- 3 weeks ago
The Great American Lie is a documentary film that examines how a US value system built on the extreme masculine ideals of money, power and control has glorified individualism, institutionalized inequality, and undermined the ability of most Americans to achieve the American Dream. The main topic of this film is arguably one of the most important issues of our time: social and economic immobility. Inequality has been on the rise in America for more than three decades. Middle and low income wages have remained stagnant or decreased while top earners have seen their wages increase 135% since 1979. Today, the top .1% of Americans owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90%. This film is incredibly timely because of the staggering state of inequality today, but this film is also important because it is new. By bringing the unique perspective of gender to this story, this film expands the conversation around the causes and solutions to America's inequality and division. With our history and experience in illuminating and challenging limiting gender narratives in our society, our documentary team is uniquely qualified to tell this story. Our first two films, Miss Representation and The Mask You Live In, lay the groundwork for understanding the impact of gender on individuals and communities in American society. We view The Great American Lie as the critical last film in this trilogy that will address the role of our gendered values on American society-at-large.
My two Rumble channels:
Phenomena TV https://rumble.com/c/PhenomenaTV
Mistery, Conspiracy, Secrets & Lies https://rumble.com/c/c-7695975
My two Rumble channels:
Phenomena TV https://rumble.com/c/PhenomenaTV
Mistery, Conspiracy, Secrets & Lies https://rumble.com/c/c-7695975
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00:00When I think about American Dream, I think that it means having a lot of opportunities
00:00:20to have a good education, a good job, a good house, and good food.
00:00:29I think in America, everything can be possible.
00:00:59The test of our progress is not whether we add poor to the abundance of those who have
00:01:08much.
00:01:09It is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.
00:01:14Any man who seeks to deny equality among all his brothers betrays the spirit of the free.
00:01:22We have the opportunity to move not only toward the rich society, but upward to the great society.
00:01:30Those who have been left out, we will try to bring in.
00:01:33To go forward at all is to go forward together.
00:01:37The American Dream endures.
00:01:40We must have full faith in our country.
00:01:44We all came from different lands, but we share the same values, the same dream.
00:01:51Our nation is the enduring dream of every immigrant who ever set foot on these shores.
00:01:57May those generations say of us here that we led our beloved land into a new century with
00:02:04the American Dream alive for all her children.
00:02:09The grandest of these ideals is an unfolding American promise that everyone deserves a chance,
00:02:15that no insignificant person was ever born.
00:02:19The bedrock of our economic success is the American Dream.
00:02:23But today, for far too many Americans, this dream is slipping away.
00:02:28The American Dream is dead.
00:02:37What's at stake on American values?
00:02:40We have to reclaim them.
00:02:53The American Dream was always a belief system.
00:02:57If you worked hard and you played by the rules, you could climb.
00:03:02You could get an education and you could get a good job.
00:03:06You could have a better life than your parents did.
00:03:11You could rise from nothing to great heights.
00:03:13In the 1950s, 90% of kids could expect to climb the income ladder and have a higher standard
00:03:19of living than their parents did.
00:03:21If you look at that number today, it's only around 50%.
00:03:25The rungs of the ladder have grown further apart, so there are huge differences in terms
00:03:30of dollars between the 80th percentile and the 20th percentile.
00:03:36You are now more a prisoner of legacy.
00:03:40Poverty becomes sticky, stickier.
00:03:44And that you have less of a chance of escaping it if you were born into it.
00:03:49And that wealth also kind of clusters itself.
00:03:54So that if you are born wealthy, you are more likely to maintain that wealth.
00:04:02The American Dream is premised on this notion of the individual above all else.
00:04:07We don't see context.
00:04:08We don't see culture.
00:04:09We don't see circumstance.
00:04:11We think that all of those are basically irrelevant and it's just a matter of motivation and desire.
00:04:15But the reality is the circumstances are critical to helping them make it.
00:04:21America has achieved the dubious distinction of being the most unequal society of any of
00:04:28the advanced countries.
00:04:29The very richest Americans, those in the top 1%, have been gaining a larger and larger share
00:04:35of the economic pie, while the earnings of people in the middle of the income distribution
00:04:40have been stagnant and the earnings of the people at the bottom of the income distribution
00:04:44have actually been falling.
00:04:47We're asking families of 4, 5, 6, you know, to live on very low means.
00:04:54They cannot own.
00:04:55They barely can rent.
00:04:57The 140 million Americans are living one paycheck away or one child's illness away from complete
00:05:03financial devastation.
00:05:05There's no justice in a society where roughly 40% of people that are born in poverty in the
00:05:10United States are going to remain in poverty.
00:05:12When the family you're born into determines your destiny, that tears at the fabric of the
00:05:18American dream.
00:05:19It makes the American dream alive.
00:05:21You're blessed to get out of bed this morning.
00:05:25You're blessed to feel well enough to come.
00:05:27You're blessed you could drive over here.
00:05:29You're blessed.
00:05:30You are blessed.
00:05:33I think that my childhood prepared me to do this work.
00:05:40I was born in St. Louis, Missouri, moved to Southern California when I was 3 and moved
00:05:45to Denver when I was 10.
00:05:48We were fleeing from my father at the time, dealing with some alcohol and drug abuse and
00:05:55some domestic situations occurred.
00:05:58It was just unsafe for my mom to be in California.
00:06:02As a little girl, I remember Christmas.
00:06:04I prayed that we would have a Christmas.
00:06:09I woke up to nothing.
00:06:11So you get up and it's another day and even as a little girl, I was aware that I didn't
00:06:20want to see my mom feel bad.
00:06:23She was trying.
00:06:24My freshman year of high school, we were evicted and I lived with my best friend and my sister
00:06:35lived with her best friend.
00:06:38And my mom lived, I don't know, my sophomore year.
00:06:44I had an amazing English teacher.
00:06:48My girlfriends and I would stand in the hallway and discuss crime and punishment.
00:06:53We were so engulfed in literature and discussion and I was like, if I can do what she's doing
00:07:00for me right now with someone else, that would be cool.
00:07:07I am the new principal at Frick Impact Academy.
00:07:11We are plagued with a history of violence, suspensions, lack of experienced teachers, lack of resources.
00:07:20I am here to turn around the school.
00:07:22If I fail, then my school will close.
00:07:27Hey.
00:07:28Hey.
00:07:29Good to see you.
00:07:30How are you?
00:07:31Good to see you.
00:07:32Doing well.
00:07:33Ready to talk shop.
00:07:35My first feeling was this is an institution.
00:07:40Felt like I was going for a classic at San Quentin.
00:07:44Does this keep kids safe?
00:07:46The fence?
00:07:47Yeah.
00:07:48Are we trying to keep people out?
00:07:49Are we trying to invite people in?
00:07:51Maybe we open the fence.
00:07:53You can't have schools that feel like San Quentin and expect them to be places of love
00:07:58and peace and joy.
00:07:59It just doesn't work that way.
00:08:03Nothing is wrong with my kids.
00:08:05Everything is wrong with the system.
00:08:08We're a society of do-it-yourself.
00:08:11Like that's the American dream is pull yourself up by your bootstraps.
00:08:22When you don't have boots, it's hard.
00:08:23We serve a very high population of students who are in foster care.
00:08:28A lot of homeless families.
00:08:30My students come with no supplies.
00:08:34No backpack.
00:08:35Didn't eat.
00:08:36They come with dad is in jail.
00:08:40My father was taken from our family and deported last night.
00:08:46The list goes on and on of what they bring.
00:08:50And if they have a bad day and they roll their eyes, then now you take it personally as an adult.
00:08:56But you don't even know that her mom is on a crack binge right now.
00:09:00And she probably rolled her eyes because she didn't want to take her sweater off because her uniform shirt is dirty.
00:09:05But you didn't ask her.
00:09:07You assumed.
00:09:09That's inequity.
00:09:10It's not meeting every single child where they're at.
00:09:14And we have to.
00:09:19It was just kind of one thing after another with his not using his uniform, standing up and walking around.
00:09:25Finally, I just said, just leave.
00:09:27Just go.
00:09:28And it was a trigger for him.
00:09:32And he got up and he came up to me with his hands clenched and he stepped on my foot hard.
00:09:42Do you feel safe if he returns to your class?
00:09:45I have to make sure you and the other students feel safe.
00:09:47At the same time, try to support Elisha because I know he's going through a lot at home.
00:09:53I don't feel like the best thing for him is to go out into the world, right?
00:09:57Because there's not going to be any positive reinforcements.
00:10:01Where we live, poverty is real.
00:10:05Violence is real.
00:10:07They don't recognize their own trauma.
00:10:10And a lot of the behavior that they're exhibiting is a part of that trauma.
00:10:16Is everything okay?
00:10:17Stop!
00:10:18Stop!
00:10:19Stop!
00:10:20Stop!
00:10:21Stop!
00:10:22Stop!
00:10:23Stop!
00:10:24Stop!
00:10:25Stop!
00:10:26Stop!
00:10:27Stop!
00:10:28Stop!
00:10:29Stop!
00:10:30Stop!
00:10:31Stop!
00:10:32No.
00:10:33No.
00:10:34No.
00:10:35No.
00:10:36Stop.
00:10:37Stop.
00:10:39Stop.
00:10:40Stop!
00:10:41Stop!
00:10:43No!
00:10:44Did you get him that way?
00:10:45I got him.
00:10:46I got him.
00:10:47I got him.
00:10:48I got him.
00:10:49Look at me.
00:10:50Look at me.
00:10:51Take him.
00:10:52Is that front door locked?
00:11:01That chaos is bullshit.
00:11:03It doesn't have to exist in schools.
00:11:05It doesn't have to exist.
00:11:08And we keep failing kids by letting shit like this exist.
00:11:19Come in.
00:11:22The formation of the society that would become the United States was simultaneously revolutionary
00:11:35and reactionary.
00:11:37These people articulate this profound aspiration that all people are equal.
00:11:43But at the same time, they're developing in line with profound notions of race and gender
00:11:48that say some people just aren't human.
00:11:51It's no great secret that it was wealthy white men who had the political power and the vision
00:11:57to create the founding documents, which at that time were brilliant advances in sort of the
00:12:02democratic project.
00:12:03But we know now, of course, that their vision of all men are created equal certainly didn't
00:12:09include women, but it didn't even include all men.
00:12:12I mean, most of the founding fathers were slave owners.
00:12:14women had no legal existence separate from their husband, not enjoying a right to own or buy
00:12:23property, not a right to inherit wealth without the permission of their husband.
00:12:28Black Americans were treated even worse, of course, because they were enslaved.
00:12:34And there were no protections for Black Americans against slave masters.
00:12:40When you create a constitution that protects property, and property includes people, basically
00:12:46the constitution is reinforcing the subordination of those people.
00:12:50So we wrote racism, classism, and sexism into our founding documents.
00:12:55The result is a society that is deeply hierarchical.
00:13:00We live in a patriarchal system and that patriarchy says everything that's stereotypically masculine
00:13:05is on top and everything that's stereotypically feminine is on bottom.
00:13:07So we tend to value things that we assign to men.
00:13:12Things like competitiveness, radical individualism, control, domination, aggression.
00:13:19We then end up devaluing universal human traits.
00:13:23Things like empathy, compassion, care, community, partnership.
00:13:29In the gender binary system, so often we make these artificial splits.
00:13:34And so we say, to be masculine means to be strong, therefore, to be feminine means to
00:13:40be weak.
00:13:46So whether you look through the lens of race, class, sexuality, you see the same hard, soft
00:13:52binary.
00:13:53White people on top and Black people on the bottom, rich people on the top, poor people
00:13:56on the bottom.
00:13:57The people on the top are humanized only in relationship to the dehumanization of the people
00:14:01on the bottom, which is women, people of color, poor people, gay people, immigrants, et cetera.
00:14:07What we've done with these ideas is we've used them to justify different levels of worth
00:14:12and worthlessness, to justify privilege and violence.
00:14:16And then we've built our society, the structures, the institutions of our society around these ideas.
00:14:22And so basically much of this inequality is seen as invisible or normal.
00:14:27For example, politicians always seem to find money for traits and activities that are stereotypically
00:14:37considered masculine, weapons, wars, prisons.
00:14:42But somehow, they can't seem to find enough money for anything that we have learned to call
00:14:49soft, feminine, childcare, healthcare, early childhood education, the very investments that
00:14:57we so need, not only for human capacity development, but for economic development.
00:15:05The United States is a very masculine country.
00:15:09And so we need to incorporate a critical understanding of gender in all our efforts to diminish inequality
00:15:15and fulfill the American dream in the 21st century.
00:15:23My parents came to the States from India pursuing the American dream and looking for better opportunities
00:15:29for their children.
00:15:31So it was precisely that striving towards the American dream that really struck me in the
00:15:38larger Chicano neighborhood that I grew up in.
00:15:42These were working class folks that worked really hard and believed they would one day be wealthy.
00:15:49But there's just so many structural obstacles to you actually achieving that American dream.
00:15:55I was working at a Latino immigrant worker organizing center when 9-11 happened.
00:16:02There was a restaurant at the top of the World Trade Center, Tower One.
00:16:05And on that morning, 73 workers died.
00:16:09There were also 13,000 workers in New York City who lost their jobs in the months and weeks
00:16:14that followed.
00:16:17And so we founded the Restaurant Opportunity Centers United to help these workers get back
00:16:21on their feet.
00:16:23We were overwhelmed with workers asking for help.
00:16:27Key issues kept coming up again and again.
00:16:30Poverty wages, lack of benefits like paid sick days, sexual harassment, and very severe racial
00:16:36segregation so that workers really had no opportunity to achieve the American dream.
00:16:43The restaurant industry is one of the fastest growing sectors of our economy.
00:16:47And yet every year, seven of the ten lowest paying jobs and the two absolute lowest paying
00:16:52jobs in the country are restaurant jobs.
00:16:56One of the reasons goes back to the emancipation of the slaves.
00:17:00The restaurant industry and the Pullman train company demanding the right to hire newly freed
00:17:05slaves and let them rely on customer tips rather than pay them a wage.
00:17:11And that was actually codified into the very first minimum wage law passed under FDR in
00:17:161938, which meant that the first minimum wage for tipped workers in the United States was
00:17:21zero.
00:17:22And we've gone from zero to $2.13 an hour, which is the current federal minimum wage for
00:17:27workers who earn tips over a hundred year period.
00:17:35The ultimate goal is to get Congress to do things for women, especially women in the restaurant
00:17:45industry and women in low wage jobs that help them succeed and feed their families.
00:17:50And getting rid of the lower wage for tipped workers is one of those things.
00:17:5470 percent of tipped workers in America are women who have a median wage of $9 an hour,
00:18:04including tips, suffer from three times the poverty rate of the rest of the U.S. workforce,
00:18:08use food stamps at double the rate, and suffer from the worst, the absolute worst sexual harassment
00:18:13rate of any industry in the United States.
00:18:15Generally, about $100, I would say, a month were what the restaurant paid me, and then
00:18:21I would be making $900 in tips.
00:18:23My budget was $2,000.
00:18:25I have to pay rent.
00:18:26I was helping my mother take care of my little brother.
00:18:28Still had to pay student loans, phone bill, everything.
00:18:32It was not adding up.
00:18:33So it forced me to either go and get a second or third job.
00:18:36Do you know that we spend $16 billion annually in taxpayer dollars for public assistance for
00:18:43these workers?
00:18:44This is the only industry on earth that's gotten away with essentially saying all other
00:18:48working Americans should pay for our workers' wages.
00:18:51There was an article in the New York Times about restaurant workers in Denmark where they
00:18:59have a minimum wage of $21 for all restaurant workers, tipped and non-tipped.
00:19:04And they asked the operator of major chain restaurants in the Copenhagen airport, why do you pay this
00:19:13much?
00:19:14And he said, well, if I didn't pay $21 an hour, workers would have to live on public
00:19:19assistance, and that would be a sign of a failed society.
00:19:22Because it isn't just about these workers who can't live, it's the fact that they're not
00:19:26going to be able to afford to support this economy.
00:19:29We're nearing a place where half of America is living in poverty.
00:19:33That's got to be our top priority for the world's richest country.
00:19:40Let's say you have giant multinational company A that employs hundreds of thousands of workers,
00:19:47but doesn't pay those workers a living wage.
00:19:51Well, who makes up for that?
00:19:54Taxpayer makes up for that.
00:19:56And so then the taxpayers, regressively, are in a position of subsidizing the shareholders.
00:20:03Giving welfare, in essence, to some of the wealthiest corporations in the world.
00:20:10It used to be the corporations saw themselves as long-lived institutions.
00:20:16But beginning around 1980, we began to rewrite the rules of the economy, with those at the top
00:20:22doing very well, the bankers doing very well, the rest of the economy doing very poorly.
00:20:28There was also a shift in our values.
00:20:32We began, in a sense, to enter a new gilded age in which we celebrated wealth and celebrated power.
00:20:40Corporations take the profits and they distribute them to the shareholders
00:20:46and pay their CEOs huge amounts of money.
00:20:49And then they say, we don't have any money to pay workers.
00:20:59The annual Wall Street bonus pool, just the bonus pool,
00:21:03is almost double the full-time minimum wage earnings of all Americans.
00:21:11Corporations, the financial sector, figured out that investments in Washington,
00:21:18by campaign contributions, paid huge returns in terms of first deregulation,
00:21:24and then in terms of preventing the kind of re-regulation that would make our economy function well
00:21:32for everybody in society.
00:21:41So we see this very tight relationship between politicians and corporations
00:21:48in terms of the revolving door between the two sectors.
00:21:51We change the rules of the political game as well as the economic game
00:21:57that give more influence to money.
00:22:00It has moved from one person, one vote, to one dollar, one vote.
00:22:04And all across the land, we see institutions that have broken the social compact.
00:22:13This notion, you know, that we're all in it together.
00:22:21I grew up in a small village in McDonald, Ohio,
00:22:24a town that was named after the first superintendent of U.S. Steel.
00:22:29When I was younger, everything was booming.
00:22:32We had five bars and five churches.
00:22:35They were all full.
00:22:36We had a grocery store, a pharmacy.
00:22:39It seemed like the American dream was going on and everybody was happy.
00:22:43These apartments were actually built for mill employees.
00:22:48We lived in the apartment here.
00:22:50With my own father leaving at six months old, it was pretty devastating to us.
00:22:55My mom is by far the hardest working individual that I've ever met.
00:23:02She worked at the mill seven days a week, long hours.
00:23:05Then she went to clean the post office.
00:23:08I'm not even sure when she slept.
00:23:10When I came home, there was always food on the table.
00:23:15I always wanted to work at a steel mill.
00:23:17The way those guys laughed and joked and the old roughness to them,
00:23:22their arrogantness and told dirty jokes, I loved it.
00:23:26It was what was meant to be a man as far as I knew.
00:23:31I ran a sonic tester at Copperweld,
00:23:34which tests for internal flaws in all of the quality steel.
00:23:38It's a well-known fact that the individuals in this area
00:23:43helped build the tanks and bombs that won these countries' wars.
00:23:49In September 19th, 77 was known as Black Monday.
00:23:54LTV Corporation announced their closing of the Youngstown Works.
00:23:595,000 individuals lost their job immediately.
00:24:03When the next several months after that, over 14,000.
00:24:06And over the last 20 years in the Youngstown area,
00:24:10we've lost over 100,000 steel mill-related jobs.
00:24:15Management did not want to buckle and understand
00:24:18that you needed these folks.
00:24:20You're going to have to pay them a little bit more.
00:24:23And that was one of the key issues.
00:24:28Corporate greed annihilated this area.
00:24:32In August of 2000, they were talking about closing Copperweld.
00:24:38And a lot of the individuals around me said
00:24:41they've been talking about closing for 30 years.
00:24:42They'll never happen.
00:24:44Well, that Christmas time, I was one of the folks that got laid off.
00:24:49I was completely devastated.
00:24:50I had just built a new house and bought a new truck.
00:24:55I have three young boys.
00:24:59It was either filed bankruptcy and moved back to the apartments where I came from,
00:25:03or go door to door.
00:25:06You got to get your hustle on.
00:25:07You put your pride aside, and you ask them if you can clean their gutters.
00:25:20I remember one year, we filed our income tax, and I think it was less than $15,000.
00:25:27That was our combined total, you know.
00:25:30Our first, probably 10 years, most of our arguments were about money.
00:25:35And I hated it.
00:25:37You struggle.
00:25:39We did it for many years.
00:25:41I used to joke, I'm going grocery shopping at my mom's.
00:25:44Toilet paper.
00:25:46You know, a couple cans of macaroni and cheese.
00:25:49Hey, Steven, how you doing?
00:25:50Coming.
00:25:54When the unemployment starts to run out, and you keep going to look for a job,
00:25:58and you keep getting turned down, or you keep getting rejected over and over again,
00:26:03it takes a toll.
00:26:05It not only takes a toll on you, but it erodes to the whole family.
00:26:10How'd you adjust?
00:26:11What'd you do?
00:26:13You go into survive mode.
00:26:14Yep.
00:26:15Cut everything out, sell everything.
00:26:16I sold coin collections, I sold my gold, I sold watches that I had collected, just to keep the house.
00:26:25All these years, and now here I am again, starting over.
00:26:28I left my wife and kids, I went to Texas, and went right into the oil field.
00:26:34My day would start at three o'clock in the morning, and it was six days a week.
00:26:38It killed me to be away.
00:26:40I missed so much of my family time with it because of that.
00:26:45They were going to pay for relocation, but I just, my roots are here.
00:26:50I'm not going to take the kids away from their grandparents.
00:26:53Right.
00:26:54For years you watched as we led foreign countries, shutter our factories, and steal our jobs like
00:27:03we're little babies.
00:27:05But those days are over, Ohio.
00:27:07We switched party lines and voted Republican for the first time since 1972.
00:27:19We've had 40 years of suffering.
00:27:22Enough is enough.
00:27:31What we've done for the last 50 years is we've created a politics in which there's broad support
00:27:37for a series of policies that are driving economic inequality.
00:27:41The rich can win popular support for their preferences, which is more power and more wealth concentrated in their hands,
00:27:50if they say to the public, government programs that try and build a collective public are actually giveaways to undeserving minorities.
00:28:00Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.
00:28:05And if government is a problem, Reagan would say, stop funding it, cut taxes.
00:28:11And so Reagan did. He passed some of the biggest tax cuts the country has ever seen.
00:28:15But did these tax cuts actually go to hardworking whites?
00:28:20In fact, over the 1980s, the Reagan tax cuts transferred a trillion dollars of wealth to the top 1% of the country.
00:28:28And these tax cuts have never been repealed.
00:28:35And so each decade since, a further trillion dollars of wealth have been transferred to the top 1% of the country.
00:28:42If you're reducing taxes on the wealthy and you're not bringing in more revenue, you have to then cut programs that serve people,
00:28:49including mental health programs and community services and public works projects, worker retraining,
00:28:54and all the kinds of ways in which government money can ameliorate the most dire effects of inequality.
00:29:01And the idea there is totally gendered.
00:29:03In other words, the notion of a self-made man who doesn't need other people versus community, which is gendered very much feminine, which is to say interdependence.
00:29:12How did they convince people to turn against the very policies that had created the biggest expansion of middle class the United States had ever seen?
00:29:22They engaged in what we call dog whistle politics.
00:29:25And the metaphor is of a political message that on one level generates sharp reactions, but on another is silent in a way that allows politicians to deny that they're doing any such thing.
00:29:36To you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans, I ask for your support.
00:29:44The great national crusade to make America great again.
00:29:48All Americans are rightly disturbed by the large numbers of illegal aliens entering our country.
00:29:55And we will not be intimidated by thugs.
00:29:57The silent majority is back and we are going to make America great again.
00:30:05Make America great again.
00:30:07What it really says is make white men center stage again.
00:30:12Any hierarchy has ways of defending itself by creating a situation of scarcity and competition.
00:30:19So there's been scarcity and competition between women and people of color, between racial minorities and immigrants, between working class people and racial minorities.
00:30:32And all that competition makes it hard for people to look to see what's happening at the very top.
00:30:49You have your cheer stuff, baby?
00:30:59I was raised with two younger brothers in a very middle class family in Lake Charles, Louisiana.
00:31:05My dad took me outside one day. It was really cold December day.
00:31:10He said, go grab the shovel.
00:31:12I said, okay. So I get the shovel and he said, all right, start digging.
00:31:14Okay, so I'm digging in a little while. I said, um, what are we doing?
00:31:20He said, I'm teaching you something.
00:31:22I said, what are you teaching me?
00:31:23He said, do you want to do this the rest of your life?
00:31:25I said, oh, no, sir.
00:31:27He said, go to college, get an education, work hard.
00:31:30I said, yes, sir.
00:31:31He said, all right, you can put up the shovel and go in.
00:31:35Thank you, ma'am.
00:31:37In 1980, when Reagan beat Carter, I was six years old and my dad let me stay up and watch the election returns.
00:31:42I was hooked right then, hooked.
00:31:46How can you not fall in love with Ronald Reagan?
00:31:49I aim to try and tap that great American spirit.
00:31:54We're going to put America back to work again.
00:31:58His message was just hope and American exceptionalism.
00:32:03He believed in American greatness.
00:32:06I believe if you work hard, you can do anything.
00:32:09It's America.
00:32:11I've always been a Republican because I thought they were the party of lesser government, more individual liberties.
00:32:16I don't want to give up my individual freedoms for an entitlement for a whole group of people.
00:32:20So this was my little trailer park.
00:32:28I technically still own the land.
00:32:32You just would be surprised how people live.
00:32:36Sometimes you'd walk in and you step on a dirty diaper.
00:32:39When you're higher on drugs, just throw up on themselves.
00:32:41They don't clean it.
00:32:43One was so bad.
00:32:45I had an officer with me to evict people and he came out puking.
00:32:50The frustrating part to someone like me is whenever they're 16 years old and they say,
00:32:56oh, I'm going to go file for disability.
00:32:58You're like, well, are you disabled?
00:33:01Oh, no, no, no, no.
00:33:02I just say I have seizures.
00:33:03They can't prove epilepsy.
00:33:05And they just collect a check.
00:33:07And it is very frustrating.
00:33:11My mother believed she was right and everyone else was wrong.
00:33:15She was not compassionate at all.
00:33:17It was, you're on welfare.
00:33:19You should starve to death.
00:33:20Not to that degree, okay?
00:33:21But I mean, it was just real rigid.
00:33:25So I was raised very conservatively, but without compassion.
00:33:28One of the fundamental problems that we have to address is this empathy gap.
00:33:37This tendency to otherize people who aren't like ourselves.
00:33:42To point fingers rather than offer a helping hand.
00:33:45We have created a society where we don't see each other.
00:33:49And so when you don't see people, you can dehumanize people.
00:33:55We are in a crisis of connection.
00:33:57Children are being raised to believe that the out-group member,
00:34:00whether it's class-based, race-based, gender-based,
00:34:03is somehow fundamentally not like them.
00:34:07And that is the most devastating thing we could communicate to our children.
00:34:10Because what do you think that does to your actions,
00:34:12your ability to create a collective with people from different communities?
00:34:17You're not going to be able to do it.
00:34:18Father, this morning we come to you in the name of Jesus.
00:34:30We love you.
00:34:31We thank you for loving us.
00:34:32God, give us peace today as we search for you.
00:34:34It's in your name we pray, Jesus.
00:34:36And everybody said?
00:34:37Amen.
00:34:38We wanted it to be a community that everyone felt welcomed,
00:34:40no matter who they were or what they'd been through or their social status.
00:34:44And then we wanted to be a church of grace.
00:34:47Even though it was storming this past week and everybody was flooded in,
00:34:50we still found time to feed over 500 people this past Thursday.
00:34:54That's awesome.
00:34:59People ask us all the time,
00:35:00why do y'all feed those people?
00:35:01They're taking advantage of you.
00:35:03It's not on me what they do when we do good.
00:35:05It's our job to do good.
00:35:11We're in the Bible Belt.
00:35:13We have very rich people who come here.
00:35:14We have very poor people who come here.
00:35:16We have white, black, all different types of races,
00:35:19different types of families, orientation.
00:35:21We have progressives here.
00:35:23And we have conservatives here.
00:35:25I wanted us to be a testimony of different people coming together
00:35:29in spite of those differences and still worshiping together.
00:35:31Because what I saw was division.
00:35:33A lot of people aren't really interested
00:35:36in understanding other people right now.
00:35:39If you are not on their side on women's rights,
00:35:42their right to choose,
00:35:44if you don't believe in just one man and one woman,
00:35:47what they believe,
00:35:48then they would say,
00:35:50how could you be a Christian?
00:35:52I feel like that today.
00:35:54One of the greatest sins of our country
00:35:57is racism, prejudice, and hatred
00:35:59against people that are different than you.
00:36:01If we do not protect our race and protect our people,
00:36:05they're going to destroy us.
00:36:07Big power!
00:36:08Big power!
00:36:09People, one nation, and immigration!
00:36:12White lives matter!
00:36:13White lives matter!
00:36:14You will not replace us!
00:36:17You will not replace us!
00:36:20Our country!
00:36:21Our country!
00:36:22Our fucking Americans!
00:36:23Go fucking make my toy jam, motherfucker!
00:36:26And build that fucking law for me!
00:36:39We started doing healing circles.
00:36:41It's been a practice that we've seen
00:36:44bring our community closer together
00:36:47and when you connect you heal.
00:36:49I felt a bit of fear
00:36:52because many people had voted for Donald Trump
00:36:55and thought it was the same as him.
00:36:58And then they don't want us here.
00:37:01We fought for coming here.
00:37:05And suddenly they say that they are going to send us
00:37:10or something like that.
00:37:11It's a lot of pain.
00:37:15I went to my country because there were many violence
00:37:19and many threats in my family.
00:37:26And also to have a better future
00:37:33than the one I could have in El Salvador.
00:37:37Because every day that I woke up,
00:37:41every day that I woke up,
00:37:43every day that I woke up,
00:37:45every day that I woke up,
00:37:55when I heard that when I was elected to Trump,
00:37:58I said,
00:37:59I'll go back again a while
00:38:01and now I'm just in danger
00:38:04than it was before.
00:38:10Every single one of my students
00:38:12could use a therapist,
00:38:15weekly, minimum.
00:38:21There is a waiting list for therapy.
00:38:24It's really sad how we start to rank trauma.
00:38:30With our newcomer population, their trauma is so fresh,
00:38:34and that whole experience of crossing the border.
00:38:38One of my young female students,
00:38:40I'm normally very respectful, happy,
00:38:43yelled at a teacher and, like, was really angry.
00:38:48And once we started to ask her, you know, what's going on?
00:38:51Why are you acting out?
00:38:53And she said that ICE was at her house.
00:38:57We had a soccer game, and they didn't want to come and play.
00:39:00They didn't know if they would be safe.
00:39:02They're scared.
00:39:10Hi.
00:39:11Thank you for being here.
00:39:13Oh.
00:39:14Thank you so much.
00:39:20What percentage of your students are newcomers?
00:39:2231% of them.
00:39:2331%.
00:39:24Wow.
00:39:25Can you feel the difference in the atmosphere,
00:39:27like this year versus last year?
00:39:29It's way more intense this year.
00:39:32Every week I have a kid who is trying to commit suicide,
00:39:35and I'm calling an ambulance.
00:39:37Every week?
00:39:38Every single week.
00:39:39Every single week.
00:39:40We had over 30 kids cutting, like a cutting epidemic.
00:39:43Do you guys remember when I explained to you
00:39:46that the mayor had made an announcement
00:39:48about ICE being in Oakland,
00:39:50and that I told you not to panic,
00:39:53that you guys were in a safe school,
00:39:57and that nothing was going to happen to you?
00:39:59I think it's very important that people know their rights,
00:40:02and I hope that people feel welcome in Oakland,
00:40:06no matter where they come from.
00:40:08And I encourage you to always speak to those who hold power
00:40:13about what they're doing with it.
00:40:16Because you matter, right?
00:40:18Yeah.
00:40:19What are some of your dreams?
00:40:20I want to be a doctor.
00:40:22Doctor?
00:40:23That would be great.
00:40:24To heal people?
00:40:25Yeah.
00:40:26Does anyone want to be the mayor?
00:40:29No?
00:40:32We call him Mr. President.
00:40:35I want you to have all your dreams come true.
00:40:38I want everyone to feel like they have access to a future,
00:40:42and I know we have work to do.
00:40:44And you have a wonderful principal who works very hard,
00:40:48and she holds a lot.
00:40:50The things that worry you,
00:40:52she goes home and worries about them too every night.
00:40:57That's part of being a family, right?
00:40:59Mm-hmm.
00:41:01You can't be so close to this much trauma
00:41:04and not be affected by it.
00:41:07It's much more emotional than I thought it would be.
00:41:11It's really like it takes a lot,
00:41:14and sometimes you just feel like,
00:41:16I'm not achieving anything here.
00:41:18Yes, you are.
00:41:19And while it gets to you, right?
00:41:20Stop saying that.
00:41:21It gets to you,
00:41:22you feel like the problems are insurmountable.
00:41:25Mm-hmm.
00:41:26This is like the biggest challenge of my life, really.
00:41:32I'm just worrying about the Ruby plan.
00:41:34Do you have one?
00:41:35How are you going to sustain yourself?
00:41:37I love them.
00:41:38I know.
00:41:39I'll tell you why I ask, right?
00:41:42Let's say you burn out.
00:41:43You get tired.
00:41:44Not just physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually.
00:41:47You're tired.
00:41:48Your mind starts breaking down.
00:41:50Your body starts breaking down.
00:41:51You're not doing any good for anybody.
00:41:53I was in a classroom doing an observation,
00:42:02and I'm starting to get kind of dizzy,
00:42:05and my chest is just hurting.
00:42:07I just can't breathe.
00:42:09The right side of my body kind of goes numb,
00:42:12and I'm, like, panicking at this point.
00:42:16I get to the hospital and straight to the emergency room,
00:42:20and I'm freaking out, and I'm crying,
00:42:24and in my mind, I'm thinking,
00:42:26you're weak.
00:42:27Like, you're weak.
00:42:28Like, this is not.
00:42:30Get it together.
00:42:32But I can't.
00:42:33I can't.
00:42:34I physically cannot do anything.
00:42:36I had a panic attack.
00:42:40At that point, I said,
00:42:42well, if I don't take care of myself and my kids,
00:42:47who's going to take care of them?
00:43:06Our best economic policies were investments
00:43:09in the common genius.
00:43:11Universal public education,
00:43:13the homestead acts,
00:43:15to which 25% of Americans today
00:43:17attribute their wealth.
00:43:19The creation of the 30-year mortgage,
00:43:21backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,
00:43:24the GI Bill.
00:43:26When we said to our GIs,
00:43:27well, you defended our country,
00:43:29so we'll provide you home loans,
00:43:31business loans, college loans.
00:43:33Each of those major wealth-building initiatives
00:43:38left out people of color.
00:43:40The federal government spent money in such a way
00:43:43that excluded African Americans
00:43:45and other non-whites from enjoying the fruits
00:43:48of our wonderful experiment in democracy.
00:43:51Redlining actually kept people who were black
00:43:54from being able to buy homes in certain areas.
00:43:57People who were white began to move in droves
00:44:00out of cities into suburban communities.
00:44:03Political clout went with them to the suburbs.
00:44:06The best schools went to the suburbs.
00:44:09Cities were left with schools that were underfunded,
00:44:12jobs that were disappearing,
00:44:14underinvestment in public transportation systems.
00:44:17We like to think that this stuff happened a long time ago,
00:44:20but to this day then,
00:44:22those exclusions continue to shape life chances
00:44:25for people who are their descendants.
00:44:28On the one hand, we have this wonderful value
00:44:31about equality in the country, democracy,
00:44:35the value of public education,
00:44:37and on the other hand,
00:44:38we have the ugly reality of inequality and segregation
00:44:43that was baked into much of public education
00:44:46from the beginning of the country.
00:44:48Fortunately, we had legislation in the 60s and 70s
00:44:51that was desegregating schools,
00:44:54that was reducing inequality and funding for schools,
00:44:58putting money into cities and poor rural areas
00:45:01from the federal government,
00:45:03all of which came to an end
00:45:06or was greatly reduced in the 1980s.
00:45:08What has happened since?
00:45:10We began to disinvest in the public?
00:45:13We adopted this idea that it was all about the private good
00:45:17that undermines the collective investments
00:45:21that we need to be a successful society.
00:45:23By making education a private good for ourselves,
00:45:27I unwittingly and perhaps unconsciously
00:45:30collude in the processes of inequality
00:45:32because that means that I'm okay with segregation.
00:45:35I just want the best for my child.
00:45:37In the United States, it's sort of as though some kids
00:45:40are on a high-speed elevator
00:45:42going to the top of the 90-story building,
00:45:45and others are going up some escalators
00:45:47on the way to that goal,
00:45:49and others are trying to walk up creaky stairs
00:45:52with holes in them.
00:45:54And that really is the opportunity gap in the United States.
00:45:58In most states, the funding structure for education
00:46:02is predicated on the tax base.
00:46:05You can't get a big tax base in communities
00:46:09where there's not home ownership.
00:46:11And it is radically different from communities
00:46:14where that median home is going for $950,000.
00:46:18So when we do have these fundamental opportunities gaps,
00:46:22we're sending to some kids the message
00:46:24that you don't matter as much as other kids.
00:46:26When you say that there's an American dream
00:46:28to somebody who's a poor child with no education,
00:46:31living in a dangerous neighborhood,
00:46:33with no opportunity, what would that do to a child?
00:46:37That would say that if they couldn't find the American dream,
00:46:39there is something wrong with them.
00:46:41And that has a social psychological impact.
00:46:44I think it has a behavioral impact as well.
00:46:46How do you keep invested in something
00:46:48where you don't think people care about you?
00:46:50Extreme poverty and marginalization has created despair.
00:46:55And some of that despair has manifested itself
00:46:58with drug addiction and abuse.
00:47:00It has manifested itself in pockets of increased violence.
00:47:03The war on drugs has historically, from its inception,
00:47:10been a war on poor people and a war on people of color.
00:47:14White and black kids experiment with marijuana
00:47:26at about the same rate.
00:47:28And yet, nine out of 10 of the people
00:47:30who were being arrested were black.
00:47:32How do you look at that and say that the government itself
00:47:36is not being used as an instrument of punishment
00:47:39and suppression for one group of people?
00:47:41It ultimately became a means of mass exploitation
00:47:45and mass bureaucracy.
00:47:58This dramatic increase has left states devastated economically.
00:48:02They can't fund schools and health and human services
00:48:05because so many of our dollars have been swallowed
00:48:08by this system of over-incarceration
00:48:11and excessive punishment.
00:48:13And then you ask why so many young black women are not married,
00:48:30why you have disparities in schools,
00:48:33why so many young black children are in need of social services.
00:48:38It's a systemic problem.
00:48:42It's a systemic problem.
00:48:43We have to move away from this punitive economy that has served no one.
00:48:56It means reckoning with a long history of racial injustice in this country
00:49:01and reinvestment towards jobs not jails, books not bars,
00:49:06healthcare not handcuffs, books not bars, jobs not jails, healthcare not handcuffs.
00:49:17One of the first times that I started to think about inequality and racism
00:49:23was being asked as an undergrad to go and speak to high school students
00:49:27to encourage them to go to Harvard.
00:49:29I found that half of students were not graduating from the high school in my neighborhood.
00:49:34I was also noticing that young people at Harvard
00:49:37were being treated a lot differently for doing a lot of the same things.
00:49:41So drug use and abuse meant taking a semester off
00:49:45and restarting your studies,
00:49:47whereas it might mean getting locked up for some of my friends in East Oakland.
00:49:51A year and a half ago, my daughter was detained,
00:50:01and she was housed here,
00:50:03and that they tried to give her two to five years,
00:50:05and I had to bail her out.
00:50:06Whoa!
00:50:07My grandson's been in this revolving door for 12 years.
00:50:12He's got a mental problem.
00:50:14He's not a criminal.
00:50:15He has the mind of a little teenager.
00:50:17We are called out when somebody has been reporting
00:50:22that they have been sexually harassed or sexually assaulted in the jail.
00:50:25I've had a few clients recently who are in for nonviolent crimes,
00:50:30and they're remaining in here rather than being released to programs
00:50:34that would help with what we call dual diagnosis.
00:50:36So that could be substance abuse, mental health issues,
00:50:39and that's not a way to rehabilitate people.
00:50:41It's not a way to get people off the street, and it's not humane.
00:50:44I just really commend you for the work that you do.
00:50:47You hang around.
00:50:48You tell your daughter to hang around, okay?
00:51:04I'm sorry we brought you back to the...
00:51:06No, I'm just saying that...
00:51:07...the lion's den.
00:51:09That's slavery.
00:51:12Yeah.
00:51:13That's slavery at the finest compound is the slavery.
00:51:23I'm sorry.
00:51:25As you know, people are making the choice of putting...
00:51:28literally putting food on their table or trying to bail out their kids.
00:51:32I had to do it.
00:51:33Right?
00:51:34Like, I had to do it.
00:51:35Yeah.
00:51:36Living out of soup kitchen.
00:51:37I've been...
00:51:38Yeah.
00:51:39For the last year and a half.
00:51:41I don't tell people that, how many times I didn't have water
00:51:44or I didn't have electricity in my house.
00:51:46You have to choose.
00:51:48$50,000 later, I chose college or bail.
00:51:52Yeah.
00:51:53We've gone just so far off the deep end in this country in terms of embracing this punitive criminal justice system
00:52:06that disproportionately impacts people of color.
00:52:09This system is costly, not just in financial terms, but in terms of people's mental health.
00:52:15And it worsens the mental health situation of their entire family.
00:52:18And so we have an opportunity to do something different.
00:52:35When the mill shut down, all the social problems came about.
00:52:40The marriage troubles, the suicides, the split families.
00:52:45And these are jobs that are not $8 an hour jobs.
00:52:48So you can raise families.
00:52:50Yeah.
00:52:51And take vacations and buy a car.
00:52:53Live the American dream.
00:52:55Buy a home.
00:52:56Now, what are you going to do?
00:52:58I had young people, they'd say, what do I think?
00:53:00I said, get out of the area.
00:53:02You know, my own children leave.
00:53:04There's nothing here.
00:53:05That's sad.
00:53:06This was a great area.
00:53:08This was a steel area.
00:53:10But what do we have?
00:53:11Became from steel to heroin.
00:53:13I became more aware of our opiate addiction and heroin problems in this area when it affected my own family.
00:53:28My own son's girlfriend became addicted to heroin.
00:53:33Bryson was born addicted to drugs and had seizures.
00:53:43I did not know that she was doing drugs while she was pregnant with Bryson.
00:53:48I was terrified when I found out.
00:53:52I tried helping her.
00:53:54I even offered to pay for some of her rehab.
00:53:57And she refused.
00:53:59I've had full custody since then.
00:54:01There it is.
00:54:06Being a single father is, I mean, it's hard.
00:54:10Even with me graduating from college with two degrees, the regular 40-hour week is just not enough anymore.
00:54:17Well, right now I'm working seven days a week, three jobs, teaching special needs at Austintown High School.
00:54:25I'm also part-time at the vitamin job.
00:54:28I still have my drug and alcohol counseling job on the weekends.
00:54:32This is just what I have to do to survive.
00:54:36See you, buddy.
00:54:37I mean, he is turning eight this year, so I have to start thinking about putting money back for college.
00:54:46And with me working 75 hours a week, I think I should be able to afford to put some money back.
00:54:51But something is definitely wrong with the system that I can't do it.
00:54:56I mean, it's not just me.
00:54:57It's everyone around here.
00:54:59It's work every day to basically just make it.
00:55:04I mean, it's not really living.
00:55:06It's just not dying.
00:55:14The universal way in which we determine value in our culture is through money.
00:55:18Certain sectors are vastly underpaid, and they tend to be feminized sectors.
00:55:22So, for example, education, healthcare, the service sector.
00:55:26We just don't pay people in those occupations, whether they be male or female, as much as they're worth.
00:55:41Who's going to argue that teachers living in poverty is somehow okay?
00:55:45But because that occupation is feminized, we pay it less.
00:55:48Whereas we overpay other masculinized occupations.
00:55:51We'll start with sports.
00:56:00Or the financial sector.
00:56:01People making money off of money.
00:56:11So compare teachers, right, to someone in the finance sector.
00:56:13And the value that they're contributing to society and the hours that they're putting in.
00:56:17It's outrageous that we value one so much more than we value the other.
00:56:22It's the jobs that get closer to caring and emotional labor that seem to be the least valued.
00:56:31It's just never quite seen as real work.
00:56:34And it's often been associated with women of color, immigrant women, women who are of marginalized social status.
00:56:42We all hear that women earn 79 cents on the dollar compared to men.
00:56:47But what you don't often hear is that they own only 32 cents on the dollar.
00:56:51For women of color, that gap is really a chasm because black and Latina women own only pennies on the dollar compared to white men and white women.
00:57:00It's really important to remember that women did not have access to credit in their own name until the Equal Opportunity Act in 1974.
00:57:16Then when we were able to access credit, women were preyed upon during the lead up to the foreclosure crisis.
00:57:23African American women were two and a half times more likely to receive a subprime loan.
00:57:29And that led to a lot of wealth stripping.
00:57:31To really succeed in our society, you need access to a well-paying job.
00:57:38You need access to supports to take care of your kids while you're working.
00:57:42You need access to investment vehicles like a home or a business.
00:57:47Oftentimes people do the blame the victim thing when what's really behind her is this whole history of discrimination and she's carrying it on her shoulders.
00:57:58Who's building?
00:58:04Who's building?
00:58:06Who's building?
00:58:07Who's building?
00:58:08Who's building?
00:58:09Who's building?
00:58:10Who's building?
00:58:11Who's building?
00:58:12Who's building?
00:58:13Our building.
00:58:15Hey everybody, happy International Women's Day for our building.
00:58:20Our building.
00:58:22We are here to stand with workers of all different sectors to say enough of this.
00:58:27to say enough is enough.
00:58:28What we need is one fair wage.
00:58:31We need paid sick days and paid family leave.
00:58:33We need health care for everybody.
00:58:36We need an end to sexual harassment and discrimination.
00:58:39So we're gonna keep rising as women workers.
00:58:45All right, so we've got sisters here from the restaurant industry
00:58:48who are gonna share their stories.
00:58:50At 18, I started bartending.
00:58:52On my first day, the owner called me into his office.
00:58:56He said that he could help me pay for college
00:58:59if I gave him a blow job.
00:59:01When I refused, I was fired.
00:59:06At 30, I was locked in the bar where I worked
00:59:10by the general manager
00:59:11and assaulted by the vice president of the hotel group.
00:59:14Unknown to me, he was told he could have anything he wanted,
00:59:18including me.
00:59:22The dynamic of having a mostly female workforce in the front
00:59:25living on tips and a mostly male workforce in the back
00:59:29not living on tips creates a dynamic in which women have no power.
00:59:33They have no power vis-à-vis the customer.
00:59:36They have no power vis-à-vis the kitchen.
00:59:38And they have no power vis-à-vis managers who could decide
00:59:41you could have this table or that table,
00:59:43which means you get $0 or $200.
00:59:45Your wage and your income could be anything.
00:59:47It's all up to the men.
00:59:51There are millions more young women for whom this is the first job
00:59:55in high school, college or graduate school.
00:59:57This will be the first job for my daughters.
00:59:59I know it.
01:00:01But as a mother, as an American, that's not the American dream.
01:00:05As long as you have a model of our species in which one half of humanity
01:00:17is considered inferior to the other half, you are not going to have equality
01:00:21because that's basic to inequality.
01:00:24Systems of power are these invisible, behind-the-scenes,
01:00:29but very powerful ways in which we organize the world.
01:00:35Men dominate most of the major economic, political, and social systems.
01:00:49And if women are erased from these institutions, by and large,
01:00:52if they're showing up at the highest level in such small numbers,
01:00:56it likely means that their concerns are also erased.
01:01:00The domination pyramid keeps rebuilding itself on the same foundations
01:01:06of this ranking of one half of humanity over the other half.
01:01:10It's about power and it's about the ability to exercise power
01:01:13both individually and institutionally.
01:01:16So, for example, if you're serving power in an economic sense,
01:01:20you have more chance for advancement than if you're not serving power.
01:01:24And if you're helping to reinforce men's dominance,
01:01:28then there are more opportunities for you
01:01:30than if you're subverting men's dominance.
01:01:33If you really start looking at economics through this lens,
01:01:38you begin to see that more resources are funneled to those on top.
01:01:44But not only that, there isn't enough investment in caring for people.
01:01:50And with this, there isn't enough investment in human capacity development.
01:01:56We can project American military strength all over the world
01:01:59and spend hundreds of billions of dollars.
01:02:01But then, what are we doing about poverty in the inner cities?
01:02:04What are we doing about rural white poverty?
01:02:06What are we doing about healthcare and citizens
01:02:08who can't even afford to go to the doctor?
01:02:10I mean, it's a question of who are we as a society?
01:02:13What are our values as a society?
01:02:15At the end of the day, a budget is a set of values.
01:02:19Budget reflects your values.
01:02:21What is this symbol?
01:02:33Less than.
01:02:34Less than.
01:02:35Or, right, or greater than.
01:02:37This, for me, is also a symbol of the way
01:02:40in which we reinforce and justify inequality.
01:02:46The idea that men are more important than women.
01:02:51That straight people are better than queer folks.
01:02:53That citizens are better than non-citizens.
01:02:55And on and on.
01:02:57And so, if you feel an imbalance in this country,
01:03:00it is because we are not imbalanced.
01:03:03This imbalance plays out in our homes, in our policies,
01:03:06and in our national priorities.
01:03:09And the truth is that this symbol limits our ability to see.
01:03:14We're releasing this report called
01:03:24Who Pays the True Cost of Incarceration on Families?
01:03:27A big part of our challenge today will be making sure that people understand
01:03:31that criminal justice reform must be about women and families
01:03:34and not just about the folks who are incarcerated themselves.
01:03:39Families and the women who sustain them
01:03:41are being dragged into deeper poverty, stress, strain, and debt
01:03:46when their loved ones are incarcerated.
01:04:02I have a brother.
01:04:04He went in when he was 18 years old, and he's been in for 10 years now.
01:04:08So, it was really hard for our family.
01:04:11My mom, in the first two months, lost 60 pounds, went into serious depression.
01:04:18My parents had to get multiple jobs to be able to afford his lawyer fees.
01:04:23And 10 years after, we're just financially getting back to the point
01:04:28where we can enjoy a family vacation
01:04:31because all of our money was going to lawyer fees or visits.
01:04:35It's something that you have to choose between
01:04:38whether you're going to visit your loved one
01:04:40or you're going to buy them a shirt, a long-sleeved shirt, for the winter.
01:04:44My mom is still, you know, taking depression pills
01:04:48and, you know, dealing with how is it that, you know, she's going to be present for her son.
01:04:54Congratulations.
01:04:55That's great.
01:05:04Thank you so much for your time.
01:05:06Of course.
01:05:07One in three families were facing difficult choices
01:05:09between paying for basic necessities like food
01:05:12versus making court-related payments.
01:05:15One in five families that we surveyed
01:05:17had taken out some sort of loan.
01:05:19We can't wait.
01:05:20We really do need these reforms
01:05:22in terms of the criminal justice system.
01:05:24And we need to do them in ways that take into account the entire family.
01:05:28If you look at our history as a country,
01:05:33we have for a very long time valued all things
01:05:37connected to a dominant framework, a power over framework.
01:05:42We actually need to invest in well-being in our country.
01:05:46I'm afraid for all of my kids.
01:06:04There's nothing really here.
01:06:06A lot of minimum wage jobs,
01:06:08but nothing to raise a family on.
01:06:10It has to be a joint venture between the companies that are here,
01:06:15the educational institutions, and the government to subsidize education.
01:06:20They're going to have to offer incentives and provide the training for skilled trade jobs.
01:06:26We need to pay a living wage to these folks.
01:06:30So, employees pay taxes.
01:06:33They're not on the program of government to have the children get lunch.
01:06:38We wouldn't be talking about health care.
01:06:40We wouldn't be talking about Social Security in this country.
01:06:43We wouldn't be talking about lack of money.
01:06:45Good jobs solve problems.
01:06:48They pay.
01:06:50When you take care of your people, you will be successful.
01:06:54That's how you build a successful company.
01:06:56That's the moral of my story.
01:06:57Take care of your people.
01:06:58Take care of your people.
01:06:59That's right, brother.
01:07:01I'm just hoping that they can pour some money into this area so people don't have to leave.
01:07:12You always have to have hope.
01:07:14You have to.
01:07:19You think about America.
01:07:21We had a formula for success.
01:07:23We out-educated the rest of the world.
01:07:25We invested in our infrastructure.
01:07:27We invested in roads and bridges and ports.
01:07:29We also invested in research and development.
01:07:31We pushed the boundaries of discovery.
01:07:33We encouraged risk-taking but not recklessness.
01:07:35All of these things inured to the benefit of businesses.
01:07:39All of those things were public investments.
01:07:42A public construct of which the private sector benefited greatly.
01:07:47And so this notion of interdependence, this notion that we're all in this together,
01:07:51that we rise and fall together, is absolutely true.
01:07:59Mr. Naughton has decided that this is not going to work for him moving forward.
01:08:07He's probably going to move somewhere where the need is less.
01:08:09I think people leave education because it's just not valued in our country.
01:08:18We don't pay teachers well.
01:08:20We don't celebrate them and encourage them.
01:08:25And then you're a teacher in East Oakland and you might have a kid cuss you out or you
01:08:31might get hit.
01:08:35And what human is going to sit there and say, oh, I can deal with that?
01:08:40Two of my therapists quit because of their secondary trauma that they've experienced with our
01:08:46students this school year.
01:08:48So people leave because it's crazy and it's hard.
01:08:54Hi.
01:08:56Hi.
01:08:57Good morning.
01:08:58What's on your mind?
01:08:59What's on your heart?
01:09:01There's a lot of anger.
01:09:02Mm-hmm.
01:09:03Fuck this system.
01:09:04Yeah.
01:09:05Fuck this.
01:09:06This is a sign to fail my kids.
01:09:08And I'm sitting here and I'm contributing in this way.
01:09:11I get angry.
01:09:12Yeah.
01:09:13The superintendent has changed twice now in two years.
01:09:19When we have a new superintendent, then it's almost like you're trying to convince that
01:09:23new person of the work that you're doing.
01:09:26And that is exhausting.
01:09:29There is not a true understanding of the amount of need versus the amount of money that we receive.
01:09:38With the budget crisis, I'm sure you're aware, our future center may be not funded next year.
01:09:46So that's something I know you're really concerned about.
01:09:49What else?
01:09:50Our African-American Male Achievement Program, our restorative justice program.
01:09:59So everything that's designed to break down traditional oppression and barriers to opportunity,
01:10:07all that's going away?
01:10:08Pretty much.
01:10:09When you stick all of the students who have the highest need into one school building,
01:10:18and that is all they see all day, how can you vision something different?
01:10:25You cannot put all of the poor people in one building and expect them to succeed.
01:10:31When I think about myself in this generational poverty and how hard it's been for me to break
01:10:37that cycle within myself and my family, and I didn't go to a school like Frick.
01:10:45My school was diverse, and I was able to go to my apartment and not have lights,
01:10:53but go to my friend's house and see her bedroom as big as my apartment.
01:10:57And what if I hadn't ever seen something different?
01:11:02Would I have believed in something different?
01:11:05I think my students should be around other students who live completely different than them,
01:11:10and they can go to the hills on the weekends or go to a pool party with someone of a different race
01:11:15or a different economic background, and that's not happening here.
01:11:24We're trying to break a system.
01:11:26We're trying to break generational poverty, and it's going to take way more resources than we have.
01:11:33I believe my kids can be successful, but I need more time.
01:11:39I need more time to change this school.
01:11:46We have to change the habits and the hearts of the people
01:11:49and move away from our own self-interest to become more empathic
01:11:52about what's happening to other people's children.
01:11:55Knowing how much benefit early childhood education brings
01:11:59to closing the achievement gap and closing the opportunity gap,
01:12:03we are very foolish not to provide access to high-quality learning for all young children,
01:12:09especially those in low-income communities.
01:12:12You get so much more bang for the buck investing in a troubled six-month-old
01:12:16or a troubled six-year-old than you do when investing in a troubled 16-year-old.
01:12:20It's going to cost money to make sure every child starts school ready to learn.
01:12:23It's going to cost money to make sure that young people get the training they need for good jobs.
01:12:29But for every dollar that we spend, not only do we save several,
01:12:34but we produce, we increase the GDP.
01:12:38America will prosper when the people of the future are prepared to lead to the future that we all want.
01:12:44You know, for all the love and support in the room,
01:12:56I have to confess that nobody ever seems to want to take me out to dinner.
01:13:01But the employers in this room prove that actually you can take the high road.
01:13:08Many of these employers have been willing to come with us to Congress and state legislatures and say,
01:13:13we believe in higher wages and better benefits, not just for workers,
01:13:17but because it's better for the bottom line.
01:13:19You know, this is ultimately about our democracy.
01:13:22It's about this question.
01:13:24Who gets to decide how women are treated in the workplace?
01:13:27Who gets to decide whether we, as a nation,
01:13:30follow the outstanding path of the high road employers in this room
01:13:33or follow the low road, a path of poverty and misery?
01:13:36Is it a handful of trade lobbyists or is it we, the people?
01:13:44The values of the restaurant emanate from whatever it is that the ownership wants.
01:13:50And so when you say, I want an equitable work environment,
01:13:53we want to create a living wage for all of our employees.
01:13:57We want to open up opportunity.
01:13:59All these things that really are basic human values,
01:14:02restaurants can create a lot of change.
01:14:06There are seven states, California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Montana, Minnesota, and Alaska,
01:14:17have all demanded that the restaurant industry pay their own workers wages and let tips be on top of that wage.
01:14:24And then we've got measures moving in states around the country to eliminate the lower wage for tipped workers.
01:14:29And so this is going to be rolling momentum towards the next three to five years
01:14:34being able to move one fair wage legislation in Congress.
01:14:37We have breaking news.
01:14:39The Intercept, which is a media platform, intercepted a poll on public support of the minimum wage.
01:14:48And here were the results.
01:14:4971% support among all people, Republican and Democrat, raising the minimum wage.
01:14:55And only 8% of people in America totally oppose it.
01:15:02Everybody wants this.
01:15:03Everybody needs this.
01:15:04It will happen.
01:15:06It is just a question of how and when.
01:15:10Imagine a world in which women were valued in that world.
01:15:17They'd be able to take care of their families.
01:15:19They'd be able to take care of our communities.
01:15:21They would lead.
01:15:22All it takes is valuing her, letting her know that she's valued.
01:15:26Paying her in a way that reflects her value.
01:15:29If we did that, we'd have a different economy.
01:15:32We'd have a different country.
01:15:40Nations that have invested in caring for their people and in caring for their natural environment
01:15:48are not only always in the highest ranks of the United Nations human development reports,
01:15:56but of the World Economic Forum's global competitiveness reports.
01:16:02And not coincidentally, these are the nations where there is much more equal partnership
01:16:08between the female and male halves of humanity in both the family and the state.
01:16:15As the status of women rises, men no longer feel it's such a threat to their status to also back embrace
01:16:26more stereotypically soft, caring policies.
01:16:30So they have child care.
01:16:33They have very generous paid parental leave.
01:16:36Of course, they have universal health care.
01:16:39And because they have invested in caring for their people, they have less poverty, less crime, long lifespans,
01:16:48kids who do well in international tests.
01:16:51They are societies that have shifted from a domination system more to a partnership system.
01:17:00We're not bystanders in this world.
01:17:07We have the ability to step up and solve big problems.
01:17:11We have done that in the past.
01:17:13It's just a question of prioritization, a question of political will.
01:17:17Just like nations, businesses should be run for the benefit of all their stakeholders,
01:17:22society, partners, investors, customers, employees, the environment, communities, etc.
01:17:27Every business should have a purpose that goes beyond making money.
01:17:31You could compete, for example, on whether or not your company has a high happiness rating for its employees.
01:17:38You could compete in terms of the environmental record of the company,
01:17:42in terms of whether or not they offer paid parental leave.
01:17:45Instead of just valuing money, we would introduce a whole other set of values.
01:17:50You know, economic systems are human creations.
01:17:53We can recreate them.
01:17:59If we are a nation founded in justice and equality,
01:18:03we have to always be able to see folks as deserving, even when they make mistakes.
01:18:08We know that the true path to safety is through economic opportunity and restorative justice.
01:18:14That most people would respond to a meaningful job and would respond to restorative justice where they're held accountable and yet still held in community.
01:18:25I think that there's an opportunity to restore the balance of this country and to live up to our ideals.
01:18:34We need to move away from this punishment-based economy towards a more caring economy.
01:18:45What we have to do as a society is stop being blind to history.
01:18:51Stop being blind to systems.
01:18:54Understand that there are privileges and there are oppressions in society.
01:18:59And in fact, they work like a seesaw.
01:19:01Your privilege is actually built on my oppression.
01:19:05We actually have to engage in truth-telling.
01:19:08We're going to have to express some shame and sorrow about who we are and what we've done.
01:19:15We're going to have to find the will to reconcile ourselves to a different future.
01:19:20If you don't address the racism, sexism, homophobia, hatred, the hatred that we live in in our culture, then you can't start having a conversation about love, peace and understanding.
01:19:30I think it was realizing that like my mom's rhetoric of she really hated certain types of people.
01:19:44And I thought, well, wait a minute, you tell me that Jesus loves people, right?
01:19:50But you're saying this and they don't line up.
01:19:54If Jesus loves everyone, then how can you hate this type of a person?
01:20:02I had a lady at the trailer park.
01:20:04She would walk two miles to work every day at McDonald's and she had to quit because they took her food stamps away because she had a job.
01:20:13And she said, Sharon, I can't afford to work because I'm paying childcare and now I don't have food stamps, so I can't, I'm making less.
01:20:22Why can't we help people that go out and try to help themselves?
01:20:32Congratulations.
01:20:33About to graduate?
01:20:34So what do you do?
01:20:35I'm due.
01:20:36I'm over 50.
01:20:37Oh, wow.
01:20:38Here you go.
01:20:39And then did you pick out your produce yet?
01:20:41Yes, ma'am.
01:20:42Okay.
01:20:43I did 15 years on the Western Rivers.
01:20:45I've never been married.
01:20:47Don't have any kids.
01:20:49All I cared about was making money, you know?
01:20:53And it did a lot of good for me, you know?
01:20:57I made a real bad investment.
01:20:59I was gonna go in the dive boat business.
01:21:02And I was stuck with, you know, a boat that wasn't worth anything, except a big bill.
01:21:07I'm so sorry.
01:21:09One or two bad decisions and he had nothing.
01:21:12Wow, that could be me.
01:21:14I mean, how many paychecks do most Americans live from bankruptcy?
01:21:29But you grew up on your own?
01:21:31Some of these guys got good education, good potential.
01:21:34I mean, if we had a roof out here, it'd be better.
01:21:37Just a job.
01:21:38We are so busy in our own worlds that we fail to see the people that need so much right
01:21:44in front of us.
01:21:45What's up, bruh?
01:21:46You're the best preacher in the world.
01:21:48You doing all right, my man?
01:21:49Yes, sir.
01:21:50I'm 57 years old.
01:21:52I have worked, paid taxes my whole life.
01:21:55I was an engineer.
01:21:56You know, I got compression fractures in my back, but it's not enough to get disability
01:22:02money.
01:22:03If I could get disability money, I wouldn't be living out here.
01:22:08I don't get food stamps.
01:22:09The system sucks.
01:22:11Yeah.
01:22:12It really is easy to judge and say, well, go get a job.
01:22:15That's what I did.
01:22:17But a lot of these people can't.
01:22:20I think people need to learn each other's stories.
01:22:23When we know each other's stories, you don't judge harshly.
01:22:26Father, we come to you in the name of Jesus, God.
01:22:28I thank you for my brother here, and God, I pray that you'd be with him.
01:22:31Help him, God.
01:22:32Protect him, God.
01:22:33And I thank you for everyone else.
01:22:34A lot of this causes me to think about the soul of a nation, and I guess the values of
01:22:42it, and what you do with the most vulnerable around you, whether it's children or the mentally
01:22:49ill.
01:22:50When we forget that so many people are left behind.
01:22:55I really feel like if we focus more on each other and not on ourselves, we'd be so much
01:23:00better.
01:23:01We live in such an individualistic society.
01:23:04I guess I'm trying to think of ways to create more community where people are more connected.
01:23:09Reconnecting with your fellow humans on that deep relationship level, that feels like that's
01:23:15the right path to solving some of these things.
01:23:22The change we need is premised on going back to what we know about what makes us human.
01:23:27We need each other.
01:23:28We're born into the world needing each other.
01:23:30We thrive in relationships.
01:23:31We need communities.
01:23:32We need communities.
01:23:33That's the most important thing we have.
01:23:35We're all part of this interconnected system, and we all flourish or we suffer together.
01:23:41It truly is about what are your values as a human being?
01:23:47And what does our American character say about who we are?
01:23:52Are we caring people?
01:23:54Will we fight for justice wherever that fight takes us?
01:23:59If we shift our culture to be a world in which we're much more connected to one another and
01:24:05where we are serving others, then we all rise.
01:24:08This is our moment.
01:24:09We all rise.
01:24:10We will know we have equality in this country when everybody has a chance at the American
01:24:17dream, not just in the sense of hard work leading to economic security, but to the American
01:24:24dream in the more profound sense of being treated with equal dignity and being rewarded by full
01:24:31membership in society.
01:24:35What makes us who we are as a country is that every generation of people tries to bridge the
01:24:42distance between our founding reality and the beauty of the dream.
01:24:50When I grow up, I want to be a doctor or a lawyer because I want to protect people and help them.
01:24:59I think in America, everything can be possible.
01:25:20Could you probably believe in the hope that some other Cat meets you with such a great
01:25:34conduct and your future of Eden what are you voting for at risk?
01:25:36Which I do want people to do such a great sense of being at work in California?
01:25:40What about you spending time in time, learning her pretty much time, learning, and learning
01:25:43engineering?
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