People. An fed a call antithetical to conservatism. Associationst of we arell say, well normally out numbered, so it is a necessity that we have there are a lot of associations who it day, we are outnumbered numbers,ally look at just not happening every day that people are walking down the street with rocket launchers. Its a rare occurrence. That argument within itself doesnt hold a lot of water if you were to ask me. I think it is something conservatives should be at the forefront of. They are not. You could say its because of racial biases. For me as a conservative, that drastically concerns me and i have say im not proud that my party has not taken the right stance on this issue. Deadend of walter scott was blood, theresd no question in my mind whatsoever. The walter scott killer is also out on bail, but the space in as we rigorously look at this issue, demands specificity. What is the president s role, even if he agrees that he should not have bail, what is the federal role in that . That is an issue of racism. I agree with you completely. The decisions that are made by local prosecutors and courts i think that is an accurate connection. The question is how can you impact that. Decisions that are made by local prosecutors and courtsthe. There are some levels levers of federal funding and training. Would like. Than we maybe that is something that needs to be changed. To ask theired question, what is our black president s role in these decisions. We have to leave it there. That is race and justice in the age of obama. This is an opportunity. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2016] ok, so hi everyone. Herea real pleasure to be and introduce our next panel. I was so enthralled by everything that happened in the first two hours that i forgot i had a part to play in this next section. Forgive me for this unplanned delay. Im going to introduce our blackmon, aouglas pulitzer prizewinning author. And coexecutive producer of the basedmed pbs documentary on the same name. Hes a friend and colleague. Hes also a contributing correspondent at the washington oft and exit of producer american forum. Of theutive producer americna forum. His book is an important book in helping to frame how we understand historically the long rney from the period of the great epic afforded some. Affordism. Those materials did not make their way to detroit by us mosys, but by the labor of is,icanamericans osmos but by the labor of africanamericans. Theres a lot more to say about mr. Blackmon. If you want to know more, i will share it with you. For now, in the interest of moving forward, read his book, watch the documentary, and pay close attention to what everyone has to say now. Thank you. [applause] the interviews were done with roup of historians [inaudible] is that better . Ok. It was on before. Khalil and i met, i first met him by watching video of an interview i did not conduct for the documentary film. As i was watching this, this by one ofbeing done americas greatest filmmakers, nyu, and i called up sam and said, who is this smart, goodlooking guy, this brilliant voice i did not know . Ever since then, ive been a gigantic fan of khalil muhammad. Let me quickly give short bios of the folks appear on the stage. Im going to do it in the order i have here. Is a look at civil rights during the obama era. We will try to focus our conversation on that rather than the expensive questions the Previous Panel engaged in. Assistant francis, professor at the university of washington. She specializes in the study of american politics. Postcivil war south. The author of civil rights in the making of the modern american state. Examining the role of the criminal Justice System and rebuilding of the southern political and economic power after the civil wars. Matthew guterl is professor of africana and american studies and chair of american studies at brown university. He has written four books on race. Clarissa martinez de castro. Perspectives, permanently she oversees the organizations work on immigration and efforts to expand latino engagement in civic life and public policy. Shes also a graduate of the Kennedy School where we are. ,e also have ron sullivan leading theorist in the areas of criminal law, criminal procedure. Legal ethics and race theory, faculty direct for the Harvard Criminal Justice Institute and the harvard Trial Advocacy workshop rate also serves as the first africanamerican master in harvards history at college, was a founding member, senior fellow of the jamestown project trade and then heather ann thompson, an emerging celebrity and american serious history pop media. Shes crossing over all the public intellectual. Professor of history in the department of afroamerican and african studies. Residential college at the university of michigan. She writes about the history as well as current crises of mass incarceration. Her works appeared in the new york times, the huffington post, npr, and elsewhere. A recent book, blood in the water, the prison uprising of 1971 and its legacy. It has been something of a sensation this past year. It is a book that i heard her commiserating about many times willmany years, wondering, this thing ever be done. Will anyone ever read it. Congratulations on the wonderful response you got. Why dont we quickly hear from each of the panelists on this topic . I will narrow it slightly. We just heard a discussion that i would say is pretty critical, pretty harsh critique in some respects of the lost opportunities or limited successes that were described of the Obama Administration in more general terms about issues of race and broad questions of opportunity. Yourould we compare assessments of civil rights more specifically in the obama era against that backdrop of a sense of some lack of fulfillment in terms of the broader questions . As not to say that lack of fulfillment is the ultimate summary of what we heard. Your view of progress and civil rights versus the critique we just heard. Why dont we start at the very end . The interesting thing to me is that the question itself make some assumptions, which relate back to the Previous Panel about whether there is undue expectations of the first africanamerican president to then deliver on progress, civil rights, other issues that would be completely unrealistic to expect of anybody else. And on the question of civil rights, i think it is similar to just in general, the expectations of this president coming in, given the state of the country at the time. Thisember thinking, president is sort of like when you get a new car, it starts devaluing the moment you drive theff the lot, because expectations were just so incredible and so unrealistic. Said, our organization , the largest Latino Civil Rights Organization in the country, we were critical of the president on many counts. I think probably we were not the originators of the title of the porter in she, which i president to this day is very sensitive about, but its factual. That theudl say is same way people have said in the that it was a democrat could have taken welfare reform like bill clinton did, however you may agree or disagree with what he actually did, and we certainly had a number of asagreements on that, or republican is best efficient to move immigration reform, and unfortunately bush did a push for it but did not get there, but in some ways its the reverse of that. With president obama, because immediately there was an attack that he would be a president that heblack americans, was very measured and how he would engage issues of race, and sometimes openly and aggressively of civil rights. It is like dammed if you do and stand if you dont damned if you dont. , he also accepted certain frames that were part of narratives that had been there for a long time. On immigration, an issue i worked on for a long time, the notion of Border Security and enforcement, and necessity of leading with enforcement, a redeem that has seen nothing but in the last decade. Part of it was strategy. Republicans keep talking about the borders not secure and they cant trust a democratic president to enforce the laws. I will do that to enforce them. There was a lot of skepticism about whether that is what get people would get people to play. What ends up is having the president who has deported more immigrants than any previous president and republicans saying hes not enforcing the law. Asi think many of this thought this has been the mantra among republicans for the last year. Still trying to see how to overcome it but attempting those. In a couple applies of other areas as well. There were positive things that although not advanced under a civil rights frame, nevertheless had those types of impacts. Latinos and africanamericans had to veer severe unemployment rates. Have unemployment rates gone down. There have been more recently removed moves by the department of justice to redact reduce the use of private prisons. As we know, the imprisonment of human beings is a huge moneymaker proposition. Interestingly enough, when you started moving away from three strikes you are out policies, you saw the increased criminalization of immigrants to keep feeding that machine, and keep that money making venture going. It is a beautiful Business Strategy when you think about it. You create laws to make sure, if you have a hotel in new york beds have tos of be paid for. Candle that would be in any other circumstance. Also not forget that the department of Homeland Security is actually the largest Law Enforcement entity in the country, and for whom rules that a major somely as Police Departments, they dont even apply to the department of Homeland Security. We have not seen that enforcement machine grow. Health Care Coverage is up significantly, in addition to better unemployment rates down. The use of private prisons, there has been some sentencing reform. On immigration, lets not forget about the backup program, the first deferred action for childhood arrivals. Now, in the Previous Panel, that oftenioned cited with many president s who have moved on to do significant pieces of legislation, the makeme conversation theyve had with advocates. , in some ways i feel that part of the conversation here is what he should have done on his own. That,tink that think thats kind of the wrong context. I dont care how wellintentioned a politician is. The makeme is always part of the equation. There have certainly been a lot of makeme pressure from a lot of different communities, whether on criminal justice, on policing, on certainly immigration. In some of the issues that still remain, and also were mentioned, is jobs. And the need to really do some of those policies in a targeted way. Bringing it back on the civil rights side, i think part of the cautiousness of not falling into the original accusation that was trying to be made, that he would only be a president for some americans and not others. There was a lot of caution in to lean into certain things. In many cases, pieces of legislation or fights that we also were lacking in thathings way. This is not just about the president , but the whole congress who is necessary to make laws. You can see in those pieces of legislation fingerprints of people who are trying to be really careful not to create a backlash among white voters. When jobs and other economic intervention not necessarily targeting them to the more vulnerable communities in need of job creation with tax reform, same thing, the vulnerable continue to be on the chopping block, even when you win, you have to continue citing that fight over and over again, to focus on the middle class. How many elections we have gone to without talking about the working class, who is the majority of americans. Not only not talking about that, but actually not necessarily a war on poverty but on the poor. There has not been an assertive attempt to challenge that frame rate we continue to talk about the middle us. Vacuum, thein that war on being poor has gotten more vicious. Of the whole talk about who is unworthy, who is undeserving, and the thing that is incredible to me is that when you are working poor, you have to spend so much energy just trying to survive and make it, if people had some supports where that energy could be used in the same way that you and i use it, sitting here, are those of us who have a connection to that experience. How am i doing on time . Lets see if we can move down through the panel now. First assessment out, then we will mix it up. I will continue the dour theme. I want to split attention between the title of the conference, which ends with the age of obama. I think the tension between those two things, thinking about the zeitgeist of the last eight aars, or thinking about what particular administration or person in that administration can do, makes us answer this question differently. If im talking about the age of obama, the state of civil rights is terrible at the end of it. Weve got rollbacks of Voting Rights and reproductive justice is in shambles, questions of indigenous sovereignty have been challenged and not resolved. That doesnt even get us to the question of policing, militarization of Civil Authority. And then even scaling out further, you can have the diminishment of the office itself treated disrespectfully by a larger context that has shamed the president and shamed his constituency and the issues that he might care about. I leave the age of obama thinking that it has been terrible for questions i care very deeply about personally and politically. I know that we are 27 days away from an election in which one candidate has called specifically for voter suppression, who cares very little about Civil Authority and about jurisprudence, and who may well wipe the slate completely clean. I dont feel good right now. I feel anxious. Ive only had one cup of coffee so i cant blame it on that. I think this is a rational assessment of where we are at the end of 8 years. I will jump in for a briefly and piggyback on the last comment. Complicated question and its complicated for a couple of reasons. If you think about it on a register asiptive absolutely, its very dour. We think about the question in a allowsnt sort of way, it for some sense of hope. A president cant wave a magic wand and say civil rights repair. That doesnt happen. The executive is constrained in very real ways. Sign that has been at least gives me hope, a presidea magic wand and say civil rights repair. That this Justice Department and Civil Rights Division has been busier than it has been in any administration prior, maybe except for johnson. It has been busy. That Congress Passes very,ains its reach in very real ways. I will give you one example and then i want to pass it on and hopefully we can talk more. There was a mention of Trayvon Martin in the last panel. It was the correct decision for the department of justice not to intervene in Trayvon Martin. The law is written in a way that makes it nearly impossible for them to intervene in that way. They have to show that at the time, zimmerman dealt the death blow. He was motivated solely by racial animus. Right . How in the world to you prove that . Thats the law and thats what they are constrained with. Similarly, that case wasnt necessarily lost in the trial court because of poor lawyering. It was lost because the law said that you can exercise your right to selfdefense in the sort of irrational way that zimmerman did. That case was lost because people didnt Pay Attention when bills go to the state legislature. Thats why that case was lost. In some sense, civil rights has to be viewed in a broader context, and we have to put pressure on very many actors in the system in order to get to a most people think of goodwill would be comfortable with. I think the answer is no as well. Thanks. Hi, everybody. Im going to Say Something very quick also. We can believed that really understand civil rights without understanding that also at the same time with civil liberties. Obama ran on a promise to close guantanamo. Over the last six months he has done things to close going to on guantanamo. Its very important. Oftentimes many attorneys down there have argued its because. F a lack of will on his part its important to think about militarization abroad and different forms of torture at guantanamo. I think its important to think about what is going on in guantanamo just not as something going on somewhere else in the world but because so many of our tactics practiced abroad always come home to roost. When we think about the militarization of local Police Departments here, its often because of extra surplus material which we had budgets for but then its used domestically. I think chicago will be the best example of this, methods, ideas of how to get information, how to interrogate individuals, some of those tactics have been practiced abroad and then brought home. We cant really ignore what happens in Kuan Todd A Mo and other parts of the world and not think about whats going on here. We could talk all day about this. The other aspect besides the deportation or in chief is the drone king. Barack obama in his first year in office we know he inherited 2 ugly wars, in terms of iraq and afghanistan. He also expenditure medically the covert program, and expanded it. As we know, as many reports have shown, many civilians have died. Died as a result of these drone strikes, and the government has not been held accountable for the significant loss of human lives. Met is important, without saying it explicitly, in talking about guantanamo and these drone strikes, is also the marginalization of muslim communities here. Effects also been a side of policies abroad. Had this horrible exchange Hillary Clinton and trump responded to this question in which a citizen raised about the danger that many muslim what ifs feel, and either one of them was president , what would they do to protect and repair . I promise, this will be the last thing now. Last panel in the has decreased the number of american troops let go abroad. That is because the number of drone strikes have increased. I think thats important to Pay Attention to. Has decreased the number of american troops let go abroad. Thank you. Im going to break protocol and refer to my notes. My head is spinning from the last panel and also here. In part i wanted to do that. When i think about the assessment of civil rights, either under the presidency or in the age of obama, id like to make some points specific to policy change but also make a broader point about the federal effort, the broader federal crises in theess Obama Presidency. I will start with the big one first. The broader point that strikes what is being laid bare to the perils of this tinkering around the margins of structural civil rights crises. Im not sure this is so much a as it isof obama really getting us to think about what this age of obama and Obama Presidency laid bare for us in terms of how limited, which is ironic to say in this forum, but how limited policy responses are or can be to either immediate civil rights violations, for example in urban communities with policing, or broader civil rights catastrophes and crises such as mass incarceration, but there is a real disconnect between the plan for change that thelicy indicates, and realities of how they are implemented on the ground because of deeply structural issues. Just really quickly, walk through some of these. Earlier we were listening to discussions. The clemencies, profound response. On the one hand, profound policy discussions. Theresponse to the crisis of so many people being caged in america. Ine than any other president terms of the number of commutations and so forth. If you read the letter that obama sent, the language is very interesting. One of the sentences was, because you have demonstrated your ability to turn your life around. Was, you haveence the capacity to make good choices. To me, that really lays bare, again, this disconnect between fundamental,ut the structural assumption behind it that this is distilled down to the individual. We have 7. 5 Million People in the system because of their bad choices and because they have been unable to turn her lives around. That is one example of that. The other is the ending of solitary confinement, which one can do nothing but a, applied and b, say what took us so long to come up with that policy response . In the description of why this i found ity, publicly and profoundly moving that obama referred to the suicide as demonstrating why this policy change needs to happen. Notcturally, we did eliminate solitary confinement from federal prisons. Drove him at 22 years old to kill himself is presumably the same psychological trauma that i fout publicly and profoundly moving that obama referred to the adults throughout the system are still suffering against deeply structural assumption about what we are doing. The two last inks things i will say i wont even talk about fleecing. Im sure we will get to that later. I want to talk about a commitment to reign in criminal justice policies that are deemed to be unjust, and civil rights the sames, while at time expanding what i would view and my next project trying to sort out, surveillance. The ways in which surveillance makes the policing possible, which in turn makes the violation which in turn makes the crises of mass incarceration and how on the one hand at the policy level we can reign in criminal justice in justices but on the other hand expand structurally the very mechanisms by which they can exist, and the final one, this question of deportation and immigration. Again, sort of like the clemency, the commutation kind of argument. On the on ehand, supporting the dream act. On the other hand, supporting profoundly the subconscious path to citizenship and arguing for decriminalizing what it means to be undocumented. And then on the other hand, having deported 1. 1 Million People in three years. Here is what is key about that. In the name of criminal justice, right, they are not being supported. Its because they are criminals. Which of course then brings us back. All to fundamental structural problems. Is this about obama, per se . At somef think not, fundamental level. This is about this disconnect at the federal and state level between the proclamation that policy can fix these things, and the deeply structural assumptions that undergirded them in the first place. I will make a few comments on this as well. One thing i dont think the organizers knew, but that i that imsclose, is currently working on a project with the attorney general holder that hopefully all of you will be able to read in about a year, that is an examination of the question of justice and the Obama Administrations approach ct, intice in every respe the age of obama. I have also been quite critical at times of many of the same things that have been expressed here. Once i did an interview with attorney general holder when he was in office. It airs locally at 6 30 on saturdays. Now we have taken over the spots formerly held by the mclaughlin group. I was interviewing holder for that and i said to him, you and the president have expressed great concern about mass incarceration but the fact is you remain as the chief Law Enforcement officer of the country, the mass incarcerate or in chief incarcerator in chief. At the same time, some of the criticism we hear is a byproduct of an understandable but unfor tunate, what historians would call president ism. This is a failure to comprehend the degree to which civil rights had been somewhat invisibly eroded and degraded in the decade previous to the Obama Presidency, the degree to which these legislative actions and state legislatures all across the primarythat are reason behind the dramatic rise in mass incarceration, until Travyon Martin incident occurred, most americans had never heard of the standard of laws around florida and elsewhere, those things that have complicated any effort to these issues. F the Civil Rights Division and Justice Department have been hollowed out and eviscerated entirely by the time holder returns as attorney general. And also, you have at that stage 9 11, by the events of you have a presidency that is inclined towards an imperial approach to begin with that embraces a tremendously imperial torocach and is willing suspend notions of civil rights and human rights as it relates to detainees and interrogation techniques. This is a presidency that begins against a backdrop that most of us did not fully understand. To some degree, we got these issues were ok, were somewhat ok and they were getting somewhat better in some resepcts. Respects. In reality, the structural issues, something ron is talking about in terms of the way the legal system works, were so complex and profound, sometimes they are guilty of underacknowledging the level of the problem that had to be addressed at that time. One quick indicator is, if the president were to commute every federal prisoner in federal prison today, you currently have 2. 2 million or thereabouts individuals incarcerated out of the 7 million or so in the system. If you govern all federal prisoners tomorrow, you would still have about 2 Million People in prison. And the president has the up to date number is 844 commutations and pardons as of last wednesday, which is more than all president s collectively in all of time. Its also a meaningless gesture. There have been 13,000 rejections of petitions for commutation. But there are 32,000 petition still under consideration, and there is a furious process underway at the department of justice as we speak to process through all 32,000 of those petitions before the end of this year. Congress specifically limited through a of people budgeting move. The department of justice cannot people in thean 5 process of processing those 32,000 petitions. In a tinys again, way, encapsulates the nature of the struggle at work here. Its not beyond the realm of possibility. This is me speaking. Im not representing anything coming from eric holder or the white house by any means. But i believe there is an active question underway, of what should happen in the final minutes of the Obama Administration. Most of those 32,000 petitions will not have been acted upon up to that point. Its not completely implausible. There can be a large number of people. Say, thist just to extraordinarily complicated thoseion to untangle, and huge structural issues, like all the issues that relate to race in america, the structural elements of the question are far more profound than the question of one particular individual or leader at a time. Do you guys want to respond to one another on that . I think it would make sense to move relatively quickly to questions. Before we do that, any thoughts on that . Anybody radically disagree . To excoriate me for that, or excoriate anyone else . I would not disagree with that. Think there were very undue expectations at the beginning. Even in the current context of donald trump, theres already a number of attempts to try to paint the rise of donald trump as a phenomenon that came out of nowhere. But the struggle on civil rights and the erosion we have seen in includes driving a state through the Voting Rights act, thisll be the first election where americans will go to the polls without those protections. The interesting thing to me is, narrative people are trying to paint that trump is a phenomenon and a thing, that came out of nowhere, is the fact that politics have been played for a long time and there has been an incredible nurturing anxiety about compounded and take advantage of anxiety about the , and what that means. In that aspect, we have seen be used as a proxy to sow fear about the growth of the latino community, because 76 of latinos in this country are United States citizens. The intent or consequence of the immigration debate has been to paint them all as outsiders. That crime has been used to stoke fear about africanamericans and latinos. And the way that terrorism has been used to stoke fear against muslim americans, who as you ,entioned, even in the debate trump gave a terrible response. Clinton wasnt all that much better. She said, youre good, as long as you report stuff. As long as you are agents of the state, you are good. Which led to muslims report. Tuff as a member of the that mexican thing, was the best thing that came out of that. The point to make their in terms of the expectation and this state of structural needs which are not moving forward because of varying ability to govern, given the state of congress this other things, is that is not a new thing. Lining isial silver like what trump has done is make the implicit explicit. What has been dog whistle politics is now a blue whale whistle. The loudest sound you could ever hear. That is there and its undeniable. Then theres an opportunity to grapple with it right its an opportunity that will not stay there. Were going to have to take advantage of that rarely quickly. But donald trump is a natural logical response and follow up to the presidency of an africanamerican person, right . Real in a way that is also undeniable, that change that was underway. But now people can feel it, it was in front of their faces, and we are experiencing the backlash. Always been backlash should change in america, even though change is americas , and that is what we are grappling with right now, which has played out in policy making in the ability or inability to move some of these things forward. What we are grappling with right now, which has it plays out in very l ways because of this backlash. We live in a political economy where notions like being tough on crime has currency. And significant currency. Disclosure, i chaired, did senator obamas committee. Things that are going on in criminal justice now are absolutely amazing. Never been done before and probably wont be done again. Some of theseken, things, politicians simply dont want to trumpet. Saying, if elected, i get elected, im going to let people out of jail. For good or real, it doesnt happen. In certain sorts of ways to be relatively palatable to a larger public, but actually do the work. I will give you one quick example, since you mentioned clemency. This process could go a lot quicker. One of the reasons that its theg slowly is because Pardon Office is looking through each file. Nyu had a clemency project. All of this stuff has been reviewed, executive summaries and so forth, but they are looking through the Pardon Office is looking through each file. Each file. One of the things i think they are looking for are priorone ofy are looking for are prior Domestic Violence charges. That is not granting clemency if anyone has a prior dv charge because they dont think the you have to be extraordinarily careful. I do want to hear from matt and megan. You both look that sort of the postwar southern evolution, which is neither a period of toorts of dramatic changed the civil rights regime and an extraordinary backlash in that period of time. Im curious to hear from you guys. Does this notion of the almost inevitability and composition of the way america works, that you are going to go through, after an ordinary events such as the election of the first black president , we should have anticipated even more so than we did, that they are within this astonishing backlash against almost everything related to what we would call racial progress. What is your take on that . Symbols matter. On obama as a president , fairly centrist. Symbolism as an africanamerican president is so powerful that it has given rise to return of massive resistance. We have witnessed a kind of consolidated white supremacist effort to dictate the course of that is politics, dispensed with dog whistles the likes of which we have not seen since the likes of the 19th is an early 1960s. Early 1960s. That i think is extraordinary. It makes you wonder how deeply buried, if at all, the massive ever. Ance was it makes you think about the 1980s and 1990s and white supremacist communities of and down the eastern seaboard and the pacific northwest. Dating the militarization of the police back to bull connors tank or before bull connors tank, back to the disarming of clay patrols. It makes me think about the legal history of child labor labor, and through the efforts of Agricultural Companies to incarcerate or capture in some way immigrant to incite where the products couldnt be moved, a practice that continues to this day in some parts of florida. Products couldnt be moved, a practice that continues to this day in some parts of florida. There is a need kindly need a bigger case for history departments all over the world and more historians by saying, we need more history. Thats a great call. Thathallenge of the day is this is not the constituency that necessarily needs that history, its the people who buy those history textbooks coming out of texas. And those textbooks are not this people, this group of people. They are not for this constituency. We have a challenging time getting in the room to shape those textbooks. History doesnt feed the hungry man. That is a tension between some of these issues. Megan i will Say Something quick. My first book focus on the naacps campaign against racial violence. 1925. 909 to thecument their work, presidency and congress and the Big Supreme Court case in 1923. What happened after that is the away from this very much radical campaign to protect black lives from mob violence. Notthat education is radical. One of the things i want to focus on, in an untraditional way during this moment, and new product i am working on try to look at why the change happened and why rights are rolled back. I locate this change. Shifting but are often seen as radical movements, diverting them to other causes. One of the issues i often try to , actuallyis backlash think about backlash. In the ways in which private individuals and corporations use their money to roll back rights that other groups have. And or organization, whether its naacp in the postcivil rights area, and trying to shift focus. Questions. Ke some surely there are some. Again, a reminder. Lets be sure our questions have question marks on them. I would like to ask i would like to give a frame of reference. In specific groups of americans who are less affected, i. E. , white america, by these criminal justice issues we see, there has been a largescale conflation with morality and legality. I wanted tohat, touch a little bit on the Unrealistic Expectations some of us had of obama coming in to Lobby Congress, to ease the war on drugs, specifically, attempting to Lobby Congress to declassify marijuana as a class i substance. I believe that has a very large impact on the criminal justice mass incarceration. I would like to get your opinion of whether that expectation was realistic, and if there has been any progression in that field. I do criminal law. The federal level represents the the practiceion of of criminal law in the country. Everything the overwhelming states, has to do with for which the federal government has very little relationship, which can do encouraging thing such as withholding money. The federal government can do some things with money, but mainly the game is with states. Having said that, there is a huge conflict now where people reach to criminal law, federal law and say, medicinal marijuana, for example, but its illegal in the state and when federal law in state law have a ins, withr issue, who w that battle which is usually going to be the state. My answer to your question is, the federal government has iminald reach into the crm Justice System because it is mainly a state function. In areas where the federal government does have reach, i think this administration has done an incredible job under eric holders leadership primarily and it is continuing now. Its a very small fraction. I would push back on the characterization of the presidency and offer up a notion that i think there is room for pragmatic leadership in areas bold pronouncements sound nice, but will have no effect on the ground. And by way of history, i will give one quick example. V. Board ofrown education. We teach brown i and brown ii. After brown i, nobody did anything. Closed the schools. Were not doing it. This is one of the things i think this president is trying to guard against. There are bureaucracies. Judge can order what she or he wants. Own set ofave their rules. Its a morass, and ugly morass of rules that administrative agencies have extraordinary power. And you have to negotiate through all of that. So, the president could have said, im going to commute everyone in the federal systme. Good luck. Seriously, good luck. That,just want to throw of, is there space for pragmatism and Political Leadership that doesnt mean that activists shouldnt be screaming bloody murder, right . Thats going to move agencies and congress as well. Of, is there space for pragmatism and Political Leadership that doesnt mean the said a few times, and this is very correct, that whatever we do in the criminal Justice System at the federal level is going to have a limited impact, far fewer federal prisoners. If you are talking about drugs, marijuana, this is going to play out more profoundly at the state level than federal level. It has to do with this disconnect the policies on the disconnect between the policies on the one hand and and maybe how theyre implemented legally on the other end. It is true when obama says there is no more juvenile solitary, thou will not impact what is happening in louisiana, that is true. It is also true, this whole new datadriven Police Initiative which is essentially a policy that says we are going to deal with the crisis of policing which is the feeder for the state prisons and that intense focus on drugs is all about relying on data, on people who have the most contact with police and the most contact also with Emergency Responders and Mental Health responders. With t contact also with Emergency Responders, Mental Health responders. Criminalion in the Justice System, and the idea of the policy, they will not be arrested, they will get these other resources. Where are those other resources . Gettingstill end up arrested. Probably for low level marijuana. Probably because of the dime bag , not cocaine or opioids or whatever. And these policies do have a profound effect on these state criminal justice reforms like marijuana reform. I just want to connect those dots little bit more. Also over the sweep of history, the federal government has been the innovator on criminal justice, civil rights, again and again and again. The federal government model has a long history of that, but it is also the case and it may well be that the Obama Administration failed. It has the obligation of state and local governments to look at the way they did these. Literally putting more police on the ground, that will in turn leave these people to be the ones also, i think that there is a gigantic political miscalculation president obama good that he is a pretty constitutional lawyer, welltrained by Charles Ogletree nearby, but he really genuinely believed that by adopting certain severe strictures like the approach to immigration, we will definitely deport whoever crosses a certain line, that will allow me to take a softer approach to certain things. And then over time, when the folks on the other side see im adopting their ideas, they will see the merit in this approach and of course, the exact pass. Te thing came to in the boring details of it all, things like the directive to the u. S. Attorney general directing them to no longer double and triple and quadruple prosecute individuals the practice had been, most federal cases, drug cases, to charge the defendant with every possible thing and federalize as many cases as possible. So, the attorney general sends out a directive that says, very quietly, dont do that anymore. He gets a tremendous backlash from the regional u. S. Attorneys who say, that is not the way we do it. You will indoor ability to fight crime. And they have a tremendous concern about the consequences. This is why we do not have a president dukakis. Somebody he let out of prison in the 1980s does a terrible thing. Ofre is a huge cut justice the risk and all of these measures. I am struck by these panels, the panel this morning and the panel tonight, what we are hearing, from audience members and each other is the disenchantment with the limitations of the presidency and the federal government to address inequality. It strikes me that is not what it was meant to do in the first place. There is a reason that policing as at the state level, and jim crow was a state Level Initiative and slavery largely built at statelevel laws. Theres a reason why the federal government left things like the north was ordinates and prominent laws northwest ordinance and prominent laws were not meant to fix things at the local and state level. Were dealt with the system that was simply not met have a federal solution to questions that will understand as moral. That set up, that executive also will not be able to fix this. Method that another question. The lady in the red or chartreuse. I am a graduate of the Kennedy School. Thank you for comment in for coming and partake in the. Coral. There you go. I am on a border for free speech for people because i think money and politics is so corrosive. My question is a followup to you when you mention corporations and individuals are rolling back rights. I am wondering how we as citizens and activist may be able to translate that into value that actually would mean something to the ordinary person as well as academics or people fighting on a particular issue. How could we get to black churches and help people understand money in politics now that sanders is no longer talking about actively. Hillary clinton said she supported an amendment. My question is the focus on money and politics and the rights that are being rolled back. You were about to we need to get to the white churches that make that point because i think you are right. I was struck was of the moral compass. Like folks have had to do a hell of a lot of heavy lifting for a problem that is not the black community creation. That heavy lifting has got to come, how do we in fact start moving into the white spaces and white churches and why Community Organizations and white voting groups and have that moral awakening . That means the moral awakening. We have a conference and there was a lack of diversity. [inaudible] there is a need to get a broader reach. The comment was you said you were at a conference where there was not much of the first, saying it was mostly white . Yes. Money problems. That is tough. I hear a lot of the concern that heather raised. I spent at the last two years wanting to rethink how do we change. A lot of the ways, especially with the black lives matter movement, especially wellintentioned white people of always had black people to talk to different groups. I am very concerned about the labor that black people do. For people who have already borne the burden of oppression, how much labor are we asking of them . Is it right for them for us to ask for them to repair the damage . But at the same time, i hear you in a sense of that theres often these spaces where there is a need for different voices for different perspectives in so many of these spaces. You want to get how do we change what people value and care about . It is often people who can do that. I do not have the perfect answer for you. I think the great place to start is for white people to asking the question and demanding that we talk about it there broadening the circle of people who matter. One of the things that has happened a lot especially over the last year, specific people in black lives matter we go to. I think we can expand to that and go to other people as well. Bring other voices to the table. Some people have borne the burden of translating racial oppression of more than others and it needs to be distributed more equally. I love that question, though. If i can add it to that because i think that question is applicable to a lot of issues not just money and politics. As the great civil rights leader henderson would say, you have to be a friend to make offerings. I find it there particularly among progressive groups, there is a tendency to come to communities of color and ask folks, thats not to my line, i heard another activists say this in a criminal justice convening in california saying we are tired. Saying we are tired of you coming to us for you to hold up our signs. We are able to have conversations about strategy and policy and we have ideas. People just come to us when they need bodies were troops. That is one part. The other part is be a friend to make a friend is how is that issue connecting with people . I think particularly among progressives, theres a sense of why are people voting against their own self interests . Without making those connections are bringing that to the level where people are need of an intervention because theres something existential or present they are facing. The Supreme Court, for example, that is another topic that tends to be off track, for the average voter. I can tell you as a result of the Supreme Court case, leaving undecided the fate of executive order for immigration, that was a real education for a lot of folks following decades pulls lives hang in the balance about the importance of the Supreme Court. It is very different to experience it that way that have the like, hey, dont you care by bucks the Supreme Court . Being socially competent, not being culturally competent, how we engage people. It is not just about language, about english or vietnamese or spanish, it is about culture competency of what is the context of that community . How are they experiencing these issues . What are the connecting point . What is her own boarding, meaningful engagement point . If i can add why it is important, specific education, why it is important to engage at the mundane. Tamir rice, shooter was not indicted. Why . The elected District Attorney in Cuyahoga County which is cleveland did not want to that person indicted. Because of the activism of black lives matter, he was voted out of office, right . Michael brown, number two. The backdrop is prosecutors can indict a ham sandwich, they couldve gotten an indictment if they wanted to. A criminally low standard. It is problematic. People said to me, what can we do . Can you file a motion to impel them to repanel another grand jury . No, i said. You can elect a new District Attorney and a new District Attorney the day of election. The day he swears in cap panel another grand jury and do that, right . These sorts of decisions, we cannot wait until these are massive blowups. Lets think about it before hand and get engaged. The Supreme Court, this why the Supreme Court matters. That is why these appointments matter. What a pro or against, these have very real consequences that work themselves down in concrete ways. You are behind to the eightball until you let it work its way that is antagonistic to what you think is a good use of public resources. I am glad you said that because i get at the same quest. I get the same question. What can we do about in this community . I said i do not know what your here, but you elect to the sheriff and you elect the District Attorney. And the sheriff is the people who put in jail the larges of the 2. 2 Million People. The sheriff has discretion over how it works. There is discretion over who gets ticked up on what and gets released and will gets prosecuted. There is a tremendous amount of latitude in the community that every citizen lives in, and you can have an effect on that. If we all collectively think and are brave enough to think that 30,000 people petitions before president obama right now, all of those people should be released before he leaves office in three months, where in the hell of the protesters demanding the release . When the governor of virginia to this really remarkable thing of bargaining to 50,000 felons who had completed their sentences and restore their Voting Rights, which is the reverse by the virginia Supreme Court and began a methodical process are we pardoning all of these people and now 30,000 people into the process of pardons. Im surprised there was not a giant chorus across the country. Why arent there more people, why arent you doing the same . Why arent democratic governors under pressure much less the republicans to consider those things. Theres a curious combination of frustration over even among activists, a committee there is a kind of timidity, not reflected black lives matter is a fresh contradiction to this, a timidity over whether they have control of the immediate circumstances of their public lives. And a huge hunger and demand of what these leaders are supposed to accomplish for us. I think that is why so many of us were not paying attention when this regime was put in place and ended up incarcerated so many people. Right out of his window, harvard student could get caught with a dime bag of marijuana and an officer will take it and report to the students dean and tell the young person to have a good day. Five miles away, that person would be in handcuffs and in the system. Why . One constituency demands a certain issue be dealt with in one way and another constituency regrettably does not have the voice to make the same demand. Lets take the question right here. In fairness yes, it is true the police will not arrest the kid and harvard because there is an assumption and a demand that all holy hell will that the rain down on Police Police officer should he should he take a kid to jail. It is not true with respect in the black Community Folks are not demanding on a daily basis. You have to stand outside in detroit where i am from and every time the police roll up and they are putting somebody in the back, the entire community is coming out and saying, what did he do . Why are you doing that . Their singular the kid, called as they are saying to the kid, call me. It is about power. It goes to the point you made. It is about money. It is about power. I do not feel it is about people not speaking doubt. It is how they speak out which goes to the point of Civic Education and going to vote for particular people who do exercise is a discretion. I agree. I grew up in one where we complained but then that complained in a register at the ballot box for a whole host of structural reasons. From georgetown, a law professor, butler, he advocated where without these huge meetings in d. C. Where the community is taught if you are a juror, do not convict on nonviolent drug crimes because that will send the message to stop picking on certain communities disproportionately. That is the kind of thing i am about. Did not mean to cut you off. A question from the lady in the front. Thank you for your comments. I work over at the Business School working on a project looking at the history of africanamericans at the Business School. I want to build off of your comment about money and power at the root of a lot of this. And posed the question, whether or not within the context of our foundation being built on money and power, built on stolen land, will we ever have a moment in our civil rights dialogue where we talk about reparations for African American people without laughing . Without saying it will never happen . Will there ever be a real conversation to rectify economic, social oppression in the form of economics . Will we be able to do that . Do you want to take a crack . I will take a crack. There been different moments and that have been fleeting and shortlived. Not as interested in the dialogue. I do not ever hold out that we will have a much longer discussion about reparations and perhaps legislation and or real policy responses around it. Part of what is needed, what is needed, what can help push this forward is what is going on right now. If you look at black lives matter policy platform, they call economic reparations. Not just thinking slavery but that is incredibly important to think about. The different ways in native land has been taken and stolen and the different ways in which the black communities and different communities of color in which Different Things have been taken and are owed. I hope that the discussion continues on a. In terms of reparations for slavery, some of the work that is being done right now and has already been done, there is good work, not like we do not know who the individuals are and we cannot modify we know these things. Another area of work that i am invested in with a number of people is wanting to understand the industries that survive today that profited off of convict labor in postcivil war era. White and pink Grocery Store in the south for you i was thinking about u. S. Still, jpmorgan and that is where that money comes from. And i think the hope of working in the area right now, these corporations accountable for a lot of that has happened. I know it is a business area where number of insurance companies, aetna is one of them insured slaveholders. Is that something that should be owed. It is always an important question to ask. I think we had to this moment in the 1980s and 1990s and then a 2008, we rely, oh yeah. And then now, it is not the case. Deeply entrenched injustices and black people and a lot of people of color has been theres never been a long period of time where black people were not being a murdered by Law Enforcement. Is it crazy . I do not remember a time. People are engaging this long history more than what they did before. I think as will take time. Yeah, i will add one thing. This notion that even theres more terrorism today than ever before, i tweeted out after the horrible events in orlando and people made similar comments that was not the most violent or most highest number of americans killed. If we go back to chicago in 1919, 40 years before that, rosewood, huge numbers of people killed. Some of the issues became part of the reparations discussion prior to 2001 that was largely directed by dr. Charles ogletree at the law school. I was with dr. Ogletree in july late august 2001 at the u. N. Conference on racism in south africa and others may have been there. Controversial at the time because the Bush Administration barred secretary powell from taking delegation