 Welcome. Good morning, everyone, or if you're in another time zone, and we just have an absolutely wonderful group of people with us today in no particular order. I'm just going to follow my screen to start with Professor Bernadette Randall, Professor Emerita from the University of Dayton School of Law, and one of the leading experts nationally on race and the law. Many, many respects. Tina Patterson coming to us from Germantown, Maryland. Mediator arbitrator. With lots of business experience in her background as well. Rebecca Radle from Suwani outside of Atlanta, Georgia. And with years of experience at the executive level in the insurance industry, as well as mediation and arbitration experience just back from a groundbreaking trip to London to open the jams offices over there. And then Davis, Professor Emerita dude emeritus from University of Toledo School of Law and international rock on tourist scholar and man about town. And then you were just sharing with us is something about your dog and your cat, and then you hope might be a model for some of the rest of us. Do you play that for us. I do want, I did want to start by saying that we figured out yesterday that the feet the equivalent for dude emeritus for a retired female professor is a queen emerita. Okay, so we have dude emeritus and queen emerita so Professor Randall I want to throw that out as a title to have. Okay, thank you, thank you, thank you. And you know what, every. I just thought well what's the dude emeritus. What applies to me. Thank you. Because we worked on do that, but that didn't sound like it worked. And somebody came up with queen emeritus I said yes, that is the equivalent so. So, so the particular story it's a true story is I have a pug beagle, Puggle, and four cats, and the pug beagle's name is bash, and one of the cats names is Simba. And I walk bash, regularly in the neighborhood. And so there's the dog and Simba of the four cats will always walk with him. And in my neighborhood, everyone is amazed to see this cat walking the dog, and they go up next to each other and they smell noses and they smell the dairy air and that and they, and the cat walks on the ground and it goes off you know the cat is off on on its own and the leash, the dog is on the leash because the dog will run off. The other sense of people is that if cats and dogs can figure it out. Why can't we humans figured out you know what I mean, for all the things you've seen about cats and dogs going at each other. These two are so cool in fact with the other three cats in the house. You know, we've got the dog is the minority and the four cats are the majority, and everybody's cool with each other, you know it's like they eat their food everybody's respectful when I have fights all the time. That is more fights of used to be among the cats themselves, then between the cats and the dog, you know everybody's cool they sleep on the couch together, all that stuff. But if we can figure out a way for these Americans to actually the world to treat each other like those cats and those dogs. What a wonderful world would be. Thank you that's my speech for today. Thank you very much. Thanks man. You know and there's another thing that is pretty thought provoking is that frequently in times of disaster and tragedy. It really brings people and communities together. You see floods where people are going risking their lives to save not just other people but their pets, their animals, their most prized possessions, things like that. And we've, we've heard of a number of examples of that social media is printed. What are the thoughts you for on whether we may be approaching a time in this pandemic, and all the pandemics educational health care governance, all the areas where we're so broken, where we are so broken that the only choice left is to start acknowledging that we need to come together and look out for each other. Your thoughts. I don't think we're that broken, I wish we were. I mean, the truth be told, I wish we were so broken that we that people would put it aside and these and look at how we are treating individuals and change the systems that people live in, but we're not that broken. And I don't know that we will get that broken. I, I, I don't, I don't see us being that broken, I think we're more the same. Hey now, Rebecca. Thinking about those. I'm thinking about this statement, I understand. I understand that Professor Randall, and I think it's a good point. We are more, more alike than we are different. And I think that to Ben's point, all we have to do is make some decisions. It's our change the change that we want to be and see is about our willingness to make certain decisions for the good of all. It's not it shouldn't be so hard to fix. I like Ben's point because there's an embracing of diversity between the dog and the cat. And they live together they sleep together they work together and we all do the same, but there is just with humans. Sometimes you know we know too much. And because we know so much, we fail to see the obvious. I didn't have the problem. Go ahead, Tina. I'm sorry. Oh, Professor Randall I can wait. Go please continue your thought I'll speak. My concern is that systems cost stuff, not individuals individuals and we function within broken systems, and that while we can all sing kumbaya and get along. This doesn't change the systems we work in. And I don't know that that the way we're broken maybe we are broken but the way we're broken isn't one in which people are going to give up on their view of how the systems ought to work. I don't see criminal justice being fixed. I don't see health care being fixed. I don't see capitalism being thrown out. Those are all things that would need to happen in my mind and I just don't know that that we're broken in such a way that people are going to come together and do those things. When I talk health care law one of the things I would we would talk about is the willingness to help an identified person and a flood is an identified thing. But total unwillingness to do anything for the masses. So one per one child falls down a well and yeah the world will come together to get that child out of the well meantime, thousands and hundreds of thousands of children at the same time are dying around the world. I don't know that we're broken enough to fix that problem. And I have it's interesting, Professor Randall, what you would you would bring that concept for because when I heard the question I thought of it on two levels. One I thought about the systemic and I think we recognize that systems are broken in the systems that you mentioned Professor Randall are excellent examples but within those systems. Are we really ready to make the change and this is where we see in the news and the media and other outlets, people recognizing the systems aren't working but what is the answer and trying to navigate that. I also think to answer your question specifically Chuck there's also the individual and we this if nothing else that's passed, I'd say 18 months, 20 months has shown us that where the systems aren't working or where we believe the systems have been working but we can't sustain those systems. Personally, on the individual level, we're having more of these conversations about self care and saying no and I can't do this. And this runs contrary to what we in the United States as a very highly individualistic culture. What, you're not going to do that but everybody else is doing that I mean at one point the conversation was fear of missing out and people are saying, I'm good with missing out. I'm good. I need to do this for me because from my sanity, and I think between the two the systems that are broken we recognize and we're trying to repair or patch, or literally meeting to have that conversation and saying, throw everything out, but where do we start. That's where we find ourselves in the tailspin. When you combine that with this whole idea of individual saying, you know, I'm torn between this do I follow along to get along or do I literally say I need to check out for 10 minutes I need to check out for 10 days. I just need to check out this is not this is not working for me and what does work for me and it makes me more of that individual when what we're literally struggling with is do I still remain part of this overall collective, or do I become the individual and I hope I'm making sense when you asked that question about I thought about it on the on the two levels because even as practitioners, we were struggling with this what what do we teach our young people, what do we personally do in terms of what what we offer what we deliver. And where is it at other intersections in which it is a conflict. I'll pause there because I think I've been talking a bit. Well, if I can jump in, let me jump in for one thing is, I want to second those comments from Tina and Professor Randall in this particular way. A lot of times, we use the word systemic, and people kind of lose it understanding what that means, right, you know. So to me, you start to get these images or the senses of systemic stuff right with the examples like I learned recently in an article that one company Amazon, you know they have a turnover rate of 3% a week. That's a system that is expecting that your workers are going to change 3% a week. So 150% in a year. And so the way that whole thing operates is geared to that kind of treatment of workers right. That to me is the system that you know whether you are the smartest worker or the least more worker you are caught in a machine almost like that Charlie Chaplin image of you know modern times. Right. Another one that is, of course, we can talk about the criminal justice system and all these other systems and how they just grind people, you know, in a certain kind of chew them up and spit them out thing. Right. There are also things like, let's talk about credit ratings. Right. You know, it's not, you know, the credit rating system plays a whole role for so many different things. There's even this thing that I've been thinking about there, like if you apply for a job and it's outsourced to somebody to verify who you are right. Well, one of the things they do is they go around on the internet and look at everything you ever posted on the internet as part of building that up. I think I heard that somebody was applying to be a FINRA arbitrator. And they were asked, do you have a Facebook account so they're going to take it. I'm like, hey man, wait a minute, slow down. Why do you need to know whether I post pictures of my dog and my cat on Facebook with as part of evaluating whether I am a proper person to be a FINRA arbitrator You see what I'm saying? You know, I just thought this was very bizarre, but it was like, well, there might be something you said once somewhere that will bother somebody. You know, I mean, that's what the parties do if they want to vet you to decide whether they're going to challenge you or not. But me is trying to get on a list to be considered by FINRA. Why do I have to, you know, why do you have to be those gatekeepers but that's a system that they've got in place that has a way of locking people out. You see what I'm saying? And it's all those kinds of things that we're all, you know, even the process of how you get tenure, you know, the faculty decides something, the dean decides something, but that's a system. And there's certain rules as to what's acceptable or not, or even the evaluating law schools. There's the US News and World Report rankings for law schools or anything. That's a system. No one controls that. It's just somebody's got a business, it's there. The last thing I wanted to emphasize in all these systems is somebody's making money. Somebody's making big money on it being broken. This is exactly what they want. Okay, because they won't have the kind of things that people would think like higher pay for workers, healthcare for people. God knows what else I can think of. There's somebody who this is an advantage for them. And I once heard somebody who used to do the dollars forum who said to me once that, you know, you don't have to have the respect everybody. What is their attitude? It's cold. It is cold. But that's, you know, that kind of, there's an attitude like that. And then, or as a CEO once told me, because of the terrible things I have to do, I have to have fun. Okay, he said that to me about a conversation at one point. Okay. And, you know, somebody looks at they got an angle here. Their people do a lot for a dollar right you know what does it run over your mother to get a job, you know what I mean for that kind of thing. Remember that image. So, you know when I went as a public health nurse I was both a public health nurse that helped an individual. And when, when you're helping an individual, you help that individual make the best choices they have in the circumstances they're in. You, you help them to come to deal with the reality of their situation and make the best choices they can. Now, those choices may not be very good. They don't have roads. They don't have a supermarket. Those are system issues. When I was in the maternal child nurse. It always upset me when people wanted to talk about counseling the individual. That's the nurse in the field. We are systems people. We focus on how do we change the system so that the system is better than what it is. And my problem. This right recently is closing something that there's been a lot of kind of celebration of black billionaires. Personally, I think billionaires are obscene note whether they're black and with $1 billion are are engaged because nobody makes that kind of money. It's not about having systems that are pressed the economics of the working class. I was thinking that we have some working class billionaires that's all the new billionaires now. They get they have all their money but they got so much money that they won't be working class billionaires for long they'll be actually capital billionaires but the system we have is fundamentally that the one getting back to Chuck's question that's broken is capital the American capital system as set up in a way so that we don't give. There's a lot of things that you find in other capitalist system, and the question becomes, how do we, how do we fix that can we fix that and my answer is no I don't think we can fix it but everybody's made incredible points so the systems are broken they were built crooked and the bias is baked in, which is why the behaviors are enabled. And so I was listening to everybody talking I drew this cycle, you know arrows out. It's cyclical really, you know, the, the structures of racism and the structures of capitalism and you said it been somebody's making money. And so, while somebody is making money, it's it's hard to straighten out a system that was built crooked, and it was built crooked for a reason. It wasn't. It was on purpose. And, and that's what we're dealing with so I do really appreciate the perspectives about broken broken systems and of course people who are raised in those systems and who work in those systems, and who try to thrive in those systems which brings us back to the point of privilege, which was a topic we were talking about off camera. Yeah, there is a cast system. And it's here in the United States, more recently was brought back to mind we know there's a cast system. But, you know, now there are a lot of conversations about about of course the book the book cast by as Bill Wilkerson is a very popular book that's a book club book now because there is the acknowledgement that there is a cast system and all of that goes into this brokenness that that we have in our systems. Yeah, if I can jump in there on something else they disturb me, like on the systems thing. There was a fundraiser for UNICEF that was done over the last month, called arbitration idol it was called like American Idol they had a bunch of us there people could bid on each of us. And then that they could if they won, they would get 30 minute 30 minute zoom interview right and so I did that to help out my friend Chris Campbell, and this young person one who happened to be an intern in a place. And, you know, I'm trying to give her my best advice about self promotion because you got to promote yourself right you know. And, and I happen to know some of the top people that same firms that you know, I can mention you to. And apparently they're all kind of processes in place to prohibit somebody as low as that, from writing up something to the person at the top right you know, and I was like, Wow, okay, well, I'm not tired by those processes, would you like, and I can go ahead and do it on my own, which I did. I find you know contact and all that stuff. But as I thought about it it's like this person is getting a privilege from me in that I had worked with these people all these years. I'm outside of that structured thing. And I can just go zoom to the top. And that's the way privilege works in so many different areas that somebody who's outside the game can just contact, you know the head person and say hey you know take a look out for Rebecca Radcliffe. She's a hell of a deal, you know, and that's in Rebecca doesn't have to sort of work her way all the way up to 35 different senior vice presidents or whatever you know what I mean, or Tina Patterson she's somebody or that that Professor Randall, you know, going work in her way up, you know, keep the nose to the grindstone stuff or your truck prompting you know what I mean, you get a zing up to the top like that. And somebody gets on a radar screen, you know, and then that brings out for motion being set up to essentially prevent the people at the bottom from making those connections sort of through the hierarchy. It's all it's interesting to me, you know. And that brings us back then to that point that Rebecca and Tina raised and you and Professor Randall connected up is the broken systems and their impact on us is very personal for individuals, it's traumatic. It's disabling. It's mentally emotionally damaging to our health and we're seeing that even in superstars. Simone Biles Britney Spears, whoever we're seeing that in the behavior and the attitudes of political leaders government leaders who one minute they're saying and doing one thing and the other they're back flipping to say well, maybe that was a bad call. And maybe we should have had vaccines and masks. But for the individuals looking at the system. Professor Randall you're exactly right. The picture is one of a monolithic machine that abuses the individual. It doesn't. And not only doesn't serve the individual. It actually harms and takes things away for the reasons that you folks have all talked about. So, how do we connect the self care to responses between and among us, like your cat and dog. That will help protect us from those systemic abuses. At a time. I don't think that you know we I don't want us to go dead on air, but I've already voiced my I don't know that there is a way. I mean I really truly think that that billionaire capitalists have captured our system. That they keep, they, they're all kind of things that can make our lives better, but would cost companies money or costs more taxes. And that we are in this cycle of just trying to live our best lives, the best we can but the problem becomes is that when you don't have a privilege. And they can hit you. I'm going to give an example. Okay, I was in the emergency room. And that was a whole nother issue because there was, it was packed with people who were sick from COVID and other things. And two young black guys came in with a divisive friend who'd been sitting there as long as I had been sitting, and they had the music on really, really loud. I was halfway down the hall from them and nobody seemed to be saying anything. So I decided to say something, and they got angry. They got angry in a way that I felt threatened and I, and so I told them that I told them that I was asked me what was I going to do and for a split second. My mind, I said to them, I don't mind saying I was, I was going to say I call the security guard. That's what I will do. Okay. But for a split second, the lack of privilege in as a black person made me stop and think shit. Okay, I'm sorry I don't want to be BS. Do I want, if I call a security guard on them. And it goes out of control because they were acting up and they get killed. I don't want to live with that the rest of my life is my is the air in is the place that I'm in right now such that I want to risk the death of two young black guys. It is a privilege not to have to think about that. Even if I have to have to think about it just for a second, which is all I thought about it because then I called the security guard and they dealt with it and it was all okay. So it isn't like anyone got killed or got hurt or got abused, but I, because I do like the certain privilege in this society when it comes to police. And the people who look like me like that privilege. I had to go through, I had to go through like thinking about that. And I'm old and I don't even know why I told that story for someone help me out. Rebecca in our last minute, final thoughts at point of privilege. It's a reality and it plagues us daily. I agree with what I'm sorry go ahead then I'll wait. I was going to just say that, you know, one thing to do if you can do it is when you go through Dunkin Donuts line. Find out what the bill is for the person behind you and pay for. It's just a little thing for a complete stranger. I saw I did that somebody did that for me made me feel wonderful and I was at also at a 711. And there was a mom with three slurpees for a kid she wasn't sure she had enough and this young man young black man said I'll take care of that. And you know just just that kind of neighborly little things like that. There's not much, but it does do something to the energy, you know, and maybe that's a good place for us to find out. Can we individually, despite all of these fears and anxieties and abuses from the system, take the time to take that step from privilege to allyship with and for each other. And you should remember I have to just put this in changing individual behavior doesn't change system. Maybe it makes you feel better it makes them feel better, but the system is still whatever I, I control by cursing. The main thing is you fight. Okay. And on that note. Thank you everyone. Another thoughtful and thought provoking session come back and join us in two weeks. Think take Hawaii. Thank you. Thank you. Take care.