Commentary for ms. And bc and npr and has been featured in 60 minutes and profile Washington Post. A love professor at georgetown university. He is the author of lets get free a hiphop theory of justice winner of the harry shopping media award and showcold policing black men both from the new press. He has published numerous opeds and book reviews including the New York Times the Washington Post the boston globe and the los angeles time. So, please lets welcome them. Thank you for being here. Good evening, everyone. Thank you so much for coming out. It really is my pleasure to have the opportunity to engage you in this way. Im looking forward to your comments your reactions your questions and before we get to all of that i would of course like to thank politics and pros for hosting this event and thank paul for agree to be a moderator. So thank you very much paul. So what i thought i might do in the very limited time that i have is really two things one just say a little bit about what motivated me to write this book and second say a little bit about the arguments that i advance in the book and then really shut up and turn things over to paul. So with respect to the motivation the starting point was to push back against a dominant frame for thinking about race and racism in the United States and that dominant frame goes Something Like this problems of race and racism are a function of individual bad people engaging in intentional discrimination against other individuals. That frame interferes with our ability to think structurally about problems of race and policing now when one says that we should be thinking structurally about race and policing that i know sounds kind of academic. What does that mean . So i promise to be specific about how i see structures in a minute, but one thing i wanted to do was to say that problems of race and policing. Not about individual bad cops targeting individual black people for race violence. Thats not what its about again. Its structural. Second reason i wrote this book was to say that forms of policing that we think are troubling problematic and worrisome. Are not forms of policing that are necessarily illegal. It turns out the constitution. Authorizes Police Officers to engage in various forms of Police Interactions that are violent the book tries to tell that story so that we dont conceive of policing as kind of a bad cop problem, but we think of it as well as a bad law problem. And the particular body of art that i want to focus your attention on is Fourth Amendment law. So im curious if i were to say. Do you know your miranda warnings, you know warnings . Im tempted to ask you out to hold hands and say your miranda warnings. You could probably say your miranda warnings because you know, even if youre an abolitionist, you probably have your favorite cop show. Im not gonna ask you to tell me what it is, but youre probably have one. Now if i were to ask you to recite the text of the Fourth Amendment who could do it. Probably well, not you for butler who teaches whatever the law, but you probably cant do it. And and thats part of why i wrote this book specifically think about discourses that we have about policing we talk about the power to arrest we talk about qualified immunity. We talk about excessive force. We talk about no knock warrants. We talk about stop and frisk. We talk about driving wild black. Each of these problems are Fourth Amendment problems, but you wouldnt know that from the way in which these issues are discussed in the press. So i did a little bit of data. Diving before this talk literally yesterday and i looked in a media archive to kind of see how many stories do you see if you looked at for example deadly force. Four thousand how many of those stories about deadly force also reference the Fourth Amendment . 26 i looked at traffic stops and driving while black how many stories you think you see Something Like 6,000. How many of those stories reference forth amendment . 5 no knock warrants. How many stories do you see Something Like 10,000 how many of those reference the Fourth Amendment . 35 so we can the Fourth Amendment place a Critical Role with respect to all of these pieces of policing. And were not talking about it. There isnt an understanding of the ways in which this body of law constitutionalized the very forms of policing that we think of troubling. Thats another reason. I wrote the book. So lets Say Something about the Fourth Amendment specifically so as paul knows the Fourth Amendment protects us against unreasonable searches and seizures. Thats the critical text again, it protects us from unreasonable searches and seizures. So lets pause and be very clear about what that means. It means number one. That if an officer does something to us. And we cant call it a search or a seizure. The Fourth Amendment doesnt kick in in other words Police Officers can engage us. Without any justification so long as its not a certain seizure. The problem is a Supreme Court keeps saying that various forms of intrusive interactions are not searches or seizures. So if im just on the Street Corner and a given afternoon and a couple approaches me, where are you going what youre doing. Where have you been . Can i see your id . Can i search you etc . Has no reason to think ive done anything wrong. Fourth Amendment Law says im supposed to feel free to leave. Im not seized so the cop doesnt have to justify that. So one big problem is that the court says over and over and over again that intrusive engagements that Police Officers have with us are not searches are not seizures. Therefore the Fourth Amendment doesnt restrain what offices can do thats one problem. The other problem is that even when the Court Concludes that some kind of conduct is a seizure. It makes it easy for Police Officers to justify those seizures. The classic example is stop and frisk. When the cops stop you, thats a seizure when they frisk you, thats a search. The Supreme Court makes it easy for Police Officers to justify stops in frisk by requiring a really low level of justification. You probably heard it reasonable suspicion. Thats a really low justification. So it means that. The Fourth Amendment is supposed to operate as a barrier between the people and the police the black people it operates as a gateway. It doesnt restrain. What Police Officers can do . To black bodies now in many respects one could take the position of paul has taken about the criminal justice at large which is to say the criminal justice isnt broken. Its working the way its supposed to work. Thats an argument that you have long made. One can make a similar kind of arguments. With respect to the Fourth Amendment in this sense. Fourth amendment was added to the constitution in 1791. As part of the bill of rights the Fourth Amendment was added to a slavery constitution. Our constitution that legitimize and anticipated slavery are constitution that assumed that we black people could be captured without any of the protections that the Fourth Amendment affords so you could say its not surprising that the Fourth Amendment doesnt protect us today. Because historically the Fourth Amendment wasnt designed to do that work. And thats part of the argument that i lay out in the introduction. So i want to back up and just Say Something very quickly about how we might think about race and policing structurally that includes the Fourth Amendment. Give you a quick sense of some of the chapters and then ill stop promise. So what i mean by race and policing as a structure for all problem, so there are a couple of moving parts moving part one is this repeated Police Interactions exposes black people to the possibility of violence think about it this way if the police arent interacting with you, they cant stop and frisk you they cant kill you. So part of what we have to think about then is what are the social factors . That make it possible for Police Officers to have repeat interactions with black people. Fourth amendment is part of the answer. Thats one dynamic. Another structural part that we should be thinking about is Police Culture. Police trainings and Police Unions. Thats its own cluster. If Police Culture encourages violence even implicitly thats what youll see. If Police Trainings disattend violence violence is what you will see if Police Unions are more interested. In protecting Police Officers rather than holding them accountable violence is what you will see thats another structure. Still a third structure and this one is particularly crucial is this so assume that theres been some act of violence. Theres no dispute about that. Someones been brutalized. Someones been killed. Weve caught it on film. How does that violence interact with the legal system what happens when Police Violence interact with the legal system a number of things happens one Police Violence plus the legal system equals justifiable force. Youve seen that over and over the number of ways that can happen a the prosecutor wont bring any charges. Thats Police Violence plus the legal system equals justifiable force or lets say the prosecutor brings charges the grand jury doesnt issue an indictment. Youve seen that case. Lets say the prosecutor brings charges the grand jury issues and indictments and then the judge or a jury says no conviction. So these are all moments in which you have Police Violence. Theres no dispute it interacts with the legal system and it comes out as justifiable force. Dad black bodies justified before us another dynamic is Police Violence plus the legal system equals qualified immunity. I cant get into the details of qualified immunity because if i go in that rabbit hole, youll be saying come back devon and i wont be able to come back. Bottom line is that qualified immunity erects a really high bar to holding Police Officers that kind of what everyone kind of agrees with that. The only debate is is that a good thing or a bad thing . Another related factor is even when you win lawsuits against Police Officers. Do they pay who pays . Who pays . Its not the Police Officer. Its your tax dollars. So please officers themselves pay nothing and finally try suing. A Police Department or the city . For acts of violence in which Police Officers engage cant do it wont win unless the Police Department has a policy that says lets go target black people and you wouldnt just call it a racist Police Department. Youd call it a pretty stupid Ballistic Department no ones gonna announce their racial project in that particular kind of way. So the reason reason i focus on these dynamics is front end of policing, you know that at the back end youre going to be protected by qualified immunity. Youre going to be by justifiable before us. The department is never going to be sued it means that theres no incentive for you to exercise care. You know that you can brutalize survey and target black people with impunity and thats exactly what we see. So all of these dynamics are not about some individual Police Officer engaging in some individual act of violence against some individual black person. Its about overarching structural feature and Fourth Amendment law is a crucial part of the story. So unpack the story of Fourth Amendment law and several chapters, and ill just briefly name the chapters and then as i said, i will stop so the first chapter is just on pedestrian checks the ways in which Police Officers can engage us on the street in a range of ways that dont trigger the Fourth Amendment. The next chapter is on traffic stops the driving while black phenomenon and the ways in which traffic stops effectively are gateways to more intrusive encounters that again are perfectly constitutional. Im not going to go into the details of all of that because then you wont buy the book. Chapter 3 stop in frisk and an important part of the stuff in first story. Is that the person who wrote brown versus board of education you all know brown versus board of education the case that says separate but equal is unconstitutional. Justice warren wrote that opinion Justice Warren also constitutionalized stuff and frisk that very same person. So this chapter tells that story. And then the stop and strip. A particular sexually violent practice to which black women are routinely subjected at the borders and which were not really talking about which again authorized under the Fourth Amendment. Predatory policing the use of policing to generate revenues for cities and municipalities and to increase pay for Police OfficersFourth Amendment basically sits back and allows that kind of policing to operate. On the final two chapters of these so in chapter 6 i ask you to read a Supreme Court opinion. I will have prepped you by the other chapters so that you really understand the law pretty well. And you read opinion in which . Supreme court every single justice cosigns racial profiling against black people. This is no exaggeration. The case is rent versus United States in which a unanimous Supreme Court constitutionalized racial profiling. Its a clear indication of the ease with which constitutional doctrine can function in ways that make black lives disposable. And the final chapter is a rewriting of that very opinion where i said look, this is what the Supreme Court could easily have done. On the Fourth Amendment law to make black lives matter and it shows not to so clearly i couldnt in this limited time give you a full sense of the book, but i hope you understand that the project again is the broaden the frame for thinking about race and policing and to center a body of law that is deeply implicated in every single problematic dimension not policing about which we might talk, but that isnt a part of our collective consciousness. So ill stop there and turn things over to you amazing. Summary performance it really makes me want to reread the book and i hope you please read this book. Its this this full blast takedown of the Supreme Court. Oh policing. Of Old School Ways of thinking about Racial Justice and its written with this same righteous anger that we hear from devon, but also common sense and solution focus so the book is fire, please please check it out. So i want to have a short conversation with devin and then open it up. We love to hear from from you all. So first question, i i noticed you have a kind of funny accent. Thing you talk about your your background how that informs unreasonable. Funny accent thats a funny thing accents. So im not from the us i immigrated from the us from the uk of caribbean descent and in the prologue of the book. I tell the story of my own encounters with policing and frame it quite frankly as i kind of naturalization that that policing is a way in which i was naturalized into a particular kind of black american identity and that you can think of racism as performing that particular role. So the insights that i came to in many ways were forged in my own encounters with the police and got me. Just tell the story of when you and your brothers were. So one one story involves us coming back from the airport and showing up at my sisters apartment and neighbors called the cops indicating to them that apparently black people had just entered an apartment with guns. So the way this work essentially, you know, were in the living room. Naturally someones making tea or english. What can i say . So the castle is literally going and im like, where are my brothers whats going on . So i go in the kitchen to turn off the gas so the kettle would stop and i see outside my brothers pinned against the wall with cops the cops and instructs us to come outside and were pinned against the wall in the same way and theyre justification for doing this is we received word that. Guns are in the apartment that you enter the apartment with the guns. We said theres no guns. Thats rubbish. Can we search the apartment . Of course . Were no position to say no so they searched the apartment. They found no guns and at the end of all of that there was the standard quote unquote. We are sorry and they carried on and you can think about the trauma of seeing your siblings pinned against the wall with guns you having a gun pointed at you not knowing where any of this is going to go. And i didnt really think that much about it in the moment to be perfectly frank. Its years after years that i reflect on it. Call it up and realize what a frightening frightening moment. That is and how that vulnerability is a defining feature of what it means to be black. The extent to which any particular Police Interaction is potentially a killing zone and what it means to kind of live with that existential reality. And so many people especially people of color have stories of the experiencing trauma like that. Im so sorry that that happened to you and your brothers, but how does that lead you to . Writing a book that could be interpreted as trying to make policing better. Why doesnt horrible experience just make you want to to fund the police and start with something brand new and non. Races i think thats a really terrific and important question and one of the ways that one might take that up is to again think about different. Levels on which one can have a conversation about defunding or abolition etc and these terms clearly mean Different Things to different people and im not going to presume to define a full parameters of all of that. What i will say is this if its the case that Police Officers to borrow a line from feminism are not born Police Officers, but become Police Officers through the sources of power. Its helpful for us to think about what abolitionism might mean visavis abolishing those powers so we can talk about lets abolish Police Officers. Lets abolish. The institution of the police but we ought to remember that the institution of the police. Is made up of a constellation of particular kinds of powers. So what would it mean for us to abolish stuff and frisk . What would it mean for us abolish the particular power to arrest . What would it mean for us to abolish qualified immunity . What would it mean for us to abolish the authority to use deadly force so you can see how you can have this conversation . In a way thats targeted quite specifically at various forms of police power as distinct from a more general conversation about what police abolitionism or defunding might look like. So thats a first way i would respond. The other way i would is to say black people especially cannot seed any particular sight of power by that i mean law is one mechanism and something at the only one for thinking about social change, but its not a mechanism that we can give up on. Its not the case that we can say. Ah Fourth Amendment law poo poo. Lets not try and make it better given the material ways in which it structures and determines black peoples lives. So i think its kind of a walk on chewing gum at the same time and i think there are people who are engaged in Community Organizing who think deeply way more deeply about the problem of defund and abolition than to why who have more radical imaginations than to why who can think about what that might means . I dont claim to be the best person to speak on that particular topic i can speak on the ways in which this regime of constitutional power authorizes specific forms of violence in black people lives. I think we should know about it and try to intervene. So you said that the Fourth Amendment should be more like miranda. In the sense that Everybody Knows miranda, so everybody should know the Fourth Amendment. But is miranda a Success Story do you think so miranda . Supreme court wild it out with this amazing rule that the cops. Have to tell the suspect. That he doesnt have to talk to him. And then asked do you want to talk to us even though talking to you will get you talking to us. Well get you a lot of trouble. You still want to do it. So people thought it was crazy. But now most officers say all it does is communicate to a suspect that youre under arrest. She doesnt hear anything else. In part because its so famous. So part of it is like real specific. If Everybody Knows the Fourth Amendment. Whoopi but part of it is is kind of more theoretical in the sense that youre talking about rights. And and rights mattering but whats the evidence that when it comes to . Youre not walking down the street feeling safe from the cops that writes actually do matter. So i would say two things i think in response neither. Was it going to be fully satisfying . So one is the reason im saying that everyone should know about the Fourth Amendment is because it provides a basis for advocacy. It provides a basis for righteous indignation. It provides a basis for mobilization. So if people dont understand the ways in which law is constitutionalizing violence it crumbs their social justice style. It means that their modality of argumentation is circumscribed in some way. So some of this is just about broadening the terms on which we advocate and having this is a backdrop means that theres more things that we can say to rile people up about whats wrong with race and police and so its a political consciousness raising to political. Advocacy investment. Thats one thing. The other thing is that its possible though. Im not that optimistic that knowing your Fourth Amendment rights. Could work slightly differently than it does in the miranda context and heres why. So this is a little bit technical, but stay with me. So with respect to miranda a miranda rights. Kick in only after weve been arrested so you need to have a fullon custodial arrest and in that context. The office says you know, you dont have to talk. You have a right to a lawyer but pretty coercive already. So you might feel like even though the office youre saying that i still have to talk because im under arrest it feels coercive. With respect to other kinds of interactions that are not arrests or an officer just good evening. I want to ask your name, but you dont have to talk to me. That could actually do some work not saying it willing all instances, but thats different than a moment in which the officer says youre under arrest and you dont have to talk versus hello. Whats your name what youre doing . You dont have to talk. Those are not the same level of coercion. So in one youre more likely to exercise your right than the other but i agree. Im not persuaded that people will necessarily always feel empowered to exercise their rights, but i think theres a distinction that could in some instances matter. So ive got two more questions and looking forward to hearing from you. The first question a black cops question mark i initially meant to write a chapter about black cops. And i punted so that you have it but theres a big but i did write a paper with a colleague song richardson reviewing james foremans book locking up around so remember jim form writes this book about the degree to which judges and prosecutors the former. Paul butlers are implicated in the sort of locking up black people. And so song and i thought that it made sense to think about the implication of his arguments so policing so do we think it makes a difference if youre a black cup and the empirical evidence is kind of. Mixed and the reason its mixed if you make a difference you make a difference to people on the street or make a difference to Law Enforcement you make a difference in black peoples lives. So you will have a different form of policing and policing structure to the extent that black cops are a part of the scene. So please seeing will look different feel different because theyre black cops. Thats the idea. Now there are a couple of reasons to question that if again we take seriously that the problem of policing is a structure. So if you put black people in a problematic structure what you end up with is a problematic structure now, it doesnt mean that there is no pushing back, but it means that they are grappling with racism as black cops and the space for them to exercise agency in a liberatory sense is constrained and their capacity. To kind of navigate that terrain means fit it in and fit it in means acquiescing in the forms of policing with which were familiar. So the point is not that theres no pushback or you cant expect some of it. The point is rather that if its a structural problem just add in black cops to the mix. Its not necessarily going to solve it. So, thats all i think about the question mark an increasingly people are asking those kinds of questions with respect to black cops with respect to women. I mean whether or not regimes of policing will look different if all we do is diversify and the footnote is this we know that if the project is just diversity quad diversity. It doesnt do enough. We have to think again about systems change and not just diverse bodies and so thats another reason to question whether diversification without more is going to have the kind of meaningful shift that we might want and then my last question is well, what are we supposed to do right now . So sometimes when i had these conversations i think of a title of another book titled that book is is im here to get my baby out of jail. And i love that title. In part because of the imperative but in part its because that character is doing something a lot of people do when they hear someones arrested. They go to the police station. Just street law thats high. Not the best thing to do, but a lot of people do that because its something that they can do right there. So professor what can we do right now . So i dont think that this book is going to answer the big question about how do we fix the Current Situation in which we find ourselves . I think were having terrific conversations about different kinds of interventions into which this book can feed by that. I mean were asking ourselves questions about reforms when do we want to put a reform agenda on the table . When do we want a kind of nonreformist reform . And when do we want to tear things down . I think part of the ability to engage in those three efforts turns on what we know and i worry about the degree to which discussions about race and policing sometimes poopoo the degree to which law matters. So what we can do for my limited advantage point is understand that law is a crucial part of the race and policing problem and that observation it seems to me as insights for the kind of advocacy that we subsequently pursue. So this is not a howto book at all. It is a consciousness raising book that puts all of us in a better position to articulate. How race and policing is structure. And the specific role that a body of law that were not talking about plays into it. So, what do you think . Comments questions. Lets keep the conversation going. I was curious i appreciated here. Oh, thank you. I appreciate your point about. The importance of political education and consciousness raising around the Fourth Amendment and im curious if there are if there are other pieces or components that you think people need to steep themselves in and have a better understanding of within the law. That help us attack this work from like a social justice standpoint because anyways, it was a good reminder for me even that i need to be thinking about this more holistically. And so im just wondering if you have any further thoughts on that. Yeah, thank you for that question because it provides an opportunity to Say Something more generally about the difference. I think between say the left and the right and advocacy and the law so if you think about the ways in which people on the right think about law and constitutional law so consider for example role versus wade i mean we are now in a we dont have to say where we are. Now. Its quite frightening and part of the way we got here. It seems to me was that the right made that case a political project for years . Think about the Second Amendment and what the Second Amendment now means we got here because the right made that a political project. The question is how has the left made law a political project . How have we mobilized law in our own communities . There are lots of cases. I could name consider. For example. Washington versus davis who knows this case so this is the case in which the Supreme Court says. To bring a claim of discrimination to prove discrimination you need to demonstrate intent if you cant demonstrate intent move away. We know that dismantling racism. Is not going to happen by trying to find the person who acted intentionally, but do we know that this is a case in our community in the way that the right knows about roe v wade or or a moved the kind of Second Amendment debate . No, so there are lots of cases that are not part of our consciousness. Advocacy that are about law that should be so i think thinking more about that not that law is the answer. Its not the answer and its a difference between thinking about law as an avid as a as a space for advocacy and law as a consciousness raising activity for some other kind of advocacy. So the faculty im saying we should know about law is not the fact that im saying we can mitigate our way out of inequality. Those are two separate claims, but if people again no law more than they do it generates precisely the righteous indignation about which i spoke earlier. Thats a basis for particular kind of Community Organizing and advocacy. So there was an extraordinarily successful left. Legal fight for Marriage Equality which which one . Yeah. Who is there an equivalent battle in the Fourth Amendment context . Well, i dont think so. I mean i i mean again, i think its hard to point to something that looks like that and significantly if we think about the Marriage Equality. Trajectory note that it didnt start at the Supreme Court. Those terrible precedent and the advocacy started bottom up if you like by that i mean the advocacy to was directed at City Ordinances state law state Supreme Court and then the Supreme Court caught up and you can think about those moves even with policing. Because in many ways what the Fourth Amendment suggests is that Police Officers should not use the power the Fourth Amendment gives them thats basically the advocacy you have all these power dont use it. A b state courts can constrain Police Officers more than they do Police Departments can constrain themselves more . So Marriage Equality is actually instructive in the sense of thinking about different levers of change. Theyre not necessarily about the Supreme Court. Other questions comments thank you so much for being with us tonight. Im going to out myself. I am a lawyer. So thank you so much. Thats an educating us. I really appreciate it. I work in Domestic Violence law and i primarily represent survivors who live in the district. Most of them are women of color and i know from an anecdotal perspective. I can say that many of my clients are really hesitant to call the police when something happens because they are scared for themselves for their children or for this person that even though they have harmed them. That is someone they usually care about and they are scared for what might happen and im wondering if from a more systemic perspective youve seen any evidence that the impact of violent policing against communities of color prevents survivors of crime from coming forward. Yeah, so as i dont know that i can point to any empirical evidence of the cuff, but there is a literature on precisely this point the degree to which people understand for. Well that the call the police as a move for protection ends up being an instance of over policing that is to say the police. End up causing violence in moments where theyre expected to disrupt it and that has particular gendered dimensions to it. We could expand the conversation to think about the ways in which that intersects with issues of disability. I mean many of the most fraught examples of policing implicate disability in deep and profound ways and ways that we only now beginning to understand we can think about the ways in which the cost serial lodges of policing are entering places of care. I mean, my colleague sunita patel has been writing about precisely a feature of this problem looking at for example policing in the context of hospitals. So were beginning to see or beginning to have a better sense of just how broad the tentacles of police scene are and the ways in which they operate in domains of care that produces precisely the kind of gendered outcomes about what you just spoke. And in the category of im here to get my baby out of jail. So what would your advice be to one of this lawyers clients . Who . Fills at risk of being harmed in her own home and in fact has been armed in our own home. But doesnt know what she gets out of. Dialing 911 what would you say to her . So i would say the same thing i say. And said to people in the context of doing know your rights campaign. So, let me just back up and give you the consequences to do this in law school where you go to these Detention Centers these. Terrible spaces of cost to reality for you know adolescence, okay. And you articulate their rights . This is what you have the right to do. Understand that because knowing that might be somewhat empowering. Think about whether you exercise that right because doing it can kill you. You have to say both of those things. You cant just say you have a right to say no to the police. You have a right to walk away. You have a right to x y or zed you cant just say that. With the view that you should then exercise it knowing that exercising that right. Can be lifethreatening. So its the same scenario. Think about what it might mean to call the police into your home. I cant presume to tell you whether to do it. Think about your safety and understand that it has this particular entailment and then its your call. These are the situations under which people have to live. Thinking about experience in one form of violence or another so all we can do is empower people to understand the risks. And they have to make the call. And we got time for one last question. Yes. Hi professors. Thank you so much for being here tonight. Im a rising too. Well, so mythology is very limited right now as you know, but i think its important to recognize also that being in the black community at the African Diaspora is very diverse, and i think having ancestral links to slavery is also very important and there are a few students in law school with that experience. So and im also a system impacted from a lowincome community. Thats both under policed and over police at the same time. So its difficult to understand or explain. You know, why systems are structurally racist without explanation or why blackness provokes Police Officers the way that it does and i think the issues for me are with trainings and things like that. How can one disrupt narratives of implicit bias which i in my opinion . I feel like is guiltfree racism because stereotypes are so deeply entrenched in the american psyche, but how can you disrupt that . How can you create a new system where people with those biases . Are still going to be in charge in some way or another . So great that youre in law school. I know its not a fun place to be but youre done with the 1l here. So congratulations, but thats a yeah. Well paul, and i could have a call about that. So. Heres what i would say. And theres so much we could say about implicit bias, but we dont have time. If we focus there for just a minute. Part of why i always tend to structure is precise to because what youre trying to do is put in place mechanisms that presuppose that people will act out their biases in some particular kind of ways and i agree with you that bias is kind of touchy looseygoosey way to talk about things but sometimes its a good trojan horse. Meaning you have that talk people are with you because you can show some science and and then you make a structural and then you make a structural move. So my interest is not necessarily in thinking that i can scrub the history. Of racialized knowledge that weve internalized over time. I dont think we can do that. I think again we have to ask ourselves. How can we move power . How can we shift regimes of power . How can we put in place protective mechanisms that might help address some of the problems about which weve been discussing and i do think the point about black communities being multifaceted what they did not say, i mean clearly we can think about race and policing and blackness from a multiplicity dis perspective Integration Status gender identity Sexual Orientation class. I mean all of these things matter and render people different black people differentially vulnerable to violence there is what someone might call a kind of bottom line blackness to all of this where blackness called blackness trigger stuff, but its not the case that were equally vulnerable and we can think about legacies to slavery in different kinds of ways, but i hear you that grappling seriously without proposition in a context in which were being silenced around discourses around race is kind of hard. So righteous anger. Brilliant insightful analysis in common sense unreasonable. Its fire. Thank you, devin. Carbato. No, thanks, very and thank all of you i appreciate it. Thank you for coming. Thanks. Thank you both for being here and for such a rich conversation. I really we really appreciate it. And thank you everyone for coming. We still have copies at the register and he will be signing copies here for you. Thank you. Hi and welcome to word bookstores. We are local independent bookstore that has a location here where you are at in greenpoint and one on jersey city. Im holly. Im one of the booksellers here in greenpoint. Were so happy you could join us for this event to celebrate eliza reeds new book secrets of the sprecker. Eliza reed is the cofounder of the acclaimed iceland writers retreat. She grew up near ottawa canada and moved to iceland in 2003. She is the sitting first lady of iceland. Eliza will be in conversation with emily gold the author of and the heart said whatever friendship and perfect tunes. With ruth curry. She started emily books a