When Faith Meets Justice, Tiffany Loftin

0:00 I want to thank everyone for being out on tonight. Let me share with you a little bit about where we're headed on next month for the end of the year. You know, we want to balance out when we had ladies night. The ladies were able to come out and share insight on romance and dating and all that. We just thought, well, sisters, y'all ought to understand the simplicity of manhood. So we are having the brothers night on next month. Come out and talk about what a man. We're going to school y'all. We're going to help you understand. what's going on in this complex mind of ours and what men really want and we'll teach you how to speak man language we'll teach you how to translate some of the things you hear to understand what we're really saying because it's really not that complicated but we're gonna help you all understand so come on out spread the word next month we're gonna go out of 2019 with a bang so that some of us can make some real good New Year's resolutions in 2020 praise the Lord by My way of introducing our guests very quickly, if you're like me, you probably know what it's like to go through these seasons of being absolutely frustrated with the nation we live in.

1:11 My morning routine has changed significantly over the last year to the point where I don't even enjoy watching the news. I have to, to be relevant, to be able to be prophetic, to know what God wants to speak to our generation. But it's really a frustrating experience. You reach the point where you almost turn on the news every day expecting more nonsense, expecting another act of violence, expecting more blatant racism and privilege and prejudice, expecting more ignorance being spewed and threats and gun violence and shooting. And you reach the point where it's frustrating not only because it's repeated, but because you feel you can't do anything about it. hear about it we see gun violence marches change gun reform law nothing start all over again black life killed march demand justice someone be set free start all over again

2:15 and the repetition is not only frustrating but feeling like you can do nothing about it is frustrating so i stopped watching a lot and then i was reminded that we're called as christians to pray for our land. The Bible says in 2 Chronicles that when God's people pray, God heals the land. That there's something powerful. And just, I don't want you to wave your hand because maybe your answer is no, but I want to challenge you to pray for the United States of America. To pray against these demonic and divisive forces. Our land has not been this divided since the era right before civil rights. Along racial lines, economic lines, gender equality lines, sexual identity lines, ableist lines. We find more ways to divide ourselves than we do to unite our nation, and it's depressing, and I think we need to be a generation that prays for that.

3:10 But I'm going to be honest with you. I've been praying for our land. Ever since November 9, 2016, I have been on my knees. Some of you all don't know what date that was. Amen. That's the day he took over. and been in deep prayer for our nation and still frustrated. And I don't know if you've ever been in that place where you prayed and you were still frustrated because things just weren't changing. And in that time of praying for our land and still being frustrated is when the Lord directed me to that passage I just read in your hearing in Joshua. Quick context, the Church of Israel are given permission by God to take over the promised land. And you know they enter the land, They take over Jericho. The walls come tumbling down. It's a major victory. And right after that victory, they go up against a little city called Ai. Ai does not have the defenses of Jericho, doesn't have the army of Jericho. And Israel gets their tails kicked by this little itty bitty city.

4:09 And they're sitting there wondering, how could we win Jericho and lose Ai? How could we have a great victory in 08 and wind up with this in 16? How can we have done all of that and lose so dramatically? And so Joshua does what any religious leader would do. He calls Israel to prayer. They get down on their knees. They're praying. They're begging God to heal them. They're begging God to bring them victory. They say, listen, if we don't win, God, the whole enemy will hear about this, and they'll come and wipe us out the face of the earth. And so they begin praying, praying, praying, praying.

4:43 And in one shocking verse, God shows up. while Joshua is in prayer, and God tells Joshua, get up off your knees. Stop praying. I know you've lost the battle and you've been praying. Now it's time to stop praying because at some moment, the righteous have to stop praying and start doing. At some moment, the amen has to come so that we get up and go back in the valley. God tells Joshua, in essence, get up off your knees, stop crying, stop praying. I heard your prayer, now get your butt back in the valley and fight. Because at some point we have to get off of our knees and get back into the valley and fight. So rather than being frustrated and just praying, there comes a moment when our prayer has to meet our action, when our faith has to meet our call to justice, when our frustration has to motivate us to be part of God's answer. Howard Thurman said the power of prayer is connected to your willingness to be part of God's answer.

5:43 You can't pray for it and then not be part of the answer. So whatever we're praying for in our land, I believe God wants us to be part of God's answer to change the land. And when we thought about that, there was just one person who kept jumping up to the top of the list who could come and speak to us about this. And I'm proud to introduce you to her. You've seen her on social media all over the place. She's got a unique story. Tiffany, I think of you like Esther, that God has just put you in places where all of a sudden an assignment came and you had to step up and do what God called you to do because the opportunity was there. Tiffany D. Lofton now serves as Director of Youth and College at the NAACP, and her calling in life is to be able to address us and to share with us about awareness leading into action and how we actually go about making a difference and understanding the language of the land, understanding social media, understanding our activism.

6:38 And so I am grateful to God that she has found time to be here. She is all over the land. She travels the world. She's about to hop on a plane in the morning to go out west and do this all again. She is on the move. But she stopped tonight to come by Kaya because we invited her. And she's a member of Alpha Street Baptist Church, so that just always helps. So do me a favor. Would you put your hands together and welcome Tiffany D. Lofton, our presenter on tonight. He's going to share with us about faith and justice. Thank you, Pastor. testing testing one two three hi kaya good evening um eight years i've been going to this church it is a blessing thank you um i have to at least give honor to god uh before i get started because i know there's a lot to talk about when we want to solve racism in this country there's a lot to talk about when we want to solve oppression in this country. We're not going to do it and solve it all tonight, but we will make leeway. I'm from Los Angeles, California originally. Oh, okay.

7:50 I know how DMV rolls, so I got to make sure I shout out my city. And I'm from Los Angeles originally. I'm the oldest of three. My mother is from Algiers, New Orleans, 504, Louisiana. I knew I know y'all was in here. I'm going to be the Saints game on Saturday. And who dat? My dad is from Los Angeles. And when I was seven years old, they split from domestic violence. Growing up, if you are from a family with a parent who's only the serving parent, like I was with my mother, then you know that sometimes subconsciously you take up the mantle to support your parents in raising the entire family. Even though that's not the calling or the ask or the need of you at seven years old, you're trying to figure out how do I make things easier for mom, because clearly things aren't easy. Lived in a shelter for a while, transitioned from a shelter, and when I got into high school, I decided to find things at my high school that would keep me occupied, things like running track and field and becoming the city champion by four in the 400.

8:49 I started to my people from Birmingham High School. And then I decided to do theater, so not really nervous or scared of being in front of people, and did that for about eight years. And my mom told me one thing. She said, Tiffany, all I want you to do is go to college and graduate. How many folks resonate with that? Your parents telling you that you want to go to school, even though they probably had no experience or no help or no resources. My mama didn't have no Wi-Fi, no car, but she wanted you to go to college. So it was your job to figure it out and go. And I said, okay, mom, I'm going to go ahead and do that. And I really wanted to go to UCLA. They denied me. But the one admission that I did get was at this University of California, University of California, Santa Cruz. And at the University of California, Santa Cruz, they send out mailers to show you what the school looks like, and there's deers, and there's mountains, and there's white kids. And I was like, probably going to go to community college and stay in Los Angeles. And when my mom said, okay, go to CSUM, which is only five minutes from the house, I was like, well, I'm trying to be as far away from the house as possible, so I think I'm going to go to Santa Cruz.

9:47 And my mom, the way that black mothers are, they can always tell what's going to happen with your life before you do, she received a letter in the mail, and she filled out the letter on my behalf and didn't tell me. The letter was from the Black Student Union at the University of California, Santa Cruz. They have a student-initiated outreach program called Destination Higher Education. We call it DHE for short. And this program is black students at the school. There's a lot of universities across the country who have this, where they pay for completely a free trip for any admitted black student to go to the university and get an experience for what it's like to be a black student at the school. Where should you get your hair done? What teachers and professors should you know? what college you should live at, where you should go for your classes, where you should hang out with after school to be safe, et cetera. And I didn't know she filled out this paper on my behalf. And Fox Hills Mall, people in L.A. know where that is. My mom drove there at 4 o'clock in the morning.

10:41 The bus didn't pick us up until 8. And so here I am in the dark in this little busted vehicle in the cold trying to figure out why I'm here. My mom said, you're getting on this bus to go to Santa Cruz. I want you to go and see what it's like. Ended up going to the school, having a great time because I was a bunch of black kids, about 70 black kids, and came back and said, Mom, I'm going to the school. First quarter of getting to UC Santa Cruz, the University of California regents, who are the leadership over the University of California school, they rose our tuition 32%. There were students on my floor who were undocumented, and at the time, if you are undocumented, you pay out-of-state tuition. So that means that your actual cost of living and the tuition at the school went up 32% and you're already paying out-of-state tuition. Now, I'm not undocumented, but the only reason why that resonated for me is because the two students who were undocumented, they had Guitar Hero, the video game.

11:38 I'm sure I'm my age, I'm 30. And they had to leave and take the video game with them. And I was like, so why are y'all leaving the school? And they said, well, we can't afford it anymore. And I said, you should take out some student loans like I did. And they said, well, it's not that easy. We don't have enough student loans to take out. It costs too much to be here. So they left. And I said, well, what can we do to keep you here? Because I'm trying to play Guitar Hero. And they were like, well, that's not going to work. We got to go back home. So there was a young man during move-in week who was passing out postcards and asked me to sign a postcard that was a pledge to support the DREAM Act. I didn't get involved in this work because I thought it was cool or fun. Sometimes our issues choose us. And sometimes you watch issues choose other people. And it convicts you to get involved. And I said, the DREAM Act, what does that do? And he said, well, it's actually going to help lower the cost of living and lower the cost of tuition for students at this school who are undocumented.

12:31 I said, wait a minute, you said undocumented. I'm from L.A. We see brown and black people all the time, and don't nobody know what undocumented means. But I said, undocumented? My friends just told me they were undocumented, and they dropped out of school. That was also when Geno 6 was happening. Fast forward three years. We're doing all this social justice activism stuff. I ran for vice president of my entire school. 18,000 students, 293 of us were African American. I beat three white guys, can I talk about this? I beat three white guys running for my position. Both years, that was like 10 years ago, relax. But thank you. And then my third year of college, I ran for president of the student government. I ran against two of the same white guys who did not learn their lesson the first time. And I whooped their butt. But in February, which was Black History Month, As y'all know, in 2010, something really strange and dangerous happened at my university.

13:26 I created these flyers at my school because somebody during Black History Month decided that they were going to hang a noose at the University of California, Santa Cruz. During Black History Month, while I was campaigning for president. The same month, the University of San Diego, in their library, had a noose that was hung. some students decided it would be funny or whatever it was to share pieces of cotton at UC Irvine in the main student area so during Black History Month in 2010 in the state of California where I'm thinking we don't have to deal with racism anymore that's a civil rights movement it's over people love us now we are dealing and facing consequences of just being black at a university being a minority at a university and me running for president as a backlash because they were upset that I won vice president twice. What made it more upsetting was after passing out these flyers to educate people, after organizing a day of silence, and you know how, well, maybe you don't know, but this is how I am, I'm like, oh, somebody hung a noose?

14:30 We're gonna wear all black. We're gonna duct tape our mouths. We're gonna do a day of silence. We're gonna have a protest in the middle of the school. We're gonna march to the chancellor's office. And the thing that made me most upset was that I knew that being vice president at a student government, or in the student government at the University of California, Santa Cruz, was gonna help move and shift some stuff because I felt like I had power. I'm a vice president of the student government, so the chancellor needs to respond to me. And if I feel threatened or worried because of my blackness or I feel unsafe at the university, then sure enough, the chancellor that I have a relationship with in the student government should have my back. There should be an investigation. There should be some fingerprints and some dust happening. There should be an article. The police need to show up and take some names. There needs to be an interview. The news needs to show up. Nothing. Nothing.

15:23 So after that took place, these are pictures from 2010. Those are all the black students we were able to mobilize. We also, because I'm in the student government, used student fees to bring Dr. Cornel West to the university to come talk to our students to help shift and change the climate. Because our mindset is not just do we need to show up with our bodies on the line because we feel unsafe, and show people at the university, right, that we're created and we have community. Because that's sometimes the biggest piece of power we have is to show people that we're united. Sometimes we don't do that well, but in some cases, in most cases, we do. And it's important for us to bring somebody who's a dignitary, who's a scholar, that people would show up for and have him come. And we had a private meeting with him first to tell him, Look, it ain't all rainbows and flowers on this campus. They didn't do an investigation. We don't know who did it. And when I go to class and I'm sitting in classroom unit one, which is almost as big as the sanctuary here, and I'm the only black person in the classroom, I can't focus on the material that the professor is giving because I'm trying to figure out which one of these BAMAs in the room hung the noose.

16:25 How are you supposed to focus? Same thing happens to us at work. How are you supposed to do your job when last night or this morning and you got something on social media about another black person getting killed. How do you show up and be your full present self? I can't focus in class because I am afraid, and nobody is doing anything except for me and my community at the university. All of Puerto Rico is still without power and may have no electricity for months to come. Nancy Pelosi wants to actually help these anarchists and these violent protesters tear down pieces of America, American culture and American history. Floor and soil! Floor and soil! Fights broke out near a statue of Jefferson.

17:13 It didn't really hit me what was going on, that it was real. They're not doing this! Like, what are y'all doing? Y'all aren't really doing this! What are y'all doing? Get your hands out from me! The things that he said, and then leaning against the wall, made the officers feel as though they needed to have him sit down. Tameka, good morning! I want them to go from giving people vouchers and saying, I'm sorry, to actual policy change, that if they discriminate and disrespect people, they will be terminated. I'm finished, Simone. Will you just shut up for a minute? You said I believe in this country? Yes. You can say that in a way that I cannot. Because you've had a different experience. Because this country is here for you. This country is here for me in the same way since. You, as a trans person, have to also identify the fact that this country hasn't been here for trans until, like, maybe two o'clock today.

18:06 I just love Trump. That's my boy. When you hear about slavery for 400 years, for 400 years, that sounds like a choice. I think what you're doing right now is actually the absence of thought. You just told this group of people that you are standing up for them. You're not standing up for them until you start. In Rekia Boyd, in Texas we had Sandra Bland, in Ohio we had Tamir Rice, in California, most recently Stephon Clark. A police shooting victim, Stephon Clark voiced his rage. He leapt onto the mayor's desk and led a chant of his brother's name at a Sacramento council meeting. This is not just about white people in school shootings in the classrooms. They kill us in churches. They kill us on the streets. They kill us when we're traveling. When we talk about legislative issues and solutions for gun violence, it has to include the intersections of black violence. That means guns, that means gangs, schools, that means teachers, that means police brutality. It has to include all of that stuff, but we're going to be able to do this together.

19:03 I'm rooting for everybody black. This is our moment. If we work, we will win. They begin to rise. I am seen. I'm in. I am seen. This is America. Don't got you slipping off. Look how I'm living off. Her girl's are alive. Police be tripping off. Yeah, this is America. It is the role of the NAACP to protect democracy. Are you relevant because these young people are in the streets and protesting? And I say yes, and we celebrate and we support them. Why? Because we've always had young people in the street protesting. And no matter what platform or vehicle they use, we must encourage young people to have a voice. Because it is those young people who will be the future leaders.

19:58 No matter how many times I watch that video, it really triggers me. The work that I have the blessing of being able to do isn't easy. The reality that we all live in isn't fair. What's most bothering about the video is that now it's outdated. that all of those things, I'm like, did that happen this year? Did it happen last year? That video was from 2017, 2018.

20:40 But there are more stories, there's more lives, there's more hashtags that we can add to that video. and I feel like the urgency of now is always on us. Every time we need to vote, it's urgent. Every time we need to show up in the street, it's urgent. Every time somebody uses a hashtag or asks us to donate to a GoFundMe page, it's urgent. We are constantly living in a state of urgency.

21:14 Didn't nobody want to live that way. I'm so thankful that the vision has been casted for this church to do more. Since I've been going to this church since the last eight years, there is not a topic that this space is unafraid to touch, or excuse me, is afraid to touch. And that's why I feel like I come to Alfred Street. I would hate to go somewhere that likes to keep my daily experience, who I identify as, who my community is, separate from who I worship, where I go for help, who I pray to, who I ask for wisdom for, who I need strength from. I'd hate to keep that separate. I wouldn't be able to survive honestly otherwise.

22:07 And I can't go to work and get that healing. Because if I'm honest, truth be told, in most places that we work, they're just as unjust as the work that we're fighting for outside of the workplace. So it's hard. It's not easy. It is an everyday struggle. I train and I have the privilege of training thousands of young people across the country every day with a team of incredible people who are here tonight. And it is my job to remind people to be hopeful. It is my job to show people that there's opportunities for different tactics, different ways to get involved, new ways that we have to show up, allow people to be creative and et cetera. But sometimes that mess gets draining for me too.

23:01 So I want to talk to us tonight a little bit about a few things. One, some of the problems and discrepancies that I see in movement building because we have social media. Kaya a while ago talked about social media with our personal gain. I'm talking about social media as a tactic and tool to elevate and move and improve the human population in this country. I want to talk to you all about the ways in which violence shows up. Because if we're not dissecting how violence shows up, then we don't know how to tackle it. All violence is not the same. And I'm not talking about the different forms of racism. I mean violence. Violence shows up differently for everybody. And then I want to give us a little bit of like direction and tools for us to figure out how we can do this, how individually we can do this and how collectively we can do this because like I said earlier, there's always a state of urgency but there's actually a lot of stuff happening in the next two weeks that all of us here are want us to get involved in.

24:01 There is always a call to action. There is always something to do and then there's always the reminder that we need to take care of ourselves. I don't need everybody in here to be the next anything except for yourself but to be more plugged in. to be more aware, to be more mindful, to be more present, to not rush to jump on social media, to retweet everything that's not true. I need us to show up differently, with a different sense of agency and responsibility that says, listen, I know that people power is real. We don't always have the money, and sometimes our people don't always have the time, but we always have the numbers. Always have the numbers. So I want us to move differently. Let me ask folks here a question. If I were to ask you where you get your news from. Uh-oh, I'm looking at their faces.

24:55 This is fun. Okay. If I were to ask you where you get your news from, if you get your news from Facebook, raise your hand. Okay. If you get your news from Twitter, raise your hand. Okay. If you get your news from a television, raise your hand. Oh, okay. How about Instagram?

25:20 Okay. Reddit? Oh, that's interesting. Podcasts? Any type of podcast? Okay. YouTube? Okay. How many of y'all just don't care about the news at all and just don't want to watch it, don't care about it no more? You on sabbatical right now? You taking a break? Okay. I've been there. I feel you. This chart right here, I know it's kind of hard to see. The biggest circle on my right-hand side here is Facebook. 71% of U.S. adults get their news from Facebook. I don't even have a Facebook. I deactivated mine a long time ago.

25:57 It says that 47% of our folks get their news from YouTube. This is not by race. This is just adults across the board. Then there's the small circle at the bottom left that says Twitter. That's 23%. Instagram is 38%. LinkedIn, which I didn't even know gives news.

26:18 I hate LinkedIn so much. It's 27%. Snapchat, which means that that's not really news. That's like entertainment celebrity news. That's like, you know what I'm saying, who's dating who? That's not really what's going on in the White House. 23%. Twitch, TikTok, Reddit, and WhatsApp are all smaller.

26:41 TV wasn't even on here. So it's interesting to see how many of you guys raised your hands for television. I say that because the way in which we receive our news is important. who you follow determines what news you get and also who you follow determines how you are receiving the news i don't mean receiving like it's showing up i mean receiving like how they articulate and side with it so when you're not hearing what's going on with something it's because the people that you follow ain't talking about it not because it's not important i get that all the time tiffany we the naacp ain't doing them for young people well are you following the instagram page because we're sharing what we're doing. If you don't follow the accounts or the people, then you're not going to get the news. This next slide, which is really small, but you can find all of this on pewresearch.org, excuse me, I'll share the link later, breaks it down by gender, by age, by education, and by race, whites and non-whites. Ladies, I was looking at this earlier, and I was like, oh, this is really interesting, because I'm trying to find out where folks get their news from and consumers in the U.S. get their news from. Ladies, on this, we outnumber the men almost three times on Instagram. If you're looking for your next husband, you need to go to Reddit because he is not on Instagram. I didn't know that. That's what data does. Then I think about YouTube, which is 57% male, 43% female. Facebook is 61% female, 39% male. Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Reddit.

28:11 it, Instagram has 62% women, 38% men. So it's like double. But then I think what's most important to me, because I do a lot of black work, is people who are non-white and people who are white. On Instagram, 60% of the people are people of color. On Snapchat, 65% of people of color on Snapchat. So when I'm thinking about where people are getting their news from or how the messaging is showing up, or even better, if I'm doing work in the NAACP or wherever I'm at and I'm trying to target our people, I'm looking at data that looks like this. Where are our people receiving their information?

28:52 It's interesting. One of the biggest strategies of racism is to keep us confused, to keep us separated, to make sure that we're not receiving the correct information or timely information. And if you've been watching the news recently, you know, like I know, that there's a lot of corporations who really don't care if they're giving you the correct information or not. They really don't care if it's fact or fake. They really don't care if it's on time or late. They really don't care if it's Russian-driven or if it's American-made. They don't care. So where we get our news from is crucial to the work that we do because we don't want to promote false information. It happens a lot. I'm positive. We'll talk about that in a second. A lot of people are entertained by social justice because they don't understand the rules to change or end the violence experienced. Some of us are really, really, really entertained by people who claim to be social justice leaders. Who aren't connected to doing the work, who aren't accountable to anybody, who get a lot of money for doing what they do.

30:01 Those folks are entertained by social justice because it has now become the new fun thing for everybody to work on and do. It's become the popular thing for everybody to do. Social justice in people's lives and the violence that we're experiencing should not be a hobby. It can't be a career for your personal gain. I don't do this work because I gain anything. I do this work because I'm trying to help make people aware of their own power. I want people to feel their own power, and then I want to alter the relationships of power, and then I want people to improve their own lives. Not for any personal gains. And there are some folks who are also the entertainers or people who were entertained by social justice. And then there are some folks who literally are a part of this mob. My big brother, Jeff Johnson, calls it the mob. He defines the mob as people who just get really, really, really upset.

30:57 People who respond and got a lot to say. But because they don't understand the rules of how to make institutional change, that's where they stay. They don't know what to do afterwards. So if you see the Getty fire in Los Angeles on your social media on Monday morning, and you're getting dressed to go to work, and you go your entire day without knowing what to do to help the people because you want to help people who are being evacuated from their homes in Los Angeles because of the fire, or better yet, Hurricane Dorian hits the Bahamas. And Donald Trump, their president, says he's not going to allow bohemians to come to the country unless they have all of their paperwork. unless they can prove that they have their paperwork to stay in the States. 70,000 people in the Bahamas lost their homes.

31:48 Refugees. And he said, y'all can't come over here unless you have all your paperwork. What do you do when you see that on social media? How do you respond? Do you turn it off and take a break because it's too overwhelming and it gives you anxiety sometimes like me? Do you donate? Do you talk about it with your coworkers? maybe you know somebody who's there and you decide you're going to help maybe you see Rihanna or Drake or somebody flying an airplane down with a bunch of water to help those people and you're you're retweeting that so people can see that folks are helping what do you do because social media puts us in this cycle where we have to respond to interpersonal violence in a way that I think is dangerous to the success of our long-term struggle pastor said it earlier it's the short-term wheel that we keep getting sucked in because that's just the way that social media works. And racism, like I said, their biggest tactic is to keep us confused. So if we're trying to follow through on a campaign and then something else in the news pops off, they're redirecting our attention to focus on the new thing without finishing the last. So I think about interpersonal violence when it shows up. And we've seen a lot of that. Y'all are really familiar with it, Whether it's Malaysia Booker, whether it's Ryan Tiemann in Los Angeles.

33:03 Do y'all know who these people are? Folks who don't know their name. Excuse me. Malaysia Booker was the transgender 22-year-old who was assaulted and then murdered in Dallas, Texas. Then there's Ryan Tiemann who is a father. He was 22 years old, had three kids. He was shot 23 times in Los Angeles. No answers. Officers not reprimanded. Rodney Reed. Y'all know who Rodney Reed is? Rodney Reed right now was facing a couple days left until November 20th. Governor Albert in Texas has the only power to grant him clemency. He's been on death row for 21 years for a crime that he did not commit because somebody did it and came out and confessed that they did it.

33:44 Then there's Brotham Jean. Y'all, we talked about that because it was a whole sermon on that. There's Joshua Brown, who was one of the witnesses and testifiers in that case, who was then murdered the very next day. and then there's a Tatiana Jefferson who was killed playing video games with her nephew. That list is not complete from 2019. I'm stopping there. But what happens when we see that? We see it on social media. We might do some research by clicking on the hashtag to find more evidence, to find out more research, to find out where they're from, to find out who they were related to, to find out what the news is saying about them. We might donate money because a GoFundMe started, right, which is what people do. and then there are usually two sides to the story the police union probably is quiet for a second we don't know the officer's name which is what usually happens but at Tatiana Jefferson her business is all the way out there right then we have that conversation and position ourselves to a satisfactory or unsatisfactory response when we find out that the officer doesn't get fired which is what everybody's demanding on social media we get disappointed when the officer doesn't step down or we don't hear the name of the person or justice is not served right away and we have to wait two years for the case to be investigated. Right? It takes a toll on us. But then right after Tatiana Jefferson happens, we got fires in Los Angeles, so everybody pivots. I didn't go to law school. I'm thinking about it, but I didn't go to law school. So sometimes the way we think about the rules and what we think we know about what should happen isn't actually the way government works. But because we don't understand the rules, we don't know how to play the game.

35:21 So I think about the interpersonal violence. Then it happens in group-based violence. These are things like those 680 parents, siblings, family members, school teachers, construction workers, doctors, bus drivers, those folks in Jackson, Mississippi who were undocumented and there was an ice raid that took place back in August that captured and arrested all 680 of those people. Those people couldn't even pick up their kids from school that day. They had their children at the school waiting for their parents to pick them up, having no clue that they might not see their parents ever again because their parents are being deported because they're undocumented. That's group-based violence because they're targeting a certain community.

36:19 I think about, we talked about earlier, the bohemian refugees. I'm thinking about the two shootings that happened back-to-back in Dayton, Ohio, and in El Paso, Texas by two white supremacists. It happened back-to-back. That's just this year. There's been a bunch of shootings this year. I think about that group-based violence and how on social media we see it but then there's nothing much that we feel like we can do afterwards that's depressing that's really hard to deal with how do you go to work and you're supposed to be doing customer service or you're supposed to be making phone calls because you've got to lead a conference or you're supposed to go perform or you're supposed to go be your best because you're a coach for a soccer team at your school whatever it might be but you are thinking internally, even if you don't think you're being mindful about it, the trauma still exists. And we're reminded of it all the time.

37:19 I want us to do better. And then the last type of violence, which I didn't make a whole pie chart because I just want to talk about it, is this invisible violence. Because although there's interpersonal and although there's group base, there's also systemic, internal, systematic violence. That type of violence is the violence that I see when I'm in school and there's no black teachers that look like me and nobody's teaching me my history. That type of violence looks like when folks in Flint, Michigan still don't have their water and folks are not able to articulate who the target is to get them to change it. And Flint has been without water for over a year. That type of invisible violence is the violence that I feel when I was driving to Kaia today and a police officer was following me for at least 10 minutes and I was terrified. I was trying to switch lanes so that they wasn't following me anymore, trying to lose them and they just kept, and I was like, this is a rental car. You running my tags and you, I don't even know what you're looking for. I was like, pull your cameras out because that's the reality in which we live.

38:24 The type of invisible violence, the passive aggressiveness when you're walking down the street and they're not moving out your way, so you got to go around them. That's invisible violence. We shouldn't have to live that way. That invisible violence when you're being followed in the grocery store, that still happens. That's invisible violence. I think about the invisible violence that folks don't understand is happening in Congress right now or in the White House because it's not affecting them right now. But then in a couple of years, you're going to wonder why your paycheck and your taxes are so much? Or in a couple years you're going to wonder why your health care ran out? Because decisions are being made on your behalf and that's the invisible violence that they know we can't play because they don't think we know the rules. I need us to do better. I need us to commit to playing better advocates. A demand without power is just a request. If we're better advocates, could you imagine what every church in the country looks like if we were all plugged in to what was happening on not only the local level, the statewide level, and the national and global level, but what was really happening back home.

39:32 Because a lot of us are transplants. So we sometimes care about what's happening in the DMV area, but how many folks in this room are not from the DMV? Raise your hand. That's almost the whole room. How many folks vote absentee, which means that you vote back home? Okay. How many folks are in school right now? Okay, I thought there would be more people than that. I thought Howard was H.U. was going to be in the house.

40:01 That was quick. Banana slugs? Okay, no. UC Santa Cruz. And I want to envision and imagine a world in which every single church was just as much plugged in. I'm not talking about merging church and state. I'm talking about the people who actually live and go to church, who are active members in the body of Christ, are just as much plugged in in the ministry work that you do with the social justice and advocacy work that you do outside of these walls because that would change the world. Like Pastor said, not just praying about it, but putting our works where our faith is and moving in action. If we don't operate in that collective power and if we first don't believe, if we don't believe that we could win, if we don't believe that a better world is possible, if we don't believe each other, if our value set is not rooted in these black people my community young folks if they are prepared and given the resources they will always do the right thing and i will unapologetically have their back if we can't start there and believe in that then we ain't never gonna win this is going to continue to stay the same this cycle and rotation of violence will continue to see and we'll wait on others to do it i want us to think about the power that's in this room and the power that you have outside of this room by bringing your family, your friends, your elders into this room with you as we think about moving this work forward. Alice Walker has a quote that I love to live by. Activism is the rent we pay to live on this planet. I believe in that quote a lot because sometimes I walk up to people, like I was canvassing in Florida at FAMU, Florida Agricultural Mechanical University, October 3rd, 1887. I'm an honorary rattler. And I did a lot of work at that school and I interact with people all the time who say, oh, I can't vote or I'm not interested or, oh, I don't do that government politics stuff. I hear that a lot, a lot. And I can't tell them, well, activism is the rent you pay here, live on this planet. Did you know that? Because that's not

42:08 going to move people. But what does move people, if you help them understand and break it down to them, how exactly do your politics impact your personal? How does your commute to work, how is that impacted by policy? How is the school that your children go to, how is that impacted by policy? How are the communities that we live in shaped? And then once you cross Martin Luther King Boulevard, that community is shaped differently. How is that impacted by policy? How is your job impacted by policy? How are unions impacted by policy? Because all of that right there moves people to the polls. It's never a single person or a candidate that mobilizes us. It's always the issue. How does it impact us? So there's different roles for everybody. I identify as an organizer. I organize people.

43:02 I have for the last 12 years. That's where I find my happy place. That's where it's most rewarding for me into this work. I get to work with actual real people on the ground every single day. And I am accountable to those people. whether it's in the labor movement when I worked in the labor movement for bodies of people who are members of the labor movement or now at the NAACP where we have over 339 youth chapters across the country and I'm accountable to my youth but you might be a creator I don't identify always as a creator I don't feel like I'm always the most creative person in the room you ask me what we should call it I don't know if you ask me what color should it be ask somebody else if you're the person who's going to sing and perform that's not me I might do some theater it might bring that back, but I'm not going to sing and dance. And I'm not going to be the person who draws the mural or makes the art. I'm not going to be the person who writes the poetry. But there are folks like that in this room. Your gifts, the same way that you use them for your ministry, become the same gifts that you use for the movement. Because sometimes we need that to move and change the hearts of our people. Not always our enemy, but our people to recruit them to the space. So if you are a creator, there is a space for you to lead in social justice.

44:13 Don't think, oh, I'm just the performer. No, we need you to bring your talents to the social justice movement because when y'all are watching the women's march, there are creators who made the flyers. There are creators who designed the hats. There are creators who painted the posters. There are creators who made the branding and the graphic design. There are creators who take photography to make sure that everything is documented correctly so that you're able to tell a story in a certain way because we control our own narrative. Then there's folks like leaders. I used to fight with my boss about this. We actually got into a debate about it because I feel like the folks who are leaders are the people who just give advice and just give thought, just have influence and just show up and just talk to people. And I get bothered by those people because sometimes those people, I don't see them doing work, work, work. But I'm going to check myself and check my privilege because those people actually help create the narrative and the understanding and the issues and priorities and how we understand this.

45:09 James Baldwin was a leader. And I think about the writing that he did and the way he talked about this work and the way he talked about his community and our communities. He was a leader. There was a place for him. And if you watch I Am Not a Negro, which is a phenomenal film, at the end of the film he says, listen, I'm not gonna be out there marching on Martin Luther King. I wasn't out there trying to get holes down. That's not my role. My role was to make sure that it was documented and that I told the story and the narrative the correct way so when they look back at what we did, they know the truth. That's what James Baldwin said. Then I'm the organizer. If you're an organizer, it doesn't just mean that you have influence and that you're able to articulate everything in a good way. It means that you actually mobilize people. It ain't gotta be as big as the NAACP. It could be your siblings, your cousins, your family.

46:01 I have an uncle right now who I love near and dear to my heart, but he's not always on the right side of these conversations, especially when it comes to stuff that's super progressive. He's 65, so there's not much that you can change for somebody who's 65. But we have great discussions to be able to figure out what is his value set and what is my value set and how do we fight for the same thing. Those folks who are actual organizers move people to action. They mobilize people to action. They give them the step to do, which is what I'm doing now, telling y'all steps that y'all can take. Then there's the protester. All of us interchangeably go from creator to protester, organizer to leader, leader to elder. We all change. There's not one shoe that you're wearing. But the person who is the protester is the one that people hate the most, but it's probably the most important. While I'm in the meeting, it is important to have the protesters and the agitators outside to know that I am not alone.

47:00 to know that there's actually a direct action that's happening outside so that there's consequences if you don't do what I say. We need the people who are the agitators and the protesters. Those folks who put their lives on the line, those folks who will challenge authority and power and not care. Those folks that you might believe don't always show up or smell right.

47:26 Those are the folks who are probably the most important because if we only use social media and we only have our meetings behind closed doors, they're never going to feel our power. We need the protesters. Sometimes we all need to protest. There is a time and place to protest. There's a time and place to tweet about it and then there's a time and place to show up for it. There's a time and place to make sure that you are sacrificing your time to stand up for what is important to you. And then there's the elder. Again, we all play these different roles And one day we all gonna be elders And I think about the elder As the person who's helping us to give wisdom One of my mentors, Cortland Cox He's not coming to the protests But I can call him and talk to him And he will give me advice He will tell me what he did when he was in the Student Nonviolent Action Coordinating Committee In SNCC And he will tell me the mistakes that they made And then he will help me along my journey He's not gonna be the one to look at my PowerPoint Or tell me what to do or tell me what time to be there or let me know an action's about to happen, but he will always be there to give me wisdom and support.

48:32 His experience for me to be able to ask questions and to check me when I'm going out of line. So we all play these different roles. Everybody's responsible, no matter what your description is. Then there's different ways to think about how we respond to violence. Here's how I look at it based off of the Midwest Academy, which is a phenomenal training think tank in Chicago, Illinois. I'm a certified trainer for the Midwest Academy. We work on grassroots organizing and training people across the country. There's two ways, according to the Midwest Academy, that you think about leveraging power. One is you just accept the existing forms of power.

49:14 So if Hurricane Dorian happens in the Bahamas and you decide you're going to donate $10 to the Red Cross, then you are doing what I like to call the direct service, the self-help, you're in that category. You're staying comfortable with the existing forms of power. If ICE comes to your job tomorrow and tries to take someone, are you going to stand up in the way? When that white man at Starbucks got up and talked to the police officer after the police were there to arrest two black guys just chilling in Starbucks, waiting on their friend to have a meeting, when that white guy got in the police officer's face, I think about how he put his body on the line to then interrupt power where he knew he had the privilege to do so. We got privilege too. And when you're doing direct services, it means that I'm going to go feed the homeless, which is great. I'm going to donate $5 to the man who knocked on my window when I was at the intersection.

50:11 I'm going to make sure that I am volunteering my time at the pound. Those are direct services. There is a time and place for direct services. One's not better or worse than the other. But we stay too comfortable there. If you're doing self-help, that means that when somebody hang a noose at my school, that means I'm holding community with my community members at my school, and that means that I am focused on trying to figure out how do we just keep each other safe. Once every Friday, we're going to do Black Wall, which is what we did, to just create community to heal each other, because that was a really traumatizing experience with the noose, and we just want to help and support each other. That is us doing self-help. We didn't ask for nobody help. We don't need nobody to do it for us. We're going to do it for ourselves.

51:01 And then we start to go into education, which is what I did when I created those flyers. Because sometimes we need to educate people to find out who our allies are. Everybody you educate ain't going to be your ally. Sometimes you'll have a conversation with, have you ever done that before? I've done that a few times where I thought I had an ally and I was talking to them about something. And they said something that was triggering or wrong or questioning. and I was like, you're not as well because I thought you was. You actually shouldn't even be my friend. I'm about to unfollow you on Instagram, bye. I have a friend, if they watch this video, it's gonna be bad. I have a friend that I've known for a really long time and they decided to wear somebody, they tried to, they didn't try, they did. They did some cultural appropriation for Halloween and I had to unfollow them. You follow me on Instagram, you know I'm not about their life. Don't come on my feed with that mess. Sometimes you have to educate people I didn't even have the conversation with her.

51:52 I'm going to go back and do that when my spirit's ready, but I can't do it right now. But she is unfollowed at the moment. And I think about how sometimes we just need to educate people and tell people about themselves. Now, sometimes that looks a little violent, too. I've been in a workplace where somebody used the N-word. I've been in a workplace where the organizational leader, not at the NAACP, at organizational leader at a different organization I was working for, it was the morning after the shooting that happened in South Carolina at the church. And the next morning, nobody acknowledged it. But there was this heavy weight with all the people of color in the building because we knew what had happened the night before. so we're walking around DC waiting for somebody to hold a space to have a conversation to educate folks let's do some sort of racial justice training in the building something to give us a little bit of a relief and the leader of the organization didn't even know it happened the next morning I almost had a panic attack and had to leave the meeting and walk outside and take a break the fact that your reality is so distant from mine is painful but we have to educate people sometimes.

53:04 You don't always want to tell people how not to be racist but sometimes it's our job. Sometimes, not every time. Then you start to lean into things that challenge existing forms of power. The things that challenge existing forms of power are things like advocacy. When we decide we're going to show up and talk to the person who's actually able to make the decision to improve our lives. Advocacy is when we're showing up. You might call it lobbying, but sometimes I do C3 conversations, so I can't always talk about lobbying. Advocacy means making that phone call, writing the letter to the elected official. How many folks have signed the petition already for Rodney Reed? Okay, the rest of y'all will do that tonight. I will give you the instructions in a little bit. How many folks have made phone calls to Governor Albert? That's not enough. But that's what advocacy looks like. That's advocacy.

53:58 is us taking a few minutes out of our day to do something to advocate, right, for the issue that we care about. And then there's direct action, which is like, you know, I want to say what I want to say. I caught myself. Direct action is us just putting everything on the line. When people say they want to get arrested, when people are marching, when there's a hunger strike, when people are demanding or doing a sit-in, when folks are doing a blackout, when folks are boycotting. I remember I boycotted Uber because they were supporting the Muslim ban and they weren't supporting the taxi workers in New York. I ain't been on Uber since. I've tried to come back to Uber a few times, but my pride won't let me because I wrote them a really nasty email that was like, y'all not on the right side of history on this one. So now I just take Lyft. You remember that? I still ain't talked to them since. There's things like direct action, right, where we're like, we're going to do this together. We're going to boycott Starbucks.

54:53 We're going to boycott the Waffle House. We're going to boycott Uber. There's a lot of boycotts that y'all are running, but we'll talk about that in a different day. But those are things that challenge the existing forms of power because it actually poses a threat to whoever the decision maker is or to whoever the body is that's moving that work. Those things also matter. I need you to see the spectrum because sometimes we stay too comfortable or we get too lost in just the self-help and just the direct service. Sometimes we have to move down the spectrum and agitate and then escalate our tactics. Whether you're a creator, an elder, an organizer, a leader, or a protester, your life and your job runs down the spectrum.

55:39 Voting is necessary, but it's not sufficient. Voting is necessary, but it is not sufficient. It is necessary. There's a lot of victories last night that we saw. There's a lot of people who made. A lot of people are mad right now. Not me. I think about how it's necessary, but it's not enough.

56:08 When we think about voting and people tell you, oh, go vote, because that's going to stop the police from killing black people, we know that's not the truth. But voting is still necessary, if you understand the rules. Because then you know how voting plays a role in the rules. things that you can do right now everybody pull out your phone i need you to go to freerodneyreed.com right now if you have not already signed the petition i need you to sign the petition don't worry if you swipe your debit card at mcdonald's the government already got your information i need you to go to freerodneyreed.com I need you to read the first blurb at the top of the website and then sign the petition. If you have already signed the petition or you're about to sign the petition, I need you to share it tonight. On November 20th, this man is scheduled to be executed.

57:07 This black innocent man is scheduled to be executed. Over almost 2 million people have signed the petition. A lot of celebrities, but y'all don't need celebrities to vouch for the decisions that y'all make. Stop using celebrities to do the work that y'all do and move and influence you to do what you need to do and just go ahead and do it. Do it because I was trusted enough to come up in front of you and tell you that it's important to do. And if you don't trust me, all you can do is read the website and that's fine.

57:34 There is an action on November 12th at the Supreme Court at 9.30 a.m. November 12th, which is this coming Tuesday, after Veterans Day, Monday's a holiday, 9.30 at the Supreme Court because Donald Trump, their president, is trying to remove DACA, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. If they do that, we will see more deportations of people that you don't even know are undocumented. People who aren't just Latinx folks, but look like us. They look like us. And if it's any more reason for you to do it and come out to this action on November 12th, our former president put it into action in the first place.

58:21 So you have to do your own research and Google DACA if you haven't heard of it. But if you do the research and then you decide that you are moved to come out and support the decision that's about to happen in the Supreme Court, come out to fight the decision about to happen in the Supreme Court to get rid of DACA, then I encourage you to meet me there because I will be there at 930. Secondarily, there is a gun violence rally because the Supreme Court is also seeing a case on gun violence. Please come to that one as well. There's a lot that you need to know about the Supreme Court, but the two gems I'm going to drop for you now because I don't have time is, one, those are lifetime appointments, and two, whatever they say goes.

58:57 So I need us to show up and show out because this is probably the last opportunity we have to change it. Then there's things that you can do around civic engagement. I've already said that voting is necessary but not sufficient. Everybody here needs to make sure that they're voting. And if you're voting absentee back home, then you really need to vote because they are not counting your ballots on purpose. If you saw anything that happened in Georgia, then you know that over 12,000 voter registration cards were purged, which means that those folks couldn't even cast their vote. Why would they try to take, I'm not trying to scare you into voting, but just think about it with me. Why would they try to purge voters?

59:37 Why would anybody try to prevent someone from participating in a full democracy? so we think about what's happening with elections yesterday what's coming up in the next 363 days because we're going to be reliving another history if we all don't show up and show out we got to run for office we got to commit to bringing five friends to the polls we have to donate to the campaigns you have to volunteer at your polling site but most importantly for me i need folks to know that the census is coming up again Thank you. The census is really important. It is not you opting into giving the government any of your information. It is asking how many people live in the household. How old are they? What is the house family income? What is the ethnic breakdown of the folks that are in this room? There's two reasons why that's really important for me. One is I don't know my genealogy. If you're like me, I don't know who my grandmother is, but I don't know who's after that.

1:00:33 They didn't document our people. Our people weren't considered human. But when you go to the National Archives or when you're doing research online at Ancestry.com or whatever tool you decide to use, one of the tools that they use to show you who your family is is the census. I found out who my great-grandparents were only because of the census. That's one. So if you want to find out more about yourself and you want your kids' kids' kids' kids' kids' kids to know who you are, fill out the census because it might be the only thing that they track. And secondarily, I need folks to know that the census, nobody's coming to your door next year. The census is all going to be online, by mail, or over the phone. You can go to census.gov to find more information. If you are at a school, they are sending the school information in February of next year to find out who the person is that can track and tell us how many students go to the school and what their representation is.

1:01:26 Everyone will be counted except for folks who either die or are born on the census day, April 1st, or people who are homeless. Yep, there's a lot of work that we need to do because it only counts households. So I need you to know that this is happening and coming up because that is what they use to make policy in this country.

1:01:48 Then, last but not least, there's things that you can do personally. You can research what boards and commissions impact your daily life. You can research who benefits from your taxes out of your paycheck. Where does it go? I'm not talking about Medicaid and everything, and security. Where exactly does it go? and which department in government actually makes the decisions for your money to go whichever way it's going in the government. I need you to have tough conversations with uncomfortable people.

1:02:17 One of the things that happens is that we get really sucked into having conversations with people that we think think like us. And so then you don't get to test and understand your value set. But if you fight with someone on the other side, you will defend what you believe. And you will find out quickly what you do actually believe in and what you don't believe in. So have those uncomfortable conversations and then challenge your value set. In the world that I want to see, the world that I'm fighting for, unapologetically, I don't want borders. I want free education. I want to get rid of student debt. I want women to decide what they're going to do with their own bodies. Not white men or any man for that matter. I want to end mass incarceration in private prisons. I want everyone to be able to have a equitable fair paying job hopefully it's in a union I want folks to be able to have universal health care you know what else I want I want free Wi-Fi everywhere how are folks gonna fill out the census that they ain't got Wi-Fi there is a way that we think about education and access and Wi-Fi is one of those things I also want to get rid of the electoral college I also want universal I I also want universal voter registration You ain't got apply for your driver's license every year You ain't got apply for your gun license every year But for some reason we got a register to vote every year. It doesn't really make sense to me universal voter registration I Want us to figure out how do we get to those goals and those value sets? I don't want to debate candidates I don't want to debate your political ideology and the title of it. I can care less less. What are you fighting for? What moves you? What are you committed to? What will you show up and turn out for? If it's any one of those things on my value set, on my agenda, in the world and in the society that I want to see, I'm going to show up for it. I've committed myself to doing so.

1:04:15 Here are some resources. There's just a few. I talked about news earlier, and a lot of folks aren't familiar with where they get the news from, and people slide in my DMs all the time. Where do you get your news from? Who do you follow? Don't follow Sean King and Angela Rye. Where else do you go to receive your information? I go to the Southern Poverty Law Center. I go to census.gov, Pew Research, National Priorities Project. This is one of my favorites, 538.com. And then I go to the podcast, The Breakdown. That is Sean King. It's a really great podcast. You might have tools, too, for where you get your information, your research. I encourage you to share them with me so I can post and tweet them so folks can get them afterwards. But I want us to also make sure that we're getting accurate information. Real information that we know we can use to then take action and move on. I want to appreciate you all not only for listening, not only for staying, not only for having this tough conversation because I know the world in which we live in right now is uncomfortable and unfair.

1:05:14 We're sliding into the holidays and folks are going to start to retreat a little bit. People start to sleep a little bit when the holidays roll around. If we would have slept last year, Centoya Brown would have still been in prison. We granted her clemency January 11th of this year because we fought during the holidays last year. Please don't sleep. People's lives depend on us taking small pieces of action, recognizing our power and stepping into our greatness that God has asked us to do so we can change the world in which he's already destined. But faith without works is dead.