"Democracy in the Streets," a Conversation with Shapearl Wells and Jamie Kalven

to practice social distancing and safety. I've been sheltered in place for three months with six kids, so I'm a little cuckoo. But but you know, I would say that we've survived, and I've received so many compassionate letters. Yeah, just as in the past couple of weeks we have seen the death of George Floyd and how it has impacted everyone around the world and sparked um a myriad of protests and some violence, and so Jamie and I

today are taking a moment just to to decompress. I have been hearing from people all over the country and internationally, and my sense is that there's this hunger and craving people have for language, for a way of describing this moment so that they can find their place sent that I know. For me, the thing that has just most occupied my thoughts is this extraordinary outpouring right now in the second week of civil resistance. Democracy is now in

the streets. It is, It definitely is, and and I've been glued to the TV almost twenty four hours. I've had many sleepless nights because I'm wondering, what if this is gonna last? Is it going to translate to some type of legislation, because I think it's just more than just protesting for George Floyd. This is for all the victims who have been victims of police brutality as well

as also unsolved murders. I was telling people that it's an undercurrent that has risen up and it's overflowing at this point because they have been marginalized and disenfranchised in Chicago for so long, and so now you see them telling them enough is enough. And that's what we're seeing. This is not just about policing. I think what the pandemic has done to an extraordinary degree is kind of laid bare the fundamental underlying structures of inequality, racial inequality

in the society. George Floyd is the face of it, But what the sentiment, the power, the force, and as you said, a moment ago enough enough really seems to me to be speaking to these underlying conditions, these underlying pathologies. And I think about our work a lot in this context. You know, we're known as investigative reporters, and investigative reporters are seen as exposing what's hidden. But I actually don't

think that's what our work is. I think our work is making visible what's in plain sight and not seen. And this moment feels like that's really what's happened, Like a curtain has been pulled back and we're all able to see the same thing. Whether that lasts, as you say, is the big question. How it translates into meaningful change at a practical level. You know, that's we don't know.

Everybody was talking about the looters, looters, looters, loss. I said, I don't care about the looters, and people were like, what do you think, are you agreeing with the looting? No, I'm not. I'm saying you don't know their condition, you don't know why they have to go out there and loot. You don't know what they were, what they were, what

they were dealing with prior to this pandemic. Of course they're gonna loose because there is a survival mode there in survival mode, And that's what I was trying to get people to understand. Is that not that I agree with any lootent or violence, because I don't, But the fact is is that our country has disenfranchised them and marginalized them far too long, and that's what they're crying out for help and for them to expose the inequities

that are in this country. You know, I completely agree, And I also think that one of the things that's happened as this pattern across the country of civil resistance has advanced over these days is that the looting, the provocateurs, and there are some, are now being seen as a much more marginal phenomena. The main event is an extraordinary outpouring of citizens asserting themselves at a time when our

democracy is virtually in collapse. And I am a child of the sixties, and I grew up inside the civil rights movement in this city on the South Side, and you know, we have seen since the seventies um the steady inexorable UH, dismantling of the achievements of the civil rights movement, the gutting of the Voting Rights to Act, the opening of um, inequality and um and poverty and certain abandoned neighborhoods and parts of the society. So I think some of the reaction now is against that as well.

You know that we have tolerated, we have somehow accommodated ourselves in our lifetimes, you and me, in our lifetimes, this, this grotesque inequality in American life has um has normal. It became a norm. It became the norm. It became the norm, like it was acceptable that people didn't have access to high quality healthcare, food, jobs, education. It became acceptable to the to the mass. And that's what it was showing to me, that people were saying, enough is enough.

I Am not going to take it anymore. So when you see all these people that are out in the street, and I'm very encouraged to see that the majority of the people what I'm seeing out there are not black people. It is people of all racist creeds and colors. A lot of young white folks that are out there protesting alongside the black lives matter groups because they get it and they're trying to transform this country. And then we have to deal with what we have in the White House.

I don't know if you know this, but I early in my career I spent a number of years finishing a book on the First Amendment that my father, who is a law professor, had been working on when he died, and he left in unfinished manuscript. The title of the book, which and I titled it, is a worthy tradition freedom of speech in America. Central to the book is the idea that the First Amendment, freedom of speech, freedom of association are something more in America than just a body

of law, than a group of legal precedents. There's really a tradition of the society of freedom loving people. And it's at times like this that we realize that it's it's us as individual citizens. It's the you know, rainbow coalitions of people in the street right now, who are the fundamental guardians of our constitutional freedoms in our democracy. And you know, as we live out this kind of nightmare at the federal level, this is the most encouraging moment.

I mean, I feel amid all the hardship, amid you know, all the heartbreaking occasions, George Floyd and the countless names we can recite, including Courtney Copeland that despite all that, I am so happy to be alive at this moment. Yes,

I agree, Jamie. I just think that that's why it's so important that we encourage the young people who are out there protesting to go out there and register to vote and to make sure they get to the polls in November, because that translates into a legislative agenda that we can push that is progressive, that protects these laws. And so I just think that, you know, we have to begin to also to um turn this pain that

we're in right now into a purpose. And I always say that because that's what I've tried to do with Courtney's podcast, with Cordney's Life, And how can I change what I'm feeling that's very painful into something meaningful, not only for myself but for everyone. And I think the thing about a crisis profound and immediate dangerous coexist with great possibilities for positive change, and they exist in the same moment. You know, I often get asked, how do

I continue to go on? I said, you'd be surprised what you can do when your back is against the wall, how much power you have, how much energy you have to push forward? Because your back is against the wall, you have nowhere else to go but forward. And that's what I tell people when asked me, how do I keep doing this in the midst of all that I have endured? And I tell them it's it's It's not me, It is the force of God that is pushing me for to show everybody that, hey, this injustice is happening,

and so we cannot allow it to happen. We have to change it. I would be really pessimistic if we had this level of injustice, if we were actually doing our best, that would be depressing that there are so many things that are subject to being fixed. You know, you and I have talked. I mean, and I really do think that the challenge for any movement when there's this level of moral passion is to translate the moral passion into concrete, practical interventions that people can advocate for

and do. And you know, it brings me to one of the things that is so prominent in somebody, which is scoop and Rum. Scoop and Rum is a program that they have in Philadelphia, where I book with a guy named Ian Hurst Herman's and basically he was shot and he was picked up by the cops, taking immediately the hospital within five minutes. That saved his life. That is a policy. It is not a law in Philly. It is a policy and it's something that the police

have decided to enact to save lives. And so I thought about proposing that same type of legislation here in Chicago, and I've been working with my state representative in regards to getting that funded and actually put into effect. If scoop and run is implemented in the Chicagoland area in Illinois, it has to be a law. It can't be a discretion of the police because unfortunately they don't have that

rapport with citizens and they're picking and choosing. They're picking to see just like with Cordney, they picked to choose who they want to help and who they don't. We know, if Courtney had been a young white man, he would have been rushed to the hospital, but because he was a black man, they took their time. You know, there's there's talk, including in this city about really aggressive community policing. So more and more interactions hopefully positive interactions between police

and citizens. I'm actually not sure that's the direction to go. I think it would be healthier to think about the limits of law enforcement, you know. I mean, I've been in situation you may have when you need a police officer. You need a police officer. So there's a certain area where the police perform a critical function that no other institution can can perform. We've asked them almost by default, to do all sorts of things they're they're not equipped

to do. So I think, you know, kind of pulling in the boundaries around law enforcement and defining what it is that you know, police uniquely are equipped and trained and suitable to do, and then as a com unity, thinking about other functions that we now have the police performing, however poorly, that are important functions but need to be performed by the community or in other ways. And so it's interesting to talk about scoop and run in that context because it does seem to me that it falls

within those limits of law enforcement. You know, they either they have they get a call because of a shooting or are somehow involved. Um that immediate aftermath and the aftercare and as you've said, Courtney's one example of countless instances wherein the interval between, you know, when somebody hits the ground having been wounded and arrives at a hospital, there could have been such a different outcome if the police saw it as a fundamental part of their role.

I think that would alter perceptions of the of the police. Ian even talked about how he had the the officers who saved his life named tattooed on his body. I mean, he has so much gratitude for them, and I know that had that my son been saved that he would have probably down the same thing. The police are not the problem. The culture of the police is the problem, and so you have to begin to dismantle the culture. I believe. You know that police are necessary to put

to protect the citizens. I believe that. But I think that we have to change their culture and mentality, their preconceived notions that they have a black and brown people. That's what needs to change. We need to teach the police differently. I think there's also a perspective on systems and the way systems interact with cultures. We spend a lot of time allocating blame to individuals. That allocation of individual blame has been absolutely necessary and impart none of

it changed systems. The conviction of Jason Van Dyke, I don't think it makes the next police shooting, and I owe it less likely. The good cops feel trapped and they feel obligated to align themselves with the bad ones. And that's what I talked about. The culture. That's what really needs to change, and it has to come from the leadership. Everything that happened to Coordney, yes it was wrong,

but it was absolutely legal. How atrocious is that? I think what's so powerful about Courtney's story and the way you tell it and somebody is it really is about the system. It's not a story with an evil villain that explains an active, just indescribable cruelty like the um the knee on Floyd's neck or the shooting of Lakwon McDonald as he as he walked away. You know, those

are acts of of individual cruelty. That I mean, you don't need to know the officer to be able to describe those as acts of personal evil, just on the basis of the act itself. Um, what happened to Courtney, in my understanding of it, as as you've shared, the story has so much more to do with systems and cultures and expectations. And I think that's our challenge, you know, when we think about what happened to George Floyd. You know,

it was hard for me to watch that video. It was just like so painful as a mom to hear him cry out for his mom, and I and I and I sat and I thought about it, and I was like, that's what my son was doing. I know he was calling for me. Even though we didn't have any audio, you could see that he was begging for help, and I know he was wanting me to be there by his side. And it was just like, you have all these people around him. And that's what's so hard

when we talk about the culture. What I think that the Chicago Police Department needs to put that empathy back in that force because if that was their child, if that was their child that they saw lying on the ground begging for help and they don't respond, we can't. We can't allow our police force to not have feelings. And that's what we're seeing. We're seeing them not have feelings.

We're seeing them prejudge, We're seeing them listen to the negative connotation about black and brown people and running with it, and those are the things that we need to change, and we need to translate that into effective policy and scooping run would be something that will not only help save lives but also build repport between the community and the police. I completely understand the focus on police shootings and police the police murders, and it happens far, far

too much. But in the larger scheme of things, it doesn't happen that often compared to all the other interactions that devalue black citizens in which they aren't seen or in which they're seen in light of preconceptions, um and not realities. You know, that's where the discourse needs to

ultimately go, and those things aren't trivial. Those small interactions, you know, some act of disregard, disrespect, not seeing as you say that the police officer may have forgotten about within ten minutes, can leave an indelible and especially especially with young people, I think what's interesting working with young people around these issues is they're forming their understanding of

the world. It's like the molecules are moving around and you can actually watch the formation of of their attitudes and it's often some um, you know, dismissive word or just all these ways of showing a lack of regard and and we're you know, one of the things we're doing at the Invisible Institute, you know, our basic mission is to help citizens hold police account police and public

institutions accountable. Is we're really encouraging people, you know, in Chicago to get in touch with us with any information about individual police officers using excessive force. You know, CPDP are Database of Police Disciplinary Information, is widely being used as a resource by people to check the disciplinary histories of particular officers. So I think that's also a power

that we have collectively to monitor police performance. That also tells the police, hey, you're being watched, that there is somebody else that's going to hold you accountable. And I think that's part of the challenge for all of us, if we're going to realize this extraordinary opportunity we have, is going to be not too to humanize each other

in the process. And I think that's always the extraordinary thing about non violence when it's practiced well, it's definitely been enlightening as well as educational as always to sit with you, Mr Calvin and to actually just to unpack the last couple of weeks in Chicago. I think that what we're seeing is something that's beautiful yet painful, but I think that it has a way of translating into something that's going to be really great for this country.

I agree, and I feel my heart is full at the moment just having this opportunity with you to to debrief and kind of compare notes. And I hope we can do it again sometime soon because things are moving so fast. But it feel it feels like I'm us, we wake up in a new world every day. Yes, so let's make a day to do it again soon. Yes, we're gonna have to break more bread and have more dinners than everything once coronavirus is gone. Looking forward to it. Yes,

me too. Every bide, so bide every day? No side nothing, Oh no. Yes. This bonus episode of Somebody was produced by Bill Healey, Sarah Guys, and Alison Flowers. Special thanks to Bart Warshaw. Follow The Invisible Institute at at I N V I N s T on Twitter and follow me at Chaparral