9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 1[br]0:08[br]biggest misconception about misdemeanors is that they are minor to start hearing more and more stories 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 2[br]0:14[br]of voter suppression that broke my heart they're the ones that are using the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 3[br]0:25[br][Music] system 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 4[br]0:32[br]my grandma was fighting for integration back in her day and i'm fighting for the same thing now 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 5[br]0:41[br]the problem is the system is working the way it's supposed to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 6[br]1:12[br]we're recording all right 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 7[br]1:17[br]sometimes i feel like my life ended that day my car died on the side of the road a 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 8[br]1:24[br]cop walked over to my car and asked me if i needed help and i said no john clark was convicted 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 9[br]1:29[br]on a misdemeanor gambling charge and was forced to work on a chain gang i just remember being pushed 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 10[br]1:34[br]like being cornered into a wall i was just starting out life and i didn't 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 11[br]1:40[br]think i had anything to hide mary gay was sentenced to 30 days plus court costs for stealing a hat i was arrested that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 12[br]1:46[br]evening it was a misdemeanor that was the beginning of the nightmare that i had to go through 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 13[br]1:52[br]henry nelson was arrested for using abusive language in the presence of a female and was sent off to the coal mines he 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 14[br]1:58[br]said you're going to jail and i'm like what for 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 15[br]2:10[br]misdemeanors have historically been the chump change crimes that we didn't pay attention to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 16[br]2:17[br][Music] i just got beat up by the police last night but i could have lost my life 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 17[br]2:23[br]13 million well that's about 80 percent of all american criminal documents 80 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 18[br]2:30[br]of what our criminal courts do is misdemeanors the story of misdemeanors is the story 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 19[br]2:37[br]of law enforcement continuing to prioritize african americans mexican immigrants america's so-called 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 20[br]2:44[br]criminal class you act like i really just committed a serious crime i did do something illegal you crossed the crosswalk 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 21[br]2:50[br]you might see two or three police standing and waiting cops to jump out the van anytime anywhere 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 22[br]2:56[br][Applause] the misdemeanor system has not gotten its fair share of blame misdemeanors 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 23[br]3:05[br]are the invidious first step in the racialization of crime in this country too often 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 24[br]3:11[br]arrests for minor crimes devolve until police violence and death for black and brown people 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 25[br]3:32[br][Music] 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 26[br]3:44[br]they got me jaywalking not wearing a seatbelt my taillight was out i was arrested 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 27[br]4:03[br]how far back that goes is a really dark [Music] 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 28[br]4:12[br]story 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 29[br]4:18[br]reconstruction was an error when four million african americans made it out of bondage and were able to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 30[br]4:24[br]achieve at really high levels whether it was in business in education 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 31[br]4:31[br]different ways of prosperity that really threatened white supremacy 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 32[br]4:37[br][Music] they elected many black men to positions 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 33[br]4:42[br]of power [Music] of course that was a sea change from how 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 34[br]4:49[br]power had been exercised during slavery and a lot of white folks just didn't like it 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 35[br]4:58[br]they were nostalgic for the old days of overt white supremacy and so they 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 36[br]5:05[br]subverted reconstruction if you look at misdemeanors and you 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 37[br]5:10[br]track them from the reconstruction area to modern day you see the fingerprints everywhere of white supremacy and control of black 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 38[br]5:17[br]bodies the bland owners they had nearly lost everything 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 39[br]5:23[br]and the only way to get that back is to somehow corral the black labor force back into the same 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 40[br]5:29[br]plantations that they had once worked the most effective way of forcing 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 41[br]5:35[br]african-americans back into this condition that would be so similar to slavery was to begin to criminalize black life 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 42[br]5:42[br]itself misdemeanor offenses for incredibly trivial or made-up things 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 43[br]5:48[br]what should have been tiny penalties for non-existent defenses turn into years of people's lives where 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 44[br]5:55[br]were you taken i was taken out to the camps where did you sleep 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 45[br]6:02[br]slept on some hay chain was on me i'm being put into handcuffs i'm being 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 46[br]6:07[br]dragged into this cold space i don't have anything to cover myself and i'm asked to sit inside of this tiny 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 47[br]6:13[br]little room and i have no idea why i'm there was there any jury that tried you no sir 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 48[br]6:20[br]did the recorder ask you whether you wanted a lawyer no sir and i thought that i would have time to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 49[br]6:25[br]talk to a court appointed attorney so we could talk about what happened i can ask them to get other you know pieces of evidence that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 50[br]6:31[br]would prove that hey i'm poor it wasn't like i was trying to run off with this money did they furnish any copy of the charge 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 51[br]6:37[br]against you no sir they did not did they give you any opportunity to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 52[br]6:43[br]plead to any accusation it never gave me anything at all when they asked me how i played i played no 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 53[br]6:49[br]contest i didn't understand that no contest is the same as guilty and that i would walk away with a 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 54[br]6:55[br]misdemeanor that would affect my ability to get hired 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 55[br]7:06[br]the justice system after emancipation was weaponized against black people 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 56[br]7:11[br]it perpetuated slavery by making the mechanisms of enslavement 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 57[br]7:17[br]pretty much the same family separation back-breaking labor people having no rights 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 58[br]7:24[br]you could be sold on the steps of the courthouse that you were convicted in and given to the highest bidder a whole 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 59[br]7:32[br]separate criminal code that applied to african americans 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 60[br]7:37[br]was established many misdemeanor offenses are best understood as mechanisms of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 61[br]7:44[br]social control they're not designed to catch dangerous or guilty people 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 62[br]7:49[br]but rather they are tools we give them to police as additional ways of exercising their authority 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 63[br]7:57[br]some of these laws were overtly race-based and with others then and now the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 64[br]8:03[br]understanding was that the laws would look race neutral but they would be applied and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 65[br]8:08[br]enforced almost exclusively against black people for these governments to sell prisoners 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 66[br]8:14[br]into slavery you first have to arrest lots of people there's a big problem with that though 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 67[br]8:20[br]there's just not enough crime for this system to work and for it to be profitable the state 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 68[br]8:26[br]governments of the south had to invent new crimes 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 69[br]8:33[br]southern legislatures which are essentially run by confederates at that time 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 70[br]8:38[br]are trying to re-inscribe a form of slavery through a system of laws called black codes 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 71[br]8:47[br]a whole category of new statutes passed in almost every southern state that attached these enormous penalties 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 72[br]8:54[br]to what were in reality very minor thefts those were laws and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 73[br]9:00[br]many others like it that were only ever enforced against african americans 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 74[br]9:05[br]and so it became a way to have a basis for arresting huge numbers of black people 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 75[br]9:11[br]i don't remember much about writing the check john owen was caught taking six years of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 76[br]9:17[br]corn from a cornfield and was arrested under the black codes 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 77[br]9:23[br]this is four dollars and we have one two three four five six seven seven times 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 78[br]9:30[br]four is twenty eight dollars so just this pile right here is how much i went to jail for owen was 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 79[br]9:36[br]put in jail for months until he was finally tried for theft i have a theft charge it's 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 80[br]9:42[br]death by check i had money in the bank but i didn't know how long it took for checks to process like i know better now 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 81[br]9:50[br]i could have donated plasma gotten 25 under a sentence owen was leased in the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 82[br]9:57[br]convict labor and sent to the chain gang where he served two years for the corn and a third year for the court costs i 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 83[br]10:04[br]was in the hayes county jail for a total of 45 days for 25 worth of food michael brown 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 84[br]10:13[br]who was the teenager who was killed by police in ferguson whose death led to the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 85[br]10:18[br]explosion of the black lives matter movement he was stopped for jaywalking he stepped 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 86[br]10:26[br]off the sidewalk and was walking in the street and there was a local criminal ordinance that made it a crime 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 87[br]10:32[br]to do so african americans are being cited for jaywalking 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 88[br]10:38[br]at three five ten times the rate of white pedestrians the legislatures of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 89[br]10:44[br]the white south make it a crime to walk alongside a railroad in an era which there are no paved roads the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 90[br]10:50[br]easiest way for a poor person to get from one place to another is to walk alongside a railroad that law 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 91[br]10:56[br]didn't say this only applies to black people but those were laws that were only ever enforced against 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 92[br]11:02[br]african americans all of us engage in what would be considered to be 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 93[br]11:08[br]minor crimes and for some people it's crossing the street at the wrong time 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 94[br]11:13[br]but if you're black or brown then it becomes categorized as something that's criminal 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 95[br]11:19[br]so what are you doing didn't use the crosswalk all i'm trying to do is go home man i'm tired i just got off of work 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 96[br]11:26[br]nandi kane says he was walking home from work when it happened since i felt like they were going to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 97[br]11:31[br]draw a gun out and shoot me in my back i'm tired of all this [ __ ] man 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 98[br]11:54[br]um vagrancy laws were passed that 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 99[br]12:00[br]essentially meant any black person who was found on the streets unemployed and couldn't show evidence of work 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 100[br]12:06[br]was a criminal a vagrant trespass laws originate from this idea that african americans only belong 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 101[br]12:13[br]in certain spaces and at certain times and so they give police officers the ability under the guise of law to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 102[br]12:21[br]dictate where an african-american person can be what time they can be there and how they 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 103[br]12:26[br]can operate in certain spaces my kids daycare was inside of one of the buildings to the um skyway 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 104[br]12:33[br]so i figured i'd take a walk find somewhere to sit down and um wait on them to get there i'm going to new horizons to pick up my kids i was 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 105[br]12:39[br]sitting there for 10 minutes monroe dolphis was standing in the train yard when he was grabbed by the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 106[br]12:45[br]sheriff's deputy monroe stated that he had not committed any crime why are you going to go to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 107[br]12:50[br]jail i'm not doing anything wrong hold on hold on can you hold on please i'm not no no come on brother brother this is the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 108[br]12:56[br]fault at this moment i saw my children's daycare class and their teachers and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 109[br]13:01[br]everything um walking past while this was happening he took the taser and drove it into my leg and pretty much 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 110[br]13:08[br]at that point it lost all control of the leg the deputy later claimed that the crime committed by dolphus 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 111[br]13:14[br]was taking a 25-cent tent of fish from the lunch pail of a southern railway worker unable to provide any evidence to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 112[br]13:20[br]support this the charge was changed to vagrancy and i kept asking them what i was being 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 113[br]13:26[br]charged with they'll create false charges just to make sure that everything is perpetuated judge 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 114[br]13:34[br]longshore found dolphis guilty of misdemeanor vagrancy and sentenced him to five months and 20 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 115[br]13:40[br]days of hard labor and the minds of tennessee coal iron and railroad 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 116[br]13:46[br]going back to the vagrancy laws of the late 19th century the people who make those laws have in 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 117[br]13:52[br]mind another group of people for whom there is an inherent threat to their livelihood like breaking 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 118[br]14:00[br]barbecue ordinances and public parks or sleeping in dormitories that white people don't think you live there 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 119[br]14:06[br]i have every right to call the police it allows law enforcement to regulate whether or not certain 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 120[br]14:12[br]behavior for one group of people is deemed a criminal and another group of people is just 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 121[br]14:19[br]frivolous activity many people remember the starbucks debacle in philadelphia there were two 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 122[br]14:25[br]african-american men at a starbucks the employee had them arrested for loitering where they're clearly not 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 123[br]14:31[br]engaging in that behavior 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 124[br]14:37[br]loitering is a police tool of choice it's the go-to offense that police often use to impose 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 125[br]14:43[br]their authority in the misdemeanor system there is no conduct to minor no act too small that the state cannot 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 126[br]14:51[br]render a crime black people charged with a misdemeanor are 75 percent more likely to be locked 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 127[br]14:58[br]up than white people you have to realize that these laws didn't happen by chance they were 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 128[br]15:03[br]part of a a system to continue to oppress black bodies our misdemeanor system 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 129[br]15:10[br]includes all kinds of offenses and some of them can be quite serious domestic violence 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 130[br]15:16[br]dui but most of the time we treat minor harmless conduct 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 131[br]15:22[br]as misdemeanors traffic offenses jaywalking order maintenance offenses spitting 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 132[br]15:29[br]driving on a suspended license for failure to pay a fines and yet these minor meaningless 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 133[br]15:35[br]misdemeanors can have terrible consequences for individuals 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 134[br]15:43[br][Music] to understand the misdemeanor system 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 135[br]15:50[br]follow the money the accused are paying for the judges 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 136[br]15:56[br]the prosecutors and three and a half million dollars off phone commissary at the jail it's a 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 137[br]16:02[br]known money maker they call it the 20. family member transferred money 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 138[br]16:21[br]today's system is estimated at 80 billion dollars 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 139[br]16:27[br]the misdemeanor side of it it is a way of saddling people with fines and fees 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 140[br]16:32[br]that will put money in the pockets of the administrators of that system the first time i got a 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 141[br]16:38[br]ticket my insurance had lapsed so i got the speeding ticket and i got a no insurance ticket at the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 142[br]16:44[br]same time the next time i got pulled over i was arrested for driving with a suspended license i paid the tickets 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 143[br]16:50[br]pay the court costs paid my fees and fines but they said we're driving with a spinner license the punishment for that is we're going 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 144[br]16:56[br]to suspend your license for two years i would often have to choose between paying my inspection or my registration 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 145[br]17:02[br]or paying my light bill or other bills that i had i had to drive my car to get to work 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 146[br]17:08[br]because i had a construction job if i needed to take material to the job i couldn't take plywood or two by fours on a bus 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 147[br]17:20[br]i felt like there was no way i was going to be able to take care of the kids on my 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 148[br]17:26[br]own while you were out because i didn't know how long you were going to be in jail this officer saw me a young hispanic guy 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 149[br]17:33[br]driving a 63 impala and said you know what that guy he's up to something i was trying to go to work 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 150[br]17:39[br]trying to pay bills and he's treating me like a hardened criminal that misdemeanor charge ended up becoming something that i 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 151[br]17:46[br]couldn't get rid of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 152[br]18:00[br]they are being treated as revenue sources charged daily fees for being in jail 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 153[br]18:07[br]supervision fees tether fees drug testing fees database fees to fund bail bondsmen 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 154[br]18:14[br]private probation companies electronic monitoring companies drug testing companies 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 155[br]18:19[br]it is disturbingly similar to the way that we saw african-americans being exploited in the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 156[br]18:25[br]post-war south 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 157[br]18:47[br][Applause] 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 158[br]18:54[br]i'm the mario davis uh linebacker of new orleans saints i was born and 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 159[br]18:59[br]raised in mississippi pretty much raised by a single mom entering into my second year of college 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 160[br]19:05[br]me and a teammate were caught shoplifting groceries from from walmart it kind of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 161[br]19:11[br]felt a lot more like a drug bust than uh us having stole some groceries 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 162[br]19:18[br]the bail was set at ten thousand dollars and you know i have ten thousand dollars the football coaches bailed us out a 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 163[br]19:25[br]misdemeanor is supposed to be able to uh be in front of the judge within 90 days but this is not happening this is 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 164[br]19:32[br]not happening in our country we have people who are spending seven eight months in jail who 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 165[br]19:37[br]have not even been 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 166[br]19:44[br][Music] 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 167[br]19:50[br]sentenced cop arrested me and i was charged with the misdemeanor the term chain gang 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 168[br]19:56[br]was coined on account of the shackle worn by convict laborers they said okay listen we're gonna let you go home now 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 169[br]20:02[br]but scram's gonna come and uh put a monitor on you they were taken to an anvil where a 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 170[br]20:08[br]rivet was pounded into the ankle cuffs to keep them closed then the cuffs were chained together the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 171[br]20:13[br]initial fee to get on this ground was 250 that's just to have it put on then after 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 172[br]20:20[br]that they charged me 220 a month for the actual monitor many of the convicts suffered from shackle sores 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 173[br]20:27[br]ulcers were the iron ground against their skin gangrene and other infections were also 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 174[br]20:32[br]common right after they put it on me you start causing these really severe sores and rashes 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 175[br]20:38[br]and their attitude pretty much is it's court-ordered it's by a judge and you'll wear it or you can go back to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 176[br]20:45[br]jail the emaciated convict laborers worked their entire days barefoot but the shackles were always on their 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 177[br]20:51[br]ankles they mined in them slept in them and those who died of disease or beatings 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 178[br]20:57[br]were buried in them what they're doing is unjust what they're doing is profiteering because you you're paying 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 179[br]21:02[br]them you're their slave with their shackle on your foot 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 180[br]21:28[br]i remember this hopeless feeling just overcome me i couldn't take care of my family the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 181[br]21:34[br]biggest misconception about misdemeanors is that they are minor the full consequences of getting a 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 182[br]21:41[br]misdemeanor can be astronomical it hurt me for 10 years and it 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 183[br]21:47[br]completely disrupted my life and i have been trying to figure out how to get my life back on track 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 184[br]21:53[br]this will be a part of my story for the rest of my life when people 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 185[br]21:58[br]are booked into jails for a week or a year or even a day you just 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 186[br]22:06[br]cannot avoid the trauma that inflicts upon you the moment you hit the jail you don't 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 187[br]22:12[br]come out of that unchanged or untouched you witness trauma you witness violence 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 188[br]22:18[br]and it changes you it changes your community i tried to get a job at amazon where my 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 189[br]22:23[br]roommate worked i called to walmart and i called to several other retail stores 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 190[br]22:29[br]i got turned away because i had a misdemeanor charge for theft not enough people talk about what it 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 191[br]22:35[br]means to have a misdemeanor on your record it can determine the kind of job that you get to the kind of housing that you 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 192[br]22:41[br]can qualify for to the kind of schools that you can go to a lot of people 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 193[br]22:46[br]are harmed for life because of the smallest infractions they're being rendered homeless they're 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 194[br]22:52[br]going without food without medication their children are suffering due to misdemeanors i lost my housing 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 195[br]22:59[br]shortly after that i lost my vehicle which led to me losing my job and it was 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 196[br]23:05[br]just one thing after another like like kicks to the face 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 197[br]23:10[br]i had full custody of my children they had to get to school we had to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 198[br]23:18[br]sleep in the car waking up at like four in the morning getting to a laundromat to make sure that they have 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 199[br]23:25[br]clean school uniforms and work so hard and all of that was ruined by one charge 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 200[br]23:31[br]one misdemeanor ruined my ability to get even just basic work 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 201[br]23:43[br]they can't get a job if they have to check a box that says they've been convicted of a crime they can't even 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 202[br]23:51[br]rent housing because they got poor credit when they received a ridiculous 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 203[br]23:57[br]500 dollar speeding violation so this system was designed both to extract 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 204[br]24:03[br]from people but also to marginalize their presence in society 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 205[br]24:24[br]it's going to be a mass grave site this is the dormitory we stupid crowd 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 206[br]24:30[br]these are the beds they're right beside each other and this is the space everybody just 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 207[br]24:36[br]dying and getting sick and [ __ ] like this [ __ ] serious as [ __ ] bro you all right 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 208[br]24:42[br]you want me to go get the police no what have you done this [ __ ] you ain't gonna do nothing about it 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 209[br]24:49[br]this [ __ ] literally in this [ __ ] dying bro i don't know what to do 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 210[br]24:55[br]one of the worst places to be during this pandemic is locked up in jail the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 211[br]25:02[br]same horror story is emerging of the unchecked spread of infection and inmates essentially being left to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 212[br]25:07[br]die now jaywalking or theft of a small amount or any sort of vagrancy type of behavior 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 213[br]25:16[br]can lead to your incarceration and eventual contracting of the virus and death 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 214[br]25:21[br]i've been in jail for two and a half months for a ready death a non-violent crime that carries a 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 215[br]25:27[br]misdemeanor charge for the price value of um less than a hundred dollars there's been three deaths 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 216[br]25:33[br]two being inmates one being a guard as far as like people who are working for the facility 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 217[br]25:38[br]they're like intertwined they could easily be catching it that's how one of the guards caught 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 218[br]25:43[br]it my life is in danger 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 219[br]25:56[br][Music] these human beings aren't valued enough 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 220[br]26:04[br]for us to apply the same kinds of safety measures there that we are in other sectors of society 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 221[br]26:10[br]if it wasn't already bad enough that you are booked into jail because you didn't have the money to pay 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 222[br]26:16[br]the ticket and your license is suspended that is now life threatening to you 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 223[br]26:22[br]sheriff's office is now releasing non-violent inmates as a next step in mitigating the spread of copenhagen 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 224[br]26:28[br]hundreds of inmates have been released from shelby county's jail in an effort to put fewer people at risk 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 225[br]26:33[br]for coronavirus 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 226[br]26:41[br]19 thousands of misdemeanor defendants are rightly being released it's clear that these individuals should 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 227[br]26:47[br]have never been incarcerated in the first place we can tell by the fact that after these 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 228[br]26:53[br]releases we haven't seen any sort of crime wave 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 229[br]27:01[br]there's a different type of crime wave that should concern us though and that's the crime of violence against black 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 230[br]27:06[br]people post civil war [Music] [Applause] 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 231[br]27:15[br]state violence has historically been used to intimidate people of color especially black people 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 232[br]27:21[br]we see this all throughout history 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 233[br]27:30[br]misdemeanors they have almost nothing to do with public safety 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 234[br]27:36[br]what misdemeanors do is give police an extraordinary amount of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 235[br]27:42[br]discretion with any minor offense premised on the idea that the black man is a threat 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 236[br]27:53[br]misdemeanors are a very specific mechanism that legalize violence toward black 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 237[br]27:59[br]people and keep them in a very particular place not just as individuals but as an entire community of people 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 238[br]28:08[br]when we look at so many cases in history often what started as an investigation or a claim of a petty misdemeanor 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 239[br]28:14[br]offense led to police officer supported and sanctioned racial terrorism 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 240[br]28:21[br]all too often we see police exercising that terrible authority of violence 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 241[br]28:27[br]against people who have only been suspected of the most minor of crime 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 242[br]28:35[br]the problem isn't bad apple cops the problem is the system is working the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 243[br]28:41[br]way it's supposed to 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 244[br]28:51[br][Music] police shot this boy outside my 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 245[br]28:57[br]apartment they kill him 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 246[br]29:15[br][Music] 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 247[br]29:36[br]pretty good 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 248[br]29:42[br][Music] i'm so sorry 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 249[br]30:06[br]why gray appeared to be unable to walk and was screaming as he was carried 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 250[br]30:12[br]feet dragging on the ground to a police van 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 251[br]30:18[br][Music] i know i know you just on your job 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 252[br]30:43[br][Music] please 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 253[br]30:50[br]my life could have so easily been taken in that skyway 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 254[br]30:56[br]george floyd goes to show further that the most minor offenses 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 255[br]31:03[br]even no offense at all could result in death the very purpose of racial terrorism is 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 256[br]31:11[br]control is social control what we have seen in the killings of 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 257[br]31:18[br]those accused was that misdemeanors became the gateway for police violence and murder 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 258[br]31:32[br][Music] 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 259[br]31:41[br]we are seeing decriminalization we are seeing citations instead of arrests we are seeing people let out of jail we are 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 260[br]31:48[br]seeing pushback against fines and fees but at the same time there is so much more work that needs to be done 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 261[br]31:56[br]who defined what a misdemeanor is the whole thing was built on exploitation on racial violence 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 262[br]32:04[br]on building up industrial capitalism we should not be locking up people who speed who are too poor 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 263[br]32:12[br]to pay a fine or a fee who loiter or trespass or jaywalk they're not dangerous they're 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 264[br]32:19[br]not scary there's never been a good reason to lock 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 265[br]32:24[br]up anybody for petty offenses like slavery back in the day the law 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 266[br]32:30[br]itself is doing the work of oppression the criminal law is providing the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 267[br]32:36[br]authority to arrest black people to punish black people to kill black people 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 268[br]32:44[br]and ultimately the real crime is that we're black 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 269[br]32:56[br][Music] 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 270[br]33:34[br]when officers use their discretion and still choose to arrest low-level offenders instead of siding and releasing them 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 271[br]33:40[br]they are choosing to lock a human into a cage we wouldn't even put our dogs in 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 272[br]33:55[br]we got 123 people out of the hayes county jail yesterday 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 273[br]34:06[br]it eliminated the penalty for being caught driving with a suspended license from another two-year suspension to a 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 274[br]34:12[br]90-day suspension 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 275[br]34:22[br]don't allow the outside world to corrupt you don't don't allow the 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 276[br]34:28[br]outside world to tell you who you are 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 277[br]34:37[br]i wanted to be a voice for those who are not able to be a voice for themselves 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 278[br]34:48[br][Music] 9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000 279[br]35:53[br]you[br]