Talking Transitional Justice with Joshua Grant

Joshua Grant, a researcher working with the Transitional Justice Resource Center in Kosovo, talks with me about his studies in transitional justice. He is passionate about issues of race in international relations as well as what is happening in the US. In this conversation, we compare recent and historical events in the context of what we are experiencing in America and around the world today.

Below are some resources to get you started on your own research surrounding these topics:

History of Policing in America
https://www.insider.com/history-of-police-in-the-us-photos-2020-6

Black Codes and Reconstruction
https://www.insider.com/history-of-police-in-the-us-photos-2020-6

Greensboro Massacre
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aYuqI_69g0
https://www.wunc.org/post/40th-anniversary-greensboro-massacre
https://belovedcommunitycenter.org/truth-reconciliation/

The Southern Strategy
https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences/applied-and-social-sciences-magazines/southern-strategy

Transitional Justice in Action
https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/14/europe/nazi-grandfather-store-scli-intl-grm/index.html

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Transcript

Intro  00:06
Welcome to our True Colors hosted by Shawna Gann join her as she explores the challenges of being a racial riddle, an ethnic Enigma, and a cultural conundrum. Let's dive in.

Shawna  00:22
Hello, Carmen. Good morning Shawna. How are you?

Carmen  00:26
Good. How are you?

Shawna  00:27
I'm doing pretty good. Although I was feeling like, I'm not ready for fall.

Carmen  00:33
But

Shawna  00:34
There's like nature's like, oh, sorry, we know you had like, COVID and stuff. And you didn't go anywhere. But so still

Carmen  00:40
Got on a tight schedule here. 

Shawna  00:43
Yeah, pretty much. I was drinking my coffee this morning when the keys flew over. And I was like, I'm not Yeah, not right. 

Carmen  00:51
Yeah
Shawna  00:52
I'm not I'm not ready for this. I don't know where you guys are going. But

Carmen  00:55
Yeah, I can feel it in the air. It's a little crisper than that. I want it to be. 

Shawna  01:00
You know why I always say like, when school starts the air changes. 

Carmen  01:05
Yeah,

Shawna  01:06
I know that. It's just seasonal anyway, but it's something psychological in my mind, too. 

Carmen  0:08
Yeah. 

Shawna  01:09
Starts in the morning.

Carmen  01:11
Yeah, for sure. 

Shawna  01:13
Like, I need to go buy pencils,

Carmen  01:15
And get a new backpack. I'm glad I'm not going back to school this fall. To be I need a break.

Shawna  01:23
I can't say that I knee deep in it. But you know, pushing through and this time next year, though I’ll be done

Carmen  01:31
Nice. That's exciting.

Carmen  01:34
Yeah, 

Shawna  01:34
I can look forward to that. It's been a long three years. Anyway, well, glad to be talking to you. And super glad to be talking about this topic today. Our guest Josh Grant is a recent grad. And he really focused in on transitional justice.

Joshua  01:54
My name Joshua grant, actually just recently graduated international relations. And it's a focus on EU studies and major focus on justice and laws. I'm just very passionate about politics, civil rights, human rights, and all that comes along with that. And I've got to write a few op eds. And I have a paper that I'm working on currently discussing ideas of justice and civil and human rights in relation to America's current situation.

Shawna  02:22
Oh, my gosh, every single person needs to know about this. Because it just makes so much sense. How many times do we talk about things like conflict resolution? Like on a small level, you know,

Carmen  02:33
Mm hmm. I think it's one of those things where like, this topic, there's, there's ways to apply it that are pretty creative. And so I think there's a role for everybody to play in it, which I think makes it a little bit different,

Shawna  02:45
Right. And there's so many relevant connections to other societies, and how they put it to use that. It's just good stuff. So d

Carmen  02:55
Definitely. 

Shawna  02:56
Y'all set

Carmen  02:56
Yes, I am ready to go. 

Shawna  02:58
Alright, let's dive in. Hi, Josh. Welcome to our true colors.

Joshua  03:09
Hey, Miss Gann. How are you doing? 

Shawna  03:11
Good, please feel free to call me Shawna.

Joshua  03:13
Okay, no,

Shawna  03:14
Yeah. It's so good to have you on the show. I've been looking forward to this interview, because you introduced the topic to me that I was unfamiliar with. And it just all made so much sense. Firstly, I love that you have studied international relations, and congratulations on your recent graduation First of all, 

Joshua  03:38
Thank you

Shawna  03:39
Well, that's exciting. And I love your topic of study, because I have been fortunate enough to live abroad and experience, what it means and what it is to be American in different places. And how interesting it is, for people to see me that way when I'm not quote at home, you know?

Joshua  04:00
Yeah, I get it. A very popular question that I got was, um, you know, what's it like in America, given all the action that's going on everyone from every cab driver, every restaurant and so funny, then trying to figure out what it is? What an American is now, given the climate? It's pretty fun.

Shawna  04:19
Mm, I feel like there's never not been action of some kind. Yes, definitely. Right now. 2020. I mean, in recent history, not just now. But 2020 in particular, has been just chock full of action, no doubt. And so I am interested to learn what you have learned and your studies and you know, the kinds of things that you have found but one thing I'm hoping that we can start with is the concept of transitional justice, because that was new to me. I had never heard that term, but as soon as you started talking about it, I was like, Oh, yes. I mean, it completely made sense. Could you just talk about it a little bit what that is what that means transitional justice.

Joshua  05:06
So transitional justice asked the question, how does a society once torn apart due to hegemonic upheaval due to dictatorships due to genocide due to civil war? How do they reconcile and come together again after such deep trauma, deep embedded cultural trauma, and it has mechanisms that hope to provide an interim solution to those problems. transitional justice mechanisms include truth Commission's which seek to tell the true story of victims, and also perpetrators, they seek to get to that idea of a stable truth, we find that there's a lot of people who deny the Holocaust. So they instituted through Commission's to reach in and grab the stories of those who were victims and those who were persecutors, we also see an emphasis on getting rid of impunity. So punishing those who did perpetrate crimes and creating a justice system that does hold people accountable is very important. After those major upheavals, it also emphasizes reform. So reforming policing institutions militaries to that they become acceptable in their countries. So one example is creation in Yugoslavia, where the military was repurposed and made to do their true service not to war against other ethnicities, but they were reformed in that way. And other mechanisms, such as reparations to actually pay back the victims, what they're due for their suffering. So it's, it's a lot of things that go into helping mend a broken country in a climate that was once filled with opposing sides and, and violence.

Shawna  06:46
Right, so immediately what comes to mind, and maybe this I mean, I know there are so many examples of this, but maybe it's because we lived there for a while, is Berlin, Germany in general, but then specifically Berlin, when we lived in Germany, you could see very clearly the difference between other regions in the country. And then the capital city of Berlin. And one of the things that was the most chilling to me, when we lived there, we happen to be there during the 20th anniversary of the fall of the wall. And all throughout the city, they set up these huge dominoes. And it was amazing, because organizations were sponsoring the you know, by buying these dominoes, and they would paint them decorate them, put whatever on them. And then at the exact time that the wall began to fall, they set off these dominoes, and they fell all along the city. And for anyone who's never been to Berlin, when you walk throughout the city, there are parts where you can clearly see the east from the west, if you look down, there's brick that runs showing you where the line was, where the wall was. And so like you can stand one side on the other and go to Checkpoint Charlie, and it's very, it's very chilling. It was just a very eye opening and interesting experience to be there at that time. And I think about that reunification and how it relates to another place we lived, which was South Korea, and we think about, maybe one day, the eventual Reunification of Korea, North and South Korea.

Joshua  08:37
Mm hmm.

Shawna  08:37
So do you have any other interesting examples of societies that have been kind of torn apart and come back together again?

Joshua  08:47
Well, I mean, we can look at North Africa, where the Arab Spring took place. And we can see that the transistor does is has been used there in Morocco and other countries. And they're actually they actually have for transitional justice, arbitrators and theorists on the ground and helping to work out things in Libya with various sides. So I mean, it's happening all around us as we speak. They're instituting these sort of methods and mechanisms and trying to help countries Institute those mechanisms and methods in their societies. And oftentimes, transitional justice is not necessarily the end goal is not always necessarily a reunification because there's been cases such as Sudan and South Sudan, which have separated but they've done work in South Sudan to help them come up and create a society that is just and won't fall into the same woes of its of its old uniformed self. So they help by boosting these democratic efforts and by helping to establish rule of law and other things. I think it would be interesting, thinking about places where transitional justice should have taken place but didn't which is kind of where my eyes have gone and where the things I've been reading about Especially from my position as a black man in America, and someone who feels like I didn't get what I needed to get from transitional justice, I don't think that the US has done its due diligence to really affect a transition. And when you study US history, we find that justice and transitional justice just hasn't really happened for a large population of our country, it almost can be described as Justice, deferred or transitional injustice. It's been from injustice to injustice to injustice. And now, here we are. 

Shawna  10:42
Right. I was hoping you would go there, because earlier and your description of what transitional justice is, you mentioned reparations. And we know that that has come up so often in the US, and what that means and who thinks it's something fair, or who doesn't, we really have not, had reparations in any form. Oftentimes, it's spoken about monetarily. But when you when you listed things like the truth commissions, and, you know, holding people accountable, and reform, these are all things that we have been talking about, you know, for generations. It's not, it's not new. Yet, for some reason, it's been so very difficult to reach a place where we can have these truth conditions and have, have the truth be heard by all sides. And to really reach an agreement and understanding and have some sort of acknowledgement, that that this happened, and that it has never, there's never been atonement, 

Joshua  11:49
Knowledge, such a big part of transitional justice, people don't understand the importance in the feeling of being acknowledged. And how significant that is, how significant that is to victims, just to know that you are hurting, your feelings are understood, never, never understood to the level that you've experienced them. But recognized it's, it's powerful. Yeah, I like that.

Shawna  12:13
Yeah, it really is powerful. I mean, I can think of little tiny examples throughout my life where you just want someone to acknowledge what happened and all the way to where we are now. And the resurgence or the new energy that surrounds the Black Lives Matter movement, in fact, so I have a Black Lives Matter sign in my front yard, and we live pretty close to a major road where there's a lot of traffic and bus stop. And anyway, there's lots of opportunities for people to go past our house. Someone stole my sign. I was mad because the violation the theft anyway, but so upset, because I felt like in doing so whomever this was, was trying to silence me, you know? Yeah. And you think why? Why would someone do that? 

Joshua  13:05
Yeah

Shawna  13:06
People, so defend the First Amendment, and will be up in arms The first time you try to silence them, I would never go to someone else's yard and take any of their political signs and a candidate, you know, for any candidate that they're supporting, or anything like that. And just to even explain that the Black Lives Matter movement. It isn't even having to do with politics. It's completely a humanitarian issue.

Joshua  13:30
It's a hopeful affirmation of black life. It's, it's not even speaking to the reality, it's speaking to what we hope to be the future. It's something that everyone I believe, should should agree with. I think that people would be upset about it, because at the same time, it speaks to culpability and responsibility on those who benefit from a system that devalues black life, and those who actively perpetrate violence against black lives simultaneously saying that we do matter says that we're treated as if we don't. So there's somebody at the other end that might feel attacked, that might feel as if they're not getting a fair shake or fair look at but, I mean, that's the reality. It's something that still needs to be acknowledged.

Shawna  14:11
Right? It comes back to that bit about acknowledgement. I think the biggest one, the most common thing you hear is all lives matter. Right? 

Joshua  14:21
Yeah.

Shawna   14:22
And having had a conversation or two or several, with lots of people trying to explain what that means. Why saying all lives matter is totally discounting the point, you know, that it's not saying Black Lives Matter does not mean that all lives don't matter. It's trying to get you to focus on this community that has suffered and suffered and suffered because of a system from the from the jump and one of one of my neighbors in an online post. wrote and I loved this. She said, you know, if you were support in support of whales. And you had a sign in your yard that said, All whales matter? Would you be offended if the person didn't also have a sign that said, all mammals matter? You know, it was like, That's such a good point, right? Because it's not saying, I don't care about all these other people. It's saying this is the focus. This is the this is what we need to turn our attention to, right now, because we can see the disparity, we can see the violence, we can see clearly, these differences and the lives that have been lost because of this. And to me, the Black Lives Matter movement moves beyond police brutality, even though that definitely is an area where you can see those systemic and justices, it to me, that Movement represents the system in general. And that's so hard, if you have grown up in your entire life, you have been able to enjoy certain privileges, while understanding that there are still those who are, you know, more privileged than you. There's still, you know, an aspect of life that you're able to enjoy, like being able to go completely free of these things that people in the black community have faced all along the murder of George Floyd, that shook me like, I've never been shaken before. I mean, we have seen this happen, we have been witnessing these deaths, and it's been horrible. But that one, like many people, that one got to me, so Oh, just so much. And then I could not stop watching the news, I could not turn away from the protests. And then I began to see these protests popping up outside of the US, I was first of all florid about all of the cities that were beginning to, you know, voice against all of this, but then to see Paris and London, and even in Iceland, I was like, Oh, my God, you know

Joshua  17:06
It was beautiful, beautiful. Talk about being a citizen of a global community, it really helped me at least feel recognized, not only by those who choose to recognize humanitarian violence, or human rights violations in the US, but those internationally who look at this and say, the US is not upholding its ideals. The US is not doing its job to protect all of its citizens. And, you know, my programs international was in Florence. So it was beautiful to see so many people in Florence, even people that I know, were friends with that I you know, used to cut, get an aperol spritz with, down at the US Embassy protesting in Florence, it was just, it was amazing to see that, you know, Black Lives Matter and international relations too, which is actually a title of an article that I got to write for my schools paper. And it just basically discussed this normative idea that us domestic politics doesn't have too much to do with its international politics. But a wise person once told me that internal always affects the external. And I see that happening now. Because although people shouldn't generally treat the US as domestic politics with an impunity. Just because we have wealth, we have money, we have military and we can throw our weight around these international communities. We're not afraid to make vocal, they're discussed with what took place in Minnesota, and Minneapolis. So it was nice to see them recognize and validate black life. And to be honest, they they they did it in solidarity with people who the they believe our brothers and sisters, you know, it was great. 

Shawna  18:53
Yeah yeah, that was so moving to me, even in places that like don't have a large black population. So you know, we lived in the Czech Republic, and the city of Prague is it's pretty homogenous. There's not a lot of racial diversity there, save some tourists that come and go. But in terms of local residents, it's there's really not much racial diversity at all. In fact, there are a lot of incidents of racism there.

Joshua  19:24
There's movements like the identitarian, which are a group of Austrians and Czech Republic, and some from Hungary and even northern Italy, that resist this new wave of immigration on the basis of race and racial inferiority, such superiority. So yeah, I experienced that while I was abroad, too. It's it's very interesting to see we had blips of that happen, and other countries.

Shawna  19:48
Yes, exactly. But what blew my mind was to see pictures of flowers and tokens of love and support. Like All around us, I just Oh God, the chills, because I thought I never knew I never knew there was this presence there because I always saw the racism or the discrimination or I felt so out of place there was one of the things, you know, that the show is about, is trying to find your people or when you feel like you don't belong. And that was one city that What a gorgeous city, it's such a beautiful city, and I have friends there that I'm sure will be lifelong friends. But it was also a city where I felt very alone, and very different. And so to see that act of love, and solidarity, just it totally changed me. You know, it's like, oh, my God, okay, it was there. I just never saw it. And it's so sad that it took such a tragedy to see it, but also uplifting to know that there is hope.

Joshua  21:01
Mm hmm. Yeah, there is hope, which is, I guess kind of connects me back to the whole transitional justice thing. I believe in, I believe in hope. And I do believe that we can find hope and create room for development. Even in the political witch, a lot of black people and a lot of people that I know a lot of Native American friends that I have people of all different ethnicities, and minorities who do feel that same feeling of aloneness that you've felt in Prague, even fear. I think that there's hope for a future in America. And I think that there are actual steps and changes that our government can really take and implement, that can change the atmosphere in our country for the better. Some have, I guess, resigned themselves to pacifism. And they don't really think that America will change. And history shows that America doesn't change too much. You know, I mentioned it earlier, I think that America's history is one of justice deferred. I mean, we have the Emancipation Proclamation, but racism still persisted. And we have after that the black codes which inhibited black people from even working trades, other than agriculture at the time, I mean, they had to pay huge taxes, if they decided to open a shop, to hurt them economically. And to make them maintain slavery, we find that like policing police, I think I believe it was only three police forces in all of America before the Civil War. And then after it blew up, and policing began a massive industry that was largely developed and made, you know, made militant in the south where they were rounding up black people and putting them back on plantations, one the size of Manhattan, it was in persistent, after that we find you know, that's the black codes were abolished. And then we enter a season of segregation. And then we have Brown v board of education that abolishes that segregation on the me on, on the idea that things were separate, but they weren't equal. So now you have to get together. And then racism still persists. And then we have the champion of the Civil Rights Movement being shot. Somebody said, some scholar, I don't, I don't know if it was Eddie glaude or Cornel West. But they said, it was really interesting to sit in history class and hear people talk about how in American history, we just overcame racism due the Civil Rights Act of 1964. And, and so on, and the Voting Rights Act, and the hero died at the end of the story. That's how you describe he said, You remember to be nine and hearing, we won, and we beat racism. But he just couldn't get over the fact that the hero died at the end of the story. That doesn't make a triumph.

Shawna  23:47
No, it really doesn't. Wow, you know, I wasn't marching in the civil rights era. I'm sure at that time, people then saw the needle moving a little bit, right. But clearly, we're not there. And I feel like now we see the needle moving. I mean, I'm having conversations with colleagues that I never would have had even a year ago, people are willing to have conversations. But just as this is happening, I see a lot of resistance to, I feel like from what you've explained, we need to do two things, we need to get at a place where we are ready to receive where everyone is ready to receive the truths. And then we need to go through these different steps, these things that you talked about, you know, like getting rid of this impunity. This, you know, we have to be able to hold people accountable, putting in place reform, that makes sense. And that is fair, not just on the surface, and to really break down and destroy the current system in order to rebuild in a fair way. But how do we do it? What does America need to do?

Joshua  24:56
So I think that employing the transitional mechanisms are definitely going to be key to actually achieving true multicultural and multiracial democracy where everyone is viewed as being equal. So I think one thing that needs to be done is that qualified immunity needs to be dealt with, right? This the judicial doctrine that really shields government officials and also in specifically police officers from being held liable for constitutional violations that they perpetrate. And there are cases such as the Harlow court case, the court established that a plaintiff could overcome qualified immunity only by showing the defendants conduct violated established statutory or constitutional rights, of which a reasonable person would have known. So this relies on the person who's the perpetrator, saying that he knew that he was violating somebody's rights. That's crazy. That requires, I mean, any that means any cop can shoot a black person, and plausibly say, I thought he had a gun on them. And then he's absolved. This requires the jury to believe and for a prosecutor, to prove without a reasonable doubt, which is our society's based on our judicial system requires a prosecutor to prove without a reasonable doubt that this officer intended to kill this black person. And that was his only want self-defense. And that's such a high threshold to give to people with so much power. I mean, if I were to be stopped by a police officer right now, I would fear for my life given that there's not a punishment barring him from doing me bodily harm. That's something that needs to be dealt with. So I think that judicial reform is necessary. And hopefully this case of George Floyd helps to redefine the way that judges across the nation interpret this law and this precedent that has been set. I also think that truth Commission's really should be instituted, they had been used limitedly in the United States. I don't know if you know about the Greensboro massacre. I actually didn't know about it until this summer, until I did more research on various transitional justice efforts in the US domestically. But um, in 1979, a group in a caravan of Ku Klux Klan members, and American Nazi Party members open fire on a crowd of protesters, they injured 10, they killed five people, and it was a mixed group. But the protest was largely made up of black individuals protesting labor rights, they were working in all these textile mills, and they weren't getting their fair shake. And they weren't getting their their fair cut of the pie. They were paid less. They were worked, working long hours, they couldn't take off. They just didn't have the rights afforded to other people and other industries in that town. And there was a concerted effort to hush that story. Not many people knew about it. The victims were called violent. Even though the protests was not violent by any accounts, they actually said that the victims fired first. I don't want to make sense given the general story of the time, they said a caravan came to the protest. I think a caravan of Nazi members included him members, I don't know how you can look at a group of angry people with the intent and the history of murdering black people and murdering political dissenters that they don't really agree with. I don't know you can, how you can view them as not being a threat, you know, and no one fired, there were only shots from one side it was from the caravan. And victims laid in silent and they were forced out of their, their city, really they were quieted by the police and by the judges, even by the news in the media at the time. And they came together in 1999, on the anniversary of the murder of the massacre, and they decided to really get their story out there. And they investigated with help from various businesses and various individuals in their community. They accumulated enough money to really investigate the issue and they got the story published. And that was a great effort. They even had people who perpetrated crimes individuals who were a part of the caravan that shot at them testify. What happened and it was a beautiful thing to see. These people who were so traumatized, people who lost friends and people who love loved ones, receive a little bit of indication and acknowledgement from that commission. And I think that should happen on a national level. I really think it needs to happen everywhere. I think the purpose of conventions is to help people really learn what happened, what really happened. I mean, it might be just be me, but I was in an institution. I went to Liberty University, which is made headlines, and that institution was filled with people from small towns across America that dotted the South and the Midwest people who never really saw black people. That much in their hometown, maybe had one person in their whole entire graduating class, I was in a school with 22,000 of those people. And I can tell you a vast majority of those people from Middle America, and from the south, they really thought that we had overcome racism by and large, and they attributed racist acts to bad apples

Shawna  30:22
that I've heard. 

Joshua  30:24
Yeah

Shawna  30:25
Or sure, definitely where people don't. So nowadays, I hear people trying to really get wrap their heads around what institutionalized or systemic racism is. And I think it also comes down to the definition of racism and what people think because I had a recent conversation with someone who just really argued with me about what racism is, and they were trying to argue reverse racism, saying that white people experienced racism too. And I was trying to explain, I know it's such, this is it's so hard, because you're, I'm trying to educate while also like trying to keep my cool sometimes, because it's like, no, it's about power. It's about, you know, this whole idea of what supremacy is, and the entitlement that comes with that. And then when you have that for so long, and it's so deeply rooted in everything. And after so much time, even even when it comes to like wage gap. People want to attribute it to this whole myth of meritocracy in that if you just work hard enough, literally Josh, I was at someone's table not too long ago, someone that I know. And this person said, I'm tired of people coming at me with this black community, that community just needs to get themselves together. They work hard, like everybody else, and I was just burning inside, because it's like, How can you be so ignorant. But the truth is, of course, people are ignorant, because they've never experienced it. If you're born into privilege, it's just there until someone takes something away from you. And so if you've never experienced that, and you can't see those hardships, but not just like, like a couple of people who are doing poorly, or how people attribute it to a culture versus the actual system. 

Joshua  32:18
Yeah, 

Shawna  32:19
All of those things. It's just so frustrating trying to get that truth across, you know,

Joshua  32:24
This is why I think truth commission specifically are very important, because I think America requires a real learning of its history. Because there is this false narrative that is just a bad couple of bad apples. Like I said, the civil rights story ends with the hero dying. And we find that after that racism becomes this thinly veiled thing, something more subtle. And, I mean, they call it the southern strategy, right? You have Nixon, you know, calling black people, you know, criminals. And he really actually does start the war on drugs. He didn't start it by name, but they start to really police in over police, black communities and accusing them of drugs. I don't know any black people at that time that had an airplane to fly all the way in, you know, to Nicaragua and Colombia and get crack cocaine, but somehow ended up on our streets. And then they were being overly police for it. I mean, even today, we find that black people commit crimes at similar rates to white people. As a matter of fact, by number, white people account for, I believe about 65% of all drug dealers yet the largest sum of percentages that are in jail for drugs or black people, black people make the largest percentage of people in jails. It's just interesting to see the effects of those policies and those politics on our present. And a lot of people don't know that. A lot of people don't know that. Chief domestic policy advisor literally said, that we knew we couldn't say we wanted to hurt the black people. And we knew that we couldn't say that we wanted to get rid of all the hippies. But we knew we could describe them in an insidious way. We knew that we could win the cultural war by like by attacking them on the news nightly. He's a stated thing that, um, and it was a strategy to help bring over some old loose, Southern dems that were holding on to their, their own prejudices, and it was a strategy to really solidify a lot of southern states. And it worked and Reagan used it, and a lot of other conservative presidents used it. Even Clinton used it to an extent when He instituted the three checks policy just to maintain and quell the growing, growing resentment towards what people described at the time as black crime, three strikes and you're out, you commit three felonies. And you you have to go to jail for a long time. And that policy is fortunately effective black people. It's a reason why so many black people in California specifically, which actually uses a few shops policy, more than any other state has such a large prison population and a large private In population, it's, it's really interesting to see how history just repeats itself over and over again, especially if it goes unmitigated without a real real investment in change. A lot of these policies were just to quell uprisings of black people, uprisings and the culture that said that this is wrong, and we're not going to do this anymore. So it looked great on paper. But it didn't really matriculate into a to change. It just redefine itself, from slavery to black people then being locked up in jails right after slavery to the prison industrial complex that we have now, the school to prison pipeline, and all these other forms of really just putting away black people, and also making a profit from it. The private prison industry is an industry and makes money off of putting black people in jails, they actually lobby for tougher laws and tougher policing reforms, Matt, we still do that. It's insane. I mean, there's so many brands that have used prison labor, from Victoria's Secrets to McDonald's to Wendy's prison labor to make cups or make goods, I mean, containers for their for their food. But it's it's just interesting to see the way that black labor is still extracted forcibly, and without reward, and they're being admonished just for, for being alive. Really, there's no reason why two, two groups of people committing crimes at the same rate should have just one being just like, at least like that

Shawna  36:32
You know, what's interesting, people who are, you know, white caught with marijuana or with other drugs, or, you know, they're, they're given a slap on the wrist, stop that don't do that, or don't get caught kind of thing. Whereas the punishment, if you're black person is just so much stronger. You know, I say, like, you should do the the why exercise where you just continue to ask why to get to the bottom of the reasons for things, you know, why do most people commit crimes? Most people don't commit a crime, specifically something like theft? It just because they want to, or just because it's a thrill, right? Usually, it's out of some desperation. There's some need. There's something that drives somebody to that. And it's when you know, there isn't equal opportunity, no matter what the law books, say, or what the EEOC says. Because of the way things are set up, that playing field is so uneven, it's almost impossible to catch up, let alone get ahead. And so people do get very desperate. And I think about things like redlining, even the communities where, you know, housing segregation, and we have not so long ago, you know, Trump basically signing an order to put that back into place. And it was like so overt, and I'm like, Oh, my God, I'm witnessing this right now. He's basically telling people who are already in the majority race benefiting from being able to live in the suburbs. Why is that a big deal? Well, because you have to have enough wealth to live in the suburbs, because likely you have to drive places to you know, drive to work, you're not going to take public transportation, you also have more space, you're not living in smaller quarters and everything. And he say, well, we're going to get rid of the Fair Housing Act, or at least the piece that President Obama put into place in 2015. So that you can have your suburbs back. Obviously, he didn't call out any particular demographic. But oh, my gosh, I was like, that's where we are in 2020 y'all.

Joshua  38:49
You know, it's one of those that subverts subtle voice that we hear you racist in white America that feel very uncomfortable by having a black presence in your community. And I see you and I'm gonna give you a little head nod. It's this. 

Shawna  39:08
Yeah, they call it a dog whistle. I call it a bullhorn. That was a bullhorn that was not a dog with.

Joshua  39:13
Yeah, you're right. And it's just amazing that we've just seen that happen over and over again. And it just continues to happen without any reprieve. And people look at Black people and they say, pull yourself up by your bootstraps. I mean, what do you do when you don't have boots?

Shawna  39:28
Hey, man, I was about to say, Well, can somebody give me some boots, please. 

Joshua  39:32
And that's that's, that brings me to the next point, I guess a transitional justice reparations are a must. The US promised us reparations, that whole 40 acres and a mule thing that you heard, that was that was a legitimate promise. William T. Sherman general at the time, a Union General was in correspondence with Lincoln and he literally made a field order it was called General William T. Sherman special field order number 15. And they had set apart 400,000 acres of land and their words for negros elements after the Civil War. And we all know what as the 40 acres and a mule thing, it was, we're going to give black people land to develop and create their own enclaves their own businesses and help them thrive. Obviously, that did not happen. And obviously, black people never received the due reparations for their labor for their hard work that was extracted from them with blood and beatings. And it's something that has, it's really been problematic for our community. Landon, in western civilization is wealth. There's money that's tied to land, your ability to work it your ability to own something means something. At one point, the vote, your ability to vote was tied to whether or not you own land, it means a lot. And can you imagine what some of that land will be worth now? It's insane. I know a family, one of my good family friends, his mom, his stepmom actually owns about 300 something plus acres in the Blue Ridge Mountains. And they had bought it for, I think it was just around like 1500 dollars at the turn of the century. And it's been in our family for about four generations. And now the land is worth upwards of 30 plus million. That's insane. That's so much wealth that was promised to the black community, black people and black slaves, but never given a promise. That was a lie. And I don't know how you look at people who experienced things, the grotesque things of slavery and tell them that they don't deserve repair. One transitional justice scholar says that truth Commission's are beautiful and changing justice systems are beautiful and treating people with, I guess, purity, but actually holding them accountable, are great and all but it must be bolstered by repair, like you need to give back to people what you took, obviously, you'll never be able to pay black people back for the trauma that they've dealt with. That's psychological, that will never be able to be paid back. But you can help relieve some of the other worries and woes that come with life, such as being able to literally provide for your family. I mean, reparations now, we're probably not going to get the 40 acres and a mule wagon. I can tell you that. But reparations now needs to take form is really investing in black communities, investing in our schools. I mean, the fact that our school systems are literally tied to income tax, and the fact that redlining has existed and still persist and our country, it's pretty interesting to me, right? That's just like a way to say black people, you're going to get what you get in, we really don't care about your communities at all. They don't have the wealth in the Southside of Chicago, to really create a great school system. You have these people on the north side, their kids are supplied with the best education. You know, it's this weird ticky tacky law thing that helps maintain black struggle. And people look at it and they say, What are you complaining about, you have equal opportunities. You're saying I have an equal opportunity at a school with bullet holes in it to the same kid at this school that has basketball hoops with nets on it, and can play whatever sport like lacrosse, that's an expensive sport and hacky. Oh, wow. That's That's funny. reparations needs to really be instituted in a very creative way that really does help uplift the black community. Did you get to watch them the funeral of George Floyd, the very first one al sharpton said, we don't want handouts. We just want your knee off our neck. It really encapsulated how I was feeling they think that a lot of people think that blind people just want to live on welfare. Which one we're not major beneficiaries of that. It's It's It's white people by far actually, they think that we just want to live off welfare, they think that we don't really have a work ethic that we don't want to, to thrive. And that's not true. We just don't want people pushing us down. We want opportunities. We want equal opportunities. We want good schools for our kids. You know, we want good jobs that are

Shawna  44:15
Right. I mean, I would say aside from all of these other things, there's also the the reality of stereotype threat. Or so many people feel like for so long, I've been told that you know, I don't have value, or I'm not worth it or whatever. Why even bother. Why even try like that hurts so much. To know that people just give up hope because they're like it's in the system. So what chance Have I got why even bother? Yeah, I do have hope. I am starting to see a change. I am starting to see people wake up. But I know that we've got a long road ahead of us. You know, America, we got to get it together. So listen, those who are out there listening right now. If you are not registered to vote, you need to go and get registered immediately. Because the only way to make change is to put the right people in office and hey, that might be you, actually. So if you're thinking about running for office, or, you know, making that change, that's what we need. Well, I think that you are doing some very important work. And I just really appreciate your time. And these are some amazing insights. And

Joshua  45:30
we really need that. We need it. Moody's voting something that every that our ancestors fought for, with blood and sweat and tears, they did. And it's something that's art. It's our one, one of our few inheritances, as black people have the right to vote, and we need to exercise anyone out there everyone needs to do. Yeah,

Shawna  45:52
Absolutely. also getting the right people in the right places so that you're not also fighting up against voter suppression. And all of those, you know, things that are designed to make it harder, we got to turn this around, I feel like we've started it, we just need to pick up the momentum. People have been fighting for generations upon generations to finally get there. And we're getting closer. So let's make this change. Josh, thank you so much for being here with me today.

Joshua  46:20
Thank you so much for the opportunity. I've really enjoyed talking to you.

Shawna  46:23
Thank you. It's absolutely My pleasure. And you're welcome back anytime. So you take care, keep putting some good writing out there for us so we can continue learning from you. All the best to you.

Carmen  46:39
So transitional justice, I think that's pretty cool. hearing him talk about that. And I think the creativity that can be applied about how people approach transitional justice. That's pretty cool. To me.

Shawna  46:52
It is and I you know, the honest thing is I never really thought of it as having room for creativity. But But it's true, you can really approach these things differently.

Carmen  47:04
Mm hmm. And I think what's pretty cool about that creativity, though, is it's it's kind of rooted in acknowledgement, right. Like, it's understanding that there's going to be different approaches and different needs. And I think there's trauma there. And I think what's interesting about transitional justice, is that, you know, if you want to use the word perpetrators are the people who've long held the power, there isn't going to be that degree of trauma. But you have to be, I think, looking inwards and looking at the effects of what the system has allowed for. And you have to understand and acknowledge that there's going to be some pretty serious trauma on the other side of that.

Shawna  47:44
Absolutely. And in order to do that, that means, you know, swallowing some pride, because I think that's, that's the big thing. It's like hard to admit, like, Okay, this group of people was wronged in this way. Mm hmm. And I had a lot to do with that, or our system that I partook in had a lot to do with that. And that's hard to admit, think about, you know, like, just when you were a kid, and you had to apologize to somebody. 

Carmen  48:14
Mm hmm.

Shawna  48:15
Like how painful that is, when you're like seven.

Carmen  48:19
And you're like, just hate this

Shawna  48:21
Right? And you're and you know, parent or teacher or whomever is like, now say you're sorry, and you're like, I'm sorry that you feel that way. 

Carmen  48:29
Yeah, exactly.

Shawna  48:30
Like, you know what it takes to get the real for real honest, true apology. And like, the thing about apologizing, it's like, you can't just be like, my bad. 

Carmen  48:42
Yeah, 

Shawna  48:43
You have to make it right. 

Carmen  48:44
Yeah. 

Shawna  48:45
And that's where reparations come in.

Carmen  48:46
Yeah. And I think that's what gets interesting, too. So I have, you know, a background in IR and listening to Joshua, talk about what he's learned. It's pretty impressive. But I think like, what was interesting for me was listening to him talk about reparations. And I kind of want to connect it to what he was talking about in terms of truth commissions. Because I think like, if you want to have reparations that reflect the needs of a population that has long suffered trauma and harm, you kind of have to hear where they're coming from. First, you have to really hear the whole story, hear all pieces of the story. And I think that's an act of empowerment. And I think sometimes that can be a fundamental part of reparations.

Shawna  49:29
Oh, yeah, for sure. And and with those truth conditions are acknowledging this and seeing all sides. I mean, in a way, if you've got to, like, stop the clock and reset everything going forward, including things like school curriculum, 

Carmen  49:48
Yeah. 

Shawna  49:49
And, you know, our policies, you know, what we're going to do for reform to make sure that it really is repaired.

Carmen  49:55
Yeah. And I think like, you know, Joshua was talking a little bit about relearning his And I think a part of relearning history, it means kind of shifting how we approach whose voices are going to tell the story. Because I think sometimes No, when we're talking about, like, I use the term historical narratives a lot in some of my work. And so, like these historical narratives, they, there's a tendency to prioritize people who have the most power. And that's who gets to kind of write that story. And I think that happens in you know, what happens in museums and happens in textbooks that happens and in public policy? monuments, right? Or another big one? 

Shawna  50:38
Right. That's a that's a big topic right now. Because I think like, those, the way we remember is a testament to who's empowered and who's disempowered? who chooses what it is we're going to pass down.

Carmen  50:48
Exactly, exactly.

Shawna  50:51
This was a heavy one, but it's so important. And we can we can learn so much from this. Definitely. Well, thanks, Carmen. Thanks, reciate. 

Carmen  51:03
You, too.

Shawna  51:08
Hey, everyone. So that's it for this episode. I do hope that you enjoyed it and that you got a lot out of that transitional justice is so interesting, and really something that I want to continue to explore myself so many interesting aspects of it. For now. If you haven't subscribed, please make sure you do subscribe to the podcast so that you catch all future episodes, and check the ones you may have missed in the past. You can stop by truecolorscast.com to learn more about our guests and find some other cool stuff. You can also follow me on Instagram @ourtruecolorspodcast. In the meantime, be safe out there y'all remember to share a smile with someone and please find an opportunity to make someone feel welcome. Also, if you haven't registered to vote and make sure you have the plan, lobby I'll talk to you soon.

Intro 51:59
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