um looked in by any of your watchers and listeners to keep in touch with the us human rights network um so you don't miss a beat it's info at ushrnetwork.org info at ushrnetwork.org um you can get in touch with the coordinating center there we're based in atlanta network you know nationwide and globally to connect people to people at the center of the human rights solutions that are so urgent um thank you thank you so much and we thank all of our guests for appearing and more point for all their advocacy from the grassroots on the ground up to the global and we look forward to continue to changing the conditions daily and making sure that human rights are realized for all mahalo and thank you all and look forward to our next event of course what will happen on monday at the human rights council aloha