Black Lives Matter w/ Professor Melina Abdullah

See a path forward with actions and potential treatment options that may help your eyes and protect against vision loss. Go see an I care specialists and visit now I see dot com to take charge of your eyesight. That is n ow E y E s e E dot com. And so that's what we mean when we say black lives matter. And I think that when you say, what's the greatest misconception is that it's a plea rather than a rallying cry. Black Lives Matter is a reminder to us,

what's up everybody? I'm Gammy and this is positively gam. Every week I have raw, in depth conversation with inspirational people pushing for change on everything from aging, relationships, politics, wellness to the current issues facing the black community. In this episode, we're going to be discussing one of the most talked about movements of Black Lives Matter. The message

has become a visual staple. Today we take a deeper dive to understand the mission, principles, and misconceptions of the movement, and most importantly, the impact it's had on the community. Joining me today is Dr Melina Abdullah, a professor and former chair of Pan African Studies at California State University, Los Angeles, co founder of Black Lives Matter Los Angeles. Well them, Doctor Abdullah, I am so excited to talk to you today, Like, what a way to start. I

am so excited to talk with you. Thank you so much for having me. I wanted to share space with you for quite a while, so I'm very excited to be with you. Yes, I'm glad that you took the time. Please, and there's so much to talk about, but I think I just want to start by having you explain exactly what Black Lives Matter is, how it got started, and what the mission is. Sure. So, Black Lives Matter was

built really out of tragedy and outrage. We were born the day that George Zimmerman was acquitted in the murder of Trayvon Martin, and so we remember that all across the country, people poured out into the streets. And for those of us who are mothers, the theft of Trayvon Martin's life as a black boy really resonated for us. I remember President Obama said if he had a son,

he would look like Trayvon Martin. And I actually had a son who was three years old at the time, and he not figuratively, but actually looked like Trayvon Martin. Same shiny brown skin and dancing eyes and a little bit of mischief and a lot of joy. And I think we were expecting a different outcome that you know, he Trayvon wasn't the first black boy to be killed by white supremacy, but George Zimmerman wasn't really a cop,

and he wasn't even really white. His mother's Peruvian. And we thought, the system is not gonna double down for this one. And so when it did, when it said that George Zimmerman was getting off and getting his gun back and Trayvon Martin's life didn't mean anything, I think that we had no choice. We felt compelled, We felt we were divinely inspired and compelled to do work, and

so for three days in Los Angeles we gathered. We don't really need a tweeter or a Instagram post to tell us where to go when something goes down in black Los Angeles, at least until very recently. We all went and gathered in a place called La mart Park, right off a crunch shop boulevard. And so I remember

that day. It was July two thousand thirteen, and I, along with a bunch of other folks, I had gathered three other black mamas and we did what we do, you know, fed our kids, bathed them, put them to bid, and found somebody to sit with them. And then we poured out into the streets and for three days, during the daytime we would bring our children with us, and at night we'd find somebody to sit with them. But

we engaged in what Dr Brenda Stevenson calls intuitive organizing. Right, So it's just the organized saying that you feel lad, that spirit feels fills you and pulls you into And on the third day of protest, I got a text from that originated with the sister comrade of my name, Patrese Colors she's co founder of Black Lives Matter, and she invited us to meet at her black artist community.

It's called Saint Elmo Village. And I was in the streets again with my biological children, my three children that were birth from my body, but also who I call my spirit children, who are my students from Pan African Studies at cal State l A. And that night, about thirty of us circled up in this courtyard of this beautiful it feels like an African village, and we pledged

to build a movement, not a moment. And what we didn't realize at the time is that while we were in the streets, Patrese was organizing with a sister named Alicia Garza, who I didn't know at the time but as a dear friend now. And then they later brought in Opal till Matti and say, we've been involved in struggles for justice for Oscar Grant and for Amadu Diallo and Sean Bell and Margaret Mitchell and all of these names that we could rattle off, but it's bigger than

the individual names. So we have to honor the individual names. We have to honor Trayvon spirit. And it's also about a system of policing that descends from a system of slave catching. And so it's not just about getting justice for Trayvon. We have to transform the system. We have to end that system, and so that's what we've been doing work on for the last seven and a half years.

We believe Dr Manning Marrable rites that the systems under which we live are intentionally and deliberately designed to produce the outcomes that they do. And so then our charge is in transforming those systems, toppling systems that are murderous and oppressive and violent and that steal the lives of our people, and building up new systems. So this is why we say reimagine public safety, and that's the work that we intend to do and continue to work on.

Is Black Lives Matter? That brings such clarity to me. And we're gonna delve into the defunding the police a little bit later on, But I want to ask, just considering the lengths that we have to go to just to be heard and just to be considered human beings in this country, it's exhausting. What do you think the biggest misconception about black lives matter is do we even need to be concerned about particularly white people feel about

Black lives matter. And I guess the only reason why I think about that too is because we do live in a global society and we do have to learn to get along. But we spend so much time assimilating into I'm gonna use your description, assimilation into what you describe as a white supremacist, patriarchal, heteronormative, capitalistic society. Are we losing ourselves in that? I love this question. I think the greatest victories of the Black Lives Matter era

is the unapologetically black approach that we've taken. That. No, it's not our job to convince white supremacists that black lives matter. This is not a plea. This is a rallying cry. This is an affirmation to ourselves right, a reminder of who we are, a reminder of our power are, a reminder of our beauty and creativity and the capacity that we have to really build the world in which we want to live. No, we're not pleading to anybody um to see our humanity. We know who we are.

We are the daughters of God and the sons of God, and we're divine beings, and we are Mama Harriet Tubman is our ancestor. Right. We don't need to convince white folks of our value, but we do need to remind each other that all those things that they heap upon us, that they tell us that we are, is not the truth of who we are. The truth of who we are is who our grandmother's whisper to us is. The we are the dreams of our ancestors. I saw that's a shut I think we're our ancestors wildest dreams. We

absolutely are. And so that's what we mean when we say black lives matter. And I think that when you say, what's the greatest misconception is that it's a plea rather than a rallying cry. Black lives matter is a reminder to us, perfect perfect Now. In sixteen, you did a Ted talk Molina, and it was describing resistance as the new normal. Can you break that down for me and talk to me a little bit about that? Sure? In that talk, I quoted Henry Highland Garnett who says, let

our motto be resistance. No oppressed people have ever secured their liberty without resistance. When we talk about a society that is white supremacist, patriarchal, heteronormative capitalist in its nature. We can't succumb to that system, and that's some beauty of being an African person. We have never admitted to our own oppression. We have always engage in this resistance.

So they try to take away our humanity. You know, when we think about chattel slavery um in the America's that's really the core of chattel slavery is that white folks attempted to not just steal our labor, but to dehumanize us. We never submitted to that dehumanization. We never They would call us slaves, but we never saw ourselves as such. We might have been enslaved, but we were never slaves. We were always fully human with an unbroken connection to the divine and to each other. And so

resistance is about that. Resistance is about dreaming and building a world where police are not the answer to our

questions about community safety. Where when we're in the midst of the greatest health pandemic of our lifetime, with an economic all up that's simply unimaginable, we reach back and say, what was the practice of Richard Allen and Biddy Mason and all of the founders of our sorority who said that mutual Aid that it is our sacred duty to use our collective resources to make sure that we are of service and that we are bound together to all

of our people. And so you see this like resurgence of mutual Aid where black folks every Sunday are in Lamart Park again Lamart Park right, giving away backpacks and clothes and food and cooking for each other and making sure that even though this is the worst economic crisis I remember, right, we're making sure that nobody falls off, even if they have to live in tents. We're making sure we got tents and sleeping bags to donate. And so I think that is what resistant says, and it's

also what abolition is. It's about resisting what is and imagining and building towards new worlds. So Well said, you talked about or Martin Luther King's the celebration of his birthday. You did a zoom call with co founder Patrice Colors. It was you and Trudy Goodwin, who is affectionately known as Mama True. Yes, she's one of the our our precious elders from the Black Panther Party Lamomba ben Delli, I hope I'm pronouncing these names properly and doctor I

can yale you moja. Those two are from the Malcolm X grassroots movement. So you did a zoom call and your topic was keeping us safe, that we keep us safe, we being the black community. Can you tell us a little bit about discussion about community driven approaches to keep us safe based on as you all describe, preparedness not fear. Yes, it's no secret to anybody that white supremacy, violent white

supremacy has been unveiled in this country. So it's always been there, right is it's the foundation of the America's right Um, the America's were built on the stolen land of Indigenous people and the stolen labor and stolen lives of African people. White supremacy is at the foundation. So when we hear a lot of this rhetoric about this is not who we are, No, this is absolutely who we are or who America is. America is it's not

what we wanted to be. And so how do we then do the hard work of undoing, of ending white supremacy. And as we watched that siege, that failed coup on the Capitol on Janu weary six, we were reminded that white supremacy is pervasive. It didn't begin an end with Donald Trump, right, it is everywhere, even in California, where we think we're a liberal state, and so it's important to move forward recognizing that and reminding ourselves of what got us this far down. Freedom's wrote and it was

a community driven approach to safety. That it's black folks looking out for black folks, it's working class folks remembering that our interests are aligned. It's building approaches. And I don't want to belabor it too much with a personal story, but can I tell one real quick? Yes? Please? So in August of I'm a single mom of three children. We were squatted and what that means is white premacist. And it sounds like it was clearly a white supremacist.

Typical southern white male voice called into l a p D. And made a false claim that I was being held hostage along with my three children. And this is how police are complicit, because he actually said he was trying to send a message to Black Lives Matter, So they knew right off the bat that it was not a real call. Nonetheless, police came to my home at nine o'clock in the morning, surrounded my home with assault rifles,

helicopter overhead, probably forty or soap ups. When I came to the window, I live off a crunch us, so I just thought something was going on in the neighborhood. It can be busy around here, but they were actually here from me. When I came to the window. Two officers actually pointed their A R fifteen in the window at me. So I did what mothers would do. I got my my kids to the back room, got them to safety, and I did have my comrade who helps with security present, and I just looked at him and

I said, I have to go online. And I went on Instagram Live. And I was nervous about giving my home address out on social media, but I said, I don't have a choice. So I asked everybody please get here as soon as you can, because in my mind, I said, if these people kill me, I don't want them to do it in the dark. I want everybody to see what happens. And I didn't. I wanted to keep my children as safe as possible. So they had yelled, gotten on the loudspeaker and sick everybody inside this address

come out with your hands up. So I had my children secured in a back room, had the security person staying with them, and I put my hand out the front door, and I said, there's a phone in my hand. There's just it's just a phone. And I'm thinking of Karin Gains and the way she was killed. And my kids are screaming, please don't go out. But I had to pull them away from the house because what if they started shooting into the house right with my children inside.

So as I walked out, what I didn't see when I looked out the window is there were about a dozen or so neighbors already standing outside. And when I walked onto my front walkway, and I can never tell this without tearing up. Two of my neighbors who are also parents black parents. The husband walked up. Now imagine this. A black man walks in front of these dozens of officers with the song rifles to me and he goes, sister, what are you doing? Why are you leaving the house?

And I said, my kids are inside, and he said, I get it, and he said so the sergeant says, walked towards me and otis is his name? And he said, well, if you're going, I'm going. And he put his body right in front of mine, and his wife stood beside me, and the three of us began to walk towards the police. And we got there and it was clear they knew they were just there to terrorize me. They didn't even bother to check if I was okay, if I was who I said I was, if the kids were okay.

So they were just there to traumatize and terrorize. But afterwards, Sophia and Otis had me and my kids come to their house and they fed us. And I asked Otis, I said, why did you do that? Because if there's anybody more at risk than a black woman, it's a black man, a big black man too. Yes, And he said, well, sister, if they started shooting, I wasn't gonna let you be

the one to take the first bullet. Wow. And so I'm sharing that story to say that it affirmed for me what we mean when we say we keep but safe. The police were there to maybe kill me. White supremacy was absolutely trying to kill me and possibly my children, but my neighbors. And it wasn't just Otis and Sophia, it was doesn't that's what I mean. That's why we

keep us safe as such an important mantra. It's such an important practice that we trust each other to keep each other safe, but we also provide safety to each other. So thank you for indulging me in the personal story. But it's just for me. It was um eye opening and life changing and gave me a trust in my people that I don't think could ever be quantified. Yeah, I have to experience something like that to to feel it to the depths that I'm sure that you do. Yeah,

I'm so sorry. Just sounds insane. Yeah, it was insane. It was traumatic. And again, my people helped me to heal. They donated money to put bars on my house, you know, they relocated me. You know, they made sure I was fed, my children were fed, and and that's the practice. That's what got us through. That's that's how you know, we are the descendants of enslaved people. We got each other through chattel slavery, through Jim Crow, through segregation, through cointelpro

through all of these things. We did that and that's the truth of who we are. And I just think that's a beauty of who we are. Yeah, so you talked about about healing Molina, and that was one of the points that Mama True was making in that call that you all had, and she spoke about the use of yoga and meditation and sam bowls and chanting art and music, all of those things to help keep the

community healthy spiritually. Talk to us a little bit about that, because our spiritual well being is just as important as our physical well being. Absolutely, so all of those practices that Mama True talked us through our imperative and they are spiritual well being and our physical well being are tied together. So if I don't meditate every day, I start to lose my mind. If I hadn't have been prayed up, I sincerely doubt that I would have been able to be as deliberate and calm in the midst

of crisis. And so all of that is hugely important. And I'm resistant often times to the term that people use self care because I think that sometimes that can be selfish care. But community care and healing justice are really really important, that it's important that we take the time. I have not pledged to myself that I'm gonna walk every single day, and so I have not missed today. I don't care if it's raining. I don't miss my walk,

I don't miss my meditation. And then I also believe that our spiritual practices provide us with kind of a hedge of protection that when we're doing Black Lives Matter work off in the first work we'll do is respond to a killing of somebody. Right, So somebody was killed by the police, and we go out and we're standing on their blood like literally, and when we go we poor libation m hm. And we do work spiritual work. But I still believe my Grandma's with me and she's

not gonna let nobody touch me either. I think that's really important. It really is helpful, believe it or not, because during these times when you know I and I had to remove myself from social media. I've talked about this before. I have to remove myself from social media from time to time because I get so riled up and I'm not out there on the front lines like you and and so so many of the people that I've spoken with comfortably in my home but just full

of frustration and feeling very helpless and hopeless. So these measures to keep yourself aware but also to keep yourself in a safe and calm space spiritually and mentally is so important so that we can figure out what it is that we're what our role is supposed to be to support all of you. I want to talk about that a little bit later, but that is important too, because we have a part to play in all of

this as well. But so let's talk a little bit more about your ideas about defunding the police, because for me, I feel like defunding the police is just the beginning of trying to change a system that actually needs to be just abolished and recreated a completely different way. But understanding that that is such a challenge and that's gonna take time. We certainly, like I said, starting can start

with just defunding. So talk to us about the audience, because I think people have a total misconception about that. Of course, So see, Gammy, this is what I've been wanting to get with you. I love what you're saying. Absolutely, defund the police was a budgetarian. We thought it was a real league modest way of getting to abolition right then, and and I know it takes a while to bring

people along with us, but abolition is absolutely necessary. It would be ridiculous for us to say, you know what, we don't want to abolish slavery, let's just reform it exactly exactly. That's real time, right, I just gotta go. Police are a vestige of chattel slavery. Police are the evolved form of slave catchers. So as ridiculous as it would be to say reform chattel slavery, that's the same ridiculousness with which we have to meet the idea of

reforming policing. That said, not everybody is there, and they go, well, what do we do about safety if we don't have police, because they haven't taken time to be imaginative and even be thoughtful. Right, I don't know anybody black who feels safer when a police our pools up behind them. But it was really easy. So about a year into Black Lives Matter, we got a copy of the city budget.

We were staging a protest and somebody handed us a copy of this city budget and inside it had this pie chart and it was all of the city's general funds and how it's divided up. And at the time, the portion of the city's general fund that went to police was over fifty And we've been studying this, but to see it in a pie chart. We're like, over fifty percent of the city's general fund is going to

l A p D. That's ridiculous. And so then we started sharing it with people who might have more conservative views than ours, and even conservatives were going more than that's crazy, that's ridiculous. So that's when we started talking about defunding the police. If you're spending three billion dollars on l A p D, that's three billion dollars you don't have to spend on after school programs or libraries or mental health. And so we started talking about defund

the police. And then it became when George Floyd's body was stolen, it became this kind of clarion call of the moment of the movement, moment defund the police. It was a logic of if we divest from the police that put targets on the backs of black people, we can invest in the things that actually keep communities safe.

And that's what defund the police is about. We always couple defund the police with reimagine public safety, because we want to use those dollars for the things that keep communities safe, and that to me is so in line with what vice President Harris is suggesting to rethink how we think about community safety. And it doesn't have anything to do with adding more police. It's about providing for It's about providing housing, jobs and jobs, opportunity, healthy foods,

quality education, quality healthcare, all of those things. If you have those things, your crime rate is going to drop and you don't need the police. Absolutely, that's absolutely right, And they even admit it. They even admit that police have no business being mental health providers. No, mental health providers are good at their jobs. Educators, when they're provided with enough resources, are great at their job. So how

can we invest in those kinds of things. Yeah. One thing that was really helpful for me during the this period last year when it was time to vote was because I was new to Los Angeles as a resident, and Black Lives Matter had on their Instagram all of the their views on all of the propositions that were out, all of the candidates that were out, and it was extremely helpful to me as someone who was new to the area to help me understand the views and the

history of the candidates, to understand all those million and one propositions that were up. And these are the kinds of things that organizations provide for people that are unaware and to help them make informed decisions when it comes to voting. And as a result, we were able to flip the Senate And what are can you tell us some of the things that black lives matter? Some of your successes and wins during the election, and electoral politics is not our primary work. Right out in the streets,

we like I like it. I get a little therapy from being able to cuss out the police chief, right, but electoral politics is important. So what we adopted is a model of vote and organized You know, voting also can't be discounted, right when we lift up ancestors like Fannie lou Hamer, we cannot say Fannie Lou Hamer's name and then not go out and vote. So we absolutely have to do that work. And so we we said we organized to get to the polls, but then we

also have to keep organizing after election day. Some of the victories that we won are absolutely getting the evil that was occupying the White House out. So we gotta be real clear, it's black people who voted Donald Trump out. We some were enthusiastic about Kamala Harris. I don't know many people who were enthusiastic about Joe Biden. But if that's what it took to get Donald Trump out, hey, and we've been able to at least get Joe Biden and saying as inaugural address that he's gonna work to

end white supremacy. So there's a win right there, getting racial equity on the agenda of the new administration as a victory. But then there's also other electoral winds. We were able to pass Proposition sixteen, which gave formally incarcerated people it restored their voting rights in the state of California.

That was huge, hugely important. We have people who joined Black Lives Matter, um a brother named Eric who said, you know, this is why I joined Black Lives Matter, because I'm able to vote for the very first time. We were able to get rid of the district attorney in Los Angeles County, who's one of those folks that Zora Neil Hurston says all skin folk and kin folks.

So we had a disc rick attorney who was one of those happens to be black people who actually signed off on the murders of six hundred forty three people at the hands of police. And refused to press charges against the officers who killed our people, even fourteen year old Jesse Romero, who was killed when he was he was just accused of tagging. I don't know a fourteen year old child who hasn't written on something other than paper.

Sixteen year old A. J. Weber, who was murdered while he was leaving a Super Bowl party by Los Angeles County Sheriff's right. She signed off on those killings. And for three years we protested outside of her office, and then the election opened up the way for all of that political education we've been doing for three years. We've been saying that she was complicit in these murders for three years, and people heard us and they voted against her.

And this is over. Let me tell you, Gammy, the police associate Shans we're spending millions of dollars to try to get her reelected. We have no money. Black Lives Matter just got its few first chunka change recently. We are not paid organizers. I got a whole another job, all of us do. But we overcame all of those millions of dollars of police associations because for three years

we've been talking to our neighbors. We've been building an awareness and community, and we got Jackie Lacey out of office, and actually the d A who new d A George Gascon, who is a white appearing Latino man who it doesn't like. When you look at these two, you'd say, why are they going? But he adopted our platform. He has reopened cases already. He has said children will no longer be tried in adult courts. He said he's ending the death penalty,

he's ending gang enhancements. He says people will only be prosecuted for the crimes that they're currently accused of. They're not going to be prosecuted because they live in the wrong neighborhood. And so we're really excited about that victory. UM. We also against summoning an ancestors recently launched a website which we call our Contemporary Red Record in honor of Ida b. Wells, were painstakingly keeping track of every single person who was killed by police in Los Angeles County.

We are naming them. We have part of the site is called more than a Hashtag l a dot org where we tell their stories. But then another side of the site is called Prosecute Killer Cops. Dot org. And we are exposing these police who sometimes kill not one, not two, not three, but four in five people, so that if the prosecutors aren't going to prosecute them, the neighbors are communities can say these people are unsafe in

our neighborhood. Yeah, this is so important. I'm telling you, I'm so glad that I had the opportunity to talk to you today because this is a kind of information that people need to be aware of. People that are interested and want to know and want to know how to stay involved. This is how you keep yourself informed about what's going on. We're going to move into as we end with our wouldn't you like to know questions?

And for the listeners, is there are reading lists that you would suggest of books that we might want to read that would help enhance our awareness and knowledge of what we're going through or whatever you you would want to suggest. Sure, So I'm a professor, so I could give you fifty books, but I'll just give you Sure. I forgot about that at the moment. Yeah, so I would absolutely read Patrice Colors. When they call you a terrorist, that's a must read. I'd also think, yeah, it's yes, yes,

and there's a young adult version too. I know you've got some young adults in your life. There's a young adult version as well. I'm I'm starting to read Stacy Abram's book Lead from the Outside and it's really really good. And then for me, the classic book is Black Power by for me Terray and Charles Hamilton's I believe everybody should start their politicization with that book. Of course, there's the autobiographies right by a Satish Shakur, Taste of Power

by Elaine Brown. Sometimes those auto bio biographical pieces are really good in pulling you in and they're good stories, right, yeah, yeah, Okay, what's one thing you want to get off your chest? I don't know if you have one. I don't know if you have just one thing. Yes, I'll say this in a nice way that liberal white supremacy is as

problematic as violent, blatant white supremacy. So all these liberal white folks who want to brag about their one black friend at the dinner table, if you are passing policies and engaging in ways that are oppressive to black people, you are just as racist as the blatant white supremacists that you claim. The counter exactly, and you are just as much of the problem. You are not part of the solution. Don't get it twist right, Yeah, what's a motto that you live by? A Bible verse? Faith without

works is dead? Is dead, faith without works. And my kids, I can tell you, they actually think that I came up with that. I had to show them, No, this is in the Bible because I say so much. Faith without works is dead. Before you, Lee, please tell where people can find you on social media. Sure you can find me on social media at doc Meli mel d O c M E L y M E L and Black Lives Matter is on Twitter at b l M l A and on Instagram at b LM Los Angeles. Thank you so much, Dr Melina. I swear it was

just we could go on forever. You could go on forever. Maybe I'll have to have you back again, and maybe we should start that private bookball. Yes, I would love that. I would love that. I hope that this is not the last, but the first of many times that we share space. Thank you, Thank you so much, Melinah. And these are my takeaways from my conversation with Dr Melina Abdullah. Be creative when considering how to be a good ally. Use your voice, your platform, your artistry, and your dollars

ten toes down. This is a movement, not a moment. Now is the time for transformation. Use reliable and very available resources to keep yourself informed so you can participate, not just be a bystander. This is our community and your involvement matters. And lastly, build Black by Black, Bank Black. If you're listening on Apple podcasts, be sure to rate and review. Follow me on my Instagram at gammy nars to share with me your thoughts on the episode. I'm here,

I'm talking, and I'm listening. As always, stay grateful y'all. Positively GAM is produced by Westbrook Audio Executive producers Adrian van Field, Norris, Jada Pinkett Smith, Amanda Brown and Faloner co executive producer Sam Hati, Associate producer Erica Ron and Crystal Devons, Editor and mixer Calvin Bailiff. Positively Gam is in partnership with Art nineteen h