11th Annual Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Reads Event: Connie Rice

Fri, 04/10/2009 - 12:52pm

When: February 7, 2013 at Washtenaw Community College: Morris Lawrence Building

This 11th annual event focuses on the 2013 Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Reads book selection "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration In The Age Of Colorblindness" by Michelle Alexander and will also explore this year's theme 'Understanding Race.' The Keynote Speaker will be one of America's most influential civil rights attorneys - Connie Rice, Co-Director for the Advancement Project, Los Angeles, and renowned for her unconventional approaches to tackling problems of inequity and exclusion. California Law Business Journal twice designated Connie Rice as one of the top ten most influential attorneys in California. She is a civil rights lawyer who engineers systemic fixes to entrenched inequality and injustice.Through impact litigation, campaigns and inside bureaucratic maneuvering, Connie Rice has led coalitions and clients to win more than $30 billion in damages, bonds and policy changes. Bus riders, death row inmates, folks abused by police, school kids, whistleblowers, cops and sufferers of every stripe of discrimination, (sex, race, disability, age) have sought her counsel. But so have her opponents, like the Los Angeles Police Department she sued for 15 years but which now reserves a parking space for her at their new headquarters.Connie grew up all over the world in an Air Force family headed by her parents Anna, a biology teacher, and Phillip, a pilot and Colonel. She graduated from Harvard-Radcliffe colleges in 1978, achieved her black belt in Tae Kwon Do in 1981 and entered New York University School of Law on a Root Tilden Scholarship. In law school she worked extensively on capital punishment cases at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and after graduating from law school in 1984, she clerked for the Honorable Damon J. Keith at the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit for two years before winging it west to California where she joined the law firm of Morrison & Foerster in San Francisco. She rejoined the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in 1989 as Western Regional Counsel, won several landmark cases and in the words of one magazine, established herself as "the voice of Los Angeles' oppressed." Together with Co-Directors Molly Munger, Penda Hair and Steve English, Connie launched The Advancement Project, a policy action and technology organization in 1998, and in the words of Los Angeles Magazine, "picked up where Clarence Darrow left off." Connie serves on the board of public radio station KPCC and as chief of staff to Sinbad, her jet black cat.This is a key event for the 2013 Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti Reads program, which this year focuses on the theme of "Understanding Race."

Transcript

[00:00:25.13] STEWART BLACKLAW: Good evening ladies and gentlemen. I am Stuart Blacklaw. I'm the Vice President for Instruction here at Washtenaw Community College. And it is my honor and pleasure to welcome you this evening for one of my favorite events of the year.
[00:00:41.34] Ann Arbor Ypsilanti reads is a community initiative to promote reading and civic dialogue through the shared experience of reading and discussing a common book. In years past our themes have been Treasures of the Middle East; Revolutions In Science; We the People, A Discussion of Citizenship; China and America, Bridging the Two Worlds; The Universe, Yours to Discover; Michigan, A Look At Our Great State; What Makes Life Worth Living?; and last year's theme, Language, How We Communicate. The theme for 2013, understanding race.
[00:01:28.60] The annual process for the selection of the book begins with a selection of a theme which happens in May. A screening committee of university faculty, teachers, booksellers, students, and librarians scan about 50 titles or so looking for the suitability of those books. Eventually settling on two or three which they read in full and then have a discussion among the selection committee. To assemble and read those recommendations in October. That process this year resulted in the selection of The New Jim Crow, Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michele Alexander. A very compelling book.
[00:02:22.18] I'd like to acknowledge the sponsoring organizations for this event, which include the Ann Arbor District Library, annarbor.com, Eastern Michigan University, the University of Michigan Washtenaw Community College, and Ypsilanti District Library. I would also like to thank the many volunteers who participated in the various committees that made this great initiative possible. If you would silence your cellphones I would now invite Amy Harris, the museum director for the University of Michigan's Museum of Natural History, to come up and share some information about an exceptional opportunity in our community. Amy.
[00:03:05.60] AMY HARRIS: Thank you, Stewart. Good evening, everyone. I'm delighted to be here and to see all of you here. The Museum of Natural History at the University of Michigan is about to open an exhibit called Race, Are We So Different? And we have a table out in the lobby, and you can pick up a flyer. It opens on Saturday and it'll be on display until May 27. I hope that many of you will be able to come and see.
[00:03:35.20] It has generated a great deal of activity called the Understanding Race Project. And one of the components of the project is the Ann Arbor-Ypsilanti Reads Program which selected understanding race as its theme. The exhibit was developed by the American Anthropological Association and developed by the Science Museum of Minnesota. And it's been traveling the country since 2007. It's first venue was at the Charles H Wright Museum in Detroit, and some of you may have seen it there. It's purpose is to stimulate a national conversation about race. And communities across the country have been welcoming the exhibit and engaging with it.
[00:04:21.15] Here in our community, we've been reaching out to schools and to the community for quite some time now. I think our first meeting was in April of 2011, and starting in January of 2012 we had a series of workshops for teachers from all 10 school districts in our county. Followed by a week long Summer Institute to help prepare teachers, bring their students to see the exhibit, and to have conversations about race. Talking about race can be uncomfortable sometimes, and so we've been working very hard to prepare quite a number of facilitators, teachers, youth, and community members to lead dialogues and conversations throughout the community. And I know that many of you probably participated in workshops to lead discussions around the Reads book.
[00:05:19.61] At the University of Michigan we have a theme semester. So we're devoting the winter term from January through April to the theme of understanding race. And you can pick up this brochure which has a selection of events. There are over 100 events and 15 exhibits. There's no end of things for you to do. Probably more than you could possibly fit in. There's a yellow sheet of paper at our table also. This will outline the events for February alone.
[00:05:50.57] You can get on our email list. We have a sign up out at our table. And an overview of the Understanding Race Project which includes, as I say, the theme semester, school engagement, and community engagement. And the last thing I'll just say is a little more about the exhibit itself. It has three themes. One explores the biology of human variation, the second is about the history of the idea of race in the United States, and the third is about the lived experience of race.
[00:06:27.43] And there are a lot of wonderful videos and interactives in the exhibit. It looks at things like health disparities, disparities of wealth, the census, and other topics. It provides a great number of opportunities for talking about race. I hope you'll come out and see the exhibit and participate in many of these events. And please enjoy tonight's talk.
[00:06:57.12] STEWART BLACKLAW: Thank you, Amy. Hopefully you've had the opportunity to connect with the local community, agencies, and representatives staffing the resource tables in the lobby. There will also be time following the event to interact with these local organizations. Also copies of The New Jim Crow as well as our speaker, Connie Rice's book, Power Concedes Nothing, One Woman's Quest for Social Justice in America, from the Courtroom to the Kill Zones, both of those books will be available for sale and Ms. Rice will be available for a book signing immediately following the event.
[00:07:31.88] But let me tell you a bit about our remarkable guest tonight. Connie Rice is a civil rights lawyer who engineers systemic fixes to entrenched inequality and injustice. California Law Business Journal, twice, designated her one of the top 10 most influential attorneys in California. Through impact litigation campaigns and inside bureaucratic maneuvering she has led coalitions and clients to win more than $30 billion in damages, bonds, and policy changes. Bus riders, death row inmates, folks abused by police, school kids, whistle blowers, cops, and sufferers of every stripe of discrimination, sex, race, disability, age have sought her counsel. But so too have her opponents, like the Los Angeles Police Department, who she sued for 15 years but which now reserves a parking space for her at their new headquarters.
[00:08:37.03] Connie grew up all over the world, in an Air Force family headed by her parents, Anna, a biology teacher, and Phillip, a pilot and colonel. She graduated from Harvard-Radcliffe colleges in 1978, Achieved her black belt in taekwondo in 1981, and entered the New York University School of Law on a Root-Tilden Scholarship. In law school she worked extensively on capital punishment cases at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. And after graduating from law school in 1984 she clerked for the Honorable Damon J Keith at the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit for two years before winging it west to California where she joined the law firm of Morrison Foerster in San Francisco.
[00:09:30.85] She rejoined the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in 1989 as the Western regional counsel. Won several landmark cases and in the words of one magazine, "Established herself as the voice of Los Angeles' oppressed." Together with co-directors Molly Munger, Penda Hair, and Steve English, Connie launched the Advancement Project, a policy action and technology organization, in 1998. And in the words of Los Angeles magazine, "Picked up where Clarence Darrow left off." Connie serves on the board of public radio station KPCC and as Chief of Staff to Sinbad, her jet black cat. Please join me in welcoming Connie Rice.
[00:10:37.53] CONNIE RICE: Thank you so much for that warm applause and for the very generous introduction. I usually get a more snide introduction then that, so I appreciate the kindness. It is marvelous to be with you. Thank you so much for inviting me.
[00:10:57.02] And to the folks at the library you're just a treasure. I love librarians. I've got four of them in my family. And libraries are the soul of democracy. It's where you can gather. It's a place for knowledge. And the fact that these libraries and this association bring this kind of speaking to you, tells you that they want to be the glue that holds a democracy together. And so whenever there's a tax measure that supports libraries I get behind it and say, OK people, get your asses in gear and start voting. It's very, very important.
[00:11:35.93] And the groups that are out there in the lobby, congratulations to you. Anybody who takes prisoners and records their voices reading books to their children, you gotta support that. Please support all of the organizations in the lobby, OK?
[00:11:52.46] Now, thank you for coming out with a storm. I mean, this storm sounds like Armageddon coming. I used to be a Midwest girl. We lived in Ohio. We lived twice in Illinois. And I used to be OK preparing for storms. And you get your galoshes out and you get your down cold and so forth. I've been in California for 25 years. I don't do this, OK?
[00:12:20.12] This is actually OK because it's in the '20s. But I was in Newark 10 days ago and Mayor Booker called and said, Ms. Rice I need-- I said, excuse me Mayor. I said, if you want to meet with me you're going have to come to my hotel. He said, what do you mean? I said, I don't do 9 degrees. You need to understand something. I haven't experienced cold like this in 40 years. My system is too old to take it. I'm now going on 60. There is no way I'm coming out. So if you want to meet with me, you will meet me in my hotel.
[00:12:55.18] He says, but the law school is catty corner, Connie. It's like 50 yards. I said, I don't do 50 yards of 9 degrees. The mayor had to meet me in my hotel. It was something. I had forgotten how painful that was. So anyway, I very much appreciate you coming out with the threat of a storm, and I'm going to try and make this worth your while.
[00:13:21.39] We're here to talk about a subject that I'm going to make very touchable and comfortable, as uncomfortable as it is. It's the subject of race. And you're looking at somebody who is a contradiction, a walking contradiction, in terms of race. Let me tell you how I grew up. And I tell you the story in my book Power Concedes Nothing, which I hope you will get along with Michelle's.
[00:13:47.93] Michelle, by the way, is a friend of mine. We've actually done cases together. We did two cases remotely together and one actively together when she was up in San Francisco. I was down in LA. Where nothing but problems, is why I went there, because if you want to do poverty law LA is ground zero. It's why I went. Even though I don't like LA. I wanted to be in Seattle where it's much more civilized, and the weather is better, because I like cloudy weather. I'm part Celt. You have to understand that.
[00:14:19.86] But I knew that LA was ground zero for poverty law. And then if you wanted to do poverty law and cut out the cutting edges of poverty law, and justice, that for compound race, and class discrimination in immigration status you had to be in LA. And unfortunately, I'm still there because I haven't solved all the problems yet.
[00:14:46.04] I grew up in a marvelous family. I have the best family. I'll go up against anybody in this audience and compare families. I have the best parents in the world. My parents brought my two brothers, Philip, and Norman and me, up in an Air Force existence. They brought us up so well, that we thought it was normal to move every year. We didn't know any better, and likewise, about race.
[00:15:14.69] Now, when I was coming up we were an officer's family. There were no minority officers of any kind, never mind black. And they were almost as few African-American families in the Air Force, generally, enlisted and officers. So the Air Force was not integrated when I came up. And my parents were determined that as black children, growing up in a military bubble, that we were not going to be saddled with the burdens of race. We were not going to have the inferiority complexes. We were not going to doubt ourselves. They just weren't going to have it, and here's how they did it. And this is very instructive.
[00:16:01.19] My mom, I can remember her, and she is like a black Mary Poppins. One of my favorite movies, because it reminds me of my mom. You know how Marry Poppins would come in singing, and the sun would come up, and the birds would come in the windows? And this is actually what it was like growing up. My mom is like sunshine, and she comes in singing. And every day is a fun day, to be greeted with song and laughter. And so I naturally have a sunny disposition, even though people call me Darth Vader. My internal composition is really quite optimistic and sunny because of her.
[00:16:39.96] And so when I was a little girl, we were in North Carolina, which is the first place where race really became a pressing issue for my parents. We were in Goldsboro, outside out of Johnson Air Force Base. And I was going into first grade, which meant that they could no longer shelter me inside the cocoon of my home. And I was going to have to greet white people in South Carolina and North Carolina. No happy prospect for black parents in the 1960s, the early 1960s.
[00:17:12.77] And my mom, she took me to the side and she said, now, we're going to first grade aren't we excited? Yeah mom, we're excited. And she says, now listen. I want you to be prepared for something. She says, you know, there are some people, and it's so sad, because we have to help them. And I'm listening very carefully. And she says, there are some people, It is just so silly, can you imagine? They think they're better then we are because we're black and they're white. Isn't that funny? And we just laughed and laughed. And she just says, and it's so sad they're mentally ill Connie. And we have to help them because they're so sick. It's just a few white people but we have to help these poor white people. And they're mentally ill, and you know how we have to help sick people. I say, yes mommy we have to help sick people.
[00:18:19.42] And so I go into first grade feeling so sorry for these mentally ill white people I have to help. And so when I encounter the little budding racists in my first grade class-- I had a very good friend of mine. My best friend was named Mona. And she was Jewish and I was the only black child in the class, of course. And she and I bonded, as I always did, I always had Jewish friends. My Jewish friends always found me out, and we were the oppressed outsiders. And we always bonded together. And so Mona was, kind of like, my first Jewish-black partnership.
[00:18:58.43] And Mona came to me one day and she was in tears. And I said, what's the matter? And she said, they won't let me play jump rope. I said, why? She said, because they said, you're my nigger friend. And I just started stroking her hair. I said, don't worry Mona. I said, you tell them that you're not my friend. You go ahead and jump. It's OK. Go ahead and jump rope. And she said, no, I can do that. But why? Why are they like that? And she was in tears. She was just dissolving in tears. But then she turned to me and she said, but why aren't you crying? They're calling you the nigger.
[00:19:35.77] And then I realized I would never cry. Because I had my mother. She didn't have my mom, and I understood that those kids were handicapped. And that they were mentally ill, and that I had to help them. And because I have this altruistic streak as wide as a freeway, anyway, it just fed into that. And so even in first grade I had weapons against the racial destruction. And I taught my friend Mona how to get the Teflon that my mom had given me.
[00:20:16.09] And when my parents, in the all white Air Force-- I didn't realize it but we moved every year because of the racism. And here was the thing, my father's Jewish and white mentors-- let me say that again-- his Jewish and white mentors conspired with him against the racism. Just like I and Mona and our little black and Jewish conspiracy had each other's backs and faced the racism together.
[00:20:52.41] And so my dad's mentors told my dad-- who is quite brilliant. He's fluent in five languages, including Russian. We have to be the only African-American family with two people fluent in Russian. It's just absurd. To hear Condi and my dad go on in Russian-- and of course, his accent is better than hers. I am just amazed. So my dad is fluent in German, and Japanese, and in Russian. Fluent in English and he's conversational in some other language. I can't even remember. But very linguistically gifted. And then strategically, he's a genius. And I have about this much of his strategic genius, which is why I'm so good at my cases. My dad is quite amazing. My mom is more amazing, but he is astounding in his abilities.
[00:21:43.25] And so, he scares people. Just like I scare people. But I scare people for a completely different reason, which you'll see by the end of this lecture. And his mentor sat him down and said, Phil, these southern whites have never met a black man like you. They don't know Negroes like you exist. And you scare them. And scared white people are not good for a black man. So here's what we're going to do for your career, you come in, and with that great brain of yours, solve a problem for that Air Force Base. And then you solve the problem, you give the credit to the whites and the blacks who couldn't figure it out, and then your reward is the promotion. But you have to leave.
[00:22:38.38] So I went to five-- six elementary schools. No I'm sorry, four. Excuse me, I'm miscounting. Four elementary schools, technically five, two junior highs, and three high schools. As a strategy to defeat the fears of my dad, which were based in racial stereotypes and racial fears.
[00:23:08.52] So I'm somebody who has lived a race her whole life. And I have this conundrum because I also know that there's no such thing as race. And yet it governs all the physics of our actual world, doesn't it? There's no such thing as race. There's no biological basis for it. There's no real sociological basis for it. There is the real perceived sociological basis for it, which is what we handle. It's what we must confront.
[00:23:45.71] So here we are with something that is imaginary in terms of its actual consequence and in terms of its biological reality. Something imaginary, and yet it triggers wars, it triggers our fears, it triggers tribal conflict. That's very real. And that's what we're here to talk about.
[00:24:10.84] I want to explain a little more about my background because it will help to illuminate why I say what I say. Because what I say may not resonate, and it may make some folks of color angry. And it may confuse folks who aren't of color. But I want you to understand the special place in the American tableau from which my stance comes so it makes a little more sense.
[00:24:42.50] In the historical American tableau-- and you have to ask yourself, what historical figure do you remind people of? Because we have very long memories, memories we don't even understand we have. And we're still living out a lot of those conflicts. For example we're still fighting the Civil War. I don't know whether you understand that or not. But this Tea Party stuff-- they're still carrying out-- it's the Confederacy again. But we're still fighting our Civil War. And we don't understand it because we don't really study it. It's too painful. But we're still living it. And so I believe in understanding the history and then grabbing it with both arms and embracing it.
[00:25:27.13] I also believe in touching the third rail, so that should not be of any comfort to anybody. But if you don't touch the third rail it will electrocute everybody else. And I believe in grabbing that third rail and neutralizing it. And really facing the reality, the depth of the reality, so that we can get it out of the way. Because we got a real business to take care. We don't have time for this stuff.
[00:25:54.22] And I tell the cops, we don't have time for this racial crap. We've got real threats. I said, we don't have time to be worrying-- listen, you need to get over the fact that you're dealing with black people, get used to black folks, and get comfortable with black folks. Because we got a whole deal with the cartels, and we've got organized crime to deal with. We don't have time for this racial stuff.
[00:26:14.32] It's wasting our time. And the cops will look at me and they'll laugh. But they get it when I tell them, you ought to be used to black folks by now. Let's get over this, and move on to the actual threats that we face together.
[00:26:31.26] So I, ladies and gentlemen-- you're looking at Sally Hemings. When I'm in the black community, I'm not seen as black. Race is relative, and it's highly contextual. I can show you situations in which I'm considered white. Let me tell you a couple of them.
[00:26:55.29] When I'm in the ghetto, and I'm in Nickerson Housing Project or Jordan Downs Housing Project. First time I went to Jordan Downs I was with a bunch of gang kids. I was trying to learn the ghetto, right? This bourgie black woman, going down in the ghetto trying to learn what's going on, right? Didn't understand the LA gangs. And I walk right in there, and I just knock on the door.
[00:27:18.42] I tell that story in this book, of how after the riots I said, OK, all right, I hear the folks loud and clear. I guess it's time for me to get acquainted with the folks in the housing projects. Since I haven't met them yet I need to go down. I took my battered Honda Civic. It looked like a battered tomato can.
[00:27:41.26] I have a Columbo theory of cars. The more battered your car is, the more money you'll make when it's stolen. I had a wind shield knocked out, didn't bother to get it fixed. It's kind of mild in LA, so you don't really need windows. And it had dents and everything, and it would get knocked around. And so I took it down to the ghetto. And I parked it outside of the Jordan Street-- the Jordan Downs Gym on Grape Street.
[00:28:11.56] And Jordan Downs was the predominately black housing project at the time. It was predominantly African-American. Now it's predominantly Latino. It's another story. I park my car and Mercedes Marquez, my co-council, says, Connie, you gotta meet me down here. I'm trying to get the African-Americans to treat Latinos right. You need to help me.
[00:28:32.20] I said, oh great, a bourgie Latina and a bourgie African-American woman are gonna come down here, and tell these African-Americans, you have to share the few crumbs you have with some Latino. And this is going to go really well. I get out of my car. I walk into the gym. It was a room full of women.
[00:28:52.46] I thought, this is good because I'm a feminist. I'm actually a female chauvinist, gentleman. I hate to tell you this. I love men, ask my dad, my brothers, and my boyfriend's. I love men, but I'm quite clear there's a superior gender, and that I'm a member of it. It's a terrible failing on my part. It really is. And I just have to acknowledge that I believe in acknowledging your biases and then compensating for them. I don't believe in burying them and pretending we don't have them because we all have them, OK? I don't test at all on race on the IAT tests, but on gender, oh my goodness, I'm terrible. And so I have to be very careful.
[00:29:29.26] But I was very relieved to see a room full of women, because I'm used to dealing with women. I usually go to the women first. And I go in this room and Mercedes is addressing the group, I'm a little bit late. And she's like, look I'm Mercedes Marquez and I'm a civil rights lawyer. And I represent poor people like you. And she's making every mistake you can think of. And I'm like, oh this is not gonna go well. And as I could see the women crossing their arms and shooting daggers out of their eyes. I mean, oh these black women are not amused with this Latina lawyer.
[00:29:58.61] And so I kind of push her out of the way, because I could see them get ready to attack her. And I get up there and I say, Hi. Hi. My partner Mercedes, I'm so glad she-- I'm Connie Rice. I'm a civil rights lawyer. I'm with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. And no more-- I couldn't get another word out. Mrs. Tolliver stands up and she says, NAACP my ass. She said, you light-bright, damn near white bitch. Where was you, when I had to put my grandchildren to bed in a bathtub because the bullets was flying through? Where was you-- and I mean she had a whole list of "where was yous." She reamed me a new one. Cussed me out to a fare-thee-well.
[00:30:57.33] And when she sat down, because she was a prospective client, I said, yes ma'am you're absolutely right. We have abandoned you. We middle class African-Americans have abandoned you into a crack war. And we've left you down here with no defenses. And we've left you down here with a police force that thinks of you as vermin. And that will not protect you but targets you. And you should be angry with us.
[00:31:24.33] Now I'm down here to ask two things of you. Number one, how do I help you? And number two, can we treat Latinos better than white people have treated us? So Mrs. Day gets up. She said, yeah bitch-- so the welcome continued-- here's what you can do. You can help our men.
[00:31:54.18] I said, help your men? Mrs. Day says, yeah they's doing a truce out back. I said, a truce? Clueless as usual, clueless. I said, what do you mean? She said, the Crips and the Bloods, they's doing a truce and you need to help them. You need to help them stop the firing of the bullets. So go back out there and help them. That's how you help us.
[00:32:25.72] I'm thinking to myself, how the hell do I help a bunch of gangsters stop killing each other? I say, OK, all right. I said, OK, I'll help. I said, where are they? I didn't even know where they were at-- no idea what I was doing. They said, they're out there back in the trailer behind Markham Middle School. So Mercedes and I get up to go and Mercedes says, you're crazy as a loon if you go talk to their men. She said don't be hanging around with those gangsters. Are you crazy? She said, I'm getting the hell out of here. Mercedes leaves.
[00:32:52.84] I find a little kid. I say, where's Markham Middle School? I find the trailer. Long story short, I knock on the door. Now you know I should not have been knocking on the door full of gangsters. What is wrong with me? But I said I was going to do it so I did. I knock on the door and door flings open and there's this guy in a wife-beater undershirt, gold chains, muscles bigger than this podium, pants hanging down below his crotch, with his underwear hanging out. And I'm looking at him and I say, hi I'm Connie Rice, and I'm a civil rights attorney. And I'm here to help.
[00:33:41.91] He looked at me like I was ET. Slammed the door in my face. And I'm thinking, OK, I struck out with the women, and I'm striking out with the men. Let's see, three times and your out. But I heard them talking inside, and I waited.
[00:33:57.49] And about two minutes later the door opens. Wide this time. And it's wall to wall black men. None of them light skinned. All of them buff. All of them with chains around their necks. And tattoos, on the ones you could see the tattoos. All of them gangsters. And they had on this side the red bandannas tied around their heads, tied around their biceps, like they were at the UN and sporting flags. And on this side the flags, the bandanas, were blue.
[00:34:44.05] So these were the Crips. These were the bloods. They were having a tete-a-tete, a peace conference, a truce conference. I had found the trailer the women were talking about. So I'm standing-- mind you, I had come straight from court. So get this, I'm in a St John's suit, Ferragamo pumps, with a briefcase and nylons, and more pearls than Barbara Bush. I'm looking more like a black Republican then Condoleezza
[00:35:22.82] Standing there in front of a bunch of gangsters, black gangsters. And to them I'm a white lady. In that context, I'm white. In those neighborhoods, I'm white.
[00:35:40.17] So he opens the door back up and he says, you a lawyer? I said yes I'm an attorney. And one other guy leans over and says, yeah there's something you can do. I said, name it. What do you want me to do? I said, it has to be legal.
[00:36:03.27] He says, can you get that agreement between the Jews and the Arabs? I said, would you be referring to the Egyptian-Sinai accords? Yeah that one. I said, yes I can give you the Egyptian-Sinai accords. Yeah get that one. Another one leans forwards and says, yeah cause see if the Jews and the Arabs can get along, we can get along.
[00:36:37.51] And that was the beginning of my journey through gangland which I tell in this book. I came back. When I left a guy named Fred Williams came running after me, huge guy. I mean he looked like Shaquille O'Neal. But far more handsome, beautiful, Indian-African face. And he had the hooked nose. And I looked at him and he says, Ms Rice. Ms Rice. Don't come down here again without my protection. I will protect you.
[00:37:14.91] And sure enough, we started a partnership. He was my Sherpa. And he took me through gangland. You have to have a Sherpa. A white lady like me requires a Sherpa. He introduced me to the kids that he was trying to save.
[00:37:29.92] He used to be a Grape Street Crip. And he had gone away to prison when he was 15 for killing a man. And he did juvie time. And was out by the time he was 21. And decided that he didn't want any more kids to do what he had done. And decided that he would become a gang intervention worker. And I learned to adopt the gang intervention guys because they were in between the two worlds and they could take me into their world.
[00:37:55.28] And you can't help people unless you put your galoshes and your boots on, and you travel through the sewers and the gutters that they're in. You have to understand. And so I did. And I followed Fred through those the gutters and the trenches of Jordan Downs and poor black LA.
[00:38:16.61] The second time I went down there I was with his kids, his gang kids, and I was addressing these kids. They were all little gangsters. They were in the Grape Street Crips. And I was trying to explain to them that I was a lawyer and what I did and "da da da da." And I was clearly missing them. I was talking over their heads. My words were too big. They didn't understand a thing I was saying and I was missing them.
[00:38:39.38] And so I could tell I was missing them and I kind of stopped. And this little gangster named Insane-- you don't want to know. Insane gets up and he said, look y'all. Look, y'all. Look, Connie white, but she down. I love Ebonics. It's very economical.
[00:39:03.56] Connie white, but she down. Do you know what that says? Look, I know she's strange. She talks like a white lady. She looks like a white lady. She's dressed funny, but she's here to help us. So even though she's white, accept her, and be cool about it. Connie white, but she down. Now that summed it all up.
[00:39:28.98] So in that situation-- in those situations, ladies and gentlemen, I'm a white lady. It doesn't matter what race I actually am, I'm white. Now the other end of the spectrum, Orange County, John Birch Society-- I went down to Orange County and I had a meeting and the John Birchers were part of the confab I was meeting with. I was meeting with conservative Republicans. And in that gathering I'm blacker than Sidney Poitier.
[00:40:07.61] Doesn't matter what I look like. I'm so different that they're almost jumping away from me. So in that context, I'm blacker than night. And then in every single context I'm different. In my own mind I'm Connie. I don't think of myself as black, white, indifferent, mixed. And I think that because there's so many interracial relationships in my family. And because my make makeup is so-- and I claim all of my strands. I mean, as I describe it in the book, I'm an in Indo-African-Celt.
[00:40:49.80] We have Seminole and, mainly, Cherokee, Native-American blood, great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents. We have African blood, which Condoleezza traced to the French Congo area. So apparently, our African ancestors come south of the Congo where there French colonized all those folks. And she and I are supposed to go there and try to meet some of our ancestors, but until that trip happens I just know that we've got some kind of African in there obviously. And they're probably from that southern Congo area. And we'll pin that down a little bit later. Supposed to do it in the next two years.
[00:41:33.85] And then we know we have Welsh. Rice is a Welsh name. We have Irish. It's where our red hair and freckles come from. And we have other Anglo-Saxon strains. So I'm an Indo-African-Celt. Exactly the kind of mix that sends the Ku Klux Klan lunging for their hoods. I'm the worst nightmare. I'm exactly-- I am 19th century America blended. And I accept every strain of my heritage. It's probably why I was so comfortable when we lived in London. I was home.
[00:42:12.58] And when I did an IRA extradition case when I was at Morrison and Foerster, I actually had to go to Belfast. And just to show you how crazy racial perceptions can get. I was with my Northern Ireland clients friends, and they were trying to help me put some facts together to be able to do his extradition petition. And we're in this pub, and they've had a couple of drinks. And I'm feeling kind of relaxed and I said, would you mind if I asked a question? They said, no Mrs. Rice-- I love the Irish accent. I just love Scottish accents and Irish accents. And I can't imitate them, but I do love them.
[00:42:53.01] And I said, you seem to know who's Catholic and who's Protestant. And I just don't know how you do it. Is it because you know everybody and these towns are so small, and you know everybody? Or what is it? And they proceeded, in their drunken haze, to lay out a racial-biological theory of how Catholics had descended from one wing of the family and that the pallor of their skin is different from the pallor of the skin of the Protestants who descended from another wing.
[00:43:33.74] And I just said, these people are crazy. I said, that's the craziest thing I have ever heard. I said, you're all white people. You're all Irish white people and there is no racial difference.
[00:43:50.90] They had a racial [? difference ?] theory. It was amazing. So even when there are no differences we make them up. I said, if they're distinguishing along racial lines amongst the Irish, I said, there's a glitch in our software and you just need to accept the fact that human beings are fundamentally insane on this question. OK? That's my conclusion is that we're insane on this question, and you just have to kind of factor that in. It's like my mom said, They're mentally ill and we have to help them, right?
[00:44:26.24] So when I talk that's what's in my head. I am someone who has almost every racial group in her family. And so as a family you don't even see it. You don't see color. You don't see the fact that someone's Vietnamese-American and someone else is Irish-America. And my best friends all have interracial families. And so race just doesn't register with me. Gender does, but race does not.
[00:45:02.20] So if you hear me talking about white people and black people, understand that it is with total love, and acceptance, and a fluency that probably let's me say too much. And I really don't mean to insult anybody. But I do want to be frank, because we need to be honest.
[00:45:29.24] I'm going to share with you some anecdotes of my racial epiphanies-- interracial epiphanies. I did some education cases in LA. And one of the claims that I made was then they were harming the African-American children by not teaching any, any of our history. Kind of novel claim, but it was to get the school district's attention. You put it in a lawsuit, people kind of have to pay attention to it. That's what I've learned.
[00:46:01.50] I'm thinking of suing the federal government for the war on drugs soon, but that's another topic. If you put it in a lawsuit you get their attention. And I might even get Condoleeza to come along with me. Wouldn't that be great. But that's another lecture.
[00:46:21.21] So when I did this lawsuit, I was on the radio, and this white teacher got on the radio. And she said, Ms Rice I really like you. And I, kind of sort of, like the lawsuit because you're fighting for the right things but-- and I'm gonna tell you that you're right. We don't teach Civil War history. We don't teach the history of slavery at all. And you're right, you're right, we don't teach it.
[00:46:53.85] And I asked her, I said, ma'am could you tell me why you don't teach-- she said, yes that's why I'm calling. I need you to help me with this. And I said, yes tell me why you don't teach it. She said, because I'm a white teacher, and I can't figure out how to teach slavery in a way that doesn't damage the self esteem of white kids. So I don't teach it at all, because I don't want to hurt my white children.
[00:47:27.94] And I said, ma'am, I understand. That is not an unreasonable position. Who wants to hurt any children, white black, Indian, or whatever? I said, you don't have the tools to teach a very painful history without harming the kids. I said, you're harming black kids by not teaching. And you can also teach slavery in a way that harms black children if you do it in a wrong way.
[00:47:59.55] I said, we've left you with no tools. We need to leave you with some tools so that we teach it together in a way that builds all the children up. She said, but I don't know how to do that. I said, but it's so easy. She said, what do you mean? I said, the history of slavery is triumphant. I said, the abolition movement was our first multiracial movement.
[00:48:33.70] I said I wouldn't be free without the Quakers. I wouldn't be free without Stanton. I wouldn't be free without Lloyd Garrison. I mean come on. There were white people who sacrificed their lives for abolition. There were white people who saved my relatives on the Underground Railroad. There were thousands of white people who risked the gallows to run the Underground Railroad.
[00:49:10.83] I said, you and I, in one afternoon, could come up with an abolition story that would have all the kids with their chests hanging out. Yeah, we freed the slaves. Together, we freed the slaves. How powerful is that? That's a multiracial story, and it's true. That's where you start. You start so the white kids understand their heritage. That's good.
[00:49:42.74] And you give the black kids the similar grounding, right? That's not hard. And it's true. You don't even have to lie. Which I won't do, but have been willing to consider at times. No need to though.
[00:50:06.14] Slavery is our first multiracial coalition. It was a conspiracy from the start. It was a conspiracy between white people, and slaves, Africans, and Indians. All of our ancestors we can lay claim to, from that crazy ass John Brown, all the way to Harriet Tubman. Think about those folks. It took them 150 years and they never let up.
[00:50:47.07] William Lloyd Garrison, I mean, he published 3,000 of those damn newsletters that he did proclaiming abolition every single week. And when he published the last one, after Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, he wept. He spent his whole life, and his whole fortune, to free the slaves. He was white. So we have an incredible shared history that we need to start with that story, and then the ugly part of it, the part that's so painful for all of us.
[00:51:36.85] There was an African-American woman who procures slavery artifacts. And I go to her store all the time. Her store is called Sable Images. And I believe in collecting the artifacts of slavery. So that when the folks come around and say the slavery never happened, like they're denying the Holocaust, they can't do it because I have the shackles, and I have the lynching ropes, and I have some of the artifacts of slavery.
[00:52:03.36] So I collect these things. And I know I'm neurotic, and I need help but it's too late, I'm 60 and it's too late for therapy to do any good. So I call her and I say, Gail-- I went to her store one time and I saw these posters. She collects these old, old posters, and replicas of posters, reprints of posters. And there was this one that said, beware-- you know that old "beware" font, the wanted add font-- beware freed slaves and escaped slaves. Do not talk to Boston police they are slave catchers. They will sell you back into slavery. It was this big warning, right? And they posted in all the black churches.
[00:52:52.34] And I thought it was marvelous. And I said, oh, this is a great gift for Chief Bratton. So I bought the poster. And I had it framed in this handsome black frame. And I got a plaque made so that people understood why was giving him a wanted slave poster to a police chief. And I had on the plaque-- I put, to Chief Bratton, this poster reminded me of the 300 years of headwinds we're trying to change. Thank you, for having the courage to change the wind. Your colleague in civil rights, Connie Rice. So there can be no mistake about why I gave him the poster. So I brought the poster into the police headquarters.
[00:53:42.39] The cops around him were appalled, I mean they were just appalled. And I hand it to him and was gracious enough to act like he was happy to receive it. He actually made room on his wall for it and put it on the wall. And the people he showed it to blanched. They couldn't even get out that they liked it. They were like, oh my god. What is she doing. And then he asked me where I got it. And I said, oh it's a slave artifact. He says, I want to go. I said, you want to go to the slave artifacts? He said, yes I want to go.
[00:54:15.58] So I called Gail. I said, listen, the police chief wants to come you got to get there early in the morning. We're coming tomorrow morning. She said, let me get this straight, our white police chief-- I said, yes our Scottish-American police chief wants to come to your slave artifacts. So she says, Oh my God. What is Connie doing? So I arrive. The police chief arrives in his convoy of SUVs. And I arrive in my-- I don't have a dented Honda anymore. I have a Prius now because I am the liberal I look like. I'm green tea drinking, Prius driving, Whole Foods shopping, I mean, I'm your worst nightmare, right?
[00:54:47.82] So I drive up in my Prius. He drives up in his convoy of black SUVs, and he comes into the shop with me. And here we are, this Scottish-American police chief, who calls himself America's police chief, and Gail and Connie. These two African-American women and this Scottish-American police chief and we're bonding over slave artifacts.
[00:55:16.42] He's weeping as he handles the lynching ropes and as he handles the shackles. And he says, it's just so hard to believe that we thought it was OK to own each other. I said, yes it is hard to believe Chief isn't it. And so he's going through the posters. I show him the other posters. And we show him the racist Jim Crow toys. And you know, Michelle Alexander would have loved this shop too.
[00:55:45.93] And I'm there with the police chief, and I've been having this argument with him because chief Bratton considers himself America's police chief. Loves to go on and on about Robert Peel and the bobbies in London. And I said to him, get a grip chief. I said, we don't have anything in common from Robert Peel's policing in London. I said, we don't have community policing. I said, our policing descends from the slave system. We have plantation policing bequeathed to the cities.
[00:56:16.62] He said, your crazy. He says, we do Robert Peel and we-- I said, do you see any bobbies? I said, we don't have any bobbies. I said, I used to live in London. I lived three years in London. I said, I know the bobbies. We don't have bobbies. We don't have Robert Peel. We had this big argument. And he's like, I'm the police chief. And I'm the expert in policing, and you don't know. I said, yes I do know. So we were having this argument. We've been having this argument for three years. And he though I was crazy. Not just for that reason, but that was part of it. He thought whenever I start talking that slavery stuff he thinks I'm crazy.
[00:56:52.93] So here we are in the slave artifacts store three years after argument had begun. Long story short, he comes upon the cabinet. The cabinet that holds the police badges from the plantations. And Gail has this whole collection of plantation badges. And he stops and says, oh my God. Oh my God. Now I see what you're talking about because the plantation badges look exactly like today's police badges except, that where you have City of Los Angeles around the edge of the badge, you have Plantation of Green Acres.
[00:57:47.93] And he takes out these trays of badges. And he picks out five of them. He said, this is my Boston police badge, and this is my such and such police badge. Any he saw the police badges. And they had plantation on them. And he bought four of them. And he looked at me, and he said, Connie, now I understand what you mean. He said, you're not as crazy as I thought you are. And he's never talked about Robert Peel and the bobbies again.
[00:58:36.44] So I bonded with the Scottish-American police chief over these slave artifacts. That was a moment. I do describe that in the book, how Chief Bratton and I became good friends. We're still good friends. And I still work with him even though he's left LA.
[00:58:55.14] I'm not afraid to touch slavery because I think that it actually holds the key to us bonding closer together. It doesn't have to be a source of-- only a source of pain and shame. It can also be a source of empowerment. And that's what I want to leave you with. Is that I want you to think of ways to accept our history because it's our joint history. Accept the good parts of it, and understand how it's still playing out today. And don't be afraid to touch the third rails of the legacy.
[00:59:35.20] Part of that legacy now operates in terms of class. Because to tell you the truth, underclass African-Americans-- which is what this book is about and what Michelle's book is about. And my book is about, why If we don't care about the poor children trapped in our gang zones we will die from the poisonous dynamics that are brewing in their neighborhoods.
[01:00:04.59] They will come at us at some point. And it's why Chief Bratton, General Stanley McChrystal, and my cousin Condoleezza, have given me a blurb. Because they agree, that we have to fix the poorest neighborhoods where children live in fear of being killed by a gang every day. When you let conditions like that fester in your own backyard you are killing yourself. We may be safe now but we will not be safe when that stuff comes out of their neighborhoods to our neighborhoods. And it will.
[01:00:38.26] That's the warning of my book. And it's about my story through gangland to learn that lesson. And so when I-- as with my crazy self. I know I sound nuts. I do sound nuts. But the police get me, and the police love me now. I sued them for 20 years. And when Chief Bratton came along I stop suing them, because he brought me inside. He was very smart.
[01:01:06.96] And he gave me a report to do on the Rampart scandal. And I tell the story-- I say, Chief you just want to keep so busy I have time to sue you. And he says, yes that's true. I said, well I have the complaint ready, so that's not going to keep me from suing you. I said, you need to do what I tell you to do, and then I won't sue you. He says, yes I understand Connie. He humored me.
[01:01:23.30] But we bonded and I didn't need to sue him because he did the right thing. And I haven't sued LAPD since. And what I discovered is that if you sue police for 20 years, and you refuse to leave, and you become so obsessed with changing them so that they treat poor people humanely, and they understand you're not going anywhere, they give up. They give up, and they marry you. I now have a parking space next to the Chief and I have a badge.
[01:02:06.90] We don't have very honest conversations with each other within our clans. And certainly not between our clans. In the African-American community, what Mrs Toliver and Ms Day were cussing me out about, that's a racial-- interracial discussion. The black middle class has abandoned the underclass. And we are now part of their oppression.
[01:02:35.45] It is black mayors who are doing the mass incarceration strategy that Michele Alexander describes so beautifully in her book. It's black mayors and black governors. So we middle class bourgie Negroes are just as responsible for the mass incarceration strategy as any whites. We are jointly oppressing the poor together. You can't do a war on drugs the way we're doing a war on drugs. And disclaim our responsibility. That's what Michelle's book is about. And she describes it brilliantly.
[01:03:16.60] We didn't mean to rototill the poor. We didn't set out to do that. I'm not saying that. But when you look at a policy-- 30 years of a policy. And you got 30 years the data and it says what Michelle documents it says. You got to stop that policy or it does become intentional, OK?
[01:03:39.17] So here's the deal. Here's the deal. You can't look at underclass African-Americans-- 25 years of data showing that we have locked up 2/3 of the men from that echelon of black society. You go to Jordan Downs my estimate was that we had done 3/4.
[01:04:09.22] Now here's the deal. I'm a feminist and a female chauvinist. Even a black feminist knows that when you take the men out of a community that community dies. When you lock up 2/3 of the men you have targeted that community for annihilation. Whether you realize it or not. Unless you believe in the crime gene. And believe me there's no such thing. You can't explain locking up 3/4 of anybody's population.
[01:05:01.37] We've left all those children without fathers, without breadwinners, without husbands. We've made the men the untouchable. And we tell the boys they're slated for death. We have to reverse this. Now we've done this inadvertently through our war on drugs. And I tell the police, I said, I'm not calling you racists. Come on. I like you guys. And besides if you are racist it's just because you're mentally ill as my mom said. And I'm here to help you, OK?
[01:05:39.88] I told the cops, I said, you're doing what you're trained to do. I said, but look there's something called adverse impact. You go after black males because they're on the street corner. You don't go after my friends who are lawyers. They're up in the Hollywood towers, and they're snort their cocaine behind closed doors. You don't get to them. But you get the blacks-- the poor blacks. Because they're stupid enough to be dealing their stuff out on the corner. And they're easy. It's the low hanging fruit. So when you understand how the policing works, it's not that they're trying to be racist.
[01:06:28.38] [COUGHING]
[01:06:28.86] Excuse me. I told you I don't do winter. This is proof. I am reinstating my rule. I go home for Thanksgiving and then I don't come back east until April. That's my-- I'm gonna go back to that rule.
[01:06:47.48] Now when you understand that your policy, the way that your carrying out your policy, has the impact of annihilating an entire group of people, you have to change that policy. That's what Michelle's book is about. It's what my book is about. My book is also-- it's not about policy. It's about living those policies, and what the actual impact on human beings is, and what will happen if we don't change.
[01:07:26.55] Now when I was with President Obama-- the first time I met him was at a fundraiser for when he was running for Senate, the Senate. And I was at Maddie Lawson's and Michael Lawson's and they said, Connie come because you'll know what questions to ask him. And I said, yeah, but I might not be very nice. They said, that's OK. Just be polite.
[01:07:48.49] So here he was, this skinny black from Illinois. And he was jet lagged and the story he told wasn't very good. And I wasn't too impressed. And so I raised my hand and I said, we're all here because we love Maddie and Michael but could you explain to us why we should be excited about your candidacy. I'm asking the future President of the United States why we should be impressed with him. I just want you to know. Leave it to me.
[01:08:19.23] He laughed, and he said, you sound like my wife, Michelle. Which I found a great compliment. Next time I saw him he was President. I said, Hi, President Obama. It's Connie Rice and I said, you don't remember me. But he says, oh yes I do. He said, and I know your cousin too. I said, oh dear, he does know who I am. He said, how am I doing. I said, do you want me to really tell you? And I said, let me tell you how I really think you're doing. I said, I adore you and every time I see you and Michelle my heart sings. So there's a basic love for you that's irrational. So understand I'm a fan.
[01:09:12.29] I said, but as a civil rights lawyer-- I said, I give you an F, because you have torn apart all these Latino families for no reason. I said, you're not showing the Republicans that you're tough. I said, you can't please them. I said, if you walked on water they would issue a press conference on how you can't swim. I said, stop trying to please these fools. They want you to fail. They need you to fail, because they're still fighting the Confederacy. They're the old Confederacy. They're still fighting the Civil War.
[01:09:46.01] I said, stop breaking up these families. You can never justify any in human terms taking a mother away from an infant. I said your ICE people-- I said, I'm going to war against ICE. I said, I hate them, and you need to stop them now. And he said, OK, how do you really feel Connie. I said, no don't patronize me. I said, don't give me that condescending crap. I said, you stop it. Stop tearing these families apart, Mr President. He said, OK, OK, OK.
[01:10:17.02] I think he got the message. So I'm here to say that as I talked about race with this black president, and with these white cops, with these teachers-- excuse me-- that it is with the goal of making us understand. That we don't have to fear the racial conflict. We don't have to fear the ugliness of our past. And it was ugly. We don't have to fear going to movies like Django. But most importantly, we don't have to fear each other.
[01:11:01.67] White people don't need to feel ashamed, or embarrassed, or cowed about touching these third rails with us. African-Americans need to understand that we are now playing a role in the oppression of poor blacks. Just like the slave masters did. And that we had better wake up and smell the coffee, or as I say, smell the crocodile before he gets us. We have to change these policies and we have to understand how race operates. Don't be afraid of it. And don't be ashamed of your feelings.
[01:11:36.50] I have had-- I'm one of these folks where because I grew up in all white societies I never was around African-Americans. It's a comfort to be in Africa but I'm very comfortable in all white situations because that's how I grew up. The Air Force was all white. I didn't have any choice. And so I'm used to having questions asked of me that can be uncomfortable. Or it's like why not. Let me serve a purpose.
[01:12:04.51] Everything from, how do you straighten your hair? To, Connie, what happened in that race riot last year? What happened? Why? And I'm one of the few people who come decipher this stuff and get down to the DNA. But we all need to get that frame of reference. We all need to be that skilled. And just kind of get a-- it's like a rain coat. Just get ready to have some painful stuff slung your way.
[01:12:42.08] I mean, if you're gonna have a racial discussion, and if it's going to be honest, you're gonna get hurt. It's painful stuff. If you're light skinned get a double raincoat because you're going to get the light-bright damn near white bitch, immediately. Got to expect that. I let it roll right off me just like a duck. I'm used to it. It's part of being Sally Hemings. I am Sally Hemings. We were the house slaves. We got the benefit of being the children of slave owners and slaves.
[01:13:21.42] If you were the children of the slave owner and you looked like him, he kind of, sort of, claimed you. That's how my great-aunt Julia-- aunt Julia-- my great-grandmother Julia Rice-- Condi and I are only four generations out of slavery. My great grandparents were 11, 12, 14, and 9 when they were freed. We come from very big families and we're the youngest. I descend from the youngest of each of those big families. So it's only been four generations.
[01:13:53.15] We've gone from chattel-- I've gone from chattel to legal counsel in four generations. And ladies and gentlemen, as painful as that history is, as much as I face the full brutality of it, there's no other nation on the face of the Earth in which I could have gone from chattel to queen of her world in four generations. Where my cousin could have gone from chattel to the Secretary of State. Only in the United States.
[01:14:29.57] We do it uniquely well. Believe it or not, I've lived all over the world. Believe it or not, we do it uniquely well. So let's grab a hold of that good part of our heritage. Fully facing the ugliness of the past. Fully acknowledging what we've done to one another. And that means middle class blacks have to acknowledge what we've done to poor blacks. What light skin blacks have done to dark skinned blacks. What whites have done to all blacks.
[01:15:05.97] Let's face it together and like those teachers who can teach the abolition story, let's celebrate the fantastic story that we have written together. We have an incredible legacy. The rest of the world is looking at us and wondering how we did it. And we don't even know we've done it, because we don't understand how great a history we share. What a great history it is. It's ugly and painful and we've got to acknowledge that. I'm not trying to sweep that under the rug, believe me. But we have some incredible joint efforts.
[01:15:46.48] And the Quakers need to go up there on Mount Rushmore as far as I'm concerned. They are an incredible group. I wish I could be nonviolent like they are, but I'm not. Somebody who does taekwondo in her free time-- I even beat people up for a sport And, and I'm known for threatening people who don't do what I tell them to do. So I am not nonviolent. It's really very sad. I mean, Martin Luther King's a hero of mine. Gandhi's a hero of mine and I'm just a very poor student.
[00:00:00.00]
[01:16:24.43] And clearly, I need therapy but it's too late. So I'm am here to say, race is extraordinarily complex, it's confounding, it can be confusing. But relax, because you have more in your frame of reference then you think, OK? Very few people have lived my existence, being black, in an all white environment like the Air Force. I learned an awful lot about what it is to be the token. I live the opposite existence of Condoleezza. She grew up in the segregated South, where she was surrounded by nothing but upper class African-Americans. I was surrounded by strange whites at all times. I was a token. And as a token you get treated quite well.
[01:17:21.89] But you also learn the fears. You learn to read the fears. You learn to read the history in a different way as a token. And as Sally Hemings you occupy a special place too, because it's a special vantage point. You could see both the slave side and you will be resented by the field slaves. And your resented by the mistress of the house because you're the walking proof of his infidelity with a slave. And yet, you had to balance the shielded and sheltered love of a slave owner who could never quite acknowledge you. It's a very strange place to be.
[01:18:04.83] But it's an important vantage point because it can teach you that middle language that everybody can hear and that everybody can embrace. And it points the way forward. Because what it says is, we're blended, we're part of the same families.
[01:18:24.50] It's very strange to me to go down to the South. You go into a public school and you see these black and white children with the same names and they even look a little bit like each other. And yet, they can't acknowledge each others as relatives. Can't acknowledge your white ancestors in the South, even today. We're family and can't acknowledge it. And you wonder why we have racial problems.
[01:18:52.10] African-Americans- we spend our time still trying to look like white. This is not how my hair would be naturally. I straighten my hair. And when I came in, in an afro I caused a panic. My natural hair causes a panic. Because I like Angela Davis. You know, it's a big fro.
[01:19:19.00] African-Americans spend their time straightening their hair, because we're accepted more. Think about that. We straighten our hair to look white.
[01:19:37.62] So I think it's time for us to have a very, very honest discussion on both a policy level, which is what Michelle is writing about. We have to end the war on drugs, not just because it's hurting poor people, poor whites as well who are caught in the crank economy. Not the crack economy, but the crank economy.
[01:19:59.13] We need to legalize drugs or take out the criminality in some kind of way, because it's just devastated the underclass. And that's what she writes about. We now have resurrected the old barriers, not through Jim Crow laws but through de facto Jim Crow policies. That have the same impact of the laws my grandparents faced. When they couldn't vote, couldn't rent a house, couldn't shop, couldn't sit down at a restaurant, couldn't check into a hotel. We have de facto barriers, and that's what Michelle is writing about.
[01:20:41.12] We need to understand those barriers and together take them down. That's what she's saying. Now some of the best conversations I've had have been those honest, Connie, can I talk to you, conversations. Where white friends tell me, Connie, this is what I'm afraid of. I'm afraid that if I ask this question I will lose your friendship. I said, look there's no question you can ask me that will make you lose my-- I said, look, you got to understand I've played this role all my life.
[01:21:21.66] So I had this cop-- and I'll end with this anecdote. When the teachers who said to me, Connie we're afraid to teach slavery, this cop said something similar. He was a white officer and he said, Ms Rice I feel like I can talk to you. I said, well you're one of the few because I'm really not that approachable. He said, yeah but I think you'll be honest with me. I said, yeah, I will be honest with you. He said, I'm afraid of black people.
[01:21:58.68] He said, you're not really black so I'm not afraid of you. But I'm afraid of black people and I think that if I got shot in the ghetto those black people would just watch me bleed out and they wouldn't call 911 to help me. I asked him, why? He'd never grown up around black people. He said, the stares are hostile. He said, everything about them was hostile. I can feel it. They would kill me if they could.
[01:22:38.48] So once I understood that, I understood that my goal, my goal had to be, how do I translate these two communities to one another? And how do I get them to face the joint legacy of hatred, joint mutual hatred? And how do I get them to embrace one another? This was a conversation that happened 25 years ago. This cop was being honest. And I said, thank you. Now you've given me the agenda to work on.
[01:23:06.80] 25 years later, ladies and gentleman, through a lot of work, painstaking negotiation, and me going to be inside and turning-- as the block says Connie's go to the dark side. I went inside to learn them. I went inside to become one of them. Because you can't really help an organization change if you're on the outside.
[01:23:33.44] And as I got closer, and closer, and closer to these cops and understood what they feared, I understood that my job was to take away their fear. Make it so they did not have to be afraid of these black people anymore. And to make them bond with these black children. These are white cops. White LAPD cops. You know that history, Rodney King, riots, the McCone commission, and riots. I mean, this force was brutal and racist. Very, very paramilitary and professional, but brutal and racist.
[01:24:13.34] And it was war. I woke up every day figuring out a new way to sue LAPD. And I loved doing war with LAPD. Loved it, because I like combat. As I said there's something wrong with me.
[01:24:30.45] When I started working on this that's where we were. They were afraid of poor black people. Poor black people hated the cops, hated them. And I had to learn to represent the minority cops. To peel away the minority officers and the female officers and sue the police department. It was divide and conquer. And then as I moved away from the suits and Chief Bratton came and I said, I don't want to sue you anymore but I do have a complaint in my drawer in case you don't do the right thing. I'm ready.
[01:25:02.33] He brought me to the inside and I did this study for him. And I interviewed over 900 cops. And in those interviews I learned what they were afraid of. They were afraid that the community would never back them. That if they tried to save people as opposed to lock them up, people would actually try to kill them. That's how much they distrusted these poor African-Americans, never mind poor Latinos. And I had to go to work on that. That's what I had to solve. Long story short, 19 years later, I have a parking space next to the Chief and a badge.
[01:25:45.86] And last winter, in Watts, in Jordan Downs, and Nickerson Gardens, Imperial Courts, and Aliso, the four worst housing projects in LA. LAPD threw a party for the poor residents of those housing projects because we have now community policing that I direct. It's called community partner policing. And there are 10 officers in each of the housing projects, that I got Chief Beck to give us. These are the first officers-- listen to this-- these are the first police officers in LAPD's history who are promoted based on how they demonstrate they avoided the arrest of the child.
[01:26:40.51] So we've turned the incentives upside down. Instead of arresting these kids they've adopted them. They get credit for getting kids into drug treatment. They get credit for finding eyeglasses for these kids who can't see the blackboard because they can't afford to go to the doctor. They get credit for bringing medical vans to the schools. They get credit for making sure the gangs don't recruit the kids in the bathrooms.
[01:27:08.63] These are police who are problem solvers. They help poor gang families. And I've made it possible because I beg the police chief to give me the freedom to create a new kind of policing. I've told them, don't arrest kids for smoking a joint. Who cares? I've smoked joints. Get a grip.
[01:27:37.30] Let's fight the violence. Let's not arrest all these kids. Let's save them from the violence. Let's make sure they don't have to join the Grape Street Crips. That's what we're doing together. And after a year and a half of that policing LAPD was so excited, the cops in the community safety partnership policing force, were so excited they threw a party for the four housing projects. And here they are, throwing a prom for themselves and the underclass community. And they gave out awards to the different mothers and to the white people. The white people who have written checks to support this work.
[01:28:19.93] The cops have adopted the kids and when they found out they don't have coats, and they don't have computers, and they don't have all kinds of stuff that you and I take for granted. They went to their middle class, white, compadres and said, we need 100,000 for this and 50,000 for that. And they gave awards to the white people who wrote the checks. So they're bonding, rich white people in LA, with the poorest African-Americans and Latinos in the housing projects.
[01:28:47.12] These are the cops, ladies and gentleman, the police. They are the driving engine for equality in poor LA, our cops. That's what you can do when you deal with race. That's what you can do when you get that stuff out of the way. And you clear the way to touch the real issues of inequality.
[01:29:16.99] So let's put on our thinking caps. Let's take my mom's advice and just view everybody who is openly racist as mentally ill. And let's help them out of their mentally illness. Let's be honest with one another, but loving. Because that's how I am. You can tell me your worst fears, and I will tell you it's OK to feel that way. Because that's the way you feel. But lets help you out of it. That I'm good at.
[01:29:43.43] I can't work on myself because I'm hopeless at this age. But what I am good at is understanding how race works. When it's applicable and when it's not. And ladies and gentlemen, let's not permit an imagined difference to sink us. We are the greatest multiracial democracy on the face of the planet. And we have to show Brazil and everybody else how to do it. And ladies and gentlemen, we are. And I want you to join in that effort. Thank you for listening. I'll take your questions.
[01:30:35.16] Thank you very much. I often give my best answers in response to questions, so it would be worth you sticking around to hear my answers. I can get quite colorful. I will entertain any questions, whatever questions you have. Don't forget I come from LA. LA is crazy. It's just crazy. I am-- when I introduce the current police chief, whom I helped to choose, I introduce him as follows.
[01:31:01.00] I liked Charlie Beck the first time I sued him. And he kind of laughs, but when he talks about me-- and just to let you know how far we've come in LA. He introduced-- excuse me-- I wasn't with him, but I got all these telephone calls saying, Connie, do you know what the Chief said about you? I said, what did he say? He introduced me and he said, I know I'm OK because I view Connie Rice as my moral conscience. And I thought to myself what have I done? I've gone too far.
[01:31:34.73] And then during the occupation LA-- remember occupy, the occupy movement-- they occupied all of City Hall and for about a month and a half. I told the Chief to go down there and bond with those people. I said, you do not want to confront these folks. I said, it'll destroy 10 years of you remaking LAPD's image. And it'll recall the brutal LAPD. I said, you want to bond with them. And you don't want to strike their tents in a violent way.
[01:32:01.70] So every day he would go down there. And I said, ignore the marijuana. I said, I'll make sure they don't light up a joint in front of you so you're not embarrassed. I said, ignore the marijuana and understand that they're a bunch of hippies. You know, you just need to get used to it. And so he did. He went down there every day. And they loved Chief Beck. And whenever he came they would all come out of their tents and greet him.
[01:32:21.01] I went home for Thanksgiving-- long story short, my mom calls me she says, it's Chief Beck on the phone. I said, oh no, what happened? I said, you mean the Mayor had them take down occupy LA while I was gone? I pick up the phone and I say, Chief what is it? What's wrong? He says, no, no, no I just wanted to report to you that we served Thanksgiving dinner to the occupy people.
[01:32:43.25] I said, you what? He said, yeah, we. roasted a bunch of turkeys and served them to them. I thought, oh my God what have I done? I said, you served turkeys? He said, yes. I thought it was a great idea. I just wanted you to know. I said, oh Chief that's a marvelous idea. What a great sentiment. I said, you do understand that they're vegan right? He said, what's vegan?
[01:33:18.28] But that's how far we've come. When they did take down the-- when the mayor decided that he'd had enough of them occupying City Hall. You didn't read about in the paper though did you? He went in and he explained to the people that he had communed with every day. He says, look, we've been ordered by the city to take your tents down. We don't want to do it in a way that hurts you. And I don't want you to be arrested. If however, you want to be arrested, let's get a kabuki dance together and make sure you don't get hurt
[01:33:50.51] The cops who are coming in are not going to be the cops that have been with me these weeks. And they're not going to be me. They're not going to have name tags. And they're not going to talk to you. So he prepared them. And then they arranged who was going to get arrested. And he let-- he gave them time to take their belongings and to take their own tents down so they didn't have to destroy other property. And you didn't read about it, did you?
[01:34:15.11] That's the new LAPD. That's the work we've done. So I say all this to say, can cops change? Oh yeah. If LAPD can change, anybody can change, believe me. It took-- yes ma'am
[01:34:36.07] AUDIENCE: Thanks for coming. That working? Yeah, good. Thanks for coming. It's been delightful. I have two questions. I'll ask the first and the second one is sort of off topic a little bit. What happened once you got them the Sinai accord, to the Crips and the Bloods? What happened after that?
[01:34:59.62] CONNIE RICE: They had a ceasefire that lasted for about eight years. And then the Latino gangs started taking over and it became Latino versus black. And the violence started up again, OK? But that truce lasted over 10 years. And I knew that it was working because I didn't believe the gangsters, they lie. And I didn't believe the cops because they lie just as much as the gangsters. What I would do is I would go to the hospitals. And the nurses, the OR nurses, they had a sheet. And every time somebody came in with a gun shot wound, which was 10 times a day, they would say, you're not getting treated until you tell us the source of your gunshot. Was it domestic violence? Was it intra-gang? Or was it inter-gang? And they had a sheet.
[01:35:44.83] And I would look at the sheets. And the inter-gang numbers plummeted. So Crips and Bloods weren't shooting each other. Crips and Crips were still killing each other. And Bloods and Bloods were still killing each other. But Crips and Bloods we're killing each other like they used to. And that's how I knew it was working. Does that make sense?
[01:36:02.51] AUDIENCE: Yeah--
[01:36:03.59] CONNIE RICE: They negotiated that truce. They signed an accord. I describe it in the book, how I sat in some of those negotiations and then thought to myself, I'm an officer of the court. I cannot be in the middle of discussions where they're talking about when they would kill each other. They were negotiating a Sicilian code of murder.
[01:36:27.60] These gangsters who needed to control their turf. They were trying to determine when they could kill each other. And I felt like it was better for them to have some constraints then not. So I justified being in the room that way. I also justified it, if I have left in the middle of those discussions they may have decided I was a danger. So it wasn't really safe for me to leave.
[01:36:49.85] But those negotiations, I was witness to them. And that truce produced much less inter-gang warfare. And your second question?
[01:37:03.72] AUDIENCE: It has to do with hate crimes. I understand that you've been involved with litigation of hate crimes? Is there a reason why hate crime has never been, at least to my knowledge, been applied to heterosexual rape? I know it's applied when its-- you can prove hate crime against gays. But I've just been wondering why it doesn't seem to be applied in the case of men against women.
[01:37:29.46] CONNIE RICE: Heterosexual rape? Because it's too obvious. You know--
[01:37:36.42] AUDIENCE: But in some cases it's--
[01:37:37.66] CONNIE RICE: --It's too big, and it's too obvious. We don't face the conflict between men and women very well at all. I mean, the most ominous statistic, when you think about it, is that it's men against women. But we don't track the statistics that way because it's too obvious, and it's too painful, in my view. And I say this to my male colleagues all the time. I said, you guys have got to work on each other. And I mean, the biggest fault line is between the genders.
[01:38:19.05] It's male violence against women. And we don't track it that way. We don't think of it that way. That 99% percent of the serial killers are men who kill women. Almost all rape is men against women, but we don't think of it that way. And it's too big and too scary to take that way. And I find that it's very difficult for men to have those discussions with each other. Some of my male friends do. A few of them do. But most, they get that scared deer look, that frightened deer look, when you say, I need you to have a discussion amongst yourselves about the hatred and resentment of women.
[01:39:09.19] AUDIENCE: So do you think there's any benefit in bringing hate crime into that arena, or not? Just is that, just--
[01:39:23.65] CONNIE RICE: Depending on how it's done it could. Or it could just muddy it so badly and stir up such controversy that you can't see anything. It has to be done very carefully, and it has to be led by men. Does that make any sense?
[01:39:43.22] AUDIENCE: Yeah, because you hear about the violence-- the victim, and one out of four women have been raped. But you don't hear about how many men that means.
[01:39:53.01] CONNIE RICE: Yes. Now, it's too scary, I think. It's too big and it's too scary. And the dynamic is overwhelming. That's why we don't pay attention to it. Does that make sense? Thank you.
[01:40:09.47] AUDIENCE: Connie? Question over here. If you live in the South side of Ypsilanti-- the bus service-- I realize that is possible to get here you have to go into Ann Arbor and come back out again. The bus service to the Community College and the direct line ends at 6 o'clock. You couldn't come to this lecture directly. That line, you would have to go into Ann Arbor and come back out again. It is theoretically possible to get here although very difficult. And so my question is, when you did the MTA work, was that a Title VI?
[01:40:44.64] CONNIE RICE: Yes it was a Title VI case. Yes, you know quite a bit don't you? Yes, transportation is a civil right. And when we did our bus riders case I represented the Bus Riders Union. The last Maoists in LA. They're wonderful. They're just wonderful. And they were suing because LA was getting ready to take the last tranche of discretionary bus money and put it into rail planning.
[01:41:16.62] And they didn't have bus stops for people. And they didn't have night time service for Janitors to get home from their night time jobs. And in LA-- probably a little bit less so than here -in LA if you're without a car you are in big trouble. If you're to poor to own a car, you're in big trouble, because LA is one big freeway.
[01:41:39.81] And we sued on behalf of bus riders saying that they were bankrupting the bus system for the 500,000 people who were transit dependent and needed a bus to get to a hospital, needed a bus to get to their jobs. Most of them had two and three jobs just to put food on the table. And so we represented the poorest bus riders, in the county, in a lawsuit that won. And we ended up putting 4 billion back into the bus system with that lawsuit.
[01:42:08.13] But one of the things that we did was to address what you're talking about. Which is the infeasibility of some of the life lines, some of the routes that needed to be more convenient and more around the clock. So people could attend events. People could get to jobs. People without cars could safely get back and forth.
[01:42:33.00] And we sued for that, and won. Today you could not bring that lawsuit because the courts have made it impossible to meet the standard. So I couldn't bring that lawsuit today. So as middle class folks-- I guess if I were to make a plea-- we middle class folks have to advocate on behalf of the poor. We just have to. It can't just be people like me doing lawsuits and trying to get movies made. It can't just be a few activists like me.
[01:43:08.56] The entire middle class must advocate on behalf of poor children, because they don't have the clout. And our system is so corrupted by lobbying and by who pays to play, that we're going to have to pay to play on their behalf. And we've got to clean up this bribery system. Somebody asked me the other day and I said, no, not until we close the brothel. And they said, what are you talking about? They said, Connie, do you really think our politics is a brothel? I said, maybe not quite yet, but it's definitely an escort service. And I said, I don't do either. I don't do escort services, and I definitely don't do brothels.
[01:43:54.10] And I said, Washington is a brothel. You pay to play. And so until we change that you're never going to get the kinds of policies we need. So I think as middle class folks we need to band together and get that done. I don't know that President Obama's ever going to get to a point where he can. But we need to do it starting at the local level.
[01:44:19.75] The pay to play stuff is ridiculous. Now I don't pay, but I do play. I sue to play. And a lot of politicians will tell you that I've blackmailed them. But I just have conversations with them about what it's going to look like on 60 Minutes. And then they'll do the right thing, and they consider that blackmail, then so be it. But I use moral suasion. And I use every trick I've got to force them to understand what they're doing to the poor and to change those policies.
[01:44:55.17] So as middle class folks with just a few resources if we band together-- And I mean, at any kind of political event I'm always advocating on behalf of the poor. I'm like, OK. The bus line that used to take Mrs so and so to her janitors job has just gotten cut. How you gonna get her to her job? I'm the one asking that question. Because she doesn't have time to sit in a form like this. She doesn't have the resources.
[01:45:30.54] There's so much we can do. And we are in a good position to do it. I have no doubt that we're going to get the system changed. I don't know, maybe we need to do some brothel awards or something. But you know, there's so many revolving door stories. And when I look at it I'm like, I think, serious? Did they really think we don't see this? He paid $100,000 into this PAC and now he's writing the legislation for his industry? Now that's a brothel. That's not escort service. That's brothel level, OK?
[01:46:14.27] And we've got to call it out. We've got to lift it up. We've got to get the media to focus-- there are lots of things we can do. But we can change these laws. I'm actually thinking of-- OK, listen to this lawsuit ladies and gentleman. I told this to my law partner Molly Munger and she said, Connie, darling lets sleep on this a little while and think about it. I told her I wanted to sue the federal government. And her mouth dropped open.
[01:46:39.70] I know the suit would be thrown out because they have immunity. But by the time I got done with 60 Minutes it doesn't matter whether it gets thrown out or not. The point is made. I wanted to sue the federal government for endangering LA. Because the DEA created the Mexican cartels. With the success of the interdiction in Miami it caused them to stop using the Colombian cartels. And then they went to Mexico and that's what created the power of the Mexican cartels. And now they're in our backyard.
[01:47:09.92] We created the Mexican cartels ladies and gentleman. And I can show you every dot connecting us to it. And that's endangering us in LA and Texas.
[01:47:22.10] So I want to sue the DEA for endangering us in LA. And I want to sue the DEA for endangering us by locking up all the men and doing the low hanging fruit stuff. And I want to sue the DEA for the mass incarceration that Michelle writes about. I'm sure she'd join me. Now I know, the lawsuit will get thrown out because the federal government has totally immunity. But by the time I had my 60 Minutes interview the issue would be joined, wouldn't it? I would be doing it to get the message out, even though I would lose the case. I've done that before.
[01:48:01.98] So at the ripe old age of 60, I'm sitting here looking at a lawsuit against the federal government that is going to get thrown out. And my law partner is like, has she lost her mind. I said, Molly, you know this needs to be done. Then I would add the ICE holds, and how they endanger by en-licencing slavery. Ladies and gentlemen, this is what I'm not having. As a great-granddaughter of slaves and slave owners, we're not doing slavery in 21st century LA. I'm just not having it.
[01:48:30.68] We have human trafficking that is slavery. It is 21st century slavery in my back yard. So I looked at Chief Beck and I said, we're not doing slavery. He said, Connie, I know-- I said, no you don't. I said let me tell you something. I said, we need the help of these underground communities. And they feel so hunted by ICE that they won't call you and me.
[01:48:59.16] So we need to sue ICE. He said, Connie, I don't think I can sue ICE. I said, I can. We're gonna sue ICE for driving our immigrants underground and making them so afraid that they will not pick up the phone and call us. Because the immigrants know where the slave houses are. They know where people are being kept in slavery. Do you understand what I'm saying? We have slavery in 21st century America.
[01:49:25.91] And I'm not having it. We're going to end it. And if it means taking on the cartels-- I have to figure out how to do that safely without getting myself killed. But I will figure it out. I will figure it out.
[01:49:41.49] And we have to make it safe enough that the Central American immigrant advocates can get the message to the local immigrants who know where their sisters and brothers are being held against their will for ransom. And they can pick up the phone and call the advocates, and the advocates call me, and then I call LAPD.
[01:50:06.02] That's what we're working out. It has to be done quietly so that I don't get killed. Because the cartels will kill you. They'll kill you in a minute. I want these people out.
[01:50:21.52] Now domestic child sex slavery, which is a different kind of slavery from the labor kind of slavery that I'm talking about. That definitely has to end. Do you realize that the children who are sold for sex-- and gentleman I do not understand who buys children for sex. I don't get it. But the domestic trade in children for sex-- 80% of those children are black children. They are our children.
[01:50:58.56] The adult trade is mostly foreign women. Eastern European women, Chinese women, Latinas, who were brought over thinking they're going to be maids and they end up being sold as prostitutes over, and over, and over again, against their will. It's the ugliest stuff you have ever seen.
[01:51:22.18] That's going to end. I'm not having it. You and I should not tolerate anybody going through that hell. Not in our country. Not on our watch. Not on my watch.
[01:51:37.99] So I've told Charlie Beck, Chief Beck, that we have to end slavery. He kind of looks at me like, OK, is she kind of half kidding? Is there-- no Chief we have to end it. You and I can end it. And we can. It's going to take the entire community. You have to organize the community.
[01:51:58.57] Ladies and gentlemen, this is 21st century America. We are not going to tolerate this in our country. Not having it. We have to stop it. We have to end it. We owe it to our kids. Can't have it.
[01:52:15.75] And the fact that it's grown up on my watch is killing me. This happened in my backyard. On my watch. And it's happening now, and we have to stop it.
[01:52:27.74] Believe me, when you decide that something's going to end you'll figure out how to do it. Just look at the systems. Diagnose the systems. Look at the players. Understand who makes what decisions. Take those levers of power and start pulling them. That's all I do. And I'm good at, but you can do it too, OK?
[01:52:48.53] And when you get a multiracial coalition, that scares the bejesus out of them because they expect us to be fighting each other. I always have a multiracial coalition. I don't do anything that isn't multiracial. And they don't know what to do about it because it's like, oh damn. Looks like she's got everybody.
[01:53:05.79] And then when I walk in with the police chief that's when they really get scared. Because that's power. Bond with your police. Bond with the police chief. I found that when I had the police chief, didn't matter whether the mayor wanted to do what I wanted him to do. When the police chief said, I'm with Connie. He started to do what I wanted him to do.
[01:53:29.13] The police power is a serious power. You need to hijack it. I've completely hijacked it. And it's marvelous. And I now have Chief Beck as my chief partner and he claims me as his moral conscience.
[01:53:43.17] You want to know something? We're going to get slavery tackled in LA because we're working together. We're working together, closer, closer than any team. And I am determined that these children are going to get rescued. I'm not having it. Just not having it. And that's going to be a multiracial coalition, because we are saving black children, Latino children, Asian children, and poor white kids. Yes sir?
[01:54:13.79] AUDIENCE: What do you think is the one issue that we need to come together-- some people think it's education, some think it's financial freedom. What do you think is the one thing that if we all came together on that will help boost low income--
[01:54:26.48] CONNIE RICE: Two thing, two things, you have to come together on safety, because without safety there are no civil rights. That's why I focus on safety. Without physical safety there are no other civil rights. And then secondly, is education. Those two things are the prongs to freedom. Make sense? Yes sir?
[01:54:47.48] AUDIENCE: Have you had much luck in reducing the amount of the children born out of wedlock in LA?
[01:54:54.11] CONNIE RICE: You know what does that, is education. Once the girls start getting independent, they start not having the children. I'm proof of that. The best thing to do is to get the girls early engaged in thinking of their own futures. Getting them enough self esteem to think of themselves as separate from everybody else and independent of everybody else. And then getting them hooked on enough knowledge that they can see a path forward.
[01:55:25.82] Once those girls start thinking that they're going to college, they don't get pregnant for anything in the world. And the teenage pregnancy rates plummet. They just plummet. That's your best birth control.
[01:55:45.51] AUDIENCE: The reason I asked that-- I'm from Ann Arbor, right nearby, and my son just graduated a year and half ago from public elementary. And the school has a very big temporary Asian percentage, 15%, 20%, who are doing contract research at U of M, and stuff like that. And the boys-- I have a son-- and the Asian boys having dealt with them-- observed I would say-- their mothers are very involved. And the thought of one of these Asian students fathering a child out of wedlock-- in high school, let's say, or something like that-- would result in a punishment so horrendous that it's not even on the radar screen. Have you had any luck in LA with getting boys to not be oriented towards fathering a child out of wedlock?
[01:56:36.51] CONNIE RICE: They have been focused on the boys at all. But I think that's very smart. In LA we haven't focused on the boys at all. But what we thought about doing was socializing the girls to withhold sex. That's what the psychiatrists say would change the gang behavior, immediately, is if the girls stop sleeping with anybody who was in a gang. You would probably reduce gang membership by 60% overnight.
[01:56:59.72] Getting the girls-- getting the boys socialized, I think is a very, very smart idea. And it's something that I've talked about in the past. But what we end up focusing on what the boys is reducing the violence. We don't talk about their sexuality.
[01:57:17.07] And I'll never forget-- let me tell you this anecdote. Maybe this is why I don't focus on it a lot. I used to get upset was some of the gang guys. There was this one gang guy. He had five kids out of wedlock and couldn't afford to support any of them. And he came in one day and he's like, Connie, Connie, I am gonna have a sixth baby. And I'm like, what? Are you nuts?
[01:57:39.10] And I just went off on him. And I said, can't you put a sock on it? Have you ever heard of a condom? I said, you can't support these kids. You're not a father to any of them. What are you doing? And I did a middle class rant. And he got really, really quiet.
[01:58:01.64] And he said, I know Connie. Birth control make sense in your world. But my kids are the only proof that I was ever here. And I'm never gonna do anything good except them. In his mind they were his legacy.
[01:58:24.57] And after he basically explained that he didn't want birth control because he wanted those kids to exist as proof that he was here. And a year later he got gunned down in Harbor Division. And indeed, his kids were the only thing he left behind. So understanding that level of hopelessness is something that we've got to get our minds around.
[01:58:50.88] I could've changed his view had I mapped out a path for him that had more than just an early death waiting. He said, I'm not going to be here long Connie. And they're going to be the only proof that I was ever here. You want to know something? He was right. But we are also right. We have to educate the boys as well as the girls. And I think your point is very well taken.
[01:59:21.34] AUDIENCE: Excuse me. I got a question. Where-- two questions. One is, where do you stand with Obama?
[01:59:31.06] CONNIE RICE: What did I say to Obama?
[01:59:32.68] AUDIENCE: Where do you stand with Obama?
[01:59:34.72] CONNIE RICE: Where do I stand?
[01:59:36.15] AUDIENCE: I mean what do you think of Obama?
[01:59:38.31] CONNIE RICE: What do I think of Obama? Personally, I adore the President, his wife, and his kids. When I see them my heart shines. I mean I just sing. When I see his smile-- he's got a billion dollar smile and I love him.
[01:59:54.34] AUDIENCE: I'm talking about the work he's doing.
[01:59:56.91] CONNIE RICE: Hold on, hold on, I'm getting to it. So personally, I adore him. In terms of policy, vis-a-vis, the poor. I give him an F. And I've told him that. He wasn't very happy. But I told him, you've failed. And I hope that you show more guts in your second term.
[02:00:21.98] I think he's a brilliant politician. And I think he's probably doing the best he can while keeping most of the country with him and not empowering a rabid, voracious, separatist, secessionist, and seditious, submarining intentioned, Republican enemy. And I think he's doing the best he can politically. In terms of policy, he's got a long way to go before I came back him. Go ahead.
[02:00:57.52] AUDIENCE: There is a-- Michelle Alexander's book does a wonderful job of helping us to understand the historical context in which the current system of mass incarceration was created. And part of the job that she does is to sort of turn the narrative away from the traditional narrative that blames the victim, that blames the people who are the victims of mass incarceration. So my question is, how might we-- how best might we intercede, come to an understanding, of how to affect the existing narrative that blames the victims of the system of mass incarceration for their condition? And particularly on a systemic level. How best might we turn that narrative around, intercede to change what we currently hear?
[02:01:48.66] CONNIE RICE: This is very hard because we're automatically conditioned to say look, if you're doing criminal stuff you need to--
[02:01:55.89] AUDIENCE: You're guilty
[02:01:56.89] CONNIE RICE: --pay the price of a crime. And while that's true, you're going to also have to understand what Michelle is saying, which is that on a policy level, who is targeted to pay that price, is a different question. And the consequences of only targeting a single class because it's easy to do are devastating.
[02:02:18.30] So I believe that the place-- the easiest place to intervene, is to talk about the differentials between the different castes. When I show those statistics that show how many middle class folks use drugs and how many are incarcerated and how many lower class folks use drugs and how many incarcerated. The light bulb goes on, because it's so those stark that you can't justify it. So either you start locking up all your middle class people at the same level your locking up your-- or you change your policy with the underclass and people start to get it.
[02:02:57.01] So I think that what Michelle is talking about and what I'm talking about in my book, is that we as middle class folks with the educational background and the political clout to do so. We don't ask our politicians about ending the war on drugs. Have you? No, we haven't.
[02:03:18.78] We haven't demanded that the incarceration impact be analyzed. We don't ask for those statistics. When I ask, how many Hollywood people are estimated to take drugs and how many are prosecuted. Then you look at how many in the underclass are, the numbers are just so stark, Stevie Wonder can see them.
[02:03:40.54] And when you have numbers like that, you can begin to argue. And so I think, you have to start there by showing the disparities, which is what Michelle is talking about. And then talking about the impact. The impact of locking up all of these people. For what? For what? I mean, we seem determined to use drugs. As I said to Chief Beck, I said, Chief, it snows on the weekend at USC, there's so much cocaine. You're not locking up any of those kids, because they're the kids of rich people. I said, let's just get real.
[02:04:17.72] Now, on top of that, drugs are the only way anybody can make any money. There are no jobs. I said, how's he gonna support his family if he doesn't deal drugs? I said, look, as long as he's just dealing marijuana and he's not hooking kids, leave him alone. What good does it do you to put him in jail? I mean, these are hard conversations to have with cops.
[02:04:43.38] But part of it is a conversation with the police to say, can we move away from incarceration for just drug use, right? Now, there's a police group called LEAP, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, and they're retired cops who want the drug war ended. And I'm gonna start working with them, because I think they're the most hopeful angle into this fight.
[02:05:08.90] But we're gonna have to get really strategic about how we have these conversations. And make it possible for politicians to move away from the incarceration strategy toward a drug treatment strategy, in treating it for the disease that it is. And for those of us who just like to get high, just let us get high, right? And then we can take the incarceration strategy off the table, which is what Michelle is talking about.
[02:05:39.96] But I would definitely look at supporting LEAP. You have a chapter here. It's Law Enforcement Officers Against Prohibition. And they are trying to get the law enforcement side of this up and going. And they're not nuts. They're not a bunch of kooks who got drummed out. They're good. They're good folks. So I would look about building a coalition with them as well. Does that make sense?
[02:06:03.66] They're giving me the sheep hook and they're taking me off the stage. Again, it has been a privilege to be with you. Thank you. I'll be signing my book out here.

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February 7, 2013 at Washtenaw Community College: Morris Lawrence Building

Length: 2:07:05

Copyright: Creative Commons (Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share-alike)

Rights Held by: Ann Arbor District Library

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