Knight’s Sam Gill has special conversation with Vanita Gupta, President and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. Together, they’ll discuss George Floyd’s unjust killing, why this is a moment of reckoning for our country, and how we must begin to move forward as a nation.
00:00:23.490 --> 00:00:26.610
Sam Gill: Alright veneta thank you so much for joining us today. We appreciate it.
9
00:00:27.000 --> 00:00:29.010
Vanita Gupta: Thank you. I'm glad really glad to be here.
10
00:00:29.340 --> 00:00:37.380
Sam Gill: So this is, you know, obviously a momentous week in so many ways. But what's been interesting about it to me is
11
00:00:37.740 --> 00:00:49.320
Sam Gill: You know, one of the questions is, it is there anything different this time as we see people take to the streets in frustration and anger over the killing of George Floyd over the killings of so many people
12
00:00:50.610 --> 00:00:55.050
Sam Gill: Do you. Is there something different this time about what we're seeing in America.
13
00:00:56.340 --> 00:01:06.930
Vanita Gupta: I think so. I have, you know, having lived through Ferguson, as all of us did. And, you know, understanding the nationwide protests after Ferguson.
14
00:01:07.290 --> 00:01:18.570
Vanita Gupta: What feels different to me right now is that these killings happened amidst a time where there was another pandemic of covert 19 and where
15
00:01:19.500 --> 00:01:28.410
Vanita Gupta: Black and brown communities are being disproportionately affected by the virus and there's the kind of structural inequalities that Koba 19 late to bear.
16
00:01:28.860 --> 00:01:37.380
Vanita Gupta: Is was kind of the backdrop against which the structural racism and a long standing issues around police brutality.
17
00:01:38.310 --> 00:01:53.730
Vanita Gupta: With Mr. Floyd staff Brianna Taylor's staff, you know, and more kind of are all happening at once. So I think of it as a confluence of two pandemics, but also happening in with a looming election and a president who frankly has been intent on
18
00:01:55.020 --> 00:02:04.020
Vanita Gupta: You know, declaring the war on democracy in so many ways and kind of the response that he and his administration show to protesters so heavily militarized
19
00:02:04.350 --> 00:02:12.840
Vanita Gupta: And the like, I think, has made this really different. I think that the protests are I was out there on Saturday in the middle of Washington, DC with
20
00:02:13.380 --> 00:02:30.120
Vanita Gupta: Just this incredible energy multiracial, this is you know it is a little weird to see the mainstreaming of black lives matter but 16th Street being renamed and and and just the, the kind of level of energy.
21
00:02:31.470 --> 00:02:49.170
Vanita Gupta: Think people are demanding a lot more in this time to and are not going to be satisfied with, you know, things that Tinker at the edges and platitudes about racial equality, like people want action and and i think that that's taking a lot of different forms right now.
22
00:02:49.590 --> 00:02:57.150
Sam Gill: And well, we should. We'll talk a bit about the kind of action, people are looking for. But tell us. Tell me more about why
23
00:02:57.900 --> 00:03:01.620
Sam Gill: People are so many more people are able to see themselves in this moment. I mean, my
24
00:03:02.040 --> 00:03:06.600
Sam Gill: If I remember correctly, you were on the job at the Department of Justice for a matter of weeks.
25
00:03:06.870 --> 00:03:16.470
Sam Gill: When when Michael Brown was killed in in Ferguson and that certainly felt like a watershed moment at the time national attention was fixed on what was happening.
26
00:03:16.830 --> 00:03:28.920
Sam Gill: There but but what what what do you think is enabling this sort of broadening of people to see themselves as a part of this cause as allies as as as a holding these cries for justice and for a different country.
27
00:03:29.940 --> 00:03:36.180
Vanita Gupta: Well you know I I think I got into the Justice Department actually two months after Michael
28
00:03:36.180 --> 00:03:39.270
Vanita Gupta: Brown had been killed, but the Justice Department was investigating the
29
00:03:39.300 --> 00:03:50.760
Vanita Gupta: Ferguson Police Department, and every week for the two and a half years that I served in that position as head of the Civil Rights Division police violence policing issues were the top
30
00:03:51.240 --> 00:03:59.220
Vanita Gupta: The top thing that we were focusing on. But what feels different. Now, I mean the the kind of post Ferguson movement.
31
00:03:59.640 --> 00:04:07.860
Vanita Gupta: I mean, that was the birthing of Black Lives Matter and the movement for black lives. And I think that the activism.
32
00:04:08.580 --> 00:04:19.140
Vanita Gupta: From those movements has been really what has changed the tenor of where we find ourselves today. There's been a lot of building of that work.
33
00:04:19.650 --> 00:04:36.000
Vanita Gupta: But I also think the past few years under an administration that has kind of affirmatively sought to polarize divide us races them both for kind of strategically, but also, you know, frankly, sadly authentically
34
00:04:37.050 --> 00:04:45.060
Vanita Gupta: For you know electorial purposes it's been imbued in the policies that have been promoted. There's a real sense and I head up the leadership conference, it's a
35
00:04:45.480 --> 00:04:58.470
Vanita Gupta: Coalition of over 220 national civil and human rights groups in this moment. And for the last several years, the level of solidarity that is being expressed across communities across organizations.
36
00:04:58.770 --> 00:05:08.880
Vanita Gupta: Is fairly unprecedented and it because I think there's a real sense that the fights that we are in right now are not about one group or
37
00:05:09.210 --> 00:05:18.480
Vanita Gupta: You know, one community but are actually truly fundamentally about the soul of our country. And I think what you're seeing on the streets is
38
00:05:18.990 --> 00:05:29.820
Vanita Gupta: An energy that has been kind of built up in a level of solidarity that has been forced into existence because of the incredible onslaught of
39
00:05:30.150 --> 00:05:36.930
Vanita Gupta: Racism kind of being emboldened in the last several years, it isn't. Though I won't say I don't think these obviously these are
40
00:05:37.350 --> 00:05:50.100
Vanita Gupta: These issues around policing police brutality racial injustice systemic racism were created by any they're not, you know, new. These are. We've been saddled with these issues for so long, frankly, since
41
00:05:50.610 --> 00:05:59.280
Vanita Gupta: The kind of birthing of this country. But what I do think is different now is both because of the movement building that's happened over the last several years.
42
00:05:59.640 --> 00:06:14.940
Vanita Gupta: And also this profound sense of how intertwined. Our fates are as communities of color in this country, as you know, with white allies who are fighting for a sense of adjust and fair and inclusive America that there's this banding together.
43
00:06:15.990 --> 00:06:25.290
Vanita Gupta: That I think is, is profoundly different than what I experienced and maybe saw even after Ferguson.
44
00:06:25.680 --> 00:06:40.890
Sam Gill: Do you, to what extent is, though, do you think this is or do you think this is generational because I, I, it seems to me, I see the same thing that you see, particularly among young people that I, the way in which
45
00:06:41.640 --> 00:06:53.760
Sam Gill: So many see the movement for black lives as a movement that obligates and what I take out of your comments. Also implicates all of us in our shared fate. At the same time, you know, it seems to me the same forces.
46
00:06:54.360 --> 00:07:02.460
Sam Gill: That you're pointing to that have stoked. And I brought out some of this movement are folks who do feel threatened right who do feel like
47
00:07:03.150 --> 00:07:06.210
Sam Gill: Someone else's successes their failure, I think, I think.
48
00:07:06.810 --> 00:07:16.590
Sam Gill: A critique of the kind of polarization. We're seeing would say that if this is all about fear of what some people are losing you know in their idea of a man, we see that the politics of immigration.
49
00:07:16.920 --> 00:07:28.050
Sam Gill: I think so you know to what extent is this just about a new generation that has a different vision and version of what what the words, justice and equality and equity automate
50
00:07:29.400 --> 00:07:41.040
Vanita Gupta: So I think young people have always driven change in this country and it forced people to kind of think more boldly and transformative way to think to make the impossible actually possible and
51
00:07:42.270 --> 00:07:53.280
Vanita Gupta: So I don't. I think there's certainly is kind of a level of energy that is different, you know, across generations, but I actually in my, in my work over the last several years.
52
00:07:54.660 --> 00:08:08.310
Vanita Gupta: I mean, I think there's also just a divide about among it is that is beyond generational some of it breaks down racially but but i think it's it's beyond that I what I what I'm saying about the level of solidarity.
53
00:08:08.820 --> 00:08:19.020
Vanita Gupta: That I am seeing expressed across communities across you know age groups across racial lines cross, you know, issues that people usually work on
54
00:08:19.800 --> 00:08:30.570
Vanita Gupta: Is just profound sense of like how we, there are different representations about the future of this country and what and who belongs in America and
55
00:08:31.080 --> 00:08:48.240
Vanita Gupta: These aren't new questions we've sick. Luckily gone through those in our history, but it is so pitched right now. And so I while I see young people kind of driving a much broader agenda for cheese, then perhaps folks that have been in this work feel comfortable with.
56
00:08:49.770 --> 00:09:02.130
Vanita Gupta: I actually think that the level of a you know desire to define America for our communities, understanding the changing demographics understanding
57
00:09:03.240 --> 00:09:13.110
Vanita Gupta: How social change actually happens in this country. I think there's a lot of different factors that are kind of creating a big tent right now demanding racial justice.
58
00:09:13.800 --> 00:09:14.250
So,
59
00:09:15.690 --> 00:09:25.050
Sam Gill: Let's talk a bit about what, what we need to do, particularly around policing. But in that context, which is that over the last two days.
60
00:09:26.100 --> 00:09:33.240
Sam Gill: The policy side of this debate has evolved in ways that I think some have found really surprising. I think
61
00:09:34.170 --> 00:09:42.570
Sam Gill: From on Saturday, you had Jacob pride, the mayor of Minneapolis where I'm from, you know, booed out of a rally for not committing to
62
00:09:43.470 --> 00:10:00.690
Sam Gill: To defunding the police and then on Sunday. You actually saw, you know, a majority of veto proof majority of the Minneapolis city council embrace apparently a real paradigm shift in the way they think about policing. I don't think they use the defunding term, but I did use words like disband
63
00:10:01.740 --> 00:10:12.960
Sam Gill: And then in the last two days, you know, the news has been a flurry of discussion about, you know, what does defunding mean. And so what, how has, how has this this energy
64
00:10:13.410 --> 00:10:22.380
Sam Gill: These new movements. This kind of solidarity around change and your mind shifted or influenced the contours of even what our aspirations are for how our communities change.
65
00:10:22.860 --> 00:10:32.820
Vanita Gupta: I think a lot. Um, I think the reality is that people have been frustrated by the limitations of police reform and by police reform. I mean,
66
00:10:33.180 --> 00:10:45.150
Vanita Gupta: You know the efforts to change the culture of policing inside police departments. I will say that that work is essential. It is really important to continue to demand.
67
00:10:46.890 --> 00:10:58.380
Vanita Gupta: You know what is constitutional, but way more what is just what provides human dignity in policing for for everyone working on things like you know at banning choke holds. This is the bill that
68
00:10:58.980 --> 00:11:10.650
Vanita Gupta: The leadership conference worked on with senators proper and hear us and congresswoman Karen Bass. I was introduced yesterday in Congress, justice and policing containing provisions that frankly weeks ago were politically unthinkable.
69
00:11:12.180 --> 00:11:19.680
Vanita Gupta: You know, but, you know, ending the militarization transfer of military grade equipment to law enforcement.
70
00:11:20.190 --> 00:11:27.330
Vanita Gupta: As I said, banning chokehold giving expanded prosecutorial charging authority to the Justice Department, there's a long list of things that this bill.
71
00:11:27.690 --> 00:11:44.340
Vanita Gupta: Does but that's all within the confines of a police reform strategy. And I think what's happening right now and I will be the first to say it is somebody who oversaw police reform that the Justice Department that police reform alone is not going to solve the problems of police violence.
72
00:11:45.420 --> 00:11:51.750
Vanita Gupta: It is really important, but it is highly insufficient and that for the last several decades.
73
00:11:52.380 --> 00:12:02.040
Vanita Gupta: As part of the kind of build up in the in our policies on mass incarceration. We have over criminalized and criminalized just about everything we have.
74
00:12:02.370 --> 00:12:17.760
Vanita Gupta: And so that there are in in certain communities, mainly black mainly brown communities where police saturate these communities where the level of interaction between police and residents is so much higher
75
00:12:18.120 --> 00:12:28.380
Vanita Gupta: Than in more affluent communities where police are only called for very serious offenses in these communities their call for living well black and the kind of
76
00:12:29.280 --> 00:12:41.670
Vanita Gupta: So the demand right now to say that you've got to shrink the footprint of policing of the criminal justice criminal legal system infrastructure in these communities. You've got to look at
77
00:12:42.090 --> 00:12:48.510
Vanita Gupta: Budgets budgets or moral documents. What are the priorities in any city in any jurisdiction on the county level.
78
00:12:48.870 --> 00:13:00.150
Vanita Gupta: How our local elected making decisions about what priorities. There are, why are they so invested in this criminal legal system infrastructure, including policing at the expense
79
00:13:00.690 --> 00:13:12.030
Vanita Gupta: And it's while there's been some stomach disinvestment from schools and healthcare in jobs and public transportation in a lot of these communities when I was at the Justice Department
80
00:13:12.510 --> 00:13:22.290
Vanita Gupta: And we would go, we would open an investigation. A lot of times the policing issues were just the tip of the spear. Yeah, they were you know a critical incident blew open
81
00:13:22.800 --> 00:13:31.530
Vanita Gupta: Unrest. That was really needed because of massive frustration around a whole host of other failures of
82
00:13:32.460 --> 00:13:40.920
Vanita Gupta: Of social systems and equity and so I actually think right now there's a really important critical uncomfortable conversation.
83
00:13:41.310 --> 00:13:57.210
Vanita Gupta: To be had. I think there are people in the movement who are pushing abolition and then there are a lot of people who are actually saying, look, we may not be abolitionists, I'll be profoundly criticize the model where
84
00:13:58.320 --> 00:14:13.830
Vanita Gupta: That is SO THAT'S, YOU SO MUCH towards policing and criminal legal infrastructure and even within policing where the priorities and policing are not shaped by the community do not are not you know where the community doesn't have any kind of say, so I think there's a lot of
85
00:14:15.030 --> 00:14:25.590
Vanita Gupta: A lot of parts of this conversation. But I absolutely think that there is a push on this frame right now. That also makes this moment unique and I would credit
86
00:14:25.950 --> 00:14:34.050
Vanita Gupta: The activism. The Black Lives Matter folks and some movement for black lives. It is folks that are really forcing us to think more holistically about what's happening.
87
00:14:34.590 --> 00:14:41.940
Sam Gill: How do how do, how do we manage this practically and politically, though, because I think there are, there would be some who are
88
00:14:42.390 --> 00:14:51.930
Sam Gill: Putting aside for a minute, like reactionary critics who say the system is fine. Or let's just tinker around the edges. It's a few bad apples just putting those people completely aside.
89
00:14:52.320 --> 00:15:03.150
Sam Gill: You know, I suspect there are many allies of not just police reform but radical rethinking to your point of sort of the footprint of the justice system of
90
00:15:03.690 --> 00:15:12.660
Sam Gill: criminalization, who would say, look, I mean, one of the signal achievements of the 20th century is that the social technology of the police gets to enter the home and think of
91
00:15:12.900 --> 00:15:19.890
Sam Gill: Think of how many incidents of Domestic Battery and domestic violence were able to interrupt because we've drawn. I mean,
92
00:15:20.280 --> 00:15:27.510
Sam Gill: Think of how much racially motivated crime. Right. And the first half of the 20th century was considered a private community matter and the police would stand aside.
93
00:15:27.780 --> 00:15:31.950
Sam Gill: Rather than saying our obligation and having a monopoly on force in the community.
94
00:15:32.280 --> 00:15:42.270
Sam Gill: Is to protect protect rights right so much of the federal ization of the use of federal authority right during the civil rights era is about the imprimatur of the State standing up for rights so
95
00:15:42.960 --> 00:15:50.610
Sam Gill: It yet it seems like we're in a moment where that to some that level of discussion feels challenging and if you
96
00:15:50.910 --> 00:16:01.080
Sam Gill: If you, if you aren't an abolitionist. If you don't advocate the most radical reform, it's hard to find common cause. What, what would you say to folks who
97
00:16:01.350 --> 00:16:14.430
Sam Gill: Who really are, who really want to stand with the ethos of the moment, but have these sorts of questions which we may disagree about but don't strike me is unreasonable are legitimate questions about what a more just system looks like.
98
00:16:14.910 --> 00:16:25.830
Vanita Gupta: But I think there's actually a lot of people in that space. And I think it is it is ok this is typical of social change movements to have
99
00:16:26.370 --> 00:16:39.330
Vanita Gupta: People who are, you know, may want to do the abolition because they want to start. They want to do the kind of rethinking from the ground up. We'll see what happens in Minneapolis, right, like they the City Council made this announcement.
100
00:16:39.750 --> 00:16:46.050
Vanita Gupta: Nobody. I have a lot of questions about it. I think it is a fascinating and important move
101
00:16:46.680 --> 00:16:57.330
Vanita Gupta: But we don't know what the plan is right now there are jurisdictions that have taken similar moves like Camden, New Jersey, that disbanded their police department. After you know
102
00:16:57.750 --> 00:17:08.100
Vanita Gupta: Years of systemic corruption and conduct and built a different public safety environment, but with a police department and just a very, you know, a very different culture fully thing.
103
00:17:08.700 --> 00:17:19.320
Vanita Gupta: And I think that there are a lot of folks who understand and are very sympathetic in our industry about the skewed kind of funding that's happening at the local level.
104
00:17:20.070 --> 00:17:27.750
Vanita Gupta: Around policing versus everything else that would be positive, you know, systems that make sure are in place in in
105
00:17:28.320 --> 00:17:38.340
Vanita Gupta: communities of color and who aren't you know pushing around abolition, but are saying we need to transform the culture of policing and we need to shrink.
106
00:17:39.000 --> 00:17:53.910
Vanita Gupta: The kind of the places where police show up. There's a lot of folks is in communities of color, also, that are under policed. As you said, where they make a 911 call and it takes 45 minutes for an officer to show up.
107
00:17:54.750 --> 00:18:01.890
Vanita Gupta: In a way that would never happen in an affluent community or you just don't hear these stories and we we heard a lot of those stories when we were
108
00:18:02.220 --> 00:18:08.370
Vanita Gupta: When I was at the Justice Department during the investigation in the Chicago Police Department. That was a very big complaint about
109
00:18:08.670 --> 00:18:19.530
Vanita Gupta: from Chicago residents in particular neighborhoods about the kind of they were over policed in many in in many instances, and obviously the police brutality stuff was is iconic.
110
00:18:20.610 --> 00:18:27.960
Vanita Gupta: There but but we're actually, there were a lot of problems with under policing and under responsiveness and certain communities to and so
111
00:18:28.800 --> 00:18:34.230
Vanita Gupta: I think that this is a complex issue. There's 18,000 police departments in this country.
112
00:18:34.680 --> 00:18:49.740
Vanita Gupta: The, you know, we have to understand that every community also has different needs, different populations, but it is also why the kind of ability for communities, community leaders to meaningfully engage with with
113
00:18:50.550 --> 00:18:59.880
Vanita Gupta: Their policing systems to meaningfully influence them to meaningfully influence the local officials who have authority over how public safety is defined
114
00:19:00.240 --> 00:19:04.530
Vanita Gupta: In community. Those are mayor's. Those are county commissioners, those are city council members.
115
00:19:05.010 --> 00:19:13.020
Vanita Gupta: All of this becomes really important, there's, you know, the 18,000 police departments are bound by the US Constitution.
116
00:19:13.380 --> 00:19:18.870
Vanita Gupta: And so it is important for Congress to take the kind of action that the Justice employee thing.
117
00:19:19.200 --> 00:19:30.090
Vanita Gupta: Bill represents because it sets the floor for what is acceptable and how to change you know culture through some from some federal standards and federal accountability.
118
00:19:30.450 --> 00:19:40.260
Vanita Gupta: But in the at the end of the day, so much of this work is at the local level and it's we've got to be okay with the fact that it may look different in different communities.
119
00:19:41.520 --> 00:19:50.340
Vanita Gupta: Depending on kind of you know what the demands are in those communities and understanding that local communities need to drive that conversation.
120
00:19:50.880 --> 00:19:57.900
Sam Gill: Where would you start, you know, if you were if you were you probably talked to mayors every day. If someone listening as a mayor.
121
00:19:58.170 --> 00:20:11.790
Sam Gill: Or a city council member seeing this as a moment to start to take on as you point out, sort of the tip of the iceberg and then get a little bit deeper. What would, what would be some of the ways that that you would advise folks like leaders like that to get started.
122
00:20:12.450 --> 00:20:28.920
Vanita Gupta: So I would, I mean, I think for the first instance, it is really important for local elected to list them and and to understand that maybe for years. They actually haven't been authentically listening, some of that listening is really uncomfortable.
123
00:20:30.060 --> 00:20:42.030
Vanita Gupta: And so figuring out like kind of where those venues are put yourself into here, you know, and there's anger and pain right now across the country that
124
00:20:42.570 --> 00:20:50.970
Vanita Gupta: can sometimes make people and elected feel like, Oh, this isn't a constructive conversation, but sometimes just being there to listen to that anger and pain and grief.
125
00:20:51.330 --> 00:21:10.890
Vanita Gupta: Is the first step, because for so long. People have felt unheard and unseen by their by their government. And I think that is just even as a first step, but then figuring out what it, what, how are you channeling this energy. How can there actually be meaningful.
126
00:21:12.000 --> 00:21:21.540
Vanita Gupta: You know engagement, where as a local elected. You're going to feel punished and but to kind of think about, you know, expand the notion of what is possible.
127
00:21:21.870 --> 00:21:34.890
Vanita Gupta: And to also take a look at things that you took for granted every year about the, you know, you know, the city budget or your budget and figuring out how how Allah how money has been distributed in your own jurisdiction.
128
00:21:35.850 --> 00:21:44.340
Vanita Gupta: And I think that these are important things to to have happen. I mean, the Justice Department has a role to play in setting priorities funding.
129
00:21:44.760 --> 00:21:56.400
Vanita Gupta: All of these jurisdictions, but the vast majority of funding for public safety is from is at the state and local level. And so these are just some of the things that I think are really important in this moment.
130
00:21:56.820 --> 00:22:07.230
Vanita Gupta: There that much more important at a time where you also have a Justice Department doesn't, you know, walked away and abdicated its own responsibility and helping to support these efforts.
131
00:22:07.740 --> 00:22:09.090
Sam Gill: What when you
132
00:22:10.830 --> 00:22:13.380
Sam Gill: When you, when you were in the role of
133
00:22:14.580 --> 00:22:26.640
Sam Gill: Coming to a community, and I, I assume, given the circumstances in which, in which you are visiting a community already you know some agree this wrong had been committed people were upset.
134
00:22:27.660 --> 00:22:42.150
Sam Gill: And so not only do you have a populace that's at best divided and at worst, you're really frustrated. You've got a government that now has a federal authority coming in and implying that they either can't do it or can't do it alone. What was
135
00:22:42.600 --> 00:22:51.780
Sam Gill: I assume, sometimes it was more constructive than others. And what was, what was the key to building a constructive relationship so that in a world where
136
00:22:52.140 --> 00:23:03.330
Sam Gill: Authority is not being advocated, we can have trust that this is going to work for everyone, rather than be something that has to be in board or something that feels ephemeral
137
00:23:03.900 --> 00:23:13.110
Sam Gill: But rather keep just another catalyst that everyone is excited about what makes it work when when federal and state state and local authorities are working together.
138
00:23:13.830 --> 00:23:14.550
Vanita Gupta: In these notes.
139
00:23:14.970 --> 00:23:20.280
Vanita Gupta: I mean, the Justice Department actually have presence in all of the states they have US Attorney's office.
140
00:23:20.610 --> 00:23:27.390
Vanita Gupta: But they are often use various offices can sometimes be seen as part of the criminal justice machinery, because they also prosecute Federal cases.
141
00:23:27.960 --> 00:23:33.540
Vanita Gupta: But when I was at the Justice Department. There were a lot of US Attorney's Offices that were actually
142
00:23:33.900 --> 00:23:42.240
Vanita Gupta: Leading the charge on bringing I'm having those hard conversations with community members, bringing police chiefs, community leaders civil rights activists.
143
00:23:42.690 --> 00:23:48.330
Vanita Gupta: Together in a room. I think there's a lot more that could be done on that front.
144
00:23:48.810 --> 00:23:58.350
Vanita Gupta: But I mean, yeah, there were times where the Civil Rights Division opened an investigation into a police department where actually the police commissioner on the mayor.
145
00:23:58.680 --> 00:24:07.290
Vanita Gupta: Frankly, we're pleading for us to get involved because they realize the depth of distrust and broken relationships were so much so that
146
00:24:07.710 --> 00:24:15.780
Vanita Gupta: There just wasn't any faith in a completely like local self policing efforts are on to
147
00:24:16.590 --> 00:24:30.720
Vanita Gupta: You know that would make things better. And so in those instances we there were, you know, a lot more demands for the kind of pattern practice investigations and the Justice Department was able to meet. I mean, people think that it's this huge
148
00:24:31.230 --> 00:24:43.230
Vanita Gupta: Office it DOJ there were about 25 folks working who are expert investigators and lawyers tours kind of singularly tasked with this work.
149
00:24:43.710 --> 00:24:56.220
Vanita Gupta: In the eight years of the Obama administration, there are 25 investigations and 50 and consent decrees in a nation with 18,000 police departments. That's not Batman. It's a tool that's very judiciously use because it's it is fairly intrusive.
150
00:24:57.840 --> 00:25:06.690
Vanita Gupta: But it is, but it is used in very particular instances and also these the consent decrees court court agreements that come out of
151
00:25:07.050 --> 00:25:14.910
Vanita Gupta: These investigations are ones that police departments around the country used for modeling better practices but um
152
00:25:15.450 --> 00:25:22.680
Vanita Gupta: But these efforts are times when like in Ferguson. It was very oppositional and the Ferguson city council resisted
153
00:25:22.980 --> 00:25:36.480
Vanita Gupta: The findings resisted the agreement resisted kind of at every turn, but that is where in some you know where actually the ability of the Justice Department to demand that change and to have a federal court that says
154
00:25:36.930 --> 00:25:53.520
Vanita Gupta: This is totally unconstitutional policing and until you remedy and fix these issues which doesn't happen overnight culture change doesn't happen overnight in any institution that's why most of these consent decrees are, you know, generally, on average, four or five years.
155
00:25:54.960 --> 00:26:08.130
Vanita Gupta: In duration, because it you know takes a lot of time to kind of turn this around. And so, but again, as I said, these interventions are limited. Right. There's limited resources to do them.
156
00:26:08.700 --> 00:26:17.100
Vanita Gupta: They're really they're important and I think it is a travesty that this Justice Department has abdicated its responsibility in doing this work.
157
00:26:17.400 --> 00:26:28.290
Vanita Gupta: But I also think that they don't these investigations. They help promote like in Seattle and Cleveland we pushed a model where instead of police being the first responders.
158
00:26:28.650 --> 00:26:40.620
Vanita Gupta: For people in mental health crisis where you saw lot of, um, you know, both unintended consequences. You said for step that could have been mitigated loss of life.
159
00:26:41.580 --> 00:26:49.560
Vanita Gupta: people dying, where we actually pushed a model to pair police officers with mental health professionals first responders.
160
00:26:49.980 --> 00:26:55.890
Vanita Gupta: And change. I mean, that's just like one little example but changing that model. There's a lot of police officers who say
161
00:26:56.400 --> 00:27:01.680
Vanita Gupta: Look 80% of our jobs is social work and that is not what we signed up for either
162
00:27:02.160 --> 00:27:10.860
Vanita Gupta: And that record they recognize the kind of systematic disinvestment from these communities around other positive social supports in some ways.
163
00:27:11.190 --> 00:27:16.020
Vanita Gupta: More than a lot of other people. It's just like strange coming together in a way of
164
00:27:16.710 --> 00:27:20.880
Vanita Gupta: They don't want their budgets cut right like so that they're going to like draw the line there.
165
00:27:21.150 --> 00:27:31.830
Vanita Gupta: But even yesterday, the International Association of Chiefs of Police I saw issued a statement that actually said like we recognize this is the kind of systematic disinvestment of
166
00:27:32.130 --> 00:27:39.240
Vanita Gupta: And and and use of the criminal justice system to address things like homelessness mental health school discipline.
167
00:27:40.470 --> 00:27:58.770
Vanita Gupta: Substance use disorders in the drug war and and so they you know i i do think that there is a really important conversation that is happening right now and no amount of limited Justice Department involvement is going to be a silver bullet here, it's, it's going to take all of those
168
00:27:59.340 --> 00:27:59.760
So,
169
00:28:01.290 --> 00:28:05.970
Sam Gill: Kind of a bigger picture question, but you've alluded to it is
170
00:28:07.290 --> 00:28:17.820
Sam Gill: We've got there are there are pathways forward, there are communities that have an energy. You know, we haven't seen to to really commit themselves to a different vision.
171
00:28:18.480 --> 00:28:28.830
Sam Gill: It seems to me there's a really big open question about whether our national politics can rise to that moment I we see a level of division, it seems to me in our national political discourse that
172
00:28:29.340 --> 00:28:39.360
Sam Gill: You know i i didn't i didn't think we'd see I maybe that makes me naive. Um, and, you know, Knight Foundation is, you know, we invest in and study
173
00:28:39.990 --> 00:28:46.110
Sam Gill: How people get access to information and increasingly we see people living in very different worlds of fact.
174
00:28:46.980 --> 00:29:03.000
Sam Gill: In the news that they consume so they come at these questions with a very different basic understanding of what's happening in the world. In some cases, how do you do you are you an optimist. Do you think that the the politics of the moment are going to, to enable us to move forward.
175
00:29:04.200 --> 00:29:05.640
Vanita Gupta: Sounds civil rights advocate.
176
00:29:05.670 --> 00:29:07.020
Vanita Gupta: So I am
177
00:29:07.260 --> 00:29:17.550
Vanita Gupta: Due to domestic because you can't do this work and kind of feel like you're playing the long game without being optimism optimistic and having kind of a deep
178
00:29:18.030 --> 00:29:24.780
Vanita Gupta: Seated well of hope. But the only thing that has ever really created a change in this country in this country has been through a lot, right, like we
179
00:29:25.290 --> 00:29:34.500
Vanita Gupta: I I sometimes think it's important, even for myself in the most dire of moments to draw on the lessons of history and what it took.
180
00:29:34.950 --> 00:29:40.620
Vanita Gupta: To make change in this country. It is been painstaking it is oftentimes been too slow.
181
00:29:41.220 --> 00:29:53.550
Vanita Gupta: It has been a fragile progress, but the only thing that has ever made a difference is the sustained will an action of people often motivated, quite honestly, by young people again to imagine
182
00:29:53.850 --> 00:30:03.840
Vanita Gupta: And make possible what was perceived as as impossible before, but I do think that people. We have to make sure that in this moment.
183
00:30:04.320 --> 00:30:16.200
Vanita Gupta: That there is actions that people are calling for and that we have kind of the ability to persist to see them through. I think there's a whole, as we've talked about kind of in the policing realm.
184
00:30:16.980 --> 00:30:24.360
Vanita Gupta: You know, the local activism. The we're talking about kind of federal bills and both of like opportunity that
185
00:30:24.660 --> 00:30:38.040
Vanita Gupta: The one that was introduced yesterday provides but also the limitations and but how important it is to be able to articulate that but I also think we are in a moment where we are five months away from an election and we have very
186
00:30:39.240 --> 00:30:56.400
Vanita Gupta: Different you talked about how polarized. The country is I think there's a lot at stake with the selection and making sure that people don't kind of just feel disillusioned and sit it out, but also understand that real people are in real harm's way.
187
00:30:58.080 --> 00:31:10.380
Vanita Gupta: And will be even more harm's way, you know, depending on what the outcome of the election is I'm telling so I'm telling people check your voter registration and get ready to vote. I can't tell you who to vote for, but I can tell you what to vote for
188
00:31:11.640 --> 00:31:26.250
Vanita Gupta: I also think, you know, there are things like the census that are we, you know, they seem like these technical things but fill out the census 2020 census.gov the census is going to determine how power gets allocated, not just
189
00:31:27.360 --> 00:31:37.110
Vanita Gupta: Not just in the US House of Representatives, but actually at the local level, at the state level, it will be the basis for state redistricting. It's going to have a direct implication on
190
00:31:37.410 --> 00:31:48.780
Vanita Gupta: Local power for communities of color and vulnerable communities and also around the allocation of dollars. The census is the basis for that. So as we're talking about local policy.
191
00:31:49.050 --> 00:32:02.040
Vanita Gupta: And local change the census filling that out and making sure that our communities are represented and not left out is actually really, really important to these broader conversations around policing and justice and so
192
00:32:02.550 --> 00:32:11.670
Vanita Gupta: You know, so I think there's a lot of different things that people need to be doing in this moment. But I also think, I cannot. You know, we've been
193
00:32:12.870 --> 00:32:19.080
Vanita Gupta: Directly challenging disinformation on social media platforms and the role of Facebook and responsibility that
194
00:32:19.920 --> 00:32:30.300
Vanita Gupta: That social media platforms have to provide people with accurate information and fight disinformation and fight kind of incitement to violence on the platforms fight.
195
00:32:31.260 --> 00:32:49.350
Vanita Gupta: Can deliberate and intentional confusion and all of that. That is, we're doing that because all of this stuff is actually connected and that if we are going to be able to see ourselves in the future of this country and have the power that we actually do have to be able to manifest it
196
00:32:50.400 --> 00:32:54.030
Vanita Gupta: We've got to be able to show up in these different ways and so
197
00:32:54.510 --> 00:33:06.000
Vanita Gupta: That's where. To me, it is easy to feel despair. And believe me, I have had my moments but despair is not going to save lives and in fact me damages into the future. And it's why I think it's really important.
198
00:33:06.510 --> 00:33:20.370
Vanita Gupta: For people to kind of retain a sense of hopefulness because hopefulness will spur action and that is truly what is needed in this moment to be able to create the kind of transformation that people are demanding.
199
00:33:20.970 --> 00:33:32.310
Sam Gill: I know we gotta let you go, but just one more question along those lines, which is you know you lead one of the story civil rights organizations. I mean, when you talk about
200
00:33:32.640 --> 00:33:40.920
Sam Gill: Fragile progress, you know, the leadership conference has been so critical to shoring up the cracks. When there are cracks and the pushing that progress forward.
201
00:33:41.190 --> 00:33:59.760
Sam Gill: When we've seen progress. Does this moment demand something different from the Civil Rights Movement in this country. What, what, what do you think is the role of the civil rights movement in in moving forward this if not new renewed vision for or more just country.
202
00:34:00.450 --> 00:34:09.000
Vanita Gupta: I think that we are always having to change and the demographics of the country are changing the issues are changing the needs of
203
00:34:10.320 --> 00:34:17.070
Vanita Gupta: Of, you know, our communities are changing the, the ways in which young people are continuously. I was young ones.
204
00:34:18.180 --> 00:34:28.890
Vanita Gupta: Are continuously not really changing the parameters of what was thought possible are always changing. And so for the leadership conference. The reason why we've been able to be around for 70 years and
205
00:34:29.370 --> 00:34:40.710
Vanita Gupta: Be relevant to today's discussion, and today's you know critical issues is because we have had to change continuously. And so the work that we do. Now it has to be
206
00:34:42.060 --> 00:34:47.880
Vanita Gupta: Uplifting of the efforts at the local level and among the movement among young people in
207
00:34:48.240 --> 00:34:54.750
Vanita Gupta: The movement for black lives and other places we understand. Everyone's got different roles to play. Everyone shows up in different spaces, but
208
00:34:55.110 --> 00:35:08.670
Vanita Gupta: The ability to recognize that we are a part of a really rich, complex but essential ecosystem that is pushing for change. I think is really important and it is what keeps the leadership conference.
209
00:35:09.120 --> 00:35:21.510
Vanita Gupta: Able to have, you know, long standing relationships and new relationships with with groups that are helping to lead change. And so I think in this moment. This is our 70th anniversary
210
00:35:22.320 --> 00:35:36.780
Vanita Gupta: We look very different even than what we looked like before in it. We have to be ever changing and evolving with the with the issues of the day, in order to kind of retain our ability to make change.
211
00:35:37.740 --> 00:35:46.470
Sam Gill: Well, yeah. Again, we know you're you're in high demand these days, and we really appreciate you taking time with us during this incredibly critical moment in our country.
212
00:35:46.980 --> 00:35:48.390
Vanita Gupta: Thank you so much for having me.