 I'd like to welcome all of you to the Davis Senior Center. I see many familiar faces, but for those who don't know, my name is Dana Welch and I'm a program coordinator here. We average about 200 participants a day at the Davis Senior Center. There is no membership, which many of you already know, and almost 70 percent of our programs and services have no fees attached to them, such as this program today. Today, we host Yes, We Have, Yes, We Will. This program celebrates overcoming the slave trade of 15 million people and embraces stories from past and present, including examples of racism in our own community. Toward the end, audience will be invited to share race-related experiences, and there will be a casual reception afterwards with some refreshments. Now, I introduce to you the storyteller of today's program, Lelling B. Boyce. Thank you. First of all, I want to extend my heartfelt thanks for you taking time to join us today. I'm very grateful, and this is a very special remembrance. And lest I forget, I want to correct an advertising error right now. This is not a two-hour program. This room, the Valente Room, was simply booked for two hours. This is a one-hour program that may run 15 minutes over, depending on the amount of audience participation we have. And in light of that, I want you to feel free to stand, if needed, to walk around in the open space back there, if needed, and to lean against the wall or whatever you need to lean against, if needed. Excuse me, I will occasionally duck my chin, and you're going to get a pop. I'll try not to do it, but... And another correction is in order. Although flyers and press releases have described me as an educator and storyteller, I come to you today as the official, self-appointed, Black Lives Matter representative of my Davis household, a proud household of one. Thank you. And I just omitted an important word from the sentence Black Lives Matter. When not delivered in its shortened form, this sentence should read Black Lives Matter 2. That 2 stands for also. I now continue with the remembrance. In 2007, the United Nations established March 25th as the International Day of Remembrance for victims of the transatlantic slave trade and their descendants. This transatlantic slave trade of approximately 15 million doomed souls and the centuries of tragic consequences resulting therefrom is, of course, a monumental crime against humanity. I call this monumental crime against humanity. The great dehumanization. And because the narratives of racial difference and racial inferiority, arguments used to buttress slavery, still permeate our society. The great dehumanization continues to haunt this society and continues to stalk the descendants of slaves. To help counter this unfortunate truth, in the two stories we are about to present, you will find examples of at least three outstanding historic remembrances. One, the remembrance of how much the great dehumanization has been diminished over the course of many years. And the yes we have in our program's title stands for yes we have overcome a great deal in our fight against the great dehumanization. Today's two stories also remind us to remember some of the ways the great dehumanization continues today. And the yes we will in our title affirms we will continue to fight against the great dehumanization and continue to diminish it. And finally, our two stories remind us how the struggle for racial justice has been aided and abetted by people of all races. Here's a quick for example. It was not the NAACP or Black Lives Matter fine organizations, though they be, that abolished the transatlantic slave trade. In short, the people fighting for greater racial justice have always formed a rainbow of the morally outraged. And now, without further ado, I invite Mary Lou Carter to join me in presenting our first story. Let's give her a hand. After I read a brief intro, Mary Lou and I will read from a script of a StoryCorps interview. This interview is now housed in the archives of the Library of Congress. Here is the intro. When Alex Landau was a college student, he was severely beaten by Denver police officers after a traffic stop. Alex had been adopted by a white couple and had grown up in largely white middle-class suburbs of Denver. At StoryCorps, Alex, whose part is read by me, and his mother, Patsy Hathaway, whose part is read by Mary Lou, talked about what happened that night when police pulled him over and about how Alex's race has influenced his life. And now, the story. I was about four years old and a little girl on the playground came up to me and said, "'Not all white kids like to play with black kids.' You grabbed her and told her, "'You don't talk to my son like that.'" Yeah, the one that hurt me the most, you were eight years old and outside a really very hot day covered from head to toe with a long-sleeved shirt. And I didn't understand why you were dressed like that. And you said, "'Because you don't want your skin to get any darker.'" We never talked about race growing up. I just don't think there was ever a conversation. I thought that love would conquer all and skin color really didn't matter. I had to learn the really hard way when they almost killed you. Yeah, I was 19 years old. I had picked up a friend and I noticed we had red and blue lights behind us. We were being pulled over. The officer explained I had made an illegal left turn in and to step out of the car. So I get out of the car first. He pats me down and then he goes around to the passenger side and pulls my friend Addison out of the car. Addison is white. Yeah. Addison is white. And he had some weed in his coat pocket placed in handcuffs. I figured that everything's okay. I'm not in handcuffs. I've already been patted down. Plus there's three officers on the scene. And I had never had a negative interaction with police in my life. So I asked them, can I please see a warrant before you continue this search? And they grabbed me and began to hit me in the face. I could hear Addison in the background yelling, stop! Leave him alone! I was hit several times. And I remember gasping for air and spitting and blood flying across the grass. I hear an officer shout out, he's reaching for a gun. I immediately started yelling, no, I'm not. I'm not reaching for anything. And I remember an officer saying, if he doesn't calm down, we're going to have to shoot him. I could feel the gun pressed to my head. And I expected to be shot. And at that point I lost consciousness. I woke up to a multitude of officers just standing around me laughing. One officer said, how's that for you now, you bleep bleep nigger? It took 45 stitches to close up the lacerations on my face alone. How did you feel when you got the call I was in jail? I was in the middle of teaching second grade and all she said was, you better come see about your son. She didn't say anything about what kind of shape you were in. What about when you finally saw me? All I could remember was screaming. And that was the first time I cried. The entire time I had been in there and it wasn't my injuries that hurt. It was just seeing how it devastated you. My whole world was changed that night. Yeah. For me, it was the point of awakening to how the rest of the world is going to look at me. I was just another black face on the street. And I was almost another dead black male. I am now no longer Alex Landau, the young man whose story you just heard. But I can tell you that in 2011, Alex was awarded a $795,000 settlement by the city of Denver. The second largest award they've ever given. Two of the three officers involved have since been fired. But for their conduct in other incidents. I chose this story for many reasons, but two of the reasons was to illustrate that this random brutality against black, especially black males does not occur only in the South. It does not only occur in urban ghettos. The truth of the matter is, if you're driving while black, and especially if you're a male, you've upped the ante for incurring violence at the hands of some police officer or officers. I'm now going to ask if anybody would like to offer from this story a remembrance of how far we have come in overcoming the great dehumanization and or how far we still have to go in overcoming the great dehumanization. Or just share with us anything you noticed in this story that was unusual, particularly noteworthy. I certainly noticed something. Raise your hand if you want to share. Yes. Okay, in case you didn't hear what Leanne said, she said, Alex Landau's passenger was white and that may have given him a little bit of protection against the officers. I agree. I think that's why he's not dead. They were just gangbusters to wipe him out. I also think the fact that he was, there was a black and white in the car at night gave them a trigger to perhaps stop them to begin with. What's this all about? Are there drugs involved? Yeah, and they didn't have anything else to do. I'm surprised though that the fact that he had a white passenger did not get those officers automatically removed from the force. I'm wondering what the testimony eventually was. And I could not find it in my Google searching. I do know that the office where he initially reported the unusualness of this case was obviously against him from the start. And they may have just sidetracked everything. But I also think the case might have been different. Let me backtrack from that and say, Alex Landau is still in Colorado, but now he's working hard to get dash cams on police cards, body cams on police cards. Because as you all know, it's been that technology, dash cams, body cams, smart phones that has become the primary fuel of our current African-American spring. It's now not just our word. We've got technology backing us up. Anybody else wanna comment on this story before we move on? Yes, bigger voice if you can. Can you stand up? Yeah, yes, absolutely. We still have a whole lot to do. And by the way, regarding the co-ed who at 3AM was actually assaulted by three young men from Sacramento, non-students. They threw rocks at her. They were throwing things at her as well as hurling racial epithets. And it was two weeks later, I think most of you know this, in the morning at the Amtrak station, an Ethiopian man was standing there presumably waiting for a train. And a middle-aged white man, possibly intoxicated, came up to him again with racial slurs and kicked him in the shins and eventually pushed him down. The Ethiopian man very wisely did not fight back. And I say wisely, because that gives people grounds for making it, well, this didn't really happen the way you said it happened. And the police in both departments are pursuing this as far as they can. I'll tell you, I'm looking at the clock and maybe I shouldn't say this, but one thing that struck me about this is as Alex talks to his mom, and there are two examples of him being confronted by the racism in this society or coming to grips with it, he says, we never talked about race growing up. I just don't think that was ever a topic of conversation. It blows me away. This, the adopting parents were all heart and that they represent how far we have come in this fight against the great dehumanization, but raising a black child in a society like this without discussing racism. As it comes the same way you do sex, you don't hit them with a whole lot of it, three or four. You just tell them what they can absorb, but not to take advantage of the opportunities she had when the little girl said to him, not all white kids like to play with black kids. When we get home, we talk about that, and then she observes him, covering up all his body to protect himself from the sun. Actually, I do that too, folks, but it's not because I'm trying not to get browner. I've got sensitive skin, you'll see me with the big hats, protecting my skin and my eyes, but at this stage, he admitted he was covering up because he didn't want his skin to get any darker. Another excellent opportunity to introduce that. I can remember, oh, about 20 years ago somebody correct me if I'm wrong. When there was a big to do, a lot of black professionals were criticizing authorities for allowing white couples to adopt black children. And considering what I'd seen in this world, I was not one to join them. I very much support people adopting whomever they want to adopt and can adopt. But by all means, the adoption should be done with the realism, the reality of the society. You have to keep the child educated about what the child, I don't care how loving and protective you are when the child leaves the house. Actually, the child doesn't have to leave the house. It's coming in on TV. The racism in the society is ubiquitous. And I'll stop now, I'm looking at the clock. I'm going to move on to our next story. I found this on the NPR website, by the way. And this is what prefaced the presentation. Here's an astonishing speech by US district judge, Carlton Reeves, who in 2010, became the second African-American appointed as a federal judge in Mississippi. He read this speech to three young white men before sentencing them for the death of a 48-year-old black man named James Craig Anderson. James Craig Anderson was murdered by the three defendants, plus others, in a parking lot in Jackson, Mississippi, one night in 2011. The three young white men were part of a group that beat Anderson and then killed him by running over his body with a truck. As they drove off, they yelled, white power. They were yelling other racially disturbing things while they were beating him. The judge's speech was delivered in February, 2015. And it is on the long side. The judge asked the three young men to sit down while he read it aloud in the courtroom. So this is a public document I'm about to read. But before I begin reading this speech in its entirety, I think there are three things you should know or be alerted to. Judge Carlton Reeves was born in Mississippi and grew up 40 miles from Jackson. Two, there is a term used in this speech that I will explain now. The term is jaffrika. Jaffrika is a contraction of Jackson and Africa. And it is a term used by some residents of Jackson in referring to the black ghettos. And my last alert, there are many quotes in this speech and there's a lot of rough language. When we get to the judge quoting directly from the defendant's testimony, I will try to remember to say quote unquote, so you will know. And now the speech. One of my former history professors, Dennis Mitchell, recently released a history book entitled A New History of Mississippi. Mississippi, he says, is a place and a state of mind. The name evokes strong reactions from those who live here and also from those who do not but who think they know something about its people and their past. Anthony Walton in his book, Mississippi, An American Journey, says Mississippi can be considered one of the most prominent scars on the map of these United States. Walton goes on to explain that there is something different about Mississippi, something almost unspeakably primal and vicious, something savage unleashed there that has yet to come to rest. To prove his point, Walton notes that of the 40 martyrs whose names are inscribed in the National Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama, 19, one short of half were killed in Mississippi. How was it, Walton asked, that half who died did so in one state, my Mississippi, your Mississippi, our Mississippi. Mississippi has expressed its savagery in a number of ways throughout its history. Slavery being the cruelest example but a close second being Mississippi's infatuation with lynchings. Lynchings were prevalent, prominent and participatory. A lynching was a public ritual, even carnival-like within many states in our great nation while other states engaged in these atrocities, those in the deep South took a leadership role, especially those 82 counties between the Tennessee line and the Gulf of Mexico and bordered by Louisiana, Arkansas and Alabama. I'm going to pause here a moment to say I recently read something that said that Arkansas, even though it did not have the most lynchings, per capita had the most. I continue now with the judge. Vivid accounts of brutal, terrifying lynchings in Mississippi are chronicled in various sources. Ralph Ginsburg's 100 Years of Lynching and Leon Litwax Without Sanctuary, lynching photography in America, just to name two. But I note that today the Equal Justice Initiative, also known as EJI, and they're located in Alabama, one of my favorite charities, released lynching in America confronting the legacy of racial terror. I understand it too is a must read. Actually, the document referred to here from EJI lists more lynchings than have been previously documented. They did a more thorough search back to the judge. In Without Sanctuary, historian Leon Litwax writes that between 1882 and 1968, an estimated 4,742 blacks met their deaths at the hands of lynch mobs here in the U.S. The impact this campaign of terror had on black families is impossible to explain so many years later. But I am forced to interject. It has had a strong impact on me. And I was born in Berkeley and lived my life in the Bay Area. Back to the judge. That number, 4,742, contrasts with the 1,401 prisoners who have been executed legally in the United States since 1976. In modern terms, the 4,742 represents more than those killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom and more than twice the number of American casualties in Operation Enduring Freedom. The Afghanistan conflict. Turning more closely to home, this number also represents 1,700 more than were killed on September 11th. Those who died at the hands of mobs. Litwack notes. Some were the victims of legal lynchings. That is, they were accused of a crime subjected to a very speedy trial and an even speedier execution. Some were victims of private white violence. And some were merely the victims of nigger hunts, meaning they were murdered by a variety of means in isolated rural sections and dumped into rivers and creeks and I will add that's still occurring. Just not as often, but it's still occurring. Back in those days, according to some black Mississippians, describing the violence of the 1930s, to kill a Negro wasn't nothing. It was like killing a chicken or killing a snake. The whites would say, niggers just supposed to die. Ain't no damn good anyway, so just go on and kill them. The whites had to have a license to kill everything else. But it was always open season on the blacks. Said one white Mississippian, a white man ain't gonna be able to live in this country if we let niggers start getting bigotty. And even when lynchings had decreased in and around Oxford, Mississippi, one white resident there told a visitor of the reaffirming quality of lynchings. He said, it's about time to have another lynching. When the niggers get so, they are not afraid of being lynched. It is time to put that fear back in them. How could hate, fear, or whatever it was, transform genteel, God-fearing, God-loving, Mississippians into mindless murderers and sadistic torturers? I ask that same question about the events which bring us together on this day. Those crimes of the past, as well as these of today, have so damaged the psyche and reputation of this great state. Mississippi soil has been stained with the blood of folk whose name have become synonymous with the civil rights movement, such names as Emmett Till, Willie McGee, James Cheney, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, Vernon Dahmer, George W. Lee, Medgar Evers, and Mac Charles Parker. But the blood of the lesser known people like Luther Holbert and his wife, Elmo Curl, Lloyd Clay, John Hartfield, Nels Patton, Lamar Smith, Clinton Melton, Ben Chester White, Warless Jackson, and countless others saturate these 48,434 square miles of Mississippi soil. And on June 26th, 2011, four days short of his 49th birthday, the blood of James Anderson was added to Mississippi soil. The common denominator of the deaths of these individuals was not their race. It was not that they were all engaged in freedom fighting. It was not that they had been engaged in criminal activity, trumped up or otherwise. No, the common denominator was that the last thing that each of these individuals saw was the inhumanity of racism. The last thing that each felt was the audacity and agony of hate, senseless hate, crippling them, maiming them, and finally taking away their lives. Mississippi has a tortured past and it has struggled mightily to reinvent itself and become a new Mississippi. New generations have attempted to pull Mississippi from the abyss of moral depravity in which it once so proudly floundered. Despite much progress and the efforts of the new generations, these three defendants are before me today, Daryl Paul Deadman, Dylan Wade Butler, and John Aaron Rice. They and their co-conspirators ripped off the scab of the healing scars of Mississippi, causing her, our Mississippi, to bleed again. Hate comes in all shapes, all sizes, all colors, and from this case, we know it comes in different sexes and ages. A toxic mix of alcohol, foolishness, and unadulterated hatred caused these young people to resurrect the nightmarish specter of lynchings and lynch mobs. At this point, I should tell you, the three defendants and their co-conspirators, of which there are at least seven more, had on the night of the murder, attended a birthday party, and they celebrated and got high as long as they could before someone had the bright idea, let's go to Africa and have some more fun. And that's how this particular incident began. I will start at the sentence I interrupted here. A toxic mix of alcohol, foolishness, and unadulterated hatred caused these young people to resurrect the nightmarish specter of lynchings and lynch mobs from the Mississippi we long to forget. Like the marauders of ages past, these young folk conspired, planned, and coordinated a plan of attack on certain neighborhoods in the city of Jackson for the sole purpose of harassing, terrorizing, physically assaulting, and causing bodily injury to black folk. They punched and kicked them about their bodies, their heads, their faces. They prowled, they came ready to hurt. They used dangerous weapons, they targeted the weak, they recruited and encouraged others to join in the coordinated chaos, and they boasted about their shameful activity. This was a 2011 version of a nigger, though the media and the public attention of these crimes have been focused almost exclusively on the early morning hours of June 26th, 2011. The Defendants Terror Campaign is not limited to this one incident. There were many scenes and many actors in this sordid tale which played out over days, weeks, and months. There are unknown victims like the John Doe at the golf course who begged for his life and the John Doe at the service station. Like a lynching for these young folk going out to, quote, Africa, unquote, was like a carnival outing. It was funny to them, an excursion which culminated in the death of innocent African-American James Craig Anderson. On June 26th, 2011, the fun ended. But even after Anderson's murder, the conspiracy continued and only because of a video camera which told a different story from that concocted by these defendants. And because of the investigations of law enforcement, state and federal law enforcement working together was the truth uncovered. What is so disturbing, so shocking, so numbing is that these nigger hunts were perpetrated by our children, students who live among us, educated in our public schools, in our private academies, students who play football lined up on the same side of the scrimmage line with black teammates, average students and honor students, kids who work during school and in the summers, kids who now have full-time jobs and some who are still unemployed, some who were pursuing higher education and the court believes they even had dreams to pursue. These children were from two parent homes and one parent homes, children of divorced parents. No doubt they all had loving parents and loving families. In letters received on his behalf, Dylan Butler, who's outing on the night of June 26th was not his first, has been described as a fine young man, a caring person, a well-mannered man who is truly remorseful and wants to move on with his life, a very respectful, good man, a good person, a lovable, kind-hearted, teddy bear of a person who sometimes stands in front of bullies and who is now ashamed of what he has done and what he did. Dylan Butler's family is a mixed race family. For the last 15 years, it has consisted of an African-American stepfather and step sister plus his mother and two sisters. The family, according to the stepfather, is understandably saddened and heartbroken. These were everyday students like John Aaron Rice, who got out of his truck, struck James Anderson in the face and kept him occupied until others could arrive. Rice also was involved in multiple excursions to the so-called Jaffrika. But he, for some time, according to him and his mother, shared his home address with an African-American friend. And sadly, Daryl Deadman, who straddled James Anderson and struck him repeatedly in the face and hand, head with his closed fist. He, too, was a normal young man, indistinguishable in so many ways from his peers. Not completely satisfied with the punishment to which he subjected James Anderson. He deliberately used his vehicle to run over the victim, and that's how the victim was ultimately killed. Deadman now acknowledges he was filled with anger. I asked this question earlier. What could transform these young adults into the violent creatures their victims saw? It was nothing the victims did. They were not championing any cause, political, social, economic, nothing they did. Not a wolf whistle, not a supposed crime, nothing they did. There is absolutely no doubt in the view of this court the victims were targeted because of their race. The simple fact is that what turned these children into criminal defendants was their joint decision to act on racial hatred. In the eyes of these defendants and their co-conspirators, the victims were doomed at birth. Their genetic makeup made them handy, convenient targets. In the name of white power, these young folk went to quote, unquote, Africa to quote, unquote, fuck with some niggers. Strange echoes of Mississippi's past. White power, nigger. According to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, the court of the United States according to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, that word nigger is the universally recognized opprobrium stigmatizing African Americans because of their race. It is the nuclear bomb of racial epithets. With their words, with their actions, quote, I just ran that nigger over, unquote. There is no doubt that these crimes were motivated by the race of the victims. And from his own pin, Deadman sadly and regretfully wrote that he did it out of, quote, hatred and bigotry, unquote. The court must respond to one letter. It received from someone identifying themselves as a youth leader in Dylan Butler's church. A mentor, he said. And he describes Dylan as a good person. He continues, there are plenty of criminals that deserve to be incarcerated, but Dylan is not one of them, not a criminal. Dylan was an active participant in this activity as the video so aptly shows. And he deserves to be incarcerated under the law. What these defendants did was ugly. It was painful. It is sad, and it is indeed criminal. In the Mississippi, we have tried to bury. When there was a jury verdict for those who perpetrated crimes and committed lynchings in the name of white power. That verdict typically said, the victim died at the hands of persons unknown. The legal and criminal justice systems of that time operated with ruthless efficiency in upholding what these defendants would call power. Today, however, the criminal justice system, state and federal, have proceeded methodically, patiently and deliberately in truly seeking justice. Today, we know the identities of the persons unknown. They stand here before us publicly. And the sadness of this day has an additional element of irony to it. One, each defendant was escorted into this court. By an agent of an African American United States Marshal. Irony two. Each defendant has been prosecuted by a team of lawyers which includes an African American Assistant United States Attorney who comes from an office headed by an African American US Attorney. All of which is under the direction of an African American Attorney General. At that time, Eric Holder. Irony number three. Each defendant will be sentenced by a judge who is an African American. And whose final act will be to turn over the care and custody of these individuals to four. The Federal Bureau of Prisons. An agency headed by African American. Today, we take another step away from Mississippi's tortured past. We move farther away from the abyss. Indeed, Mississippi is a place and a state of mind. And those who think they know about her people and her past will also understand that her story has not been completely written. Mississippi has a present and a future. That present and future has promise. As demonstrated by the work of the officers within state and federal agencies, black and white, male and female. In this Mississippi, they work together to advance the rule of law. Having learned from Mississippi's inglorious past, these officials know that in advancing the rule of law, the criminal justice system must operate without regard to race, creed or color. This is the strongest way Mississippi can reject those noxious notions, those ideas which brought us here today. At their guilty plea hearings, Daryl Paul Deadman, Dylan Wade Butler and John Aaron Rice told the world exactly what their roles were. As I have said before, it is ugly, it is painful, it is sad and it is criminal. This court has considered the relevant computations of the advisory guidelines and the appropriate sentencing factors. This court has also considered the defendants' histories and characters and the unusual circumstances, extraordinary circumstances and the peculiar seriousness and gravity of their offenses. I have paid special attention to the plea agreements and the recommendations of the United States. I have read the letters received on behalf of the defendants. I believe the sentences I'm about to give provide just punishment to each of these defendants. And equally important, I believe they serve as adequate deterrence to others and I hope these sentences will discourage others from heading down a similar life-altering path. I have considered these sentencing guidelines and the policy statements and the law. These sentences are the result of much thought and deliberation. But they will not bring back James Craig Anderson nor will they restore the lives these defendants enjoyed prior to 2011. The court knows that James Anderson's mother, who is now 89 years old, lived through the horrors of the old Mississippi. And the court hopes that she and her family can find peace in knowing that with these sentences in the new Mississippi, justice is truly blind. Justice, however, will not be complete unless these defendants use the remainder of their lives to learn from this experience and fully commit to making a positive difference in the new Mississippi. And finally, the court wishes that the defendants can also find peace. The sentences were not part of the speech, but I will deliver them to you now. Daryl Paul Deadman, who was 22 in 2015, he was the one who drove his truck over the victim, and that's what really killed him. He was sentenced to 50 years in prison. John Aaron Rice, 21 in 2015, two more than 18 years in prison. And Dylan Wade Butler, 23 in 2015, two seven years. And of course, not surprisingly, these sentences are under appeal. I now want to tell you something additional about this judge who put a great deal of energy in prefacing his sentences. Reeves, a U.S. District Court judge for the Southern District of Mississippi, made waves in November 2015 when he ruled Mississippi's same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional. That verdict is also under appeal. We have now come to the end of the program, but before we part, would anyone like to make a comment on this remarkable speech? It certainly shows how far we have come in overcoming the great dehumanization. It dramatically shows how far we still have to go in overcoming what remains of the great dehumanization. Also emphasized in the words of the judge and in his manner, our children, it shows that the fight for racial justice remains rainbow-colored. Is there anything that strikes you as unusual? I mean, there's a lot. And this is not entirely unusual. I have to admit. But is there anything you would like to share with the group that you noticed? Yes, Nancy. Could you stand? That struck me, too. In fact, when I first read this, I read it three times that one of the defendants had lived for 15 years with a black stepfather and black stepsister. I picked up the phone. Call the friend. You won't believe this. It makes you wonder, what can we do? There's another response here. Can you stand up with a bigger voice? We do have a dark side. We have a dark side. And also these are young people subject a great deal to group pressure and also they have drunk in... Well, they have listened to a soundtrack that continues to play in our society. Keep them uneducated. Keep them psychologically beaten down. Keep them in the most menial jobs. Keep them down. Keep them down. Last tired, first fired. I consider that a chorus to one of the major soundtracks that plays in this society. I certainly heard it as I grew up. I'm happy to say the volume is not as loud as it was when I was a child, which was a long, long time ago. But these kids grow up. This attitude, this caste system, this apartheid, this idea that you can castigate blacks because somehow they deserve it. They grew up with that. And so when you combine that with alcohol and peer pressure, despite all the evidence you might have to the contrary, yes, we do have a dark side. We all. And who knows when we might succumb to something? Yes, I'm sorry. Yes, yes, yes. It's also reflecting what I've said about the soundtrack that is 24-7 playing in the society. It's hitting you from all kinds of directions. Getting back to Alex Landau, you know, he may have had loving parents, but that TV was giving him a lot of stuff. The radio gives you a lot of stuff. He steps out the door. He's subject to it. Can you stand up again? She's just asked, and I'm not the best person to answer, how can a black minister defend a politician who's so conspicuously racist? I don't know how it works. As soon as a certain person made the comment he did about immigrants from Mexico, he was off my list. I don't need further evidence. He was out because I've lived in this society long enough to know that it goes down. There are many more listings under that one. Yes, can you stand up? Oh, you do. I like it. That's a good cartoon. Help America Hate Again. Well, all I can say is everything I've said about what is in this society is being demonstrated unfortunately. But at least we are being reminded unless we lull ourselves that it's out there. And I'm going to mention something that I forgot to mention earlier. I think it was 1983 when we had a racial murder here in our high school here in Davis. A young man was stabbed to death of Vietnamese. So it happens in all kinds of communities. It may happen in certain communities more often than others, that's for sure. But that cancerous hatred, and it spills over to other minorities. As soon as something is said about another minority, even though I'm a slave descendant, I immediately get on the alert. Sometimes I even speak up. And because we know it's there, just as one of the spokesmen from the Southern Poverty Law Center said years ago, we are tracking all these incidents of racial hatred. And even though it may be hatred against that group and this group, et cetera, he felt that if you dig deep enough, you're going to find anti-Semitism. And he's right. He understands the mentality we're dealing with. And, well, does anybody else have anything to add? I hope you appreciate it, these stories. Thank you for your comments. Would you like to sing the song we have in front of us? We have overcome We have overcome We have overcome so much Oh, history does show Down through the years Oh, we have overcome So we have more to do We have more to do We have more to do Today does show Down through the years Done today Yes, we can Yes, we And thank you for coming.