Today we're kicking off a three-part series that focuses on a rather provocative question.

Do black lives matter in America?

Detroit Public Television is partnering with Bridge Detroit to dig deeper into the Black Lives Matter movement and the racial injustices that have led to protests around the world.

Joining me is Orlando Bailey, who is the Engagement Director for Bridge Detroit.

Orlando, how are you doing?

I'm well, Stephen, thank you for having me.

I'm excited to share in this series with Detroit Public Television and "American Black Journal," the famed "American Black Journal."

That's right.

Well, this is actually a really great partnership for a couple of reasons, but one of 'em is that "American Black Journal" is just now celebrating its 51st year on the air, focusing on issues that matter to people here in Detroit, issues that matter to the African American community, and Bridge Detroit just celebrated its first hundred days of doing the same thing right here in the city of Detroit.

It is a partnership that I think is made quite naturally.

Yeah, absolutely.

100 day old publication launched during a pandemic.

I wouldn't advise anybody to launch a newsroom.

You wouldn't wanna do that again, right?

During the pandemic, but we are essentially seeking to do the same thing that "American Black Journal" has done for the last 51 years, and that is amplify the narrative and stories that residents in our city have and the stories they wanna tell, the information that they need, and creating mechanisms of communication that's iterative, that is beyond transactional, but really builds a really solid foundation for a great relationship moving forward as "American Black Journal" has done for the last 51 years.

You guys have an awesome relationship with your viewers.

And the idea of a time behind both organizations really is the idea of building community, being in touch with community, and making sure that people feel like they have a voice in the things that affect them.

So let's get started with my conversation with the organizers of the Black Lives Matter, Detroit chapter, John Sloan, III, and Curtis Renee.

What is the current state of things with Black Lives Matter?

John, I'll start with you.

Sure.

So the current state of things with Black Lives Matter is actually maybe more of a complicated question than you might assume.

This recent moment has been very interesting.

We've seen a massive uptick in our traffic on our website, going from a couple emails a week to hundreds of emails a day.

And on one sense, we really appreciate that new energy.

On the other sense it's slightly frustrating 'cause we haven't gone anywhere, right?

We've been here, we've been doing work.

And I think what a lot of people don't realize about Black Lives Matter in specific is that we are an organization with affiliate chapters, and we have, we run programs, and we have to do the same type of fundraising as any other group.

The primary difference is that our individual chapters have a lot of autonomy as to what we choose to focus on.

And that's based upon the idea that what we need in Detroit is completely different from what you might need in Louisville or in San Diego.

And so I think this recent movement has been obviously of benefit in some senses because this kind of refocused the attention on the movement for black lives.

And it's our job now to make sure that we can leverage that and continue that momentum because this moment, for us, doesn't fade away.

We continue to do the work long after the cameras have stopped rolling.

Curtis, can you talk about Detroit and the momentum we've seen here, the specific protests and the response from police and what you see as either the opportunity or maybe the frustration of where we are at this point.

So I just wanted to lift up that 100 day mark for the marches did happen a few weeks ago, which I feel is something wonderful.

And also saying that our protestors here in Detroit have been completely nonviolent during those 100 days.

And in the moments of them being nonviolent, they were met with brutality and also a spin on the narrative from Chief Craig in spinning that the protestors are actually outside agitators and that they were also being violent, which is completely untrue.

And not only that, they were met with brutality and arrests, tear gas.

So I'm really interested and really excited to see how the protests grow from just, not just them being protests, but organizing and becoming a movement and going forward.

Yeah, let's talk about that.

I mean, I think that's one of the concerns that a lot of people have right now is how do you take all this energy, this new found energy and channel it, not just into protest in the streets, which are important and are getting important attention and are actually inspiring some change, and we should make that clear as well, but translate that to the more sort of sustained, I guess, work that needs to be done in legislatures and other other places.

How confident are you that we're going to be able to do that?

John, I'll start with you.

So I think we saw a really good example of that yesterday in Louisville, actually, where we saw a settlement for Breonna Taylor's family and their estate.

That was not only one of the largest settlements ever given to a black person in a murder, but people are gonna say in a wrongful death at the hands of police.

But what we saw attached to that financial settlement was also a series of legislative actions to which the mayor and the city of Louisville agreed.

Do I think they go far enough?

Not necessarily, but do I think they're a good start?

Absolutely.

And I think what people need to remember is that protest actions, marching in the streets have always been an important aspect of any movement.

And they put pressure on the city officials.

They put pressure on legislators to continue to come to the table and to sit down and to look at not just reformation, but a reallocation of funds, which is what we mean when we talk about defunding police, we're talking about divesting and reinvesting in our communities, and they also talk about reformation, not as incrementalism, but as wholesale upheaval and change to a system that's functioning in the way it was designed.

I think that's very important to remember.

This system isn't broken.

It's benefiting those individuals that it was intended to benefit.

And so what we're demanding is that reallocation of resources and of access, and what you're seeing in these protests is you're seeing that leverage and that pressure being put on our city, our city officials, and our legislators via the community.

Yeah.

Curtis, I wanna talk some about the role of women in this movement and other social movements, Black Lives Matter was started by women, which I think is a really important dynamic to acknowledge, but talk about the role of women in this moment and in the summer of 2020 here in Detroit and around the country, it does seem as though this movement is still powered by and framed very much by the women who are involved.

Yes, it's been wonderful actually seeing women out in the street doing protests, women that are doing political education, and also different programs that are, that are coming together in support of this moment that are not just protests, but also things like Greenlight Black Futures and Green Chair Initiative and Freedom Freedom, which is headed by a elder in our community and also a woman, and not seeing women just being pushed to the side or just playing roles that they are told to play, and taking this opportunity to be involved in the ways that they feel are most beneficial and most useful and also lifting up their skillsets.

So it's been really wonderful to see that.

So, I wanna spend some time talking about defund the police, which is a slogan that I think confuses some people.

There's other people who've taken it and misinterpreted it intentionally to cast dispersions on the movement.

And then I think there are people who are genuinely curious about, well, what does that mean?

And what would that look like?

Curtis, I'll start with you.

Talk about what you mean when you say defund the police.

So I feel like that means a few different things.

And also I wanna lift up that police have been a part of what, how safety has been framed in our community spaces.

And so it can be really scary for folks to think about, well, if we're talking about taking police out of our communities, then who is going to provide safety?

Because that is what those things have meant in our communities for so long in a weird kind of way.

So one thing is defunding the police also means how are we able to reclaim the power over what safety means in our community and being able to provide actual safety on our streets and in our neighborhoods, and also lifting up something that John said earlier, around reallocating funds.

Police are called to address mental illness within our communities.

They're called to address domestic violence.

They're called to address so many things that they do not have the training to actually support in those moments.

And instead of those dollars and that money going into spaces that actually have the skillsets to support our communities in that way, those ones are taken away from them and pumped into the police system.

And so when we say we wanna defund them, we want to make sure that money is going into services and support systems that can actually create a safety net for our communities and addressing and supporting what's actually happening, instead of further criminalizing people and surveilling people.

Okay, John Sloan and Curtis Renee, it was really great to have you here.

And let me say it before I let you go, just how proud it makes me as a Detroiter and as an African American Detroiter to see folks like yourselves at the center of this movement and young people like you guys.

And I can say that, right?

You guys are, to me at least, young people, really taking leadership roles in this terribly, terribly important moment.

So congratulations on the work and good luck.

Thank you, Stephen.

If I could mention real quick.

Thank you.

if we have time, we've come together with a coalition of other organizations to work on a Detroiters' bill of rights.

And we're really trying aggressively to get that pushed through committees, through to the entire committee and city council so that can get passed.

It's seven individual rights that we want to see enacted to change, fundamentally change, the Detroit city's charter.

And so if you're wondering what type of immediate and longstanding legislative action we're working on, that's exactly it.

So I encourage people to go to our website, BLMDetroit.com, and look at more information as long as the other organizations that are working with us on that initiative.