- As to law enforcement, police
reform is an immediate action
item. Advocacy groups
have released lists of demands
on that front.
More than 65 organizations
cosigned such a list
published by the
African-American Roundtable
in Milwaukee.
It includes calling for police
to stop using rubber bullets
and tear gas on protesters,
doing away with curfews,
withdrawing the National Guard
and shifting funds away from
the police and putting that
money toward health and housing
initiatives.
Joining me now is Angela Lang,
executive director of Black
Leaders Organizing Communities,
or BLOC.
She joins us from Milwaukee.
And thank you so much for doing
so.
- Thanks for having me.
I think this conversation is
important. Thank you.
- Why has every state in the
nation and Wisconsin
risen up to protest the killing
of George Floyd?
- Yeah, I mean, I get this
question a lot.
I think, you know, we've seen
murders at the hands of police
for decades now.
You know, even the Rodney King
beatings. This is not something
that's new for us.
But I think, you know, the way
I kind of frame it and the way
I think about it is that it's
it's like a soda can that's
just been shaken up for years
and decades and with no
real tangible solutions
in ways for
real, truly policy
reform.
To me, I feel like this was
only a matter of time.
I tell people all the time, I
was in college when Trayvon
Martin was was murdered.
And, you know, Dontre Hamilton
in 2014 in Milwaukee
and Sylville Smith in 2016.
And this feels different.
It feels that, you know,
society, black and brown
and indigenous folks, we're all
saying enough is enough.
And, you know, we keep seeing
these things happen and there's
these outcries.
And then a couple months later,
it seems to go back to business
as usual.
And I think what we're seeing
is really community
and society as a whole
saying enough is enough and we
want real policy and
legislative changes.
- Because what does Floyd's
death represent?
- I think it represents
murder at the hands of police
due to
a structural
system
that's really rooted in white
supremacy.
When we think about law
enforcement, we can really
look at the history
of of sheriffs' departments
and law enforcement in general
that were really enacted
during slavery to catch
runaway slaves.
And when you're founded on that
history and
you know, this system is only
evolved, it still has its
roots in white supremacy.
And we've seen just
these killings and these
murders really just be at the
hands of law enforcement that
are meant to protect us.
It represents the
black and brown bodies
that are being criminalized
merely for existing.
You know, you can't walk down
the street. You can't listen to
loud music.
You can't sleep on a park
bench.
There's so many things that
that we can't do.
And we're being criminalized
just for merely existing.
We can't run away.
We can't
wear a hoodie.
We can't buy Skittles.
There's so many different
things that we are
criminalized doing.
And I think his death
and quite frankly, his murder
is really a symbolic
of how black people and
brown people are viewed in this
country.
And the stereotypes and threats
that people think and impose
on us.
- How exhausting is that for
you and others to fight
the same fight over
and over again?
- It's incredibly exhausting.
It's draining.
It's traumatizing.
It's triggering.
It's emotional.
It's, it's something
that seems like it's an ongoing
issue.
I've been organizing for about
12 years now and
pretty much since day one, I
haven't always organized
around these issues, but these
issues always cropped up and it
really intersected in the
organizing that I was doing.
And it seems that things
aren't changing and so
much has happened in our
country and in this city and in
this state just in the last
week and a half.
And
being honest, I cried
a lot this last week and a
half. Last weekend, I needed
to turn my phone off and take a
mental health break.
I woke up Friday
at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning
and seeing Donald Trump's
tweets about
if the looting starts, start
shooting.
All of that is incredibly
dangerous and frightening
for communities of color.
And to have to constantly,
you know, be in the streets,
either taking a knee like Colin
Kaepernick and peacefully
protesting or
escalating.
It seems that we're not being
heard and we have to
really beg for our own dignity
and for our lives to
be just as valued as
as our allies and as white
folks. And it's incredibly
exhausting to constantly have
conversations and to constantly
be in this fight to really
just amplify our own dignity
that people, for whatever
reason, don't naturally see.
- One of the things organizers
and the advocates have signed
on to is an official
declaration of racism
as a public health crisis.
What would follow from that
kind of declaration?
- Yeah, I think it's really
important. I think that's a
first step is to really label
how racism has impacted
us. Whether it's in terms
of trauma or
being murdered at the hands of
police and everything in
between.
It is a public health issue
when black girls
are going missing or are being
trafficked, that is a public
health issue.
When indigenous women
and girls are going missing,
that's a public health issue.
And we should be treating
racism like that as such.
When we see trans
women specifically being
murdered and hate crimes on
the rise.
All of that, those are hate
crimes and that should be
treated as a public health
issue. And we need policies
to really protect all of the
marginalized communities.
We need to be able to
understand the white
supremacy that is deeply
entrenched in our law
enforcement and in our
policies, how we're able
to express ourselves,
understanding our limitations.
And we're not really offered
the ability to thrive
and to dream the way that other
communities are.
And so I think it really goes
to really evaluating
how money is allocated,
whether it's on a statewide
level or even on the local
level.
In Milwaukee, nearly 50% of
the city budget goes to the
police department, while
the health department, which
houses the Office of Violence
Prevention, is only funded
at about two to three percent.
That is an incredible lopsided
budget and it really doesn't
prevent crime and it doesn't
protect our communities.
And so we really need to think
about how we're investing. And
ideally a deep
divest from
the criminal justice system.
You know, typically we spend
more on the Department of
Corrections and the Department
of Justice than we do on our
education system.
That goes to show what our
values are.
And budgets truly are moral
documents. And we really need
to allocate dollars
to actually divesting
from the police department and
putting it into resources
such as mental health.
Making sure everyone has access
to quality health care, to
quality education, to
youth opportunities
in the summer.
Transportation so people can
get to living wage jobs.
All of those things are
factors about a safe
community and lead us to
actually have a decrease in
crime instead of actually
spending so much money on law
enforcement that, as we're
seeing right now, is is only
escalating the crime.
- In the wake of George Floyd's
death, has violence in the
streets during protests
co-opted the message
in your mind and taken
attention away from the
discussions of racism
and deaths of black people
and these inequities of which
you speak?
- You know, I think the
violence or the looting
is is being framed
in a difficult way.
No one wakes up and is so
angry and so traumatized.
No one wants to wake up and be
that angry and burn something
down.
And I think it's not really our
job to tell people how
they should deal with their
trauma when we're seeing
very public executions.
You know, people are saying
that these are modern day
lynchings.
And we saw when Colin
Kaepernick took a knee and
he peacefully protested and the
backlash.
And so, you know, for people to
kind of, for lack of a
better term, told police
how people are expressing their
trauma and frustration.
It's, it's difficult.
And I think it's it's taking
away from the message of the
pain and the hurt.
And again, it's not ideal.
No one wants to be burning
things down in order to
be heard.
But I think there are some
times where people feel like
that is the only way.
You protest peacefully
you're not being heard.
And so I think it's it's
natural. And I think it's
understandable that people feel
the need to lash out in this
way. And we really need to, in
that particular conversation,
we really need to be censoring
people's lives over
the value of property.
At the end of the day, property
can be replaced.
People's lives cannot.
- Midweek, as you know,
criminal charges were upgraded
against the Minneapolis
police officer who knelt on
the neck of George Floyd
and the other officers
are now being charged.
What's your reaction to that?
- You know, I think it's a step
in the right direction.
You know, it's it's
encouraging.
We'll see how the system
plays out. If I'm honest,
I'm never
too reliant and too confident
on the criminal justice system
as how things play out.
We see how it disproportionately
impacts our community.
And we've seen time and time
again officers being acquitted.
And just because charges may be
brought, we really want to
see the charges
be able to stick and people
actually being able
to be held accountable.
And I think also, you know, I
get this question, too, as you
know, just because charges are
brought, do I think that the
protests are going to die down?
And I think we're living in on
this precipice right now that
is so much bigger
than than George Floyd.
I think people are really
starting to understand that
this is a systemic problem
and this may have been the
catalyst and the spark for that
change. But people are really
peeling back the layers in the
historical context of
everything that brought us to
this point.
And so even if everything plays
out the way that we want it to.
We also need to make sure that
we're making concrete reforms
in the future to make sure that
this is never something that
can ever be allowed to happen
again.
- Angela Lang, thank you very
much for your time.
- Thank you. I appreciate it.