- The crime or the things
that we're gonna talk about,
but being here through COVID
and doing something like this through Zoom
is not something that you've always seen.
It's just not, right?
I've looked national
different diversity officers
and things that they're doing,
and I'm actually gonna attend one tonight
where they're gonna explain
how we can do the work.
Right now, Bristol and myself,
we're kinda little bit
ahead of how to do that
and how to make it happen.
There might be some glitches.
There might be some things that mess up.
I don't know, but please bear with us.
Today's not gonna be very academia.
This is a fast-action forum,
so it's gonna be something
that we're gonna speak
from the heart,
speak from our experiences,
talk about our stories,
as we move through this,
try to really make sense of it.
What really was powerful to me
as I had a lot of you who might be on here
who are friends and family,
colleagues that I highly respect
reaching out to me
and stating, "How can I help?
"I feel small, I don't know what to do,"
and this an opportunity
for us to really listen.
That's the first thing to do, listen.
We want us to listen,
and then after we listen,
figure out actionable items that we can do
to influence our areas,
influence our circles.
When we speak today, we're gonna talk
about a lotta different things,
but it's not going to be just
strictly the incident that
happened last Thursday
because there has been years and years
of this is how I'm feeling
with a lotta people not listening,
and we need to make sure that
that is not forgotten in this.
The act of what happened with George Floyd
is extremely powerful.
It's something that you see,
but what we are seeing is like,
"Well, that's one incident,
one cop, one group.
"It just doesn't happen all the time."
I'm sorry to tell you, it happens,
and sometimes, you
don't even realize that.
You talk about gun violence
and police officers,
we don't realize that
there's plenty of people,
and we might get to a few today,
that went into jail or went en
route to jail and passed away
for simple traffic stops.
Those things happen in our communities.
Those things have happened to people
that I respect and love,
so it sits home with me and
many people that are here
and many people throughout the world.
That's why you're seeing
people really lash out
in the way we are.
Just remember, in this time,
it's an hour and a half,
and then we'll have a
little bit of time extra.
If you wanna speak to experts
or people that will hang around
just to talk, that is fine.
I'ma try to keep us to our agenda,
keep us at time, I apologize.
We have specific rules
that we did send you.
You should have an agenda.
The agenda will talk about
the rules of what we're doing.
The first part of the agenda
will go into the introduction,
which I'm doing currently.
After the introduction,
we will take a moment of
silence in a minute from now.
After the moment of silence,
we're gonna go into a brief powerslide
that's gonna just talk
and show you some images.
I'm just gonna talk it
through as we get there.
Then after that, we're
gonna do a little exercise.
Once we've finished that exercise,
we will then go into
what's called the experience
component, where you,
if you are a person of color,
a person who had
experiences as an employee,
it might've been through police brutality,
it could be through discrimination,
it could be through anything
that you've experienced,
I will open it up for you
to share it at that time.
The next half hour after that will be
for individuals to make
comments, questions,
statements that can help you through this
because I'm gonna let you know today,
I'm not going to put in my feelings
and try to steer you in a direction.
I think when you're watching media,
and you're watching all
of the things we see,
people want you to face one way.
Our humanity knows what's right and wrong,
so I want us to understand
that I'm gonna stand
in the middle today because
there are gonna be people
that have conservative point of views.
There's gonna be individuals that have
very liberal point of views,
and that's okay
because there are people
that are conservative
that are not racist, and I think sometimes
that a bad rap is happening,
and we gotta make sure that
we understand that in this.
There are people that are
liberal that could be racist,
so I think we really
have to really understand
that we are humans first
before we pick a side
so we're not pinning against each other,
that we use forums like this
in order for us to really
come together as one
because no matter what,
things aren't changing.
We're always going to be
working with one another,
and that's just the nature of our life,
and that's what makes America great,
but we wanna make sure that
it's great for everyone.
That's what we're looking for.
Make it great for everyone that's here,
and let's learn
how to go about all the things
that we are going through.
First, before I talk about the rules,
the rules make sure that,
once we get to the sections
of where you're able to participate,
if you have an experience,
and you are a person of color
and would like to have
a two-minute briefing
of an experience or something,
I'm going to lead the way first
so that way people are not just starting
so you could kind of follow my format.
Then we'll continue going through this.
Once we go through that piece,
Im'a play a little video for you.
Once we play that video,
if you have an experience,
you gotta type in experience,
and then I will call on you.
Once I call on you,
you'll be able to chime in
and say what you need
to say at that moment
whether it was a story or an experience.
Then I will play a video after that.
I'm sorry, I kinda went a
little bit ahead of myself.
After I tell that story, not the story,
once you see the video that tells a story
from a very prominent figure in our lives,
then it's going to go into
comments, questions, and answers.
Once that happens and we go there,
it will go to the question comments,
and I reserve that, if you you
have a question or comment,
we have a lotta people in here,
to make sure that we stay
within that two-minute briefing
of what your comment or question is,
so that way, we can hear
more and more voices.
I don't wanna dominate today.
I don't want no one else dominating today.
I want us to understand
that this is not just me
and you guys are supporting.
It's not just another person.
It's all of us, and we need
to hear all these stories.
Right now, I'd like for us to make sure
that if you can, turn on your
cameras if you're able to
'cause I think it's more powerful,
the more that we see each other.
If you can't, that's fine,
you got kids and things
running around, that's absolutely fine.
I get it, I understand,
but if you're able to
then that's showing respect, I guess,
to those that are out there.
I would love for us right now
to take a moment of silence
for the fallen slaves,
activists, mothers, fathers,
brothers, sisters, cousins, aunties,
uncles, friends, partners, leaders,
who all died because of
the color of their skin.
(Rob clears throat)
Why are we here?
Last week, unfortunately,
there was an incident
that we all got to witness live on TV.
It was live to some people.
Then it was on television minutes after.
We saw it, and it compelled us all to say,
"What the heck is going on here?"
People from the black and
African American communities
have really spoke about these
things that have happened.
You see that some people are really saying
that it's not good enough,
we have to do better.
We've seen that through a
lot of the peaceful protests
and a lotta the things that
have gone on over the years,
not just in the incidence
but prior to that.
We're here today, and I
know we say that incident,
but we're here today not to speak
about the particular incident itself,
and we're not here to
talk about how it happened
or why it happened.
We're not here about that right now.
We're not here to talk
about George Floyd's life.
We're not here to talk about
if he's a good person or bad person.
What brought us all
here today was an image.
The image that you see
there is one that will stick
to many of you for years to come.
I know it will with myself.
I know it does with my own family.
It's not easy to look at.
However, we wanna talk about the history
of these incidents and images.
This image is sticking with a lot of you
that may not identify with me,
but this image right here
is doing that for many people now
because this is something
that they're seeing live,
and they're like, "How did this happen?"
I wanna talk about the
history of these things
and how this is not new
and why we look for social justice,
why positions like my position's created
and why we look
to try to create change
and really fight for our students.
As you guys know me, I fight
for my students day and night.
I fight for my family,
I fight for my son.
Those are things that
I do because I have to.
Next image, please.
Tulsa Race Massacre, 1921,
if you guys call this Black Wall Street,
Black Wall Street was a black community
that was doing very well economically.
It was an uprising of
business, business owners.
Then in 1921
almost to the day,
there was an incident where
over 300 prominent African
American black males were killed.
Their places were burned down.
Their finances were taken away from them.
All that they had build
was just gone in one day.
Next slide.
The G.I. Bill discriminations of 1940s,
another image that sticks
with a lotta people,
people still alive from that era.
The G.I Bill basically
was for our soldiers that
are returning from war
or part of our military to purchase homes
and have that home ownership,
that piece of land,
"Our land is your land;
your land is my land,"
and really sharing that.
However, that was not true for
black and African Americans
that served in the military.
They weren't able to take advantage
of that bill at that time.
Next.
1950s, another graphic image,
Emmett Till, 1955,
whistled at a woman that was attractive.
There's debate if that really happened.
She came out, I believe, in her dying bed
to say that it was false.
He was beat up,
dragged by a truck full of white males,
and this is the image,
the last image that his
family got to see of Emmett.
Next slide, please.
Little Rock Nine.
Just trying to get education,
crossing that barrier to go to school,
to have that right to be able to do that.
These images are things that you see
where you have military and police
and people yelling and screaming
at the people that are crossing this line
in order to fight for education
for individuals like myself
will be in position to be better educated.
Next slide, please.
Selma march of 1965,
"Peaceful protest,"
something that you guys hear.
"Why aren't these protests very peaceful?"
"What are these people doing?"
"Why are people so angry?"
You see it online.
If you're a member of
Facebook or Instagram
or any of social media,
you've probably seen an image up saying,
"Why they can't peacefully
March like MLK?"
Next slide.
This is that same day.
It turned into the Selma
March Bloody Sunday.
So they show an image of
him peacefully marching,
but the images that you're not seeing
is this is the result
of that peaceful march.
People dressed to the nines
in that first picture,
people dressed to the nines,
they're ready for everything
to go well, and then next thing you know,
they have American flags up.
"This is our country."
Then this is the result.
Next picture.
The Watts Riots of 1965,
turning point, because they
were getting pulled over
and policed way too much, and
then people had to uprise.
Then there was the march riots.
Next picture.
Then obviously, the
assassination of MLK in 1968
where here's one of our
greatest world leaders
to ever touch this Earth
was just taken out because of the justice,
the prevailing, the unity
that he wanted to create.
Next slide.
Close to home, Boston busing
desegregation protests of 1976.
Here's an iconic picture.
All of a sudden, brawls are starting.
This man has an American flag,
and he's targeting an
African American with it
because he is not American,
according to this person.
Next slide.
Then here's other type of images.
We see the protest images
and things like that,
but just imaging yourself
right now as a black boy,
black child, black woman.
These are the images that you see.
The Anti-Abuse Act, War on Drugs, of 1986,
where you're just seeing men of color
being arrested all the time
for things that are legal today,
they were being arrested
for at high rates.
Next slide.
Central Park Five, which I
call the Exonerated Five,
five young boys
from ages 11 to 16 were arrested,
accused of raping a jogger.
It later was found that
they did not do it.
However, they were also persecuted.
There was ads that were taking out
by, actually, our current
president in the New York Times
that these individuals
should go to jail for life
or get the electric chair.
These individuals stayed years upon years,
I think all the way up
until almost 20 years
for one of 'em in jail.
Now they are called the Exonerated Five
because they found the person
who actually did the crime.
Also in this picture,
which you don't see is
they were interviewed
by police officers without
parents being there,
and obviously, young scared
kids are going to comply.
That's what they did.
After they were complicit
with the authorities,
they ended up going to
jail for a very long time.
Next slide please.
Rodney King riot, 1992.
This was epic.
First time something was
caught live happening.
A person had a camera and just went.
We are looking a Rodney King get beat up.
Then after Rodney King
was being beat up badly,
the riots started again in L.A.
If you're old enough to remember this,
when Rodney King was on video after,
an interview with one
of the news stations,
he said, "Why can't we
all just get along?"
He just didn't understand what happened.
Next one, please.
Here's something that interesting here.
The Violent Crime Control and
Law Enforcement Act of 1994.
Then we look at the rates of imprisonment
for individual born in 2001.
As you can see in this graphic,
all men are one in nine to be arrested;
white men, one in 17;
black men, one in three
are to be arrested,
and Latino men are one in six.
Then as we look at the
women graphic on the bottom,
black women are highly
likely to be arrested,
more so than
any other woman race that's out there.
I don't have that data with us,
but I did read on something that stated
that reason why black women
are at a higher rate as well
is because sometimes if they
are pressured and pushed
because they are trying to
get accusations out of them
because they are trying to
penalize their male counterparts.
It might be a husband or boyfriend
for whatever reason it may be.
I'll be able to send some
of you guys that information
in the later time.
Next one, please.
Then we look at the increase
of stop-and-frisk in the 2000s.
Just imagine being men of color
anywhere from the ages of 13 to 35.
More than likely, you're
walking down the street
and the cops, this is in New York,
had the right to pull you over
and starts searching
you to look for things.
Well, I know if you search
most the people in America,
you're gonna find things,
whether it's a weapon,
whether it's bag of weed, whether it's,
I don't know, a counterfeit bill.
I don't know what it is.
You're gonna find something
if you're really trying to look at it,
if you're stopping everyone.
However, this only
pertained to black males,
and black males suffered through this
and were constantly being,
pulled over, harassed,
remember, this is a image
that they're collecting,
pulled over, harassed,
and then some of them are going to jail,
but most of the time, they
weren't going to jail,
but the damage is done
'cause some people would be
pulled over multiple times.
Next slide.
Then some of the current things.
Trayvon Martin
walking home, RIP.
Next one.
Sandra Bland pulled over, RIP.
Micheal Brown was walking into the street,
regardless of what people
say about his character,
didn't have a weapon with him, RIP.
Imagine being a 12-year-old kid
and going to a park to play.
As you're in a park and you're playing
and you have a toy gun,
police officer doesn't
roll from the streets,
they roll in their car and
shoot you from their car
because they saw you with a toy gun.
Tamir Rice, RIP.
Freddie Gray pulled over on his bike.
Cops beat him up.
He goes in the back of a paddy wagon.
Freddie Gray comes out.
No more Freddie Gray, RIP.
Eric Garner selling loose cigarettes.
The first person that you
may have heard on camera
saying "I can't breathe"
(sighs) was pretty deep.
All of a sudden, here's a
man trying to make money
for his family,
and he died.
Next one.
Philando Castile,
if you haven't seen
the video, pulled over.
It was a record that he was pulled over
forty-something times,
but only a few things
that actually stuck as far as tickets.
Whatever reason, he was
always being pulled over.
He did have license to carry.
As he went to go get his
wallet, he was shot and killed
in front of his girlfriend and his mother,
I mean girlfriend and her mother,
girlfriend and her daughter.
If you haven't seen that conversation
between the daughter and mother
in the back of the police car
after the shooting, it is powerful.
I suggest you watch it
if you ever have time.
Next one, please.
Botham Jean in his house sitting.
Police officer breaks in and
shoot him in his own apartment
confusing it with her apartment.
Next one.
Breonna Taylor couple
weeks ago was in her house.
There was a warrant that
went to the wrong house.
They quickly went to defend themselves.
They had license to carry
to defend themselves.
As you can see, she is a public servant.
She was caught, shot, and killed.
Right now, her, I'm not
sure, I haven't updated it,
but her boyfriend who did
shoot at police officers
now have many charges that
they've filed against him
for whatever reason.
Next one.
Ahmaud Arbery jogging, RIP.
We saw that.
Then where we are today with George Floyd,
regardless of that he
had a counterfeit bill,
we don't know the whole story.
Went into a store, seemed compliant,
and he passed away violently.
Next slide please.
This is the image that we have.
We saw that, next slide.
Lotta these things didn't
have any convictions,
so that's a problem that's there.
That's probably where people
are a little bit more upset.
We understand that there are jobs
that are out there that are very tough
as far as being law
enforcement and military.
We get it; however,
when people do act out,
we wonder why there's
not enough convictions.
Next slide, please.
Then there's other things that happened,
other images that stick with us,
so again, sleeping while black
and you're a Yale student,
I guess if you're a Yale
student, you can't sleep.
Police were called because it wasn't true
that she wasn't a student there.
Next one, please.
We see our kids all the time
selling lemonade on the corners.
I used to do it.
This beautiful young child
was selling water.
It's funny when we call her Permit Patty,
but lady stood up a said,
"Do you have a permit,"
and police were called.
Next slide.
How about BBQ Becky?
That's funny, but it's still, again,
family trying to enjoy
themselves peacefully,
and they get the cops called on 'em.
Next one.
Amy Cooper and Christian
Cooper this last week.
Christian Cooper is an avid bird-watcher.
As this man is a bird-watcher,
he told her peacefully, "Can
you please leash your dog."
As you see the way she handled
her dog, she's not very apt
to doing that, it seemed,
'cause he didn't want
the dog to damage or hurt
any of the wild animals.
It's pretty simple thing to ask to ask.
She called the police on and repeated
that he's an African American
big guy several times,
which was her
trying to really push her
fear on to the dispatcher
so that way police will
be dispersed to the area.
Next one.
Then we've seen protests,
Colin Kaepernick.
We know about the story of taking a knee.
This is an iconic picture
because you see...
they use this one a lot
because he's kneeling,
but in the back, you have a public servant
who has all right to
salute the flag that way.
I do, and I agree with it as well,
but you could see this
is a peaceful component.
At first, Kaepernick
sat down on the bench,
and as he sat down on the bench,
he spoke to military people that said,
"Look, our fallen
brothers, we take a knee."
This knee that he's taking is
for fallen people of color,
the same people that we've just watched,
and we're very confused
about their murders or
why they're not here
on Earth anymore.
Next one.
This is kinda playing
on, to skirt right by it
but this is, you know, if
Kaepernick's way is not good,
then this is a funny thing I saw online,
but none of these seem
to be a way to protest.
Next one.
Now we go through experiences.
I kinda went through that real quick,
and I wanna get to you
a couple experiences
really fast for us.
I want you to take yourself into a place.
You can take that down, Melissa.
You don't have to have that
up now if you don't want to.
What I want us to do in this exercise,
and then we'll get into people talking
about their experiences, in getting there,
what I would like for
us to do right now is
if you can and you're able to,
I would like for you to close your eyes
as I take you through a story.
The story is this: I want
you to put yourself back
to when you were 15 years old.
Some of you might already be 15 years old,
so just take you back to
freshman year in high school,
whatever that age is.
You're a freshman in high
school, you are having fun,
and you actually attend
a high-school event
whether it be a school dance,
football game, basketball
game, or whatever club it is.
It's at night.
You're having the best time of your life.
As you're having the
best time of your life,
and you're doing that, think
about your best friend.
Think about whoever your
best friend was at that time.
It doesn't matter if you're
friends with them now.
If you wanna make it more relevant,
think about a friend who
you care about right now
that is with you.
The event is halfway done.
There's a corner store across the street.
The corner store across the street,
you go there all the time.
This is not the first
time that you've done it.
You and your friend walk
to the corner store.
As you start walking to the corner store,
all of a sudden, a ton
of police cars swarm in,
and they're coming from
all over the place,
maybe five, six, seven police cars.
Guns are drawn to you.
They tell you to get on the ground.
They jump on you.
You have no idea what's going on.
They step on your back.
Then you have a gun put to the back of
not quite your neck but kinda
right in the middle there.
Asking you questions
about, "Why are you here?
"Who are you?"
You state that you go to the school
that's literally right there.
You can see the school.
"That's my school."
Then that person tells you,
"That's not your school.
"I know people that work there."
You say to them, "No, I know
people that work there too."
You're being very compliant.
You do everything that you can.
Then you're scared, your friend is scared.
Your friend now is starting
to get a little lippy
because your friend is on one knee.
He's not on the ground
facing like how you are,
but they have you down on the ground.
The description was just
a general description.
Whatever you are, let's
say their description
wasn't detailed, but it was
just of the color of your skin
and your height.
Now, people from that
school come running out
to see what's going on,
including the principal, including people,
and they say, "What's going on here?"
Their like, "We had a
description of a break-in.
"This man fits the
description," or "woman."
Again, you're placing yourself there.
The principal then says, "Absolutely not.
"This person has been with us
all night here at the party.
"He has not left us.
"He's a good kid, and
he's only a freshman,"
or, "She's only a freshman."
The police then says sorry.
They put their guns away,
and they let you go.
Now you're distraught.
You have to call your mom or your parent
or loved one or whoever it may be.
The rest of your night is ruined,
but it's something that lasts with you.
Now I'll give you a second quick scenario.
That was at age 15, so now
put yourself at age 17.
You're driving, you're in
McDonald's parking lot.
You're sitting down in McDonald's.
You're with couple of
friends in their car.
An officer knocks on the window.
The friends in your car
a different from you,
so whatever that is, put yourself there.
They're different from you.
I just wanna put you in that scenario.
As they're different from you,
all of a sudden the police officer,
this one is a state trooper now,
says, "What are you guys doing.
"Your registration is expired,
that's why I stopped you."
Now, you're in the McDonald parking lot.
You went into a drive-through,
and you bought the food.
You're sitting there, but
you're in the back of the car.
You car's next to 'em, so
they tell you to leave.
I'm like, "Okay, I'll leave."
Now remember, the people in the front
of the car are are similar to you.
Then all of a sudden, as
they're similar to you...
I mean, not similar, they're
different from you, I'm sorry.
You go into your car.
You start warming up your car.
They bang on the window, say,
"Why haven't you left yet?"
I'm like, "I'm just warming up my car.
"I'll leave in a second,"
but you do say, "I have
every right to be here."
Next thing you know, the cop gets agitated
because you didn't leave fast enough,
opens up your cars,
grabs you by your jacket.
You push his hand away.
He says, "You're under arrest."
You say, "For what?"
You have no idea what's going on.
Next thing you know, you're
in a back of a squad car,
and you're going to jail.
Now, the next day, your mother's crying.
You're in court.
You have no idea what's going on,
and you get these charges that
are brought up against you.
However, luckily, nothing
was found or came about it
because people in that
parking lot at that time
as you had guns drawn to you
started yelling at the individual.
EMTs were in there.
Other people, other public
servants were in there,
and they were protecting you.
They stated to themselves,
"Hey, this is wrong,
"and I think I persuade the
officer just to arrest you."
Then they brought you in.
When they found out that you were younger
than what was perceived, all of a sudden,
things changed and the tone changed.
However, you're still
brought up with charges.
All charges were dropped
because nothing really happened.
You got apology from the letter.
However, before that letter,
you were in the courthouse
with you mother,
and at that time, believe it or not,
what the judge
asked the officer,
"What would you like
"to see happen here?"
Not being the desensitized
to whatever is going on,
that person says you have to be hung.
"I would like to see a public hanging,"
which pissed off the judge immediately.
A letter was immediately
written to me in apology
from that person, but that
person never lost their job.
Last one real quick, this
one takes two second.
Image you're having a bad day in school.
Again, you're a freshman.
You're walking into class.
You had a little rough
morning with your mom.
You sit down.
As you sit down and you
go through the front
and you sit down in class,
you put your head down.
Your teacher says, "Wanna talk about it?"
You said no, and you're
just a little upset,
but you just need a couple
minutes to cool off.
Then instead of a councilor
being called for you,
you look up, and there's actually
police officers and security
looking to take you down to
go talk about what's going on
versus a different protocol.
Now,
if you open up your eyes.
The examples that I just spoke about,
these are examples that myself
and my son have experienced.
The last one is from him,
but he has not experienced
some of the gruesome things
that I've worked with
or things that I've dealt with as a man.
Those two events that I
visually took you through
are events that are alive through me.
They're not the only ones.
Now, again, I don't wanna make this be a,
I want us to make clear as
I talk about my experience,
this is not to bombard police officers
and to say that they are
bad 'cause I have tons
of police officers that are my friends,
that are close friends of
mine and people I work with.
I know the examples went that way,
but I also showed you examples
of people calling the police
and inciting fear because of maybe me
and my size and stature.
I wanted you to put yourself in that place
so you had an understanding
of what that is.
Everything that we do and
everything I do as a parent
and everything I do as I've been a coach,
so I represent not just
black and African American,
Latinx males for over twenty
years, which I care about,
white males that have been on my team.
I care about them, and we
call each other family,
so it's not just representation to there.
I'm also a director of
multicultural affairs.
There's so many students that
come to me for these things
because they are experiencing this.
This is my son.
He's experienced not what I have.
I'm trying to to keep him away from that,
but it's hard to not do
it because these images
that are in my head resonate with me
and they stay with me.
Now I'm trying to make sure
we push this narrative.
He's gonna be driving soon,
so the next question I'm going to have
is what do you say?
Where's your registration?
I don't want him to be in fear,
but these are thoughts
that go through my mind.
This is why we're having
this program today,
so we can resonate with one another
in order to make change, to create things,
and influence our little
circles that we can,
so we'll go into some of
our experiences right now.
I have one that was a private message,
but it just said, "Experience."
Doris, are you...
Wanna keep it, I mean,
there was nothing written privately,
so some of you, if guys are
doing something privately.
Send it to me and I can talk about it.
If it's not, if you just wanna
experience that's out there,
that's fine as well,
but Melissa, you can unmute, and you guys
can mute as we go along.
- Okay, I can share.
As I've watched the events
over this past week,
several things came to mind.
One, that I find that our black men
are being killed for the minor incidents.
I worked at the Fed, and I am one of those
who used to call the police on people
who brought me fake money
whether it was 20s, 100s, fives, whatever.
When the police show up, they
would actually take the person
by the elbow and take 'em to a room
never trying to kill them
for a fake dollar bill.
The fake dollar bill, what
they really wanna know
is, one, "Where did you get it?
"Did you print it?
"Who gave it to you?"
and try and track it back
because it is a crime
for passing fake money,
but at this incidence,
it does not require you to lose you life.
The same thing with New York.
A singleton cigarette,
he didn't kill anybody.
I see people on the side of the road,
when they pull us over for a traffic stop,
they will call for backup.
It is usually two, three,
four police officers.
I had this conversation
with the girl at physical
therapy this morning.
She goes, "Why do they call?"
I says, "Sweetie, that's all the time."
If it is two police, they call for backup.
It could be four police
officers for one black person.
If you ride past the white person,
they're sitting on the
ground in handcuffs,
and the officer is
lighting their cigarette.
They're not on their backs,
so we get killed for reasons
that don't need to be,
and it's awful.
I've been stopped.
When I'm stopped, they call backup for me.
Here's two police officers
trying to arrest me.
Arrest me for what?
I was in the neighborhood
that I had just moved into,
didn't know my way, but
they said I was speeding.
No 'cause I didn't even know where I'm at.
Here's another one.
I'm also called Looky Lou.
I go through open houses all the time.
So when I'm looking at Ahmaud Arbery,
and he's jogging through this
house that's not finished
and then they head him
off, and they kill him,
I go, "Are you serious?
"That could be me."
"I'm always in houses that are being built
"trying to see what they're doing."
These incidents are not just this once.
This is our entire life.
Like Rob said, my brother,
we were on our way to the store,
went to get bread and
milk as a kid, 13, 14.
We stopped at this car that
was burnt out in the alley.
Just nosy little kids.
Here come the police saying
that my brother, who's 13,
stole the car and burnt the car out.
They arrest him and take
him to the police station.
These incidents aren't new.
This is our life every day,
my brothers, my sisters, my nephews,
so I try to get you to understand it.
Yes well, we tell you
these things are happening!
Most of you don't believe us.
"Oh, that didn't happen to you."
Yes, it did.
During the '67 riots, I'm in my house.
Shooting down the streets
in a tank in front of my house.
I'm peeking out the window.
I'm like 14, looking over the sill,
watching this tank fire down my street.
I got into a argument with
another white lady who told me,
"That didn't happen in your neighborhood."
I go like, "Really?"
I'm scared shitless.
Okay, it took everything I had
not to try and lose my cool
with this particular lady,
but this is our life.
It hasn't changed, but
now's the time to change.
This feel different.
This is a time, it's for to make changes,
change the laws, look at
our essential personnel
because our essential
personnel should be making
more than $50 an hour, and they not us.
They're not accountants.
I'm speaking for myself.
They're not accountants.
They are the grocery store workers,
people that's working in the meat plants.
We need food, we need toilet paper,
things that are necessary,
so we have to think about what it is
or what dynamics we can do
to change this going forward
and make it a better place
than it has been in the past.
- Thank you so much, Doris.
Mike Osborne, do you have
a experience to share?
It's fine.
We'll actually go Shanna Howell,
do you have an experience to share?
- Wow, hello, everyone.
I apologize, I'm in my car and
driving to drop my son off.
Could we maybe have one or two people go,
then let me once I get them dropped off?
- Absolutely.
Marcus, do you have an
experience to share?
- Yes, hi, just wanna
greet my Bristol family.
I just wanna say that my
experience is negative,
but the purpose of me sharing the story
is the points of accountability
and the fact that I was born
and raised in New Bedford,
and to have this situation happen to you
right in my back yard.
Driving on 195 East,
got pulled over by a statey
right before the Fairhaven exit.
I remember having my music going.
Next you know, the lights
come on, pull over.
Gun drawn, gun already drawn
at my window.
Just imaging, just you turn
and your looking down barrel of a gun.
Yelling for me to, "Hands up."
Open the door.
Yanked out, middle rush hour.
It was about four o'clock.
Slammed on the trunk of my car.
Gun jammed into my back.
Asked if I have any
weapons, drugs, anything.
Had me spread eagle all
on the trunk of my car.
Told me not to move whatsoever.
Illegally search my car,
and comes back,
has me stand up and says,
really no explanation, "Oh,
you fit the description
"of someone I was looking for.
"Have a nice day."
From that day on,
that's the trauma
still to this day.
(Marcus sighs)
When I'm driving on that 24 or the 93
or the 195 or the 95,
when I see those cops
on the side of the road,
I wonder are they gonna come follow me.
I been pulled over many times for DWBs.
People who understand what
a DWB is, they hear of DUIs.
DWB, driving while black.
That, I've been the victim of,
and I just want people to
understand, just visualize,
it's just every day where you're violated.
It just should not be that way.
Now I have a 12-year-old son.
Now I'm getting ready for him.
Now I have to really preach self-awareness
because you don't know.
I have cops in my family as well.
However, I should not
have to live day-to-day
and go out about running my errands
and wonder, if I see a law enforcement car
hiding out on the side
looking for speeders
or just driving behind me,
are they gonna pull me over just 'cause?
Am I gonna have that
same negative experience
that I had right in my back yard?
The last I just wanna
say is going forward,
we just need to have
fairness across the board.
As a young black professional,
I've come a long way,
but I wanna get to the point
where I can go about my business
and not have to do two
things, one, wear a mask.
The metaphor of wearing a mask is
when I go out into the professional
or go out in the community,
I have to behave a certain
way because I'm not sure
if other people are gonna
feel threatened by me.
Then when I come back into
my home, I take my mask off.
The second component is
one of my favorite comedians,
who was proud of civil rights,
he always had this quote about race.
When this can go away,
this is when I feel like just progress.
That is, "When you have that complexion
"for the protection for the collection."
When that can go away, that's
when I know that's progress.
I thank you everyone for
listening, and I'm done.
- Thank you for that, it's powerful.
TJ, one of our students here at Bristol.
- Hi.
I have many individual experiences,
but I sorta have a
culmination of experiences
going through the
independent school system.
From fourth grade,
I started at Friends Academy in Dartmouth.
I have stories
from every year up until eighth grade
of just little instances
here and there
of racial remarks
and these little situations that happen.
I remember specifically one time,
I was in the fifth grade
and this kid, we had been
friends for the past year.
We had gotten along since
I had been at the school.
Just outta nowhere he
calls me an African scumbag
at recess one time.
That was my first real experience
where it hit me a little bit different
where someone that I
considered to be my friend
came at me
with a very blunt racial slur.
Since that moment, it
really opened my eyes
to what goes on
behind closed doors.
Being at that school, the
only other African Americans,
other than myself, were
my brother, my sister,
my dad, who worked at the school,
and one of the librarians.
It was just always
this constant question of
what are those conversations
that they're having with their parents
about that black kid in their class.
It definitely didn't go
anywhere going into high school.
I went to St. Andrew's first,
where I received
more of this from teachers who
would just sorta push me off
when I would go for extra help
for my classes.
They wouldn't take me seriously,
but students who maybe didn't
look like me in my class,
who had the same questions,
were met with the utmost care and concern.
It was just little things like that.
It wasn't really until the
end of my high school career
that I really began to learn the history
behind where a lot of it stems from.
I think that anyone who really
cares about the situation
has done some pretty extensive digging
into the history behind it
because there's a lot
of history behind this
that isn't really being brought into light
with everything that's going on right now.
- Thank you, TJ.
It's very important.
What you said there is extremely important
because sometimes you're young,
you don't know where this
stuff is coming from.
Then all of a sudden you get hit with it,
and now you're too young
to figure out what the
heck is going on here
and why this person that you care for
would say this about you.
It's very powerful, what you just said.
I appreciate it, thank you.
Addis, are you here?
I know you sent me, and
I'm actually pulling it up.
Are you here?
- I'm here.
- Okay.
- You can hear me?
- [Rob] Yep, we can hear you.
- All right.
I'm not a great public speaker,
so I wrote what I wanted to say
because I want my story
to be heard.
For those of you that don't know me,
my name is Addis.
I work for the New Bedford Campus.
I'm a staff member there.
Today, I just wanted to
share some of my experience
here in the United States.
I came here about 23
years ago from East Africa
search of better opportunities and peace.
Prior to arriving in the state,
I lived in civil war.
I lived in major famine and drought
that took the lives of so many people.
I survived both, and I had
the opportunity to come here.
However, upon my arrival,
I learned very quickly
America was not what I felt
should be or seen on TV.
My high school was the worse.
I went to high school in Maine.
The school had two cafeterias,
one for white student, the
other for all other minorities.
Several times, we were told
by our white classmates
to go back to where we came from.
My second year on college
was my first here interaction
was police officers.
It was summer of 2002.
My friend and I were driving
in downtown Poland, Maine.
There were about three police officer,
parked their car on a main street
with their driver-side door wide open.
They was just standing and chatting.
They didn't seem to be concerned
that their door being left open
on a busy narrow street was a problem.
One of my friend say,
"Why they were leaving
their door open like that?"
All on a sudden,
I hear the three to five
police officer screaming,
"What did you say?
"Pull over, pull over,"
honestly, and with their gun out.
There was no room to pull
over for me as a driver.
I have to drive past the traffic light
in order to pull over.
One of the passenger was my friend Ali,
a black Haitian man, who grew up in Miami.
He continue to apologize to the officer.
He continue to say that we were so sorry.
We didn't say anything wrong.
He continue to say, "This
will never happen again."
At that moment, I realize
that Ali was apologizing
to the officers for our existence.
Eventually, they let us go.
My second interaction with
police officer was in 2004.
My male friend who is my husband now
traveled to Spain for spring break
just like so many college students.
In our way back, upon
arrival to Logan Airport,
myself and three other Middle Eastern,
we're pulled to a side.
I was a green card holder at the time.
That's what my migration status was.
My first reaction was,
oh, they were going to
take my green card away.
Homeland Security officers comes
and he says to us many personal question.
He ask what I travel to Spain
what did I do when I was there,
who did I see, how long did I stay,
who did I travel with,
what do I do as a living,
what college do I attend,
what am I studying at a college,
why did I chose the major
that I have chosen to study,
how long have I been as a student.
I answered all the
question with no problems
because after all, I was
only a green card holder.
What right did I have to be
questioning a Homeland officer.
He told me to sit, and as
the female officer comes,
she ask the same question
and she said I was clean
and free to go.
However, on my way to exit,
another officer stops my
friend, who's my husband now.
He starts to ask him how
long he has known me,
where we met, and how we met.
I know they knew I had
not committed any crime
because they already screen my name
and my fingerprint.
As a young person at the time
and as a green card holder,
I didn't think I had any right
to be asking any officer.
Those are just a few many of my experience
and the experience of many
of my friends and family.
There's more, but I'll just keep it brief.
Once I joined the workforce,
I was told so many things.
I will share some of them
that stood out the most to me.
A few years ago, I was told
by one of my colleagues
that I should not
complain or worry too much
about the cold weather
because by the time the
president of the United States
gets to me, I'll be in my country.
At a doctor office, I was asked
by an ultrasound technician
how I got to this country.
She asked if I sneaked
to the country illegally,
and I felt like saying
no, I swim all the way
from Africa to America,
but I just let it go.
Instead, I asked her
where she was from.
She went on to say she was from the South
where they had a lot of KKKs,
and she does not understand
why people can't get along.
I was asked by a white woman
why I was participating
in a woman's march,
what have I been denied for.
My response to her was that,
"Your experience as a white woman
"is not my experience as a black woman."
I shared the story not for you
guys to feel sympathy for me
'cause I don't sympathize with myself.
I'm the type of person, I keep my head up.
I continue to go to
work and smile everyday
and do the best to the best of my ability
whether it's a job at a
community, but I shared this
so that you guys can open
your mind, open your hearts,
and try to see beyond
someone's skin color.
We all are human trying to do our best,
just trying to live life in peace.
Thank you for listening.
- Well said, Addis.
Appreciate that comment, your story,
and some of your experiences.
Cochise?
- [Cochise] Yes, good afternoon, Rob.
Can you hear me?
- Yep, we can hear ya.
- [Cochise] Okay, well good
afternoon, Bristol Community.
I just wanna say hello to everyone.
Also, I wanna acknowledge
you, Rob, and Melissa
for doing a outstanding job.
Thank you for this forum.
I say that because race
is a very sensitive topic
and many people don't wanna talk about it.
We have the tendency to
sweep it underneath a rug.
When you do so there's
an accumulation of filth,
and eventually, you have to address it.
I'm just gonna be relatively brief.
My family and I, we moved to
Foxborough over a decade ago
in a predominately white
affluent community.
I'm a former athlete.
I do a lotta running.
I do a lotta sprinting.
In the mornings, I would get up early
to go running and jogging.
Every time I would go to work out,
a patrol car would come right near me
and just watch me.
I shared this experience because
people have to understand
that African Americans
are treated differently
compared to our white counterparts,
particularly African American males,
because if you are a large
African American male
like myself, six feet three, 250 pounds,
people look at you differently,
and they treat you in
a very negative manner,
not all the time.
People always ask me, "Why
do you dress the way you do?"
in terms of wearing suits.
I dress the way I do to command respect,
but I shouldn't have to be forced
to wear a suit everyday to command respect
because if my white
counterpart is dressed down,
automatically, he or she
will get the respect.
Thank you.
- Thank you so much, Cochise.
I appreciate that.
Shanna.
Actually, before Shanna goes,
we're gonna be transitioning
right after Shanna
into the next piece of it.
Anybody that does have experiences,
when we get to the open
half hour at the end,
you can share some of
those experiences there,
but I just wanna be cautious
of people's time as well.
Unfortunately, this is so powerful
we can go hours and hours,
but I'm trying to be cautious
of everybody's time here as well.
Shanna.
- Good afternoon, everyone.
Can you hear me?
- Yes, we can.
- Okay, for those of
you who do not know me,
I'm Shannon Howell.
I'm the dean of the New Bedford Campus.
I just wanted to talk a little
bit about my experience.
For those of you who do not know,
I was born in Boston, Massachusetts,
but I was raised in the
south side of Atlanta.
Ever heard of people
talking about College Park?
That's the area that I grew up in.
Before I even tell you my experiences,
I wanted to give you a
little bit of background.
Growing up in the South,
there were a lotta
prominent African Americans
that I looked up to.
What I realized that
they all had in common is
that they had education, so for me,
I thought that education
was gonna be my key
to being successful, my
key to a better life.
I was encouraged by a lot
of teachers growing up
and principals that I
needed to go to college.
I was the first person
in my family to go to college.
Here I with a PhD.
- Kinda having a little bit of difficulty.
Hopefully, you might be--
- Oh, I stand.
Now?
- Yep, we can hear you now.
- Okay, I was saying, in
2020, here I am with a PhD.
I am somewhat successful,
but no matter where I
go, I still have fear.
I wanna talk about fear for a second.
The fear that African American
and black Americans have
is just automatic.
It's not something that you're taught.
It's just something that
you grow to know and feel.
When I go in to go shopping,
I've lived in Massachusetts,
I've lived in Georgia,
and I've lived in Idaho,
and I can tell you multiple
incidents of situations
where I was discriminated against
because of the color my skin.
These people don't know I have a PhD.
They don't know I'm successful, my career.
They just see me as a black woman
and wonder what I'm doing in their store
I just moved here in August
and I've already had one
(Shanna speaks through
distortion) at a mall,
"It's 'cause you live in
the particular state."
It happens everywhere,
but the one incident
that I wanna talk about,
and I'm gonna go ahead, and
I shouldn't have to do this,
but I wanna apologize
because some of the language
I'm about to use.
In 2007, my ex-husband
and I moved to Iowa,
and I worked at Drake University,
which is a private school.
It has high esteem for a lotta people.
One Sunday, we were driving
to visit one of the coaches on the team,
him and and his wife and his family.
They lived in a predominately
white neighborhood,
and they are a black family.
We were pulled over on
the way to their house.
We were not speeding because
we knew in this area,
as a black person, you should not speed,
that you need to be very precautious
when you drive through
this particular city.
We were pulled over.
The police, when asked
what was the problem,
the first thing that the
police officer said is,
"Why are you all out here?
"No niggers live out here."
I didn't say the N-word
because that's not what was said to us.
They said, "No niggers live out here.
"What is it you doing here?"
My ex-husband proceeded to tell them that,
"This is my wife.
"She works at Drake University
in the athletics department.
"We're going to see,"
and he named the coach
'cause everybody knew the coach.
The police officer said, "Oh yeah,
"I forgot that nigger lived here."
Once he ran the license
and everything was clear,
he let us go.
At that point in my life,
I had never trembled...
I literally was shaking
because I thought anything could happen,
so I tell my white brothers
and my white sisters,
I put a post on my Facebook today,
what I ask of you in all of this
is you have to be a voice.
All my friends are saying
Shanna, what can I do?
This is what I ask you,
if you have family members,
if you have friends
who are talking inappropriately
about black people,
they're using the N-word,
if they're saying things like,
they need to go back to Africa,
if you sit there and don't say anything,
you're still part of the problem.
So I'm asking you to be a voice.
That's you opportunity.
No, you may not go march.
No, you may not have other avenues,
but you have to be a
voice in your own family
and around your own friends.
That's all I have to say.
- Thank you, Shanna.
That's extremely powerful.
As, Melissa, you're gonna
upload this next video,
I wanna share something
that was just on my Facebook
that I shared and
something that was written.
This is the problem because even people
that are close to you,
they try to fight and not really listen.
This person's not particularly close,
but I'm close with the family.
I'm not gonna say their name.
You can go to my Facebook and see,
but this was the comment
that was just left
on my board.
People text me, so I had to look at it.
It says, "Rob, are you familiar
with who George Floyd was?
"Are you educated on
the facts of the case?
"I know that you're out here
preaching like the Messiah,
"but would you research
before you continue
"to claim a false king."
That was written by somebody
who doesn't look like me
trying to define the character
of some of George Floyd's past.
It's extreme when people do these things,
and this happens quite often.
People wanna debate.
They wanna kinda decriminalize you.
The one thing I always
go to people and I say,
If that day that I, that
story I shared to you,
If I moved the wrong way either
one of those two incidents,
and they shot me or they
shot Marcus Christopher
who talked about the guns being drawn,
now it's left to the regular public
and for people that are out
there to speak about me.
Now, my mother and everyone would be hurt
about my life and who I am.
Let's say there is a charge.
Let's say I'm not fortunate enough,
the day when I'm walking
outside of my school,
and they took me in because
my principal didn't come out.
They put a little misdemeanor, and then I
went through probation.
Then all of a sudden, two
years later, fast forward,
I'm in the back of McDonald's.
Scrummage happens, and
next thing you know,
I get shot and killed.
What do you think the reports
are gonna be from people?
The reports are going to be
that this person had a history.
He is not a good person.
Why would you guys defend this individual?
Especially black males,
we're trying to say
this narrative of some of these things
that are trying to get out there,
it's really not what we are.
I think the problem is a lotta times,
we're are seen differently,
and people wanna try to really take away
what our character is.
Then we have to do what's
called code-switching,
which a lotta times we
are pretending at times.
We can't really feel to be our selves
because we have this in
the back of our mind.
Maybe it's our own imprisonment,
but this is where we ask
our brothers and sisters
who don't look like us
to help us get through
that and not to have this.
We feel this way because
it seems like we're always
in these situations
and it has not changed.
I showed us a timeline of
100 years today, 100 years.
It's continuously happened
and it always happens.
It just changes and goes
into a different form.
The new form now is
how people will respond
to you on Facebook and say something.
They're ya friends, but
they're sitting here
and they're wanting to have a debate
and then call names
like, "You're a messiah."
I'm not a messiah.
What I am is, I'm a
representation of young men
that look like my son
because there are people
out there like that
that will try bring individuals
that are beautiful like him down,
and that cannot happen.
I cannot allow that to happen,
but those things happen daily.
If you see those things, if
you have and area to influence,
and we'll talk about that in a minute
when we get to our tactics.
I just wanted to share that with everyone.
Go ahead, Melissa.
Maybe unmute.
Are you muted, Melissa?
- No, I'm not.
Can you not hear it?
- No, we can't hear it.
Try it one more time, if
not, we can send the video.
Try to restart it one more time.
See if we can get it.
- Turn the volume up.
I heard a little bit of it.
- Yeah, turn the volume up.
- Yeah, it's at full.
It's at full strength.
- Okay, so what I'll do
here, we'll just transition.
We're trying to make sure we're
cautious of everyone's time.
We'll send this to you, but in this video,
it is just MLK talking
about the voice of the unheard is rioting.
That's coming from a man
who is extremely powerful,
who's peaceful, who has done everything,
but it kinda resonated with me
because as we start
talking about these things
and we start unpacking stuff,
we're gonna talk about
why are people rioting,
why are people looting, what is going on.
Those the things that you hear a lot,
but it's a scenario
where people are tired.
They're tired and they're
like, "No one hears us.
"No one's changing laws.
"No one's doing things
to really protect us."
We just must abide by
these traditional laws
that do not fit untraditional people
that are native to the land
because they were brought here,
but nothing was ever brought forward
for us to feel that we
can walk the streets,
ride our cars, go into
a restaurant or a store
and feel that we're at
peace when doing it.
Think about it right now,
there's 40 million black
Americans in the world,
and you guys who identify
as my brothers and sisters that are white,
you go to a lotta restaurants,
and you only see a couple couples there
that are black.
Is it because we have our own restaurants?
No, it's because lotta
people, they don't trust it.
They're not trusting.
They don't wanna be there.
That's a terrible place
to live in your mind.
Not everyone can be like myself and others
who just don't care and will be there.
There's a lot that just stay away.
So the next part right here
is just the comments, questions.
If you have a comment,
please write into the thing.
If you have a comment or
you wanna say something,
let's go ahead and do
that, and then we can kinda
go from there.
There was some other stuff
that was written in here
From people, from Jay
and Kathleen, from Deb.
There's some great stuff in there,
stuff that they wrote on
Facebook, so look at that,
but if you do have a
comment, we'll start there.
First comment is Diana.
- Actually, it's Jerry LePage.
- Oh, is it.
I'm sorry.
- Yep, that's okay.
- I'm trying to do three things at once,
so sorry, go ahead, Jerry.
- We're sharing a block here.
- Okay.
- I've seen a lotta crazy
this last couple of weeks,
but the thing that struck me most
was the number of black
parents like yourself
who had to have the
talk with their children
about how to behave in public,
in a public setting,
especially with the police.
That struck me more than
anything in this past week.
I'm sorry for it.
- No, absolutely, Jerry.
Look, honestly, it's okay to
have to have these feelings.
We're here to feel this way.
There's people that we care about.
If you're a human, you care about humans.
These are things that are going on.
The same way that you're showing your care
is why we're all here in
this forum to do that,
so don't feel sorry if
you're shedding a tear,
if you feel anger.
These are emotions.
We should have it, we're human.
We should be allowed to do that.
I just gotta make sure
I don't lose my space.
I believe, was it Livia,
you had a comment?
- Yes, I do.
I'm just trying to take a deep
breath before I get started.
I don't even know if I can do it.
- Take your time.
- Yes, having a conversation
with your kid is very hard.
Just a moment.
These past few days have
been very difficult for me.
I have shared this with
a few of you yesterday
in a meeting we had.
I'm having a really hard time processing.
I don't know if I can do this.
I'm having a really hard time.
- Livia, you can do it.
I'll hold your hand.
- Processing all this
hate that's out there.
Like Addis, I've experienced
lot of the same things
that Addis has shared with us today.
I came here 23 years ago as well.
I don't think I've ever
really experienced any racism,
the true essence of, at
least, racial discrimination
until I came to this
country, unfortunately.
I love this country for
all the opportunities
that it's provided for me.
I'm an American citizen
today, and I'm very grateful.
This is my home,
but unfortunately, I've had
to deal with a lot of very sad
and somewhat traumatic experiences.
When I was getting my masters degree,
I've been told that I would
never get an A in a class
because I'm not a native
speaker of English.
Seriously, a professor told me
that I would never get an A in his class.
Even though my paper was great,
he would never give me a
full A because I was not.
I wasn't the only one who
was told that same thing.
When I first arrived in United States,
I remember I arrived in New Jersey,
I was so excited, and
I went to a McDonald's.
I was going to have
McDonald's for the first time.
I ordered McDonald's, and this lady
at the front desk kept asking me,
the cashier kept asking
me, "For here or to go,"
but she was saying it so fast
that I couldn't understand
what she was asking me.
She was saying, "For
here to go, here to go,"
and I was like, "What?"
and I kept asking her,
"What are you saying?"
I couldn't understand what she was saying.
Then after repeating it, I don't know,
five of six times, trying to ask,
not understanding what she was saying,
I finally asked her,
I said to her, (speaks
in foreign language).
Then she went, "What?"
and I said, "Exactly,
"so can you please just slow down
"so I can understand what you're saying."
Then she very sarcastically
said, "For here
"or to go?"
Then I said, "For here, please."
Things like that.
Something that, I guess,
people laugh about it now, but
when I was first introduced
to my now in-laws.
My husband is white,
and he is a wonderful man.
I was introduced to my in-laws.
They're from a very small
town in Pennsylvania.
I remember getting there.
His parents have always
been very gracious with me,
have welcomed me into their lives
like I'm their own daughter,
but that very first time I was introduced
to my today, my now, in-laws,
it was one afternoon, I turn around,
and I'm like, "Where's Scott?
"Where's my husband?"
Then his mom says, "Oh, he went
to his grandmother's house."
I'm like, "Without me?
"Why didn't he take me with him?"
I'm like, "This is my first time here,
"so he left me all alone?"
I later questioned my husband.
He said he had to go
talk to his grandparents,
tell them that he wasn't
bringing a white girl home,
that he needed to prepare
his grandparents for the fact
that I wasn't one
of their own.
Because he had had bad
experiences in the past,
knowing his grandparents,
he just didn't want me
to be in an uncomfortable situation.
We got over that, but
experiences like that,
and recently, what happened
to George the other day,
I happened to be watching the news,
and my daughter walks in,
and she sees what
happens, what's happening.
I couldn't lie to her.
I don't wanna lie to her.
I, unfortunately, had to explain to her
what was going on.
I had to have that difficult
conversation with her.
She's like, "Mom, but why?
"Why do they hate black people?"
Her best friend is black.
Then she goes, "So they hate
my friend, Annaray, too?"
so it's been very hard.
I wanna say, Dr. Douglas, unfortunately,
you have people that work
for Bristol Community College
that do not share the same feelings
that I'm sharing
with all of you right now.
I've experienced racism inside
of Bristol Community College.
My students have experienced racism
inside of Bristol Community College.
It's not easy for me to say
this in front of all of you
and especially to you, Dr. Douglas,
but I feel like you need to hear it.
It came from staff.
I've heard things like
when Trump took office,
"You just wait until Trump
starts doing what he promised."
and "He's gonna send you and
all of your students home."
Obviously, I think I'm educated enough
and most of the time,
I am mentally, (laughs)
you know, stable,
to reply back
and educate, but I just wanted you
to know that there have been
times where I was hosting
the International Club's
Thanksgiving dinner,
and I remember Diane
Manson was giving a speech
right after everything was happening
with the Muslims and
all the discrimination
that was happening towards
the Muslim students.
Diane was saying, "This
is a safe place for you.
"We're here for you.
"Bristol is a safe place."
You yourself, Dr. Douglas, gave a speech.
You said the same thing and
at a table right next to me,
there was someone who said,
"Well, if you're not
happy here, just go home.
"Just go back home."
That was a faculty person.
That was a faculty member at
Bristol Community College.
I think that it's great that
we're all sharing our stories,
but what now?
What is going to happen now?
When we talk about accountability,
when things like that happen,
what do we do?
What is the college going to do
to get the message across to those people
and make them understand once and for all
that there's no room,
there's no room whatsoever,
at this place, at this college,
for racism or discrimination
or anything of that nature.
I am sorry for bringing this up
because perhaps this wasn't
the best place to do it,
but I just felt like
I needed to share this
with all of you.
I've had great experiences too.
The good experiences are better
than the bad the bad experiences,
but there have been quite
a number of bad experiences
in which I and my
students have experienced
racism and discrimination
at this institution.
I just wanted to put it out there,
and I think that's it.
I am sorry for getting so emotional.
Like I said, this has
been a rough few days
with everything that's going on.
It's hard to not allow yourself
to let this contaminate you,
all this hate contaminate you, sometimes,
but I have a lot of love to give,
and I've been doing that.
I've been giving that love to
my students and my colleagues,
and I hope that I'm able
to continue to do that,
so thank you very much.
- Thank you, Livia, for sharing that.
That's an important, powerful message.
You're hearing a lotta power messages.
I'm not transitioning completely,
but I wanna let us know
that it is at 5:30,
but these are powerful things
that people need these spaces.
We're not eliminating what's going on.
We want everyone to be able to,
if you have to leave at 5:30,
you can do so.
This will be recorded and captioned.
What we're looking to do,
everyone will receive an email
with next steps and things to do.
I will probably just right
now briefly go over next steps
just so that way, at
least we can get that,
but you will be emailed it.
Then we'll keep it back open,
and we'll go right back to the comments
just so that way, everybody,
if you wanna stay here,
I'm not going nowhere.
Let's keep talking and sharing
your comments and things
because this is the problem sometimes.
We go by a clock and we're not able
to get out what we need to say.
There's a lot in here
that needs to be said,
so, Melissa, if you don't mind,
go into the couple quick tactics.
The purpose of me doing this,
I just wanna make sure that,
those who have to leave and go,
just to go over some of those things
so they can hear it from
me versus just reading it.
There's a couple of
takeaways and steps of these.
We're gonna be launching what's called
a social justice campaign.
I met with our employer
resource group yesterday,
where they were helping me guide me
to kinda be creative in figuring
out things that we can do.
We need to make sure that we
are developing this campaign
that is something that
you can be involved with.
What's unique about COVID is
we are starting to learn how
to be a little bit more nimble
and do things virtually,
so if you're able to be part of this,
we would love to see you.
We have a capacity of, right
now, over 100 plus people.
We can host more, up to 300
people at least, right now.
We would love to see that,
especially if you're
from other institutions.
I know that a lotta other people here
are from different
universities and colleges
around the country, around
the commonwealth at least,
and some that are outside of
Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
I know right now, we're
trying to figure out
how we can help each other.
Contact me and I can help you do this,
and we can figure it out.
Again, I said it's not very academia,
some of these next steps that you have.
When we go into those
social justice campaigns
and we have a lot more time to prepare,
you'll see a lot more
research and resources
and things that are embedded
that will be able to help you.
Again, we're gonna be
sending out, say, the date,
which we'll give everybody in here.
We have a campaign that's
going over the next 18 weeks.
That campaign will then give you a bunch
of different titles that
we will be able to go over.
A lot of 'em are being
developed right now.
This is part of our FY21 goal,
but the reason why we need to do that,
we've broken some great
numbers at the center.
We've had MLK Breakfast,
which is hundreds of
people in the community,
a Southcoast event that
had hundreds of people
in the community.
There's things that people
want that we understand.
People want more of it, and
this'll be part of that.
Celebratory things are great,
and we will continue that,
but we need to get into the nitty-gritty
of how we can mend wounds and stuff.
We're talking about a
lot of our experience and
things that have happened
'cause people have attacked
us and we held them,
'cause if you look at our
people that are brown skinned
and people of color, we're
strong looking people
and we hold it together very well.
It's hard to hold it together well in...
Even this is virtual,
you're feeling it right now.
This is a virtual meeting,
and I'm feeling every single comment.
I'm looking at all your screens.
I'm flipping between the screens.
It's important, and this is
our next level to the work.
The session that we will have
will be race and social justice.
That will be on July 2nd, 2020.
Time will be determined.
We will send out an invite
for everybody on here.
The key to this and why I'm
looking at actionable items
in the next step,
if you are part of this and you signed up,
you will receive an email from us
on these things that are ongoing.
You won't have to research
and search from them.
You will get a news letter.
You will get emails,
resources, books to read,
things that you can do in order to help.
I have friends of mine,
colleagues of mine,
who don't identify with my race or culture
calling me, tearing up, feeling small,
"I don't know what to do.
"I wanna help, how can I help you?"
Well, I can't have everybody
working in the center.
Although I would love to,
it doesn't work that way,
but what we wanna do is
get you guys materials
where you can influence and make a change
in your circle, whatever that is.
If you're an administrator,
figuring out ways that you
can be more encompassing
to you employees and students,
if you are a person that
is not an administrator,
how you can influence
change from your position,
showing your talents
or really showing some of
your feeling towards things
and really contribute to meetings,
maybe finding resources that
are out there and forwarding
to some of you constituents or leaders.
Again, I'm gonna try to race through this,
so I'll skip through some of it.
Understanding you is very important here.
I have this as,
"Understand that it is okay
"to feel uncomfortable when talking about
"and dealing with race matters."
This is uncomfortable for a lot of us.
It is uncomfortable for
the people that are sharing
and crying and showing vulnerability.
It's uncomfortable for the
people that are listening
that never ever experience this stuff.
It's real people, and we gotta make sure
that we have an understanding
that it is real and it's okay
that you don't have the answers.
I don't have the answers.
I do this for a living.
I work on race relations for a living.
I don't have all the answers.
This is why I'm asking you as
a community to come together,
so we can figure it out, work together,
and really merge to make this
a greater Bristol County,
Bristol Community College,
and a better country as a whole.
When people are presented with
ideas that counter your own,
there is a psychological stress reaction
called cognitive dissonance.
That's a key word.
Look it up.
Really research it if you need.
I will be able to send you
materials in the future.
This occurs when you begin
to consider new ideas
that conflict with your previous belief.
It's okay that you think all lives matter.
That's okay if you've said it.
I don't want you to feel guilt.
That's okay.
That was a thought process that you had,
but understand that if
I'm asking you for help
because I'm a black man and
I'm feeling a particular way,
or if a black woman is asking you
because they're feeling a way
that is really bothersome from them,
make sure you understand that.
We are looking at that person.
That's why today I was intentional
saying that this standing
with black and African
American men and women
in this right now.
This was not for people
of color or everybody.
I'm not doing that.
This is very intentional
because people are experiencing that,
but as you can see,
people from other races,
other backgrounds, people
that are international,
we are all feeling different
types of pressures,
and we're feeling the
hurt that, sometimes,
it's just a little bit too
much for some of us to handle,
and that's why a lot
of us sometimes ignore
and we don't take action
because it's just easier for
us to go about our business.
Again, next slide, please.
Key takeaways from today.
we must learn to be comfortable
with being uncomfortable, as I said,
so we allow ourselves the
space to learn and grow.
That's important.
Right now, if you felt the
pain in your stomach today,
that means there's something there.
You're a human, we get it.
I haven't cried since he was born.
Trust me, you guys got
me very close to it.
Those are the things that
I feel that we need to,
we understand that
something needs to happen.
How do we influence it?
How can I learn?
You need to learn yourself.
You need to teach yourself
first before you can do things.
Read some books.
Read some of the materials
that we will have for you.
Be supportive of each other
and understand that challenging ideas
can and will be difficult.
This is how you contribute
to influencing change.
We wanna influence change,
so we gotta understand
that in order to do that,
you have to challenge ideas
because it's just gonna
help everyone as a whole.
Next one.
There's a couple things.
I just got key points here.
Understand that not every person of color
has had the same experiences
when it comes to racism,
discrimination, et cetera.
One person may have
severely been affected,
others may not have.
Make sure you're not making
assumptions about individuals.
Listen, remain objective
until you know exactly how
that person needs you to react,
help, or just maybe be available.
Listen, all right?
Make sure you have that.
Be aware of your implicit biases.
Also, be aware that
everyone else has 'em too.
I'm a black male.
I'm not perfect.
I have biases as well.
Some of our biases towards
police officers may be incorrect.
This is why social justice
formats that we're trying to look
will help really break
down these barriers.
I had several of our
campus police officers,
several people in our
community contact me privately
through email or in my DMs,
asking me how can they help,
How can we com together?
and that's what we're going
to do, but it's important
that we get people there,
we get the youth there.
I had youth programs call me as well
'cause they wanna get involved.
They want actionable changes.
They wanna hold people accountable,
but they wanna make sure that
they do it in the right way.
They understand that the
protesting and the gatherings
are going to have to end soon,
so they wanna make sure that
we have things in motion.
Again, the definition is there.
I just wanted to tell you about that.
Next slide, please.
Key takeaways there.
Understand that these biases
affect our understanding,
actions, and decisions
in a subconscious manner.
We may not even realize
it, and that's okay.
This is what these programs are for.
This is what formats like this is for,
so we can start understanding
and start to understand
who we are subconsciously.
Believe it or not, people think
that it's always a black and white issue.
No, it's not a black and white issue.
There are black police officers
that are racist against black people.
Again, now that's deep.
Understand that, look it up, see it.
You'll see it in movies.
You'll see it in videos
and all the things that are out there
because people truly don't
really understand it.
It's not black versus white.
It's black versus racism.
It's two different things,
but the problem is that sometimes
it is portrayed in the media
that it's really about black versus white.
This is where some people
are really upset about,
and I get it.
People that are white, you
feel attacked, I get it,
'cause you are like, "I'm not racist."
I get it, do not worry.
This is what these things are for,
to start chipping away at these barriers.
Be aware of your own emotional responses
and how it affects your ability
to communicate with others.
Trust me, if I yell at you,
you're gonna do two things.
You're gonna get really quiet,
or you're gonna yell right back.
Nothing is accomplished that way,
so understand, and this
goes out for people
in high authority, how you use your power;
people that pull over people,
how you use your power.
There needs to be change there
in how our approaches are.
Hopefully, we can work in creating that
because if you're asking,
I've been pulled over
and asked many a times,
and that triggers me, it
has happened to me twice,
I have three cars registered in my name,
where I get the money, where am I going.
I was pulled over for having
a dim license plate light.
They're asking me where I get the money.
Wait a second, what, I
can't own three cars?
I think I'm pretty successful.
I can do that.
I ain't rich and balling,
but I have three cars,
like whoop-de-do, right?
All right, next one.
Please don't; these are
things that don't do,
use people of color to justify you point
versus other people of color.
It is highly offensive.
You see things that are out there,
you see a person like a Candace Owens
or someone who you see a video
and their perspective
is completely different
than the majority of people of color.
I'm that person.
Again, I told you I'm
standing in the middle.
I listen to both side, both materials.
I read it, I watch it to nauseum.
However, as that's happening,
think to yourself why are people of color
not agreeing with this woman.
Yeah, her views might agree with me,
but remember what I told you.
There are people who discriminate
against their own people.
Doesn't mean you have to be a racist.
There could be a bias that she has.
There might be a belief that she has
or someone like that has
that can really affect people,
but if you use that as your justification
and put it on my wall or send me an email
like, "Look at this person,"
there's ways of doing it.
Don't put it out to the public.
Say, hey, I saw this with
Candace, this is what she said,
or I saw this with this other person,
and this is what they said,
what are your points of it?
If you're friends with somebody,
I'm pretty sure we can go back
and forth as professionals.
Do not, please, do not apologize
for your whiteness, guys.
Don't do that.
We should not have to
apologize for our differences.
It reflects our guilt into those
who we're supposed to be supporting.
Who you are as a man,
you come to that person.
Don't apologize for it.
I think a little bit too
much of that is going,
and we need to recognize some of that.
Don't dominate the conversation.
Listen to you counterparts.
Next slide, please.
Please do influence change where you can.
You don't have to be MLK of the world.
Stop thinking so grand.
Be the MLK of you circles.
Be that person.
Be that change agent in those circles.
That creates it.
If it's your department,
if it's your division,
if it's just you by yourself,
if it's your family,
make sure you are doing that.
Stop saying no all the time.
True supporters will help resources
for a greater good of the people
they claim they care about.
That goes to everyone.
That means if you're president
of the United States,
a president of a college,
a dean of a department,
if you're a police
chief, if you're a mayor.
If all of a sudden you
say, "I stand with you,"
but every time we ask,
"I need more resources,"
"I need this in order
to impact our students"
or "our population" or "our community,"
but you give 'em a nice no,
it's no different than the
other no that they get.
Be a change agent.
Where you can influence,
allow those things to happen.
Maybe sometimes change your
style of how you look at things.
Put somebody in power that
might be untraditional
that can maybe help and
put a different set of eyes
at the table that can look
and see things differently
than maybe it has been
for a long period of time.
Communicate, ask someone
how they are doing.
There's a ton of people of
color who are struggling
that you are colleagues
and claimed friends with.
How many times do you call.
I have several, a lotta you
that are in here, that are white
who did call me and
ask me how I was doing,
sent me an email, said
you were thinking about.
I appreciate it.
Thank you, it really means a lot
because I've always
been seen as the mentor
and the person who has to go
out there and do these things,
but you don't get it as much.
It's feels good when someone can just say,
"Hey, how ya doing."
You don't even have to get
into it, "Thinking about you.
"How you doing?" shoot an
email, send a card, a text.
That's it, right?
Next slide.
These are classroom strategies,
I won't get into all of 'em,
but if you're a professor,
this will be included,
of different things that
are pedagogical strategies
and thing that you can do to
really connect with student.
I know that's something
that resonates big-time.
We go to a lotta these
diversity trainings,
but what can we do?
I know at some of our assessment trainings
that we did this year for
the Multicultural Center,
we were looking at tactics.
Multicultural Center,
along with Katie Ruggieri,
Engin Atasay, Brian McGuire,
and Julie Jodoin, these are great allies
for me that I utilize,
we created an assessment,
and we started working together
on how we can get message out to make sure
we're equitable for all our students.
The professors that were in this workshop
got items that they could
utilize for their classroom.
This is what we're trying to do
in building a social justice platform
so that we're able to get
information to our professors
to better serve our students
'cause I know you want to.
I don't want people to feel
guilt, like I've been saying.
I know you wanna help, so let's make sure
that our leaders are
putting things in place
to help you get the materials
to help our students of color
or from different backgrounds.
Next slide, please.
Couple things that we'll
be doing over the time,
we'll be sending several books and reads
for you guys to look and purchase.
Today when you get the email,
the email will have links
to black-owned bookstores
that are here in Massachusetts
and also around the country,
but we wanna start doing a book club,
different things that are
out there, so you can learn.
There's some basic books that we have,
but there's like a starting kit.
Good friend of mine
shared some of the stuff
and how to go in order.
I had a bunch of titles,
and I was just gonna send a
bunch of titles, but thank God.
Actually, it was Paige Jones sent me
and showed me the different
sections of how to get this out.
What we wanna do is start
of with a couple of books.
You can look these up.
They'll be there.
You can read 'em.
Let me know how you feel.
I know some people need that,
so we wanna make sure that we provide you
with those resources.
Next slide, please.
And that's it, right.
- Yeah, that's all. (laughs)
- I wanna just that everyone again,
so we're not gonna get off,
but if you wanna stay, you wanna talk,
and we wanna impact, this is open to you.
This is our community.
We wanna take over it.
We wanna make sure that there's
nothing but positive change.
There's gonna be professionals
that are gonna stay in here,
people that I called that
are actionable allies.
These are allies that
really wanna make a change.
If you have a question about your college
'cause you're not from
Bristol Community College,
you're here from a different
college, let's do that.
Let's have that conversation.
If you're from a community partner,
I got a lotta community partners
that I've worked with in
the past that are in here,
if you have a question
about that, let's do that.
Maybe we'll go back and forth
with some the questions and
things that we have in there.
We'll be able to do that.
Whatever it is that's on your mind,
if it's a statement, if you wanna laugh,
if you wanna cry, we're here.
We're not going anywhere,
but if you do wanna leave
and take on your day,
I know you have children and food
and everything else going on,
just understand that
we're gonna do our part
to make sure that you,
all right, are fully aware
of the things that you can do
to help influence your areas.
That will be my job.
Your job will be able to
take this information,
look it over, and start applying it.
If you need to apply it after this,
contact me, contact
others that are in here.
If it's a one-on-one, how
you can influence your area,
it could be private, no one needs to know,
then maybe I can sit there and use tactics
that I use with some of my students.
People always ask me,
"What's the difference?"
you know, our retention rate
with some of my students
or my basketball athletes
or how they graduate at a higher rate,
"What do you do?"
There's no formula.
It's just making sure that
you have a good heart,
you're open, and you care.
A lot of you have that,
but sometimes we're a
little afraid to intervene
because we may not identify the same.
Again, if you want to
leave, have a great night.
I appreciate you, I love you all.
Thank you for allowing
this voice to be heard.
We will record the last
however long it is.
We'll probably go another half hour or so.
Then we can get this thing rolling here
at Bristol, Bristol County, our area.
We're gonna touch hearts,
trust me when I say that.
I don't know how many
we're gonna influence,
but we're gonna touch hearts.
We're gonna be involved.
We're gonna make sure that we
are a true community college
and that we are serving
our community as a whole.
There's a lotta people hurting,
and I'm not gonna sit around
and allow that to continue to happen.
Thank you, and If you
wanna stay on, so be it.
Let's make this happen.
We're staying on, so let's do it.
I got 100 million.
We'll see, where am I?
I believe the next person who wanted
to share something was Jay Yoon.
Jay, you still here?
He might of left,
so some people might of
left if I go through them.
Let me know if you're here, Jay.
- I think Jay left a comment.
Sorry, I'm Amanda, hi.
Yep, he left a comment.
- Am I reading it?
- I'm not 100% certain
exactly where it is.
It was a while ago.
- No, absolutely, yeah,
I'm looking at it as well.
I know Jay was next on my paper here.
Oh, I got it,
so Jay said, "One comment
I would like to share is
"while traveling in Europe and Asia,
"I noticed one big difference.
"Police interaction with people.
"There is no other country in the world
"where police go on high-speed chases
"with guns raised and police
with military equipment.
"If we want real change,
"I think this has to start
with how police are trained."
That was just a comment by him.
Then the next one,
Deborah, you said that you had a Facebook.
Is Deborah still here?
You shared something on
Facebook and you wanted
to share it with everyone if possible?
Not sure if you're here still, Deborah.
Deborah doesn't look like she's here,
so Corinne said, "No matter
what someone's past may be,
"no one deserves to die
with a knee on their neck,"
and, "Keep speaking the truth,"
which I think that is kinda
in relation this Facebook
post that I shared
and how that was reacted.
We did get to Megan.
Do you had question or comment?
- Yeah, I have a comment
and a couple questions.
My comment is based off stuff I would seen
on social media and
posts and stuff I hear.
A lotta the things I hear...
Two things I been hearing
a lot that bothers me is,
"Oh, all lives matter,"
and also, "I struggle,
"so I don't have white privilege."
I wanna touch on the white
privilege thing first.
Now, growing up, obviously,
maybe you don't realize in the moment,
but obviously, reflecting especially now,
I think black people can see it.
Growing up for me, I
grew up, single mother.
I grew up very poor on the system.
Both my parents were addicted.
I was the only white kid
sometimes in my classroom,
but even then, I still see
how I had white privilege.
When I went to the class,
my teachers looked like me.
I was learning about
people that looked like me.
My mom never had a conversation with me
about "if you get pulled
over" when I was driving.
If I ever get pulled over,
my biggest fear is get a ticket.
I don't have to worry about
someone trying to kill me,
a cop trying to kill.
That right there is white privilege.
You don't have to be rich.
You don't have to not
go through struggle to be white privilege.
White privilege is just
you get some benefits
or you don't have to live in fear
just because of the color of your skin.
I learn about racism.
I don't have to experience it.
That's white privilege.
"All lives matter."
First off, Black Lives
Matter is not saying
all lives don't matter.
Analogy that I like that
I saw was saying like,
say if everyone's at a table,
and everybody gets a plate but Rob,
and Rob says, "Hey, where's my plate?"
and another person says,
"Well, Rob, everyone deserves a plate.
"What are you talking about?"
Rob's not saying everyone
doesn't deserve a plate.
He's just pointing out the fact
that he doesn't have a plate,
so that's what Black Lives Matter means.
I have two questions.
One, on Facebook, I'm in
a little couple groups
with about four other I
grew up with or whatever
and stuff like that,
and I keep seeing these
posts with stuff like this.
I feel like it keeps being said.
Explain to these people,
but it's not going through their heads.
How do you deal with people
that's like that way?
Like you said, we have to
speak up against racism
and stuff like that, but how
do you deal with ignorance
where you keep trying to educate people,
but they don't see it?
Do you just ignore them,
do you just give up hope,
or do you keep trying to work with it?
That's why I'm kinda losing hope
'cause I'm like, "How much
can I change someone's mind,"
or, "How much can I change
when people are not changing?"
I'm sorry guys, Rob, did
you wanna say something?
- No, go ahead.
- Oh.
One thing that scares me right now is
that I feel like we've been here before.
One of the blog people was complaining
about the riots and looters.
One of the reasons why
I haven't said anything
because I feel like
everything has been tried
and it hasn't works,
so what do you really expect people to do.
There's really nothing to do some people.
Now, obviously, there might be some people
who are just trying to follow the crowd,
get some whites and stuff,
but there are people that
are actually hurting.
They feel like they need to be heard.
They're not being heard, it's anger.
I don't really know what to tell...
How you gonna tell someone to protest
if you never felt bad pain?
How you gonna tell someone
how to deal with pain
if you never felt it.
Honestly, like I said,
everything's been tried.
I'm in a spot where, like
you were saying earlier,
what can we do?
I know protest is stilling happening,
and it's great to see
everyone come together,
but I'm scared that
couple months from now,
this things gonna happen again,
so I'm trying to look at it
like maybe the next phase,
what can we do, if it's policy,
if it's education, so many things.
I don't want to be in the same spot
in a couple months or a couple weeks.
- Thank you so much.
Megan is one of our student leaders
that I've worked with in the past.
Thank you for eloquently putting that
and showing your perspective.
You are that change.
Like you said, you are a person
who identified different from me,
but your perspectives are there.
That means you are a person that sees it.
You're not going to change everyone.
It's just not gonna happen.
You'll be exhausted if you try
to fight every Facebook post.
This post that this man wrote today,
I'm ignoring it because the change is for,
again, my son, students in here
that are coming to this center,
people that I can really help influence.
Bringing that heart to the surface
and really impacting change
is what we all need to do.
If we wanna try to change
the mindset of someone
who just does not want to,
then we have to move on from that person
and continue doing the good work
because it will make you exhausted.
The things that you're
seeing that are out there,
the "all lives matter,"
the different perspectives,
how George Floyd's life was,
these are all distractions
to take you away
from where your heart really is.
You need to continue to
influence and understand
that you care about
people, then do something
to help those people who need you.
Don't worry about the people
who wanna be another way
because it's greater good
for the greater number.
If I do something, and I know
it's gonna influence
hundreds of people over here,
three people are not
gonna change their mind,
then they can just do what
they need to do on their side,
and that's fine.
It's totally okay.
The other thing, with the privilege,
having that understanding
and knowing the difference
of our privileges
is impactful because
we all have privileges.
White people have to understand
what white privilege is.
I'm not a huge component
of always throwing that
down someone's throat,
but what I am is saying
that we all have privileges,
so I try to teach it
from that perspective.
If you do have somebody
that's really asking about it.
As a male, I have privilege over women
because there's certain things
that are catered towards me.
As a black male, I might have privileges
over someone who is Latinx
maybe in a situation,
or as a coach, I have privilege,
or in my position in my
job, I may have privilege,
but there are a lotta disadvantages
that I have because I'm not white.
Those are things that are also there,
so I try to tell people to understand
where their own privilege
is and where they come from
and things that may be different.
Even to my students, student
at the center that are here,
if you even wanna chime and speak up,
I talk about these things
because these are important
conversations to have
because people are very defensive,
and every time we step
in a room and we say,
"You got white privilege,"
they don't know how to react.
All of a sudden, they're like,
"What are you talking about?
"I grew up just like Megan.
"I was the only white kid in my class.
"I grew up poor.
"I worked for everything I got,"
not understanding that yeah,
you worked for everything
you got, but it's different.
People tell me that I
can't be certain things
because I don't have my PhD yet,
but then I see people
that don't look like me,
and they got their masters degree,
and they're in higher positions.
Why is that?
Although I'm going for it,
but why do I see a group?
Those are things that
resonate and you say,
well, that's privilege
because no one will take me as serious
because maybe I don't
have all that education,
but no one saw all the things I did
because I was unable to afford it,
so I just educated myself on other things
that I had to do.
There's discriminatory
things that are put in place
that just happen.
Sometimes, we just gotta
try to create change,
like I said, in our
circles and develop that.
I don't know if anybody
else wanted to add in.
You guys, it's not just
questions and answers for me.
If anybody wanna chime in,
you can just in as well.
- Rob, this is Deborah.
I couldn't get the mic to go on.
I do have to leave,
and I did want to share with
you what I put on Facebook.
I have to admit, what you've
been talking about today,
I finally understand what
white privilege means.
I've always gotten my hackles up
because of that particular phrase,
but I can walk into a store
and smile at the clerk
and say good morning,
and I'm gonna get a
totally different response
from that clerk than
someone else might get.
That's kinda horrifying.
I really didn't think that
that was going on still
at this day and age
in our country,
but if you don't mind, I
would like to read to you.
I can either put it up on the screen,
or I can just read it to you.
Which would you rather I do?
- You can read it to us.
That's perfectly fine.
We love to hear your voice.
- Before I even read it,
what I wanna say is racism is
nothing more than bullying.
If we're so freaking against
bullying in our classrooms,
why aren't we
just as against racism.
I don't get this.
(clock bongs)
Oh, my clocks gonna go, sorry.
Okay.
(Deborah sighs)
Racism, we all need
to raise our children
without their hearing
words of hate for, fear of,
condescation towards,
condescension toward, excuse me,
or angry envy for any
other skin color tone.
We on this Earth have an entire rainbow
of skin tone, hair color,
hair type, eye color.
There is no such thing as race
other than the human race.
Racism is learned at the
kitchen table of our parents,
at the knees of our grandparents,
in the homes of our children's friends,
and from what children see
and experience in school,
on the sidewalk, and on the
playgrounds of their hometowns.
Also learning in these same places
are empathy, tolerance,
and the ability to discuss
our differences of opinion,
along with agreeing that
we can simply disagree
on some things.
These are the behaviors our children
should be learning from us.
Flip over our hands and feet
and our skin color is the same.
This is the way in nature.
Each species, no, each genus
has a vast range of
coloration, pattern, size,
and not so often but even gender.
However, we're all of one kind.
birds, fish, insects, reptiles, felines,
canines, and humans,
we're all one genus
with many colorations,
patterns, and sizes.
We are all one,
one kind together.
We all carry the same basic
hardwiring in our brains,
all carry the same basic potential
to be whom and what we wish to be.
I've seen a beautiful GIF
circulating on Facebook
asking us all to flood
the internet with a prayer
for God to heal us.
I believe in God.
However, even more, I believe
that it is not up to God
to fix what has been broken.
What is broken by man
is to be mended by mankind.
We may not all be
responsible for the problem.
However, we are all responsible
for the mending.
The silent majority of all skin tones
must stand up and face down those
we see performing or participating
in acts of bigotry both large and small.
Calmly, quietly, we must
band together to show
that we not only stand
as witness to the act,
but that we disapprove
of and will not accept
the viewpoints, words, or actions
of the bigotry being displayed before us.
Let the perpetrators of bigotry
and senseless destruction
to public and personal
property know that as a group,
we will not just stand witness
but testify to the abuse,
not let someone else take care of it.
It's time we gave God
a reason to smile down
on the children of Earth.
This is my prayer.
This is my vow.
- That's powerful.
What you said early in
the beginning is you said
that you battled with
understanding what privilege is.
Just having that sense of
understanding and moving that,
when we can continue doing
that one person at a time,
we can get to where
we're looking to get to.
I appreciate you for sharing
very important words,
just powerful words.
I have a ton of people that are on here,
so I'm trying to navigate
as best as I can,
so if you are still here
and you wanna jump in,
you can maybe just say from...
I know Serge had a question,
wanted to add something.
Deb, you just did.
I'm looking at...
There's a couple of others here,
Carlos, I believe, if
Carlos is still here.
I'm just trying to get
people, make sure their voices
are heard before we go from there,
so I don't know wanna start, Serge?
- Sure,
so my question was, well not my question,
my comment was if you could
speak on the importance
of our young minority students pursuing
or at least considering
pursuing a career in education,
because I think it benefits all students
when our staff is very diverse,
so could you speak on
the importance of that
and how students of all color
are impacted when they
have teachers of color
in their educational journey.
- I know you asked me, but
does anybody wanna jump in?
I can start it and then
somebody jumps in after?
All right, I think just
from the standpoint
this is a battle that we've always had.
It hasn't been an industry
that people of color
traditionally have really focused on.
There's many reasons
and I won't get into
all of them right now.
It is important.
We have several initiatives
that we've tried,
a grant that I've looked to apply for,
to really try to impact
and get into the schools
working with Greater New
Bedford Voc, with yourself,
and also Wadley DaSilva, who is in here
looking to influence men of
color to pursue education
as part of their educational journey
to maybe become a professor or a teacher
and show how they can
impact and influence change
that way as well.
It's highly important.
There's many reasons why it's important.
I think the reason why
I might have success
with some of the students that I have
is because I resemble them and work with,
but it doesn't necessarily
just have to be that.
It's just a different perspective.
I think the problem is
a lot of these tables,
sometimes we don't realize
that our perspective
may have a bias to it,
and we don't even recognize it,
so it's good to have an individual
who thinks a little bit differently.
I think it's very important
for that to happen.
We'll continue pushing it.
I push it all the time
to give them an out.
Education is a career
that is highly important,
but sometimes it's tough
if you coming from schools
that don't highlight, they
don't highlight these educators,
or you go in a school
where you don't see it,
they just don't know if it's for them.
We have to change that
narrative a little bit
and really try to influence them to see
that education is positive
and that you can make a change
if you get yourself to that level.
Anybody else has anything
else they wanna add to it?
- Yes, I'll add something, being faculty.
Education for us
has to start, I think, at a younger age,
but if you look at our school systems,
where the students will come from,
the inner city schools, the urban schools,
they don't have the equipment.
They don't have the books.
They're sharing books.
They don't have access to internet,
so to prepare them
to go into education,
we have to equip those teachers
in the younger schools,
middle school, high schools,
with the resources that they need
so they can influence the
students to become educators
because right now, currently, all they see
as their way out of that neighborhood
is to look at the ball players.
"I wanna be a basketball player
"so I can buy my mother a house,"
or "I wanna be a lawyer,"
or "I wanna be a doctor,"
because that's what they
see on TV as being affluent.
We have to start from the roots up.
Some of the things that we have to do
is encourage our students to
pick the right professions.
I'm not saying that photography
is not a good profession,
but I think we need people
more in other professions
like being teachers, educators,
so we have to do our part
in educating our students,
and we have to start from the root,
start from when they're young,
to give them other opportunities,
a more visual presence.
How many movies do you see
about students or teachers?
There's very few movies about teachers,
lot about ball players,
lot about thugs,
but very few about educators,
so we have to start while they're young
and change the dynamics
of their environment.
Policy, urban schools,
find a way to volunteer,
books for the students
so that they're not
sharing books, internet.
I know we can't do it all at one time.
It's a slow go,
but we have to give back to the community
so they can rise up.
That's all I'm saying.
- Could I jump in here?
Hi Doris, it's Kathleen.
- Hi.
- How you doing?
- How you doing, Kathy?
I'm doing good.
- I wanna talk about opportunities
that I hope
will open up at Bristol.
Right now we have a Early
Childhood Education program
and then a very tiny
Elementary Education program
that doesn't extend through high school.
Couple of concerns.
One is that the people who are
in early childhood education,
who are now,
they are incumbent workers
and childcare centers.
They come from poor communities.
They're gonna be forced to get licensed,
and they're not gonna get any
rewards for that monetarily.
That's one of my concerns.
The other one really is to
expand the education major
at Bristol so that we have an opportunity
for especially males
who want to teach to teach
in junior high school
and high school, maybe coach as well.
We don't have that right now.
My intention when I
came here was to change
the face of what we offer to our community
in terms of being able
to become a teacher,
so I'm hoping this coming year
we can work on that again successfully.
- Kathleen, thanks for sharing that.
If you don't mind, I'll
forward you a grant
that myself and Engin
Atasay, worked on last year.
Maybe it was a little bit too aggressive
for the state to approve because,
obviously, the state has guidelines
that they needed to
get done within a year,
but this might be very
impactful for the community.
We can forward your way.
There might be some tactics in in there,
as far a recruitment
of male students of color
into these type of programs.
I'll forward that over to you.
Again, whatever you can take from it,
it might be helpful doing that.
- Great, thank you.
Thank you so much, Rob.
- Yeah, no problem.
- Bob,
can I chime in real quick?
- [Rob] Yep.
My name is Laura Gostin.
I'm an instructor in Division I.
I just wanted to share my perspective
from a different angle.
My focus is intercultural communication.
As an immigrant myself and a
non-native speaker of English,
I can so much relate to
what Livia was saying.
I'm hoping to get through this
without getting too emotional
because I have been this entire time.
First of all, I would like
to say I'm sorry to everyone
who has experienced any form of racism,
anybody that shared and who hasn't shared.
For someone who is very
interested in race relations,
it's absolutely devastating to me.
I wanted to share from
another perspective.
As an educator,
I bring this discussion into
the classroom all the time.
I talk with my students about racism.
I talk to them about white privilege,
and many times,
I have been ridiculed and discouraged
and reacted very adversely
from students sometimes,
most of the time, white male students.
I still remember the
one time when I was told
in the classroom in the middle of everyone
when I was talking about white privilege,
that racism does not exist,
that their white friends
don't talk about it.
Their black friends don't talk about it.
Therefore, it doesn't exist.
It's only those select few
who continue to talk about it
that are a problem.
I don't even know how I kept it together
until I got back to my office.
As a teacher,
I have to hold it together
in front of my students.
In grad school, my research
was focused on race relations
and intercultural situations.
I'm sure you and I have spoken before,
I don't know if you remember,
about my experience,
but I was always very discouraged
from pursuing my thesis and my research.
Off the record, so many doors
were being closed in my face.
I was encouraged
to basically change my research topic
and told why would I be
interested in something like this?
All of us should be interested
in something like this
because it affects all of us.
Yes, I do agree that we need
to have black role models,
but I think it's important
for white professors
to also speak up and talk about racism.
It's important for all of us,
not just for certain group
of people to talk about it.
This affects all of us,
not just some of us.
It's a very important
conversation that we need to have.
Unfortunately, sometimes,
it has to come to violence
for a message to be heard.
I don't condone it, I don't agree with it,
but sometimes, people get
frustrated, I understand.
I'm frustrated as well because I feel
the entire time that I've
been trying to work on this,
I've gotten nothing but roadblocks.
My research has been
discouraged, not addressed,
because I basically found things
that went against what the institution
was trying to promote.
I'm not gonna discuss about
what institution it was,
but the problem is, in theory,
we have all these ideals,
and all these things that we want to do,
but in practice, they
don't get put through.
That's the problem.
When someone tries to do
something and work towards it,
it is being ignored.
We're being silenced.
We're being discouraged,
and it's frustrating.
I'm dealing with the same thing
where I'm trying to
educate the white community
about white privilege.
I look at it differently.
I'm an immigrant.
Just like Livia said,
I've experienced those things many times.
Discrimination unfortunately
happens everywhere.
We all need to get together
and work together to end this.
We can't just say this is your problem
or this is your problem.
It's all of our problem.
If we don't all do something,
it's never gonna end.
I hear things about, "The police
community needs to change.
"That needs to change."
The change has to go
much deeper than that.
Change has to happen
at the societal level.
As a society, we encourage
and we promote certain things
whether it's overtly or covertly.
That needs to change.
Thank you so much for
having this discussion,
this conversation, because I believe
that is extremely important
to talk about these things.
I tell my students, the reason why we are
in the mess that we are
is because we haven't been
talking about things that matter.
I'm a communication instructor.
We need to talk about things that matter
and not worry so much about, "Oh my God,
"someone's gonna be sensitive.
"We can't talk about
this because of that."
No, we need to talk.
We need to talk about things
that are uncomfortable.
That is the sign of an adult,
being able to discuss things
that make you uncomfortable
and hear truths that you
may not wanna agree with.
It's not always easy for me
to sit there and hear it,
but it's true white people
have caused the most damage
throughout history on this planet.
Is it easy for me to hear that?
No, but it is the truth.
I am also German.
That also comes with a
certain amount of heaviness.
I carry that guilt with me.
Sometimes, people react a certain way.
Can I change the past?
No, can I influence the future?
I hope so.
And I think, like I tell
my students all the time,
being uncomfortable is a sign of growth.
We all need that.
If you're comfortable all
the time you are not growing.
We need this discussion.
We need to do something about it.
I want to offer myself as a
resource to you and to anyone.
I want us to band together
and be able to do something.
I was mortified.
I was crying most of the time
and trying not to look
at some of the images
that were being posted because it's hard
from a human perspective to look at that
and to even think that someone
would be treated like that
based on the color of their skin,
their sexual orientation,
whoever they worship
or whatever they worship,
or any difference.
We are all the same, we are human,
and we let them separate us
by race, by political orientation,
by gender, by who cares!
We need to band together
and find the things
that we have in common.
I'm sorry for the rant,
but it's been stymieing
for a while. (sniffles)
Thank you so much.
- It needs to be heard.
Thank you for sharing that.
You come from great perspectives.
People need to hear this
because this is how you influence change.
People had to go, but
there's a lotta people
on here still because it's powerful.
People need this.
It's something that's needed,
so that's why we're here.
We wanna make sure that
we are a caring community.
The only way we're gonna
be a caring community
is we have to hear each other.
Only way, we can't just say I care for you
and, oh, by the way, don't say anything.
- Exactly, thank you.
- We need perspective.
I have Carlos,
Travis, then Wadley.
- Yes.
- Right, go ahead.
- Good afternoon, everybody.
I'm Carlos Avila.
I work over in the enrollment
department, College Access.
I think like everybody
this is almost like the scab
constantly getting peeled off.
When you're trying to
heal, it's another issue.
It goes on now, it's almost weekly.
It's back in the news
almost on a weekly basis.
The unfortunate thing is a
lotta these men and women
that have been killed, regardless of race,
never had the chance to grow.
When I was young and I had
issues with the police,
my tactic was fight fire with fire
like, "You're coming at me.
"I'm gonna come at you."
That never went well for anybody.
Thankfully, I was given
the opportunity to wise up
and grow and be contributing
member to my community
and see that the real
issue here is education.
Most times in law enforcement,
they just do not receive proper education.
They're good on policy.
They're very strict on their rules,
but when you're trained to be a hammer,
all you see are nails.
Everybody, to you, is a nail.
You're trained to just hammer
them down, unfortunately.
That is the reason why we have
the many issues that we do.
Discretion isn't applied equally.
When people use white privilege,
that's a real thing.
I've experienced that.
When you look a Carlos Avila,
you don't think you're gonna see my face,
so I've been pulled over several times.
The most recent time, the
officer came up to the car
before he saw me and was
saying, "Que pasa, Carlos,"
thinking he's gonna see like
a traditional tanned-skinned,
black-haired Puerto Rican guy.
Then he sees me, he goes,
"Oh, are you Carlos?"
I said, "Yeah, I'm the
owner of the vehicle."
Immediately when he saw
me, he became disarmed.
I'm like, wow, that really was
a pass at that point in time
that a lotta people don't get.
I was able to, at least once I saw him,
become a little bit less cocky.
Hey, you do understand that typically,
what you did there was a tact
that would be used to trigger somebody
to get a reaction to get
you to escalate you actions
and make this a big deal
when it shoulda just been a,
"You were going five miles
over the speed limit."
It coulda been that conversation.
Thankfully for me, that's all it was,
but had I been younger Carlos,
I woulda made a deal about it.
Who knows what woulda happen.
Maybe I wouldn't even be at Bristol
'cause that doesn't look good
when you show up with a record
for agitating with the police.
Again, that is the big takeaway,
there is not enough soft-skill training,
if we're calling it that.
There is not enough of the
community policing involvement
because even now in the protest,
you see more of the
protesters openly engaging
with police and showing them love
than you do see the police
officers showing the community
that they're there to protect.
It's not being reciprocated evenly.
Unfortunately, that's always been the case
with the black community,
communities of color.
They are always the most forgiving
to the people who are oppressing then.
That's been going on for centuries.
That, unfortunately, still goes on today.
We're seeing it with the protest.
I know that Baxter was here earlier today.
I wish I had been able
to connect with him,
but I talk with my close friends,
and a lot of 'em are like, "Unfortunately,
"you're paying for the actions of the few,
"but you need to understand
"that now that you're
one of the good guys,
"we need to be speaking up
against those few bad guys
"that are giving everyone a bad name."
Some officers taken that advice.
At some point in time,
they do start to get hard in themselves
'cause some people may have taken that job
with what in their mind
were good motivations.
A time like this may even
radicalize them, unfortunately,
so this is a time where
people from all backgrounds
need to come together,
especially those in education.
We need to teach these skills
and teach people how to
communicate with one another,
to not get to these points.
None of this stuff needed to happen.
That's all I have right now.
- That's so powerful, Carlos,
thank you for sharing.
The one thing that I saw,
I forgot who said it,
but they were stating that whole,
"There's plenty of good cops.
"That one bad cop shouldn't speak for it."
I get that theory, but a person said,
and this is why this comment
resonated with me, as I coach,
"If you were on a team,
"and you know one of you
players was molesting children,
"and you don't say something,
are you all good people?"
To me, that was kinda like,
wow, I didn't think of it
from that type of perspective,
but you're a part of that
if you're witnessing it
and you're not saying the
change that's hurting people.
Same thing as a teacher.
We have our students that
we're supposed to protect.
We're mandated reporters,
but we know we have educators out there
that may not be appropriate for it.
That's why positions like myself
and equal opportunity and
equity officer, like Gia,
those things are created
because these things happen,
but do we get the right reports?
Are people really telling their educators
that's not cool, stop doing that?
Doesn't happen, so as a mandated reporter,
we gotta make sure that we're able
to have those tough conversations,
sometimes with our colleagues,
and say like, "Look, you can't do that."
We'll go Wadley, I mean...
No, Travis, then it's
Wadley, then it's TJ.
Then we'll get to closing up
because I know
we're going in, but again,
I'm not leaving, but I'll
just let anybody know
that you don't have to stay on and go,
but I wanna make sure that,
anybody that needs to be heard,
I will definitely stay here to listen,
so go ahead, Travis.
Are you still here, Travis?
Hopefully.
Oh no, did you leave, Travis?
Yeah, Travis may have left.
I'll read his statement here.
He says: My father was
an auto school owner
and always said in class to everyone
"When pulled over, take the keys,
"and put them on the dashboard
"and both hands on top
of the steering wheel.
"Say yes sir, no sir,
and any officer asks"
Only now looking back, I can see
that he was trying to save lives
in a way that I didn't
understand back then
when I was an ignorant DWB.
D, whatever, is that driving while?
Black, all right.
Wadley?
- Hey, good afternoon, everybody.
I just wanted to share from
a few different perspectives
and different age groups
in going back to the topic of education
and the push to get more people of color
and, I think, specifically men of color.
To give you a few scenarios,
when COVID-19 hit.
I'm a Dartmouth resident.
My children are in
Dartmouth public schools.
My wife is an employee for
Fall River Public Schools.
When we went into quarantine mode,
Dartmouth public schools,
the first push was,
"How can we get technology
out to our students?"
which is great and which is fair.
Not too many were actually in a position
where there was a need of technology.
Meanwhile, my wife and her team
in Fall River Public
Schools, their main concern
is how are we gonna provide
food and free lunches,
now that our students
aren't able to come in?
That right there show you
right from the get go,
elementary age, where my
children are now in a position
where they're part of a group
where their priority
is already your future
and your ability to
succeed and to move forward
versus in Fall River Public Schools,
your priority is can you survive?
That's one example of the difference,
the unlevel playing field, if you will.
Second example, I was a math
teacher at Keith Middle School,
New Bedford Public Schools
for anyone that's not aware.
I remember we were talking
about colleges one day.
I took a survey of my
eighth grade math class.
I said, "How many of you
have a relative currently
"that is in college."
I remember there was one hand that went up
of one relative that was in college.
Then I said, "Well, how
many of you have a relative
"currently that's incarcerated?"
Almost half of the
class put their hand up,
so you're looking at who do you see?
What's your role model?
Who's in your family?
Who is your circle?
What are you looking at as
far as what's ahead for me?
Now we're looking at middle school age.
Then I'll fast forward
to my own experience,
again, sticking in the level of education.
I'm the first person in my
family to graduate from college.
I went on to get my masters
at Cambridge College.
I remember sitting
in my cohort one day, looking around,
where there were three males,
and I was the only male
of color in the group,
just looking around and
feeling like I didn't fit in
and was I actually doing the right thing,
even listening to
conversation and listening
to everybody's lifestyle
and just feeling different
and feeling like I had
to dig in a little deeper
in order to make it through.
I say all this just to paint a picture
of what education looks like.
I'm currently a guidance
councilor at a local high school.
One of the incentives,
and Rob and I have talked about this,
and Serge Moniz is involved,
is men of color,
or people of color in general,
they do need an extra push.
They do need extra incentives.
They do need extra support to help them
to get through, to succeed,
and to be successful.
I think this is a part
where everybody in here,
in their own circle of influence,
can help and can participate
because I know automatically
the backlash is,
"There shouldn't be any
extra resources for them.
"They should be able to get the job done
"just like everybody else."
Even those little
comments, I know we'll get.
If there's funding involved, forget it.
"How are you taking money from my child,
"to give to this child?"
These are the things that
I think we as a whole
can play a part of, seeing, understanding,
why some people do need extra resources,
some people do need extra support,
and then trying to educate people
when those kinds of opinions come up.
Thanks, Rob, and thanks,
everybody for your time.
- Thank you, Wadley.
That very important,
and what Wadley just said at the end there
is extremely vital.
We have equity agendas,
which is now what the state
would like for us to focus on.
All our schools are now
ramping up how that looks,
but are the right people at the table
to have those conversations of
what equity truly looks like?
On top of that are the
questions in our strategic plans
are about where's the money going,
what grants are we receiving,
what resources are being allocated
to people that are teaching, that are
pushing these agendas forward
to make sure that it...
because the problem is, in my position,
you'll hear, "Let's do this,"
then you're like, "Well,
it's me and Melissa,
"and we got 100 million things to do."
Without resources or extra people
or people that are volunteering,
it's extremely difficult to make happen,
so myself and Melissa, we wear many hats
just like a lot of you wear many hats
and trying to balance it.
It's just not a great model.
There's no way that way we'll be able
to truly impact our communities
if we sustain this type of modeling,
so if you guys are in
strategic planning meetings,
or you are in these type of meetings,
talk about funding.
Ask that question.
I think sometimes we get so drawn
into how things work for people
with different equity issues,
and that's commendable,
but then we don't realize
that we're not looking
at how to attain a grant
or how to get extra funding
or do things and then ask
the right people for that.
I think the more people
that are really behind that,
then the more resources
that we can provide,
so it is our responsibility to ask as well
because sometimes people may not know
that education is something
that rolls on the bear minimum
and because it rolls on the bear minimum,
we tend to kinda just do it as is.
It's just not effective.
That's why you don't see the changes,
because we're just not
funded appropriately.
Amanda, are you still here?
I know you had something.
- Yes, I do, hello.
Just a note about some of
the things that are happening
here in Rhode Island.
I live in East Providence,
so it's right nearby.
One of the things that did happen,
we did have a protest the other day
at Kennedy Plaza.
Just to make sure that this is reiterated,
a lot of the protests are peaceful,
but a lot of the hate
groups are actually using it
as a cover-up to loot
and to riot.
Multiple places were targeted.
I don't know if this is 100% true or not,
but I guess there were guns fired
even at the local pride buildings too,
so it's a cover-up to kind of,
"Yes, let's go and do this,
"and they'll just blame
the protesters instead."
So, just, again, it's not...
A lot of different things
are happening right now,
but I think we do need to be reminded
a lot of the protests are peaceful.
A lotta people do wanna make change.
Those voices aren't loud enough,
so one of the things I
definitely think we need to do
is make sure that those voices are heard,
that you hear about it.
I forget exactly where it was.
The police officers, I
forget exactly where it was,
it ended up being a cookout instead.
What could have been a really bad protest
ended up being a cookout
between the firefighters
and the Black Lives Matter movement
just sitting down and talking.
We need to hear a lot of those stories,
so if you do hear it, talk about it.
Talk about it to your students.
Talk about to faculty,
but again, I wanted to bring that up
because that's what been
happening here in Providence.
Make sure that the voices
of those really good moments are heard.
- Absolutely, Amanda, thank you for that.
That's very valuable.
I'll share something with you.
I had a conference with several students.
Some of 'em were in this meeting
because they wanted to
look at this format.
The conversation was how
can I influence change
and make a youth movement
and maybe have a youth rally
but have it where it's not
exposed to the exterior
where people can infiltrate the messages
that they're trying to get across.
So they're looking at
this format right now.
We spoke about having mayors,
superintendents of the
schools to be part of it
but a ton of students
from the different high schools, colleges
that are in our area and
all be in this one forum
with the same type of format
where the students can lead and speak
and say that they wanna influence change.
The great thing about this is
they can hold people accountable
by creating these type of spaces,
versus it just being a
loud protest that's there.
Protesters are needed, trust me.
We need protest.
These forums are created
because of those things.
Even me, who fight for students
of different backgrounds all the time,
I'm not always doing forums like this
because I have other work I'm doing,
and I can even get lost in the fray,
and they kinda put me back into like,
"Hey, we need this thing to get done."
I'm like, "Yeah, let's do it."
So look out for that type of stuff,
but very important message there, Amanda,
is listen to the students.
Understand that they are that change.
Some of our generations are damaged.
If you look at the protests
that are out there,
there are people that are hi-jacking it,
but this is the most diverse
group of protesters I've seen.
Some people like it and some people don't.
I tend to understand why,
but you did not see, even five years ago
when they were doing this
stuff, for Mike Brown,
you didn't see this, the
groups weren't this diverse.
So there is some change.
Our young generation
can teach us something.
We may complain about
them, but my daughter,
we had a talk to her about
going out and protesting
just because they're compelled to do so,
and they want to do so,
and they wanna do things.
Let them be the voice.
I tell them to lead from different ways.
Don't just lead in one way.
Find different ways.
Sometimes, I think as
people, we play checkers.
Meanwhile, these people
in higher positions
are playing chess with us.
We have to start understanding,
hold people accountable, and play chess,
and figure out ways that we can maneuver
where we can effect change.
I appreciate that comment,
that statement, there, Amanda.
TJ?
- Hi.
I kind of, you know,
thought of a lot of different things
to talk about throughout this.
I definitely got a lot of ideas,
a lotta stuff I wrote down
and I'm personally gonna go through.
I also wanted to take a second to thank
the people who shared
their experiences today
because I think that those experiences
touch people a little bit differently than
just stating facts,
so, you know,
that's definitely
necessary, and it's tough.
It's definitely tough,
but, you know,
that's what's gonna lead
to change because I think that opening
these people's eyes up to
the hurt that it's caused
on surface level and on many deeper levels
to the way that...
Sorry, I'm kinda losing my words here.
The way our communities are set up,
why low-income communities exist,
and things of that nature
are not really talked about
and are definitely very prominent
in solving this problem
because I personally believe
the real way to solve this problem is to
attack it at it's root.
To go back earlier
to what Wadley was saying
about extra funding,
I think that when that comes into play,
that also plays an important part
in understanding why that extra funding
is needed because someone
might initially think
well, why are they getting more money
in their district than mine?
But I'm sure that if that person,
that perfectly rational person,
understood people in this community,
a lot of their earlier family members,
their grandparents, were
subject to redlining,
which didn't allow them to
buy a house at a young age
like maybe their
grandparents were able to.
Opening their eyes up to the real problems
and how they reflect today
is a major key in solving this problem.
- Thank you TJ, it's really important.
TJ's one of our student leaders
in the Multicultural Center
and an athlete at the school,
so hearing your voice is also important.
Some of the other students that are here,
your voices are important.
It can't just be us either.
We're here to collaborate.
I try to collaborate as much as I can.
Sometimes, I give them a
little bit too much to do,
and they're like, "What
are you doing, guy?"
but it's one of those things
to try to insert them so they can
get involved and really be that change
because if it's coming from them,
other students can sit there and say,
you know what, yeah, I need to stand up.
The murder that we saw is awful.
The looting is awful.
Rioting is scary.
The police that are out there, everything,
all this stuff is a scary
moment for us in America.
What's beautiful, though,
is the people that are here.
We all look different.
You can see us in all
of our different boxes.
You can see how we represent,
we look, differently.
That's what this us unique.
I'm not gonna get into
religion, but we're all here
for reasons, to really impact,
and live the best life that we can.
As educators, students,
colleagues, friends, as I said,
we are responsible to make sure
that our neighbor feels welcomed and that
we're impacting change where we can,
we're designing outlets
that can really create paths for people
to really become
who they want to be.
Shame on anybody who wants to
take that away from someone
because it is your right
to be who you want to be.
To do the right thing, I think,
is hard for some people
because you just haven't been taught.
In today's forum, we heard people
that have changed a little bit
from their original perspective.
In today's forum, we heard people cry
about experiences that they had.
In this forum, we heard
experiences, we looked at outcomes.
These spaces are built
in order for us to change
and really make a change in the world.
I really appreciate
everybody that's in here,
everyone that took the time.
We're almost three hours into this,
we scheduled it for
literally hour and a half
plus another half hour,
that's because this is real.
People really care about this.
I know as a leader, my pledge is
to make sure that I keep
fighting for students.
I've always done that.
Doris earlier spoke about movies
and "Lean on Me," and "Stand and Deliver"
were two movies that I saw
that actually triggered my mind
about standing up for other
people and being that voice.
It's always been in the back of my head
and two movies that I
love, but they were real.
Sometimes, these are
realities that we don't know.
It's okay if your reality's
different that mine
or somebody else.
That's okay, let's try
to create this change
and get ourselves to a better Bristol,
Bristol County, and a better nation.
I'd like to close up.
If anybody has anything
that they would wanna share.
If not, we will close up.
I just wanna give you next steps.
The next steps is
you will receive publications from us,
emails about the things
that we are going to do.
I don't think tonight,
anyone's gonna figure out
how to create this change immediately.
That's fine, that's for us to
work together and find out,
so shoot me an email.
Wanna have a meeting, that's fine.
If you wanna do it in your own area,
look out to the things
that are important to your area
so that we can maybe influence change
whether that's policy, a
procedure that's there,
how we recruit our students,
how we retain our student,
or even how we recruit and
retain our faculty and staff.
I was motivated this year
to help start what's called
an employee resource group
that yesterday helped me big-time.
It was employees of color.
We have a group, and we heard our stories.
We spoke for a long time
yesterday just like this.
Just understand that
we are creating spaces.
There are people who care.
You're not in this alone.
Your hearts in the right place.
This is time for us to collaborate.
This can't just be over
for you to feel good
and then say all right, I'm better now
then forget about it next week.
This is why I'm sending out these email,
so you can have actionable items,
things that you can work on.
I don't know if they're
gonna work for you.
They're things that have
worked for me others,
but you navigate through it
and see what is gonna best fit you
and what you're doing as a student,
faculty, family member, police officer.
Wherever you stand, nurse,
doctor, president of a school,
use things that are gonna help you
so we can elevate each other.
I think if we continue
to do that as a group,
as people, we can be that change.
Imagine if they look at our area,
and they say this area gets it;
look at what these student
are doing and accomplishing,
because we all got together to do that.
That would be special, and
that's something that no one
can take away from you
if you're able to create that change.
I thank you guys for everything.
I wanna thank the interpreters.
We went over.
I appreciate you guys doing that.
Wadley, thank you for
making sure I said that.
Again, Melissa, we went over.
I appreciate you.
Trying to navigate this, I hope
I did not miss anybody's information.
I couldn't get to every text
because I'm getting private
messages and things,
so I really apologize.
July 2nd is our next thing,
so hopefully I can see
you guy on July 2nd.
That would be race and
criminal justice in America,
and I will send some
information about that.
We will have local police.
Also, our public police
at Bristol will be part
of this panel and workshop
that we're gonna have.
Again, love everybody.
Thank you, guys.
Thanks for staying on
and have a great night.
If you need me, you know where I'm at.
Offer your help too.
Shoot me an email if you can
offer some help somewhere.
Let's make change.
Thank you.
- Thank you, Rob.
- Thank you.
- Thank you, Rob.
- Thank you, Rob.
- [Megan] Thank you.
- Hey, Rob.
- [Rob] Yes, sir.
- This was excellent.
Thank you for putting this on.
- I know, I appreciate that.
- If I could help
with this coalition as it goes,
we have to spit the facts.
We have to because it's ongoing.
It's years and year from
our existence obviously
is 400-something years of captivity,
but from when we came onto this Earth,
you and I in the '80s and
everything that we've endured,
we have to
give more experiences
even if applying for jobs
and the things that we
shouldn't be doing that
because of fear, we have to do it.
Like I said to you yesterday
about applying for jobs
and putting on that
application what you look like
and the fear of knowing, that
if you put that you're black,
you're not gonna get a call
and how, like I did when I
applied for the Bristol position,
I purposely didn't put what I look like
'cause I wanna be judged
on my credentials.
So when I walked in that door,
you see what I look like,
but we shouldn't have to do that.
I shouldn't have to do that.
I should be able to like put what I look
and I fit your description
of what you're looking for in an employee,
but it doesn't work that way.
That's one of the examples of privilege
and prejudice and racism across the board.
The whole of the system is just
because we don't know
who's on the other end
filtering and giving
us these opportunities.
We shouldn't have that mentality
that I should have to
hide what I look like
when I'm working for something towards,
and I feel that I'm a qualified
individual for this job.
- It's so funny that you said that.
I know I'm using the word compelled.
If you guys know me,
if I hear a word once,
I tend to use it for a whole week.
Word of the week is compelled.
I was compelled to do all these things.
I looked at myself and my career path,
and I told you that I see
people applying for jobs
that have masters degree
but I'm always told that
if I'm gonna get a job,
I need a PhD and all that,
which I am going to pursue
and I'm pursuing this fall.
I'm already in the program.
The problem is it's like
I sat back and just let
people tell me what I can do.
Positions open up and I don't even apply,
and I know I'm very capable of doing it,
then I see people that
are going for these,
and I'm like, "I coulda done
that," you know what I mean?
"I could do that."
I know what my capabilities are,
but it's almost like embedded in me.
Even as a leader, there's still
levels that I have to kinda,
so I told myself, "No more, I don't care.
If I want something, I'm
just gonna go for it.
I'm not gonna let other people tell me,
regardless of what they
qualify me as needing to have
in order to do that.
Believe it or not, it's
not coming from people
that are white that are telling me.
There are people of color saying
I need these things in order to do it,
so it's even my own people.
because we navigate a certain way.
I'm like, "Maybe I'm a little different."
When I first took over the center,
it was really a one-on-one type of center.
With it being a one-on-one center...
Sorry, I had something
here going off, alert.
I had a vision that it needed a change,
that we needed to be a
little bit more nimble,
we needed to make sure
we're more interactive,
has to be a community
so it completely took one
style and thought process
that the school didn't
think would be successful
and turn it to a way that it should be.
We're starting to see things move along
in that direction.
But people told me that
it wouldn't work my way
because it hasn't worked at Bristol.
This past year,
our goal was
to increase participation by 5%.
We increased it by 93% this year
by the data that we were taking.
You sit back and you're
like, "Why is that?"
Because we're innovative, we move,
we look at things that we wanna do,
and sometimes we hold ourselves back.
You're right, you wanna pop
in and not say who you are.
Unfortunately, when you look at my name,
you see my last name,
you already know that I
can't hide my last name.
I have to apply a particular way
because as soon as you see Delaleu,
you're looking and you think it's French.
Immediately, you look it up.
It's Haitian, so people right away
would know what my ethnicity is,
so unfortunately, I can't do that,
but I look at Bristol and
things that I've done in here,
and I'm like, "How can I
influence and let people know
"that I'm more that just," you know.
People for a long time just
called me the athletic director.
I'm not an athletic director.
I mean, I coach, but I'm
not the athletic director.
Again, it's this mindset
of where people place me.
When I was working in secondary ed.,
everyone thought I was the
security guard or gym teacher.
I'm like, "Wait a second."
I'm an athlete.
It is true.
I played college sports.
I did these things,
but it was these things that really...
there's really these things
that oppress yourself,
and you don't even recognize
that people are saying it.
It might not be purposeful,
but it has happened.
Now I've told myself, no, I'm
not gonna just shake my head
when somebody says something.
I'm gonna be like, no, this is who I am,
this is what I'm striving for
and let it be known because,
unfortunately, it's this space.
You're right, there's a space
that you get yourself trapped in,
and then we are just who we are.
Any programs in our school
that we've been involved with,
financial aid, advising,
all these different pieces,
it's something that we
wanna continue to build on.
We're well educated in those areas.
Our area's so well educated in those areas
because our students,
our first gen didn't real
have a clue going through it,
so we had to learn everything.
Every time they have
these beginning trainings,
we just know everything,
and I'm like, "Wow, we've
kinda been through it."
So need to make sure we
creating that on these campuses
where people that are
helping these students
are trained and have an
understanding of these areas
in order for that to happen,
but it also very empowering
because it'll empower you
to wanna create change,
look at jobs, then possibly
create them for others as well.
Thank you for that.
You're spot on.
- Rob, if I can just say,
as a person who is sometimes
struggling to find my voice,
I think forums like this
are really empowering
because you are a black man
who's working in higher education
and who is speaking up.
Someone mentioned earlier,
you're getting in the
room and looking around.
I think it was Wadley who mentioned
you notice these things.
I think that that's true
of all of our experiences
even at Bristol,
so it's great to have these conversations
and seeing people of color
in these leadership roles
go a longer way than others
may assume or may know.
It's not just about the students.
It's about others who
are trying to move up
within higher education
who are equally impacted.
Thank you again, this was really great.
- Thank you, and again,
thank you, guys, for coming.
It's powerful.
I feel like this is a great point,
and now we just can't drop the ball.
That's the thing, what's next?
So you guys will be hearing from me.
ERG, Gia, we would love to
have you be part of that.
Your experiences as attorney
and equal opportunity officer
doing those things, we love
to have you be part of that
and be part of a voice.
We need this to happen.
I'd love people to come by.
Come by the center, call me, you know.
- Rob I had high expectations
and you exceeded them.
- Thank you, I appreciate that.
- It was--
- Rob, quick question.
Sorry, Gia.
You're all done?
Didn't mean to interrupt you.
- I'm never done, go ahead.
Rob knows
- Rob, quick question.
You had mentioned before
that we will be receiving
more information and stuff.
Is everybody who is registered here,
or do we need to go and
sign the petition first?
- If you were registered here,
you get that information.
- All right, thank you.
- That gives me the permission.
If someone doesn't want it,
we'll put a clause like if you
don't wanna receive anything,
just send us an email.
- Okay, thank you very much.
- Everybody that's here
will be able to get that,
so when the next invite happens,
I'll still have it open to the public,
but the next invite will
be for everybody here
if they wanna attend.
If they don't wanna attend, that's fine.
We'll try to report all this
and send it out to everyone.
- Thank you very much, Rob.
- Thank you.
- Rob, it's Wendy.
My video is not available,
so that's why I didn't turn it on today,
but I have a question,
not only for myself but for
anybody who might ask me.
What is the best way
that they could get
guidance on participating?
- Again, I think there's many a ways.
The best way of participating is,
if they would like to take part in this,
we are going to put out the series
and what they are going to be.
So if you or your area have
expertise that you can help out
in some of this, so if it's health care,
so that goes for some of
our health-care departments,
if it's social, I mean criminal, justice,
so some of our criminal
justice departments,
if it's business and financial literacy,
so some of those departments,
if it's recruitment and
retention of students,
if it's inequities and
education, that can be anyone.
They could talk about the
area has a lotta inequities
that they're trying to change.
There's some barriers,
like in financial aid.
Call me, we can talk about these barriers
and figure out ways.
We've found ways.
We still don't have all the answers.
We just do what works for us,
again, being a very small department,
but it's really worked
for a lot of our students.
Sometimes, it's not even so
much being extra-creative.
It's just making a folder
and having something available for them
goes a long way.
It could be that simple,
but if they wanna be
part of the curriculum
for these sessions,
I'm open to it.
If students want to be
part of these sessions,
and they're part of that...
wanna do it as an intern
or something that they can
learn or help design it,
we're more than welcome.
We wanna be as inclusive a possible.
Community partners, if community partners
wanna be part of these series.
I'm gonna ask several of them,
but I don't know all
the community partners.
I'm only gonna ask my network of people.
I want my network of people.
I'm gonna ask them first,
but if someone is watching
this when this gets delivered,
and they get through this,
I would want them to please volunteer
and ask me how we can help.
Christian McCloskey is not here right now,
but for MLK, they were part
of that, helped us change.
Our program has changed so much
just from them adding their students,
triggered so much other
things that we started doing.
That is important,
so even though you might
have a small little part,
just your idea, a thought,
might trigger an idea to really help.
Early when Laura was saying
that all the things that you
were taking in consideration
as far as your studies,
that right there is you
have a wealth of knowledge.
Shoot me that knowledge
because there might be things
that I haven't even thought of
because I'm only speaking from my lens
and my perspective and things that I have.
The more of us, the better.
I always look at pipelining.
The way I say about it is,
"100% of you effort,"
this is from Robert Kiyosaki,
Rich Dad Poor Dad, if you
ever get a chance to read it,
what I have taken from that is,
"100% of you effort is no
greater than 1% of 100 people."
The more people we have out there
that are going good things,
we can create that change,
so let's try to develop that if we can.
Hopefully, that answers it, Wendy.
I don't have all the answers,
but if they contact me and Melissa,
we'll keep that communication moving,
and we'll try to figure
out a way to make it work.
- [Wendy] Thank you so
much, that was very helpful.
- Thank you.
Anything else, anybody?
All right, guys, I appreciate it.
- Rob.
- I think Rebecca
had a comment.
- Oh, Rebecca?
- No.
Lamont, did you have a comment?
No.
No, no comment.
- Rebecca, are you a
student at Bristol as well?
- Yeah, we were talking
about something before,
but it's really sort of...
it's not really applicable now.
She was a student at BCC, yes,
but I did wanna say something
about my own experience briefly.
I did have an experience
that I got pulled over.
I was following all the rules,
I put my hands up on the steering wheel.
The officer came to the car,
and I explained that I couldn't hear,
"I'm deaf, I can't hear,"
and he continued to talk to me
and said, "How can deaf people drive?"
I told the police officer that...
It's have to see, I'm sorry.
- He said he saw the police officer
talking to another police officer,
something about him, yeah.
- Luckily, my friend was there,
and explained that I was deaf.
It's very difficult for deaf people
when they're trying to answer.
Did you get this, Cheryl?
I'm having a hard time.
- No.
He's too far away, really.
- Far away, it's very small.
I'm really sorry.
So, there were two young boys
who were deaf.
Yeah, come a little closer to the screen.
- [Cheryl] Thank you.
- Yeah, I'm sorry, interpreters, sorry.
He said, "It's fine."
So there were two boys with their mom,
and every morning,
she would drop them off at school.
- Would sign, "I love you."
- But somehow,
there was a young boy.
I signed this sign to his mother
to say, "I love you."
The police officer thought
it was a gang sign,
that he was part of a gang
'cause they use this same hand
symbol in a different way,
and this young boy was shot.
He was shot because he
was telling his mother,
"I love you," on his way to school.
Three days later,
there was a deaf man who was signing.
He was also shot.
These are just some examples of,
in addition to being black,
being deaf and black.
So I have experienced many
of these same situations
where police officers don't
understand that we're deaf
in addition to just being black.
I know that that's the way it is
and we have to be very careful
and really watch what's
happening when anywhere,
be very aware of our surroundings
because our hearing is broken.
We have to base everything
on what we can see.
We have to be very aware of
dangers that are around us.
- What you just said is so important.
- Very tough, difficult for deaf people.
It's very difficult.
- It is.
- It's like I have this vision of--
- African people coming
to America as slaves.
Then they were split.
Now we try to come together.
Now we're being encouraged
to separate again.
All colors are beautiful.
We're beautiful.
If you don't like whatever
color you're seeing,
then you have to deal with it
because they're all out there.
They're beautiful colors to me.
Any color you want, we're all out there,
and it's all good.
- God made all of us.
- Amen, absolutely.
That's so powerful.
Not that this frames it or anything,
as a coach, I learn a lot
about the deaf community.
One of my players was
deaf, so I had to catch up
and really start learning
because, again, remember about privilege.
We talk about white privilege.
We don't understand that just
privilege is just being us
and having that understanding,
but I guarantee when they're
doing police training,
they're not talking about what happens
if you pull over a person that
is deaf or hearing impaired
or visually impaired,
or have different
abilities or disabilities.
I think that is something
that really needs to happen.
- Yes, I wish there would be
more education for the police
because they really have
a certain stereotype
about deaf people.
There's such a small
percentage of police officers
who have deaf family or
knowledge of deafness,
a very small percentage,
so most are really ignorant
about the deaf community.
- That ignorance is
something that we have to...
Your passion and the way
you explained everything
needs to be heard by others,
and I think there might be an opportunity
to link in with me so we can talk
about these type of things.
Maybe we can create programming
that is valuable to others
that look like us, but
have different abilities.
- Fine.
- That would be great,
but I did also want to introduce myself.
My name is Lamont Williamson.
I'm from South Carolina originally.
I moved to New Bedford
about two years ago.
I've been coming to BCC in
the adult education program.
I'm really pleased to meet
all of you, really pleased.
- Nice to meet you, Lamont.
Again, our Multicultural Center,
I know this is tough time,
we're located in the
building G in Fall River.
We're on the second floor,
but we do a lot of virtual
drop-in sessions and things.
So if you shoot us an email,
and we know ahead of time,
we can set up the room
so that way, we can accommodate you.
We can get the information
and build from there.
Love to take your ideas
and run with some of 'em.
- Any time you want to
get in touch with me,
you can get in touch
with me through Julie,
who's in the--
- [Cheryl] ODS.
- ODS.
- She can get in touch with me anytime.
She knows how to reach me.
- Yeah, I work with Julie a lot.
Julie is awesome, so this would be easy.
I know she's a great advocate.
Man, this is powerful, people.
I tell ya, this is powerful.
I can't even quantify it.
I can't even explain it,
but let's be the change.
Let's do something, and let me know
if you need me, I'm here.
Again, I thank you guys
for going overtime, I know,
but it's needed.
Again, nothing but love.
I'll see you guys.
- [Jenn] Thank you.
- [Marcus] Thank you,
Rob, I'ma be in touch.
- Thank you.
- Thank you, Rob, very much.
- Thanks, Rob.
- And Jessica, don't think
I didn't see your origami...
(Jessica laughs)
(Rob laughs)
I saw that.
- [Jessica] I always have
to be that person, right?
- Yeah, absolutely.
Jessica worked with me at New Bedford Voc.
She would always make me origami things,
so, and now she got that as an ornament.
- [Jessica] This, really,
it filled my heart
when my heart was feeling really depleted,
so I'm so grateful to be included in this.
I'm definitely looking
forward to more of it.
- No, thank you so much.
Thanks for being part of it.
Thanks for the support.
We're gonna go 'cause
Melissa's gonna be like,
"You keep talking," so
I'm gonna stop talking.
I'ma let everybody--
- No, no, no.
(Rob and Melissa laugh)
- [Melissa] Yeah, this was incredible.
- Have a great night, everyone.
- [Wendy] Thank you, thank you so much.
