WJZ Presents ‘A Talk About Race,’ A Town Hall On Race Relations

3 years ago 347

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — With the unrest that has unfolded implicit the past year, contention relations is simply a taxable that has been apical of caput for galore Americans, including the Baltimore community.

Here astatine WJZ, we wanted to code this contented head-on. That’s wherefore Vic Carter and Rick Ricker hosted “A Talk About Race,” a half-hour municipality hallway that brought unneurotic assemblage leaders from each walks of beingness to sermon wherever we’ve been and wherever we tin spell from here.

For Baltimore, it’s an contented that hits adjacent to location pursuing the 2015 in-custody decease of Freddie Gray. And portion his decease has resulted successful immoderate reforms wrong the Baltimore Police Department, galore radical consciousness powerfully determination is inactive much enactment to beryllium done.

So, during the municipality hall, we tackled the uncomfortable questions. How tin we face institutionalized racism? What tin we bash to amended police-community relations? What bash meaningful advancement and alteration look like?

The extremity was to reckon with our past and travel up with solutions for the future. But we couldn’t bash it alone. That’s wherefore we invited 5 panelists with antithetic perspectives to stock their thoughts:

Bishop Antonio Palmer with the United Black Clergy of Anne Arundel County;
John Wesley, spokesperson for Baltimore’s Office of Equity and Civil Rights;
Adam Jackson, CEO of Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle;
Ericka Alston, CEO of ACCESS Granted;
Retired Sgt. James Spearman with the Annapolis Police Department.

In Their Own Words

Below are a fistful of thoughts our panelists shared during the municipality hall. To ticker the implicit discussion, conscionable click play connected the video subordinate above.

Spearman: “One of the things that I ever accidental is that nary instrumentality enforcement agency, nary substance however bully they are, if they don’t person the enactment and spot of the people, they’re conscionable an occupying unit and thing ever gets done. There’s a batch of enactment that needs to beryllium done successful the community, but there’s besides a batch of enactment that needs to beryllium done wrong instrumentality enforcement.”

Alston: “My astir heartbreaking acquisition comes from asking a young person, ‘What bash you privation to beryllium erstwhile you turn up?’ ‘Grow up, I’m trying to marque it to tomorrow.’ That’s our reality. Our young radical are hopeless. There is nary grounds astir them that extracurricular of those that unrecorded successful their home, that idiosyncratic cares astir them. If they’re successful a schoolhouse strategy designed to fail, they’re intentionally and strategically placed successful a pipeline to prison. … Our young radical request to beryllium seen, heard, respected and invested in.”

Jackson: “When you person a structural problem, it requires and necessitates a structural response. And that takes clip due to the fact that each we’ve gotten is the other for galore years. And Baltimore is simply a metropolis that has suffered from strategy disinvestment implicit decades and generations. And I deliberation what radical privation to see, similar for me, it would beryllium to spell down to Penn North and to spot each the buildings renovated and to spot radical blessed and safe.”

Wesley: “We person to find a mode to assistance the officers. The assemblage has to find a mode to assistance these officers walk much clip successful these communities erstwhile they are not determination for enforcement. You know, we expect them for enforcement. But we don’t expect them to bash things things like, you know, I utilized to talk astatine schools and I’d inquire kids, ‘What bash you privation to be?’ When the Officer Friendly programs are retired there, inadvertently each the boys said, ‘I privation to beryllium a fireman. I privation to beryllium a policeman. That is nary longer the answer. Nobody wants to beryllium a policeman. I deliberation that speaks volumes.”

Palmer: If you don’t judge that Jesus had melanin successful his tegument and you judge that everybody other that looks similar maine are cursed people, past you’re going to proceed to endure privilege, you’re going to proceed to let injustices to instrumentality spot and beryllium soundless astir it, you’re going to proceed to let a constabulary serviceman to perpetrate brutality and fatality and truthful distant without saying a word. And your congregations of thousands of achromatic folks are going to travel suit. But if you assistance up your dependable — if a Franklin Graham, who has a nationalist platform, volition basal too a TD Jakes and say, ‘together we fight’ and ‘together we’ve had capable of this’ — it’ll commencement turning around.”