- 22 hours ago
A Black Women's Townhall Panel
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00:00Hey everybody, and welcome to our Black Women's Town Hall. Today we're going to have an in-depth
00:09and important discussion about the issues that are most important to us as Black women,
00:14but sometimes don't get the attention and in-depth look that they deserve. So joining me today is
00:21attorney, civil rights advocate, and the founder of Hashtag Say Her Name, Ms. Kimberly Crenshaw.
00:27Hi, great to be here. Hi, thank you for joining. Also, comedian, actress, and advocate, Ida Rodriguez.
00:36Hi. And senior vice president of sales at Coca-Cola, as well as the chairwoman of the board of directors
00:44of GLAAD, Ms. Pamela Stewart. Hi everyone, thank you for having us. Excellent, thank you all ladies,
00:51this is going to be so important and so rich. So we're going to jump right in. Lots of conversation
00:55these days about equity, right? And knowing equity as different from equality. When it comes to equity
01:02in particular, the equity of Black women, let's start with pay equity. Nothing's more important
01:07than the bad, right? Talk about how pay equity, financial equity affects Black women in ways that
01:14doesn't really show up in the same way for our white counterparts. I'll start with you, Ida.
01:20Well, you know, I work in comedy. I think women of color are, we are the least paid as well as in
01:29many other fields. And we accomplish so much in so many ways. I mean, I think everything boils down
01:36into, in this country to economics. I mean, slavery was a 400 year industry that generated revenue and
01:44wealth that people are enjoying today because they got free labor. So when we talk about, you know,
01:50the disparities in wages, when it comes to people of color, specifically women, it is just another
01:56tool of oppression. And it's very important to have these conversations because as we've seen,
02:02what America responds to is economic violence. And we have to have the power in our dollars to be
02:07able to participate in it. Indeed. Indeed. Kimberly, your thoughts on Black women and pay equity?
02:13Yeah. You know, so it is absolutely clear that Black women make less than white women. They also make
02:20less than Black men. The problem is that because most pay equity frameworks only compare women to men
02:29or Black people to white people, the way in which Black people make less than both of their male and
02:36female counterparts just isn't captured. So the real challenge at this point is being able to
02:42disaggregate the data by that, you know, looking at where Black women fall on the pay equity scale
02:48and not allow that to be absorbed within, you know, women make 62 cents on men's dollar. Well,
02:55if you actually look at Black women, it's a lot more like 58 cents. So we've got to be able to
03:01explore where Black women are located specifically with respect to other white women and with respect
03:08to other Black people as well. Absolutely. Pamela? I think it's real. If you think about it in
03:14corporate America in particular, just to make it in simple terms, it will take Black women 66 years to
03:21make what their white male counterparts will make in that in 40 years. And so if you think about that,
03:27the starkness of the disparity, it continues. And so when companies and CEOs always have a roundtable
03:35about what can I do first, what can I do in order to close the divide of the disparity between Black
03:42women and others, the other communities that are represented in the company, start with compensation
03:47and start with the line of gender and then dig into that gender and go into the many different
03:54makeups, most especially Black women who are at a greater disadvantage. And so that's the first
04:00place to start because that economic wealth can change communities. Indeed, the economics affect
04:06all the other sectors, right? The political, the healthcare and everything else we're going to talk
04:10to. So speaking of healthcare, go ahead. Because I am, I identify Black and I'm a Latin woman and Latin
04:18women make less money than anybody. And I think it's very important for, specifically, I heard these
04:23conversations with Latin women comparing themselves to the money that Black women make, but we should
04:29all be looking at the metric of white men who are making money, more money than everybody else
04:35and looking up instead of looking at each other and trying to say, well, Black women make more money
04:41than Latin women. Well, the reality of it is, is that we're all oppressed and it doesn't matter where
04:45we're all beneath and we need to look up at the oppressor instead of each other because that causes more
04:51division. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And as you point out yourself, you're Black and Latinx. And
04:59sometimes that argument assumes that we're not talking sometimes about the same people, but that's
05:04number one. And the big picture is the wealth gap, right? So even when people make close to the same
05:12amount, the wealth gap is the thing that's the biggest gap. The wealth gap between Black women
05:20and Latinas with respect to white women, the median wealth that Black and Latina women have is $100.
05:31That means that up to half of Black and brown women are worth less than $100. Wealth is what determines
05:41where you live, what kind of education you can afford for your kids, what kind of health care you can
05:47afford for yourself, for your parents, for your children. So wealth is the most significant
05:53indicator of well-being. And women of color, Black and brown women have almost zero amount of wealth.
06:01That is where we really need to be spending a lot of our energy for agenda setting, for politics,
06:06and we just don't talk about it nearly enough.
06:09That is so important. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. That's so important, Kimberly, because people
06:14often equate income with wealth. Very, very different things and impact our communities very differently.
06:21I do want to say on this health care issue, and I will start with you, Pam, and take it around the table here.
06:26When we talk about health care inequities for Black women, coronavirus, very sadly, I think, shown a big, bright
06:32spotlight to everybody about just how disproportionate health care access, not just affordable health care,
06:39but sustainable health care, reliable health care is, particularly for Black women. And even before
06:45coronavirus, right, we were having a conversation and seeing all the examples of Black women and the
06:51morbid rates of what's going on when we give birth and what's going on with our health wives. I mean,
06:56it's a full-on crisis, ladies. And so my question is, how do we get our physicians to A, believe us
07:03when we talk to them about our bodies and whether or not we're in pain and whatnot like that? And in
07:07general, how do we show up to advocate for ourselves when it comes to health care parity and equity as
07:14Black women? Starting with you, Pam. I think it comes first to our vote, because I think that is,
07:19you think about, it's coronavirus that we're talking about in the pandemic, but you think about
07:23diabetes, heart disease, cervical cancer, breast cancer, all of us disproportionately
07:31ail in those illnesses far more than any other population. And so that agenda of affordable,
07:40sustainable health care has to get on the agenda of the branch of politics that represents our,
07:48affordable. It has to. I think that's, that's the most critical part, because if we don't talk about
07:54it, if we don't talk about it because we are predominantly held by these illnesses, then it
07:59doesn't get on the agenda. And that is the power, that's the beginning stage power for the Black female
08:05vote, is that topic in general, is health care and health care affordability.
08:09Indeed, Ada. So, I'll say that again. Ida, yeah, Ida, go ahead.
08:17So, I think about voting, I think about education, I think about dollars. So, now when we talk about this stuff,
08:23like, first of all, we have to think about all of the things, systemic things that have been implemented in order to
08:30affect our health, right? With the sterilization of Black women in Puerto Rico, they sterilized Puerto Rican women,
08:36that Native American women have been sterilized. So many things that we now see the effects of. So many of our
08:42grandmothers had hysterectomies because they were trying to control us from populating because they're afraid that
08:47we're going to do to them what they've done to us. But when you sit down and think about all of the things that they've
08:53implemented systemically to affect our health, and now how the system of health is not accommodating to us, I do believe in
09:02voting. I think in local government, if people, a lot of people say voting doesn't
09:06matter, then why did that happen in Kentucky yesterday where they were locking Black and
09:10Brown voters out and only had one polling place? Like, we also have to stop funding our own oppression.
09:16We really do invest dollars in people who invest in the worst things that happen to us. And I think
09:23it's important for us to do the things that that gentleman did when he paid off the student loans of
09:27that graduating class of Black children that were going out to, in order to create some sort of equity.
09:34We have to encourage our kids to go into medical fields and in tech fields, our young Black women,
09:40because we need our own doctors. We're going to be going into hospitals and they don't believe that
09:45something's wrong with us. That's great. Kimberly?
09:48Yeah, I totally agree with everything. And I especially appreciate the mentioning of sterilization
09:57of Black and Brown women. One of the challenges in this entire conversation is to remind people that
10:06Black women, Brown women have long experienced discrimination in healthcare that hasn't been
10:13part of the general agenda around anti-racism, nor has it been part of the agenda around reproductive
10:20rights. So sterilization is such an important point. It was so common in the South that there
10:26was a name for it. It was called a Mississippi appendectomy. And that's something that Fannie Lou
10:32Hamer experienced. Now, think about what our conversation would be like if we were able to
10:38recognize how one of the leading civil rights activists of our generation, Fannie Lou Hamer,
10:45was not only struggling against vote suppression and vote denial, but also struggling against her
10:51reproductive rights. And if reproductive rights were as central to the agenda of race reform, of
10:58anti-discrimination as everything else, we wouldn't have to be fighting as hard as we're fighting now
11:04for recognition that the fact that we die more than any other women in the United States,
11:11in most of the developed world from childbirth. The fact that it's not simply a matter of,
11:16do we have access to healthcare? I mean, the fact that Serena Williams almost died because the doctors
11:22didn't believe what she had to say, this is Serena Williams, and they're not listening to her. So if
11:27they're not listening to Serena Williams, you know that they're not listening to the rest of us.
11:31So the challenge really is to, first of all, for recognition, to know and see all the ways that Black
11:37women experience discrimination, and one of those is in healthcare. And second, to put those issues
11:42squarely on the agenda, so we have something to really fight about. If you can't see the problem,
11:48you can't fight about the problem. And so our challenge is to do both of those things.
11:54Agreed across the board, ladies. And I think so sadly, I'm a proud daughter of the South, but oftentimes
11:59we can think of these issues as just historical, right? These sterilization issues that happened maybe
12:05some years back, but it's really still happening, quite frankly. I know this because my very best
12:10friend, who's in her early 30s, was having some fibroid issues. And the first thing the physicians
12:16want to go to is a full-on hysterectomy for a woman that's still in her childbearing years. So I think
12:21that we still see this play out very much in today's society. And the conditions. I mean, just adding to
12:28what you're saying, there's the direct sterilization, but there's removing the conditions for Black women to
12:34actually choose to become parents, try to coerce that choice out of us. And that has to be part of
12:41the agenda as well. Sorry. No, please bring it. Because the census did say that in 2044,
12:50the majority of us are going to be Black and brown and look like the people here. So I think that agenda
12:55is going to ramp up even more. And that's why you see so much fear from white supremacists. These people
13:02really think that we're going to take over. And I say it in jest because I'm a comedian,
13:07but I really do think they think we're going to do to them what they've done to us. And that's why
13:11they're losing their minds right now and the lynchings and the things that you,
13:15and it's because they're afraid of a Black and brown America. But the truth is, is that the world is
13:20Black and brown. And I don't know what TV they've been watching or what they've been looking at it,
13:24but we've been here. We started this party and we're not going anywhere. Look how many
13:29people they've tried to do to get rid of us and we're still here.
13:32Amen to that. Kimberly, I want to talk so much about what you are doing and the powerful work
13:38you're doing with Hashtag Say Her Name. What we know is beyond just these individual kind of
13:42political issues, Black women are just simply disregarded in general in this country. And sometimes
13:47even by our own communities. I hate to say it, but it's true. So when you think about what the
13:53political goals can be of a Hashtag Say Her Name, where Black women are valued when we are sexually
13:59assaulted or abused, our lives matter. There's an effort to protect us and show up for one another
14:05as a community and broader than that. What would you like to see from politicians or local officials
14:10by way of making sure that Black women are valued and protected?
14:14Yeah. Well, thank you for that question. I mean, the first thing is really low hanging fruit. When we
14:19started Say Her Name, the simple demand was say her name. That was, that was it, man. We were going to
14:28protest around Eric Garner and Mike Brown, the protest against anti-Black police violence. And,
14:35you know, we were marching with other people. This was back in 2014, right after Mike Brown was killed.
14:41And we had a poster with the names of Michelle Cousseau and other Black women who were killed by the police.
14:47And the simple demand was when we, when we march for justice for our brothers,
14:52let's march for justice for all our siblings, because it's not just the men who are being killed.
14:57So we were saying, Say Her Name. And the response from some people was, we didn't even know
15:03that anyone other than Black men got killed by the police. Well, why don't you know this? Basically,
15:08because people don't tell those stories. People don't say their names. And the second part is that for
15:12some people, there was a sense that this is a Black men's issue. And you're being interlopers.
15:18You're in, you're interfering with the frame around what's happening to Black men. And for those,
15:24we wanted to say the only reason that's the frame is that we're not used to talking about the many
15:30ways that Black women have been victimized by state-sponsored violence. It includes being shot
15:35while Black. It includes being, having a mental disability while Black. It includes 9-1-1 being
15:41called because you're having a crisis and the police come and they see a Black woman out of control.
15:45And the only thing they feel that they can do with that Black woman is to shoot her through the heart,
15:50which is what happened to Michelle Cousseau. So the low hanging fruit is just know this,
15:55know this people, know this people in our community. Because if you know the name,
16:02then you will begin to ask about the story. And if you ask about the story,
16:06you'll understand all the ways that our lives are at risk. It's not just the few stories that you
16:12think you know. That's when you can have a fuller agenda. That's when you can say things like,
16:17the police shouldn't be called for 9-1-1 mental health calls. The police shouldn't be tasked to
16:22serve a warrant on a traffic violation, going to someone's house and busting in. The police shouldn't
16:27be able to come into your house in the dead of night on a no-knock warrant as though they were
16:33robbers in the night. So if we see all these ways that our sisters get killed, we'll have a fuller
16:39agenda. And with a fuller agenda, we'll have a clearer sense of what the prize really is. It's a
16:47world in which none of our lives are subject to summary violence on behalf of the police.
16:52Indeed. I mean, as Baldwin said, you know, nothing not acknowledged can be changed. If we don't
16:59acknowledge it, if we don't speak it, if we don't articulate it, we stand no chance of changing it.
17:04Ida, were you about to chime in there? Yeah, you know, I want to say because I do stand in
17:08solidarity with what's happening to Black women in this country and being Puerto Rican and taking up
17:15this space, I would be remiss if I didn't say there's a Black Lives Matter movement in Puerto Rico
17:20because there are Black people in Puerto Rico. But I want to just be very careful to make mention of
17:26the fact that the Black people in Puerto Rico are making it very known that they're standing
17:31in solidarity with the Black people in America for what is happening to Black people in America,
17:37because a lot of us who are Latinos are enjoying the fruits of the labor of the civil rights movement
17:44and all of the work and labor that Black people in America put in for us. So I just want to make
17:50sure that I always respect that. And when I'm in these spaces, that I'm very clear about that
17:55and about Breonna Taylor and Tatiana and Sandra Bland and the many other women who have been brutalized by
18:03the state that we, you know, we have to say their names and we can't, none of us are going to be free
18:09until all of us are free. So even when Latin people don't think that it's their problem,
18:14we next. I mean, it's happening to us. A Puerto Rican woman was just murdered by the cops in her sleep
18:20in New York. I talked to Ben Crump about that yesterday. No representation, same thing. You don't
18:25hear about Latin people being killed by the cops because the media knows if they start saying everybody,
18:30they know we're going to join forces and flip the table over. But I just want to make sure that people
18:37in America know that when you see me, just, I have a Black daughter and son and they're Puerto
18:44Rican and Dominican, but they're Black first. Their father is African American. They got slaves on both
18:49sides of the tree for their families. And so they're family trees. So when we stand in solidarity as Latin
18:56people, we have to really take note about the crisis in America with regard to Black people in America.
19:02And we have to stop being afraid to say Black. I'm speaking to my people,
19:06because we are afraid Black people and the Black is not a bad word, no matter how much they tell us
19:12it is. No, it's a beautiful word. It's an inclusionary word. It's my favorite word. I
19:16actually don't like to be called African-American for that very reason. And it should be capitalized.
19:22I'll say that too. Cap our name. And they started that just this week, right? The style guy is saying.
19:32Well, they finally agreed to it. A lot of us have been advocating for it. My first article was in 1987,
19:39and I almost didn't get it published because we had a fight about whether we should capitalize Black.
19:45And I couldn't understand why every other group got capitalized, but we had that little B beside it.
19:51So finally, people are starting to recognize what that means, not to be seen as a proper noun.
19:56Absolutely. I know that's right. Finally,
19:59finally. Well, you really started us off here, Ida, with saying some very powerful sisters' names as we
20:05do say their names. I'll invite you as well, Kimberly, and as well as you, Pam, to say some names that you
20:13feel we need to really honor and take homage of in this moment.
20:15Well, I'll start with some of the names of the Black women who really are behind the Say
20:23Her Name movement. I mentioned Michelle Cusseau, India Kager, Corrine Gaines, Kayla Moore. These are
20:34all Black women who've lost their lives, and they lost their lives around the time that Mike Brown and
20:40Eric Garner lost their lives, and people don't really know it. And it's not the case that there
20:45isn't even any video. If you look up Natasha McKenna, you'll see this is a Black woman who was killed,
20:52nude, being extracted from a cell, chained to a chair, and hooded, and tasered four times by six
21:00white police officers. So it's out there. We just have to open our eyes and see it. We have to say
21:06her name. We have to support the mothers of saying her name. Find that information. I'll just say
21:13African American Policy Forum has this stuff on our website. So if you want to know how to say
21:18her name, go to aapf.org, and we'll show you the names to say.
21:22No excuse not to know. Pamela, is there a name you'd like to say?
21:26You know, as I sit here, I look at amplifying the people who can change what we're talking about,
21:33right? So there are people right now in politics who need our support in all of these elections so
21:41that we can get vindicated for the ill deaths of what we just talked about, all of the wonderful
21:47people who got killed. And those people are the people that you're seeing now, Stacey Abrams on
21:53voter suppression, Kamala Harris, who is a potential front runner, if you will, on the VPC. If you think
22:01about Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, some of these, we need them to come into the place so that we
22:09don't have to keep scrolling down the names of the lives of women who are here and who need to be here
22:15because of the unjust brutality of the police, but also the injustices that come after those deaths.
22:21So if there's any power we have as Black women, it's making sure that those people who are in power
22:28can make sure that we don't have another scrolled list of names to say later.
22:32Pamela, I'm going to come right back to that point because the Black women who are standing
22:38in the front lines of leadership of this country and of major cities across our country right now
22:43are going to be imperative to this work. But first, I just have one name I would like to say, and that
22:48is that sweet little, yeah, Ayanna Jones. Ayanna Jones was seven years old. Seven years old little
22:55Black girl shot and killed by Detroit police, again, under a no-knock warrant. And like yourself,
23:03Kimberly, you know, I'm an attorney as well, and I was practicing criminal law for many years,
23:08and no-knock warrants, they're really only supposed to be used under the most exigent of circumstances.
23:13Talk about that.
23:13They're supposed to be a rarity.
23:15Yes, Kimberly said that.
23:16Yeah, the exigent circumstances of a properly administered no-knock warrant are very rare.
23:24You know, drugs are supposed to almost always be a part of the fact circumstance because the theory
23:30goes you only have a justification to come into someone's home unannounced as law enforcement
23:37because there's going to be evidence destroyed.
23:38Absolutely. Absence that tiny little possibility, there's no legal justification ever for a no-knock
23:44warrant. That's on paper. That's on paper. So the fact that a seven-year-old little girl
23:49lost her life because of that, we should have never had a Breonna Taylor because these no-knock
23:54warrants should have already been off the books.
23:56And if it was happening in Beverly Hills, if it was happening on the Upper East Side,
24:02we know the places that if this happened to and a little blonde girl got killed sleeping on
24:08her family's couch, we would not have no-knock warrants. It's because it happens to us and people,
24:15the society is willing to pay that cost because they're not paying it. We are.
24:19That's right.
24:20We are. So, Pam, back to, I think this is so important, the political leadership of us as Black
24:26women in this moment. And you said many of their names, Stacey Abrams, Kamala Harris,
24:30Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, Congresswoman Val Demings, many, many of them, my mayor in Charlotte,
24:36North Carolina, my hometown, Lee Viles, right? It's dope. Talk about how Black women can capitalize
24:44on this political momentum that we are engaging in. We're seeing the emergence of it. How do we
24:49capitalize and make it even bigger?
24:51I think the big thing is what we talked about. We have to turn out to vote and we have to bring
24:56everyone with us to go do that because we are the deciding factor. Our population of Black women
25:03will decide the election at the state side and down the ballot. So we have to vote and we have to make
25:10sure that we raise our voice and our agendas. When I say raise our voice, this voter suppression is real.
25:18I think either Kimberly or Ida was saying, it is real. And there are people and groups that are
25:27trying to suppress the vote, not just at the Black vote, but anyone who may turn their cast
25:34ballot to blue. And so that is real. And we have to reform. People are talking about reform in a lot
25:40of different ways. We definitely have to reform the criminal justice system. We definitely have to
25:45reform voter suppression. But the reform really has to do around elections, because that will talk
25:51about the ID laws, the voter suppression, all the dumping of votes and registrations. Why do we
26:01have Iowa and New Hampshire dictating who's our ballot in their 90 percent? Why do we have electoral
26:11colleges when we have the population having a mass exodus to the city? These are just things we just
26:20have to ask ourselves. And then why can we get the entire world into a virtual workplace overnight in a
26:26pandemic? We have to not cast a ballot and have enough polling locations for our voters. So voting
26:33first, but raising our voice so that we have health care and some of these agendas, these items on the
26:40agenda, but also that we remove the barriers of entry with our power with our votes. And more than what
26:46Ida said, we have to build a coalition because we can't do it alone. We have to build a coalition of
26:51people who are worried and concerned and aware so that we can change. Amen. Ida and Kimberly, I want
26:57you both to address this specific issue. Pam just told us Black women are the backbone of the Democratic
27:03Party. We have been for generations, really. What does the party need to now do for us? You saw it, Ida.
27:11My boss is talking about boycotting. It's all kinds of thoughts around it, right? But what we do all agree on
27:19is that the party does need to show some respect for the loyalty our community has had for them.
27:25What do you want to see from these candidates from the Democrats? Well, number one, I want to see them
27:30acknowledge that we've been the wheels on the bus, we've been the engines of the bus, but we've never
27:35been able to drive the bus. So it is time for us to be in the driver's seat on the Democratic Party's
27:42agenda. And that's just, I mean, it's an open and shut case. We voted Democrat like 98% during the last
27:53during the last election. We were the group that got it figured out the most that this, you know,
27:59scapegoat rhetoric, these racist politics, the xenophobia was the worst thing to happen, you know,
28:08to this country. We got it right. When when you are a group that gets an A plus, and when it comes to,
28:14okay, let's figure out how to make sure everyone else meets that standard. And they're not knocking
28:20on our door. They're not coming to say, well, what is it that you are able to see almost to the last
28:26person that white women were not able to see? Many other work that are 30% of black men were not able.
28:34Can we talk about that? Let's talk about that. So the most important thing I think is in this
28:40moment is recognizing that the loss of black women's leadership, not not just the way we used
28:47to be treated in the civil rights movement, right? We did all the work. We were the de facto leaders,
28:52but we weren't the leaders that you could see the same thing is happening in the Democratic Party.
28:58And our tolerance of that has brought us to the cusp of this country really falling apart.
29:04So once again, we're to clean up women, but we want to get paid for it. We want to get,
29:09we want to get recognized for it. We want the power that comes with it. And that's the way that we're
29:14going to save ourselves in this next, this upcoming election. I think everything is on the table
29:19in this next election. And if they don't put black women in the place that they need to be,
29:23I think the project of America is truly lost.
29:26I know we got that.
29:28No, no, we don't have to go. I have a specific question for you, but I just wanted to say that
29:35before, when we talk about politics and the Democratic and Republican Party alike,
29:40none of the, all of the administrations have benefited from the oppression of people of color.
29:45So I would like to see atonement before I see anything. When we talk about Joe Biden,
29:49I respect people who can say my question. That's my question. What does Joe Biden specifically,
29:55because we all know he's the presumptive Democratic nominee. That's what it is. What
29:59does Joe Biden, I'm gonna start with you, Ida. And then I want each of you to answer. What does
30:02Joe Biden need to do to regain? Because I think we can all agree his trust with black women has been
30:08broken. Okay. For Adina Hill and so on, so on, so on. So what does he need to do to regain that trust
30:15if it can be regained? So, you know, I would like, in the words of the nation of Islam, we need to see
30:21some atonement. We need to hear you say, we did this because when you deny that you did something
30:27that we so blatantly can see it, it, it continues to feed the mistrust, right? So there isn't a,
30:35an administration that has not been part of the oppression of black people in America.
30:41That administration does not exist. That is why we're trying to move forward. And we don't want
30:45to hear, let's get back to, because what are we getting back? Not beneficial to people of color.
30:51We don't want to go back. We want to go forward. You want civility. We want peace. We want justice.
30:58We want equality. And we want to be able to have our children walk down the street without being
31:02afraid of getting gunned down. So I want to hear, I want to hear specific policies though. I mean,
31:08when people say, well, we're going to work on reforming the criminal justice system,
31:13I want to know what that looks like across the country. Because when we talk about reforming the
31:19criminal justice system in Louisiana, that doesn't look like the same that it looks like in California.
31:25So we need to really sit down. And, and as a group, we need to collectively come up with what we
31:30want to demand these politicians because so for so long, they have just been taking our votes for
31:36granted. And though I believe that voting is important. I vote for my grandmother who was
31:41hosed down with dog and chased by dogs when she came here from Puerto Rico and was chasing not to
31:47be able to vote. I'll vote for her. Every time I go to the polls, our votes matter. And we need to make
31:53sure that we start being specific. Joe Biden owes us because he's paid it greatly. And he has made a
32:00lot of money off of our trauma, right? This trauma porn that they have with people of color, it has to
32:07stop now. So when I hear Joe Biden speak, I need, I need you to take the elbow and let us know. Yeah,
32:13I did do this. I did do this. And this is how I'm going to try to fix it. And though I could never
32:18repair what I have done to people of color, you guys are worthy of an apology and worthy of me
32:24trying to correct some of the ills that I've participated in. Wow, powerful, powerful, powerful
32:31words, powerful points of introspection, and powerful calls to action. I want to thank each of
32:36you, Pamela, Ida, Kimberly, for what you've offered here today at our Black Women's Town Hall. Thank you.
32:43Thank you. Thank you.
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