Is the Cash Bail System Racist? -A Chat with Conservative Commentator Ami Horowitz

Today’s guest, Ami Horowitz is an American conservative documentary filmmaker and activist. He is the writer, producer, and director of Ami on the Loose, a satirical short film series. He is also the host of the recent documentary The Art of War—a look into the practices of the IDF

We dive deep into the merits and drawbacks of the cash bail system by examining racial biases, data, and conversations from actual people captured in Ami's film.

Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/civiccipher?utm_source=search

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Today's guest.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
Ammy Horwitz is an American conservative documentary filmmaker and activist.
He is the writer, producer, and director of Amy on
the Loose, a satirical short film series. He is also
the host of the recent documentary The Art of War,
a look into the practices of the IDF, and he
is our guest today. All right, Amy, welcome back to
the show man.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
How you been doing.

Speaker 3 (00:22):
I've been doing great. Love love being back of the man.
Super excited for this.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
Yeah, man, it's good to see you. Man. Uh.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
You know, longtime listeners of our shows over here know
that you're a frequent guest. But for folks just coming
to the table, I need you to buckle up because
Amy and I are going to have another one of our.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
Spirited conversations. I like that.

Speaker 3 (00:52):
I like that.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
Yeah, I'm finding finding the language. But yeah, Amy and I.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
We we have different ideas of you know, politics, we
have different ideas of what works versus what doesn't work.
And throughout this divisive time in our country's history, in
so far as politics are concerned, I have committed to

(01:21):
loving Amy, and I do there's always a seat at
my table for Amy. I care for him deeply, and
he helps keep me this show. You know, even my
friends through extension grounded. I believe Amy to be a

(01:42):
decent man, and therefore I cannot paint with too broad
of a stroke because I do have a conservative friend
who feels very differently about me, but I know that
he's a decent human being. He is Amy Horwitz, and
he's the guest on this show today. I needed you
to know that because if you don't know that, it
might sound like me and Amy don't think too highly
of each other, and that is absolutely not the case.

(02:03):
You know, I've I've cried with Amy, I've laughed with Amy.
We've you know, we've broken bread. You know, I should
ask how your mother is doing, so I check up
on his family.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
How's your mom? By the way, my mom is great.

Speaker 3 (02:16):
I told I'm going on today. She wanted me say.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
Hello, good, good good.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
And so today Amy is on to talk to us
about a recent short film that he made. So I'm
gonna let you paint the picture here of the film
and then we'll get into the weeds.

Speaker 3 (02:29):
Sure, So this little short film was about the disparity
and how the white left views the black community, and
as you know, that's kind of a small cottage industry
of mine that I do a number of these videos
per year because I find this idea of white savior
complex on the left of particular fascinating and franky disturbing,

(02:53):
and that the difference between how they view the world
and how I have found the black community to view
the world to be very, very different. So in this
particular video, we talked about a very controversial topic that's
you know, people have been talking about now for the
last couple of years with progressive prosecutors and DA's in

(03:15):
blue cities, this idea of cash lest bail and the
judital and as an extension, the juditial system in general. Right,
The question that we've been grappling with for many years
is there is the judicial system racist right in its
core structurally speaking, And I think you and I come

(03:35):
from different perspectives on that. I think a lot of
Hopefully the discussion will have each of us kind of
moderate and move more toward the middle, maybe because you'll
understand my perspective, I'll hear and get your perspective. And
always I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle.
With all the things I think the right wing and
the left wing are. I think they're both wrong. I
think they're both hyperbolic. I know you interesed me as

(03:58):
a conservative, and certainly I have of tendencies. But I
consider myself to be a truth seeker wherever that truth
leads me. If that leads me to a counter argument
something that that I didn't see the first time, I'm
open to that. In fact, I want that. I'm here
for that. Yeah, there's some things I I skew center left,

(04:19):
certain things center right, but I do tend to to
thread more toward My baseline is more toward the middle. Okay,
I think that's where most of the truth lies, to
be honest.

Speaker 2 (04:31):
Sure, sure, if I may, I'm gonna try to paint
a picture for our listeners, and I invite all of
our listeners to check out the film please while we're here.
And then at the end, I would like you to
plug where people can go and check out this film
and some of your other films.

Speaker 3 (04:47):
Yes, they can go to either my YouTube channel on
you Horowitz, or then go to prayer You, which is
their uh their website. Know you're you're chuckling when I
say that I've had before.

Speaker 2 (04:57):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (04:58):
Yeah, it's an organization. I've been involved for a long time.
I think your view of them is a little off,
but I get it. I get how you can feel
the way you do.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
Yeah. Uh, we're here to love each other. Amy, You're
going to be my brother's That's what it's going to be.
You're right.

Speaker 2 (05:13):
I'm not a big fan of Preger You. I think
that they have a lot of harmful tendencies, but I
recognize and respect the fact that for a conservative leaning
mind and a person who tells themselves that they seek

(05:34):
the truth, which indeed there are a lot of people
who really feel that way, and people who can see
biases that don't reflect their version of reality, Praguer You
is a soft place to land. And so without speaking
badly about Preger You, you can go to praguer You
and indeed Amy's YouTube channel and find these films. Now,

(05:56):
what I want to do is tell you what I
saw in the film, and I'd like for you to
correct me or fill in any gaps that I might
have left out. So one of the things that happens
a lot for in terms of political satire is you

(06:16):
tend to find more comedy. I think with respect to
progressives and on the left, you find more comedy. You
find people that go out at Trump rallies and in
all these sorts of places, and they'll find people who
cannot substantiate or provide any logical basis for their conservative beliefs,

(06:40):
and you know, these comedians will make fun of that. Indeed,
there's a lot of conservativism that is just kind of
funny to progressives that see kind of a better, brighter,
more easy path toward a future where everyone has an
equitable go at the American dream. And that has not

(07:01):
always been true with the right. In terms of looking
for comedians on the right making fun of liberals, there
have been folks that have done it in the past
and tried to do it, and it comes across this
sort of mean and it just doesn't really float the
same way that that it does on the left, where
Amy has kind of found you mentioned like a niche,

(07:22):
you know, where you can point out sort of inconsistencies
on the left in hypocrisies and things like this, Right am,
I am I good so far and you have a
sort of a comedic I don't want to make it
seem like it's it's it's not silly, it's serious.

Speaker 1 (07:39):
I think it's an.

Speaker 3 (07:40):
Undertone of comedy for sure, but I think I'm not
trying to do gotcha like that's not.

Speaker 1 (07:47):
My Yeah, and that's something you find more on the
left right.

Speaker 3 (07:50):
Yeah, And I'm just looking for the truth. Is I'm
looking from the perspective of somebody like me. I think
it's comedics. I think some of their some of their
views are sur but I'm not looking to frame it
as Look. My point is I want people to hear
what and by the way, I too were clear, I'm
going and try. I am presenting the argument of not

(08:13):
the left of center, like not a traditional Democrat, but
more people on the progressive side, the leftistie themo Product Party,
and no, I want people to understand. I think clarity.
You know, Dennis Prager has always said he likes to
have clarity over agreement, and I agree. I really think Look,
agreement is great, but I think clarification of people's viewpoints

(08:34):
is almost more important, just to understand where people are
coming from. And that's kind of the point of the videos.

Speaker 1 (08:40):
Okay, okay, I appreciate that.

Speaker 2 (08:42):
So in this most recent video that we're discussing today,
and I invite you to go back and listen to
some of Amy's other conversations that we've had here on
the show, but this one is just the order of
the day. He goes into I guess, the community where
as you mentioned, there's a lot of we'll call them

(09:04):
affluent white folks, and you interview them and you ask
them questions like, hey, is a criminal justice system racist?
How do you feel about cash bail? Is cash bail racist?
These sorts of things, and you have these responses in
this video of people saying, of course it's racist, and
then they try their best to substantiate these claims. And

(09:26):
then you go into a neighborhood where there are maybe
less white people, more black people, and the way I
remember it is you ask black people their opinions the
same questions and they almost had like the opposite opinion.
You would ask a black person, is bail racist? And
then a black person would answer something like how in

(09:46):
the world could bail be racist? You know what I mean? Like,
don't commit the crimes and then you won't have to
worry about this. What's racist about it? Right? And again
it's entertaining, or it's it's Amy's style. Is men to
be Again, it's not gotcha journalism or anything like that.
But it's it's meant to be entertaining while being informative
at the same time. I'm I'm assuming that I'm going

(10:08):
for that bulls there it is gotcha.

Speaker 3 (10:11):
So again, you only in a forum like this where
we have forty five minutes an hour to do a
deeper dive into it, can you give more context? Obviously
in three minutes, you know, there's almost so there's only
there's only so much you can do in terms of
contextualizing the argument. You're trying to do it with broader strokes, obviously,
But this is why I love this, and now we

(10:32):
have to get a deeper discussion on these kind of issues.

Speaker 2 (10:35):
Sure, sure, so yeah, and I agree it's important to
paint a fuller picture because you know, I started off saying,
no matter what comes at the end of this conversation
or at the end of the next twenty conversations, Ami
Horowitz is going to be my brother.

Speaker 1 (10:50):
That's it.

Speaker 2 (10:51):
So it doesn't it doesn't behoove me to paint you
in a light that is unfair or unnecessarily unflattering.

Speaker 1 (11:01):
And so I try my best.

Speaker 2 (11:03):
I try, I try, because no matter what comes, if
if I don't think you're a good person, I think
that you're a bad faith actor or something like that,
then why in the world would I be friends with you.

Speaker 1 (11:14):
And if I can't keep my word, then I'm.

Speaker 2 (11:17):
I'm not a person that keeps my word, and that's
not something I intend to do either. So I appreciate
you allowing me to paint such a bull picture. Now
let's get to it in the film, which I suppose
this conversation should be like supplementary supplementary material that that
you might want to check out. But I think we've
painted a fair enough picture. But in the film, I
think your point is to as you mentioned, your point

(11:41):
is to, I guess, weed out the hypocrisies, uh, that
that you find in the progressive side of you know,
leftist politics and uh you mentioned the word white savior complex.
Now I will, of course, as always, mounted defense of

(12:03):
these people.

Speaker 1 (12:07):
And I think it starts right here.

Speaker 2 (12:09):
So you know, in the film, when you go to
a neighborhood like the the affluent neighborhood, I don't know
the name of it, the East Village, East Village, Okay, which.

Speaker 3 (12:20):
Is a particularly progressive neighbor like Manhattan, is generally progressed.
Obviously very pretty progressive. But the East Village, for example,
or like Williamsburg, there are certain neighborhoods which are particularly progressive.
And by the way, that's why I say the name
of the neighborhood in the video, because I want people
to know I'm self selecting a particular sub genre, you know,

(12:41):
subset of the left.

Speaker 1 (12:42):
Oh yeah, you're very transparent.

Speaker 2 (12:44):
I won't take that from you now. On this show,
we like to think that we empower allies and potential allies.
That is the basis of the show. That's why we
built the show, that's why we pursued the affiliates, the
syndication network, et cetera, to get information to people that

(13:09):
otherwise wouldn't have it. And so we're literally writing the
book on Allyship right now and how that looks and
how people can remain fortified. And one of the things
that we run up against is indeed white savior complex,
because there are some people that jump out in front
of issues and wont all the credit and won all
the shine and won all the limelight, and they think

(13:29):
that they know best and they're well intentioned, but they
will I think naturally based on kind of how they've
been raised in the world, how the world has shown
up for them, they naturally will assume that they know
better than forty five million people, or let's call it
forty because you can't get all forty five million on

(13:50):
the same page.

Speaker 1 (13:51):
I wouldn't suggest that.

Speaker 2 (13:52):
But forty million people, and they're the one that knows
better than all this group, even though they haven't walked
a day in their shoes.

Speaker 3 (13:56):
Right.

Speaker 2 (13:57):
So this is the white savior complex, as we understand,
and that is something that I feel is decidedly different
from people who have had the bandwidth and have sought
the understanding of how the criminal justice system, indeed the

(14:20):
entirety of the car solo system, could be biased. I
know the word racist turns people off, but we'll say
biased for now. The word racist will come up, so
just prepare yourselves. But these people perhaps have had that
bandwidth and been able to do these deep dives. People
have been able to, you know whatever. And I would

(14:42):
suspect that you would find that more frequently in affluent neighborhoods,
neighborhoods where progressive policies tend to fly, and less so
in neighborhoods where people perhaps are overwhelmed with this, that
or the other, which is, as I understand it, the
tendencies in poorer neighborhoods which tend to screw skew browner skinned.

Speaker 1 (15:04):
So your thoughts there.

Speaker 3 (15:06):
Yeah, no, I agree. You ever hear the concept luxury beliefs? Happy, Yeah,
I think exactly what that is. It's luxury beliefs, is that?
And I think that in neighborhoods who are less affluent,
in more urban neighborhoods, Black Spak neighborhoods, I think they
look at and say it, Look, life gets the way, right,
I got it. I got to deal with things that
you don't necessarily have to deal with. Right, You've got

(15:28):
more discretionary income, you make more money, You've got a
little more you've got a little more leeway and wiggle
room to focus these issues, and we less so. And
I think it's interesting because also the particular when it
comes to issues around crime, those are more acute issues
for people in inner city neighborhoods, right because they're they're

(15:49):
on the tip of the of the sword when it
comes to that. They're the first person who have to deal
with with higher crime rates. Less So I mean, not
not zero. Obviously, if crime goes up in a city
of crime, it goes up generally everywhere. But clearly it's
a more acute issue in the Bronx in Harlem than
it is in the East Village or Tribeca. So I
think that oftentimes when you deal with issues on crime.

(16:10):
I've done a number of these videos where I discuss,
you know, defining the police, for example, and the same
structure of video, and I go to a black neighborhood
and they go, we don't want that. We're the ones
who had there's there's more, we have more issues. We
deal more issues here than you do in those white neighborhoods,
and therefore we have a slightly different perspective on it.
And by the way, it's it's a more nuanced perspective, right,

(16:32):
It's not like they're saying there's no racial bias whatsoever
in our world. Obviously they accept that and understand that
that's of course there is, but they understand also the
flip side of that is, hey, but we also want
to be safer. We also want to have less crime.
We want to have the ability to live our lives
with anybody else. So I think they tend to have
different perspectives than those luxury beliefs of the progressive white

(16:56):
in these cities.

Speaker 2 (16:58):
Now, the films when you do have, you know, I
guess the dividing line is between white and black. And
not all of your films are follow that divide, No,
but when you do have these films, you're absolutely right.

Speaker 1 (17:14):
There are.

Speaker 2 (17:17):
A number of black people. And I don't imagine you know,
I don't know what your editing process is, but I
want to just say how I feel. I don't imagine
that you go out of your way to select people
to give you the outcomes that you want. These are
probably honest interactions on the streets, and when it doesn't
fit your narrative, those go up just the same. So
I would imagine that's true, and you're affirming that right now.

Speaker 3 (17:36):
And my life, I've had videos where I came in
with one perspective and my perspective was totally flipped because
that was not what I got, And the videos go up,
and by the way, those videos tend I think to
be better videos than the ones where my confirmation bias
is converted. You know.

Speaker 2 (17:54):
Sure, So here's the thing that I would like to
offer that so now you and I are having a conversation.
My understanding of what life is like in the inner city.

(18:14):
I've been black for all of my life. I was
born in Compton, California. Until I became an adult, I
never lived in a good neighborhood and what would be
considered a good neighborhood. I was surrounded by gangs and
all the crime and criminality, all that sort of stuff.
And because of some fortunate circumstances, I ended up on

(18:37):
a path that allowed me to not only have that perspective,
but to see kind of the holes and to see
sort of.

Speaker 1 (18:45):
The chinks in the armor, if you will.

Speaker 2 (18:47):
So my understanding is that when it comes to things
like police, it's complicated. As you mentioned, I want to
get to the prison industry, real complex and cash bill
and all that sort of stuff, but this is a
great place to start when it comes to police. When
you're in a neighborhood where everybody is poor.

Speaker 1 (19:13):
And people are fighting each other.

Speaker 2 (19:16):
To survive, Rarely do people thrive in environments like that,
but really survive. And you never know what a person's
dealing with. You know, a person their mother could be
sick and out of medicine and that will push a
person to a life whole life where they're doing stuff
and then they end up being the bad guys when

(19:38):
the truth is that wasn't their heart, that was their circumstances. Right,
these are people I know things I've seen, but they're
bad guys. Nonetheless, they do the bad things, the things
that you and I would consider to be crime. The
only way to pacify to deal with that. For the
rest of the people in those communities, the only thing

(20:00):
that they see as being a line of defense, it's realistic,
is either an opposing gang or like community policing or whatever,
which you know to be fairs as you mentioned, that's
a luxury for people that have time, bandwidth, space, not
working two jobs, raising kids, all that sort of stuff,
or the traditional police. And so when you imagine what

(20:22):
life might be like without police or with police being defunded,
because that's an alarming thing to say to a person
that cannot conceive of the next Why would you take
money away from the police. It sounds like no police, Right,
You're very likely to get some pushback because hey, this
is the only thing keeping these people from breaking into
my house.

Speaker 1 (20:43):
I don't even have much.

Speaker 2 (20:44):
If they took what I have, then I have nothing
and I have responsibilities I have.

Speaker 1 (20:48):
I'm a homo sapien sapient.

Speaker 2 (20:49):
My drive to live, based on the nervous system that
we all share, even plants and animals, is very strong,
and I want.

Speaker 1 (20:56):
To live right. If you take away the police, then
I'm vulnerable.

Speaker 2 (21:04):
I can't fight back, and things like defunding the police,
and really what a larger push the people, the intellectuals
that have been able to kind of use their luxury
in terms of time and finances and whatever to do
deep dives that have been able to get into the

(21:24):
studies and the data and the research that says, hey, look,
head start programs prevent crime. Better infrastructure reduces crime, more
job opportunities reduce crime. Nobody is born in the ghetto
and says, you know what I want to be when
I grow up a drug dealer and a gang baner.
Nobody says that people want to be little kids. They
want to be basketball players and doctors and firemen and
all that sort of stuff.

Speaker 1 (21:45):
Life gets in the way, as you mentioned.

Speaker 2 (21:48):
So rather than dealing with okay, let's put resources in
these communities that will actually impact crime, that will prevent
the necessity of crime and have it marketed that way,
it comes across as defund the police, and then people
push back against that because they cannot conceive of the
other reality. Now, defunding the police is an idea that never,

(22:10):
in my estimation, never fully got its day in the sun.

Speaker 1 (22:14):
But I think that.

Speaker 2 (22:17):
Because of the there's this sort of duality I find
in conservative circles where they will say things like, you know,
for instance, Chicago comes up quite a bit. Look at Chicago.
Why not focus on what's going on in Chicago? Why
not focus on black on black crime?

Speaker 1 (22:36):
Right.

Speaker 2 (22:37):
I may have shared this with you before, and we've
said this before on the show. Ami is a Jewish man.
I learned a story when I might have been in
like the fourth grade. It was a heartbreaking story, and
I'll carry it with me and I'll carry with me
until my last day.

Speaker 1 (22:50):
I was told in the Holocaust.

Speaker 2 (22:52):
During the Holocaust that the German soldiers would sometimes put
Jewish people in a train car where they couldn't like
climb out, and they were very hungry, and they would
throw a bread in the train car, and then the
Jewish people would fight each other and they would kill
each other and because they were hungry. And I never

(23:14):
liked that story, and I think it's an awful thing
for any human being to have to endure. But one
of the things that it showed me what there is
no such thing as Jewish on Jewish crime. There's only
circumstances that will lead to that. This is my understanding.
I recognize that your understanding might be different. You might
believe in the idea of black on black crime, and.

Speaker 1 (23:34):
You might.

Speaker 2 (23:36):
Think that the people that you've interviewed, that have discussed
at length their opposition to defunding the police is a
reality that black people want to stay in, and that
it is the white liberals pushing a narrative of defunding

(23:59):
the police onto them that is not realistic and is
not desired by that community. Now, you I want you
to I said a lot. I want you to reflect
on all of it, take as much time as you want.
But that's I think a good starting point for this conversation.

Speaker 3 (24:11):
Yeah, I think that that's that's true. I think I
do agree with that. But look, you know, this idea
of black and black crime is most crime, particularly most
violent crime, is always within a race, right, because that's
people tend to group with each other. So is there
is there is most of the crime committed by a

(24:32):
black person black on black crime? Yes? Yes, Is most
crime committed by white people committed against other white people?

Speaker 1 (24:39):
Yes? Yes.

Speaker 3 (24:40):
So black on black crime is sometimes used as pejorative,
and I don't like that. I don't nor do I
want that to be the case. You know, I think
that what's interesting you made a point then some some
of the things like I said, look, I I go
where the truth, where truth takes me. I'm a truth seeker.
And you know, when you bring up the idea of
you know, the left has brought up more than the right.
The rightness tends to and then they're not necessarily incorrect

(25:02):
about this general you know, paying of a general brush.
The right focus more on what do we do after
the crime, right, like sentencing and things like that, and
that the left tends to focus more on, well, how
do we solve the problem before we get to the
crime they committed itself?

Speaker 2 (25:20):
Right?

Speaker 3 (25:20):
How do we work with the community? And by the way,
I think they're both true, sure, and I think where
the right fails is that you're right, I think we
should focus more on a lot of the issues that
you talked about the issues within the community themselves and
how do we solve those problems before we get to criminality,
before we get to higher crime. And you mentioned a
bunch of things about how you helped to solve those

(25:41):
I think I would add to those things that you
talked about, which are all true, is also education is
a key to you know, education is always a lifeline
to anyone succeed white, black, poor, rich. Education is always
the key, certainly Jewish people, folks. Education. I think it's
it's a not small part of why Jews have been

(26:04):
more successful as a subgroup than others. And I would
also focus on familiar and this is where conservais are
I think correct, is that they focusing on on on
the nuclear family. I think that always. You know, it's
so funny if you look at criminal if you look
at crime and success in education, and then by subgroup,

(26:27):
and it pretty much goes, you know, Asian, White, Hispanic
black in terms of this this this this tree of success.
And then you look at the number of intact families,
it also goes exact same way. Number one intact family,
uh Asian families, and then white, then Hispanic and black.
I think those are a lot of would solve some

(26:51):
of the problem, for sure, But I think all I
think the where the where the right falls down is
focusing less on the issues that criminal stems from and
focus more on jailing right, And I think that they're
both part of the process that need to be dealt with.

Speaker 2 (27:08):
Yeah, thank you for that. Let's before we get to
the what comes after a person is arrested. I want
to make sure that again I mentioned that I'm here
to mount a defense.

Speaker 3 (27:23):
I don't expect nothing less from you.

Speaker 1 (27:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (27:25):
Man, So the nuclear family thing, that's something that we've
dealt with as a people.

Speaker 1 (27:33):
We've dealt with of course on this show.

Speaker 2 (27:36):
And I recognize that this is a conversation that has
been had many times before, and unfortunately it will still
continue to be had in forums beyond this one. But
if I may, the persistent myth that black men are
not good fathers is a false hood that has been

(28:01):
debunked by data. Famously have said many times on this
show that the Center for Disease Control debunked this using
data and scholarly research. Back in I might have been
like twenty fourteen, something like that, twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen,
and it took a long time to get to that point. Indeed,

(28:24):
for folks that actually want to do this research, you'll
find that black men are the most involved fathers.

Speaker 1 (28:28):
Of any racial group.

Speaker 2 (28:30):
That is factual, that is based on data, that is
not conjecture, that is not speculation, that is an objective truth. However,
there are instances of abandonment from black men for no
reason whatsoever, and then we have to confront the reality

(28:51):
of the situation that I think part of this conversation
will tap on. Black men die for one or another,
come from rough neighborhoods. It's fairly easy to lose your
dad to that sort of lifestyle. And then black men
are imprisoned. And both of those two things affect Black

(29:13):
people significantly, and as a result, they affect black family significantly.
And so for this idea that family structure somehow leads
to better communities, it's sort of like a snake eating
its tail sort of a situation. If we stop locking
up black men and we deal with the circumstances that
prevent this sort of starvation behavior, then we have more

(29:38):
black men taking care of their families in the home,
supporting black women, et cetera. And if we continue to
over police these communities, then we are exacerbating the problem
that we're blaming black people for having. We can't blame
the black men for not being in the home if
we're the ones that put them in jail, right, and
so again, this very part of the conversation. We could

(30:02):
do a three day seminar on it. We don't have
that time today, but I just wanted to make sure
that I said that I have to be responsible with
this forum, and my listeners would expect nothing less. And
I appreciate you letting me share that.

Speaker 1 (30:14):
If you want to respond, you can.

Speaker 3 (30:15):
I am down for a three day forum.

Speaker 1 (30:17):
Hey, hey, look man, I would love that. Actually, okay, man,
we'll put it on the calendar.

Speaker 2 (30:22):
I'm not opposed to it, all right, So let's get
to Let's get to the cash bail system now. Full disclosure, Amy,
I have had this conversation with some of the great
champions in this field who oppose the cash bail system.

(30:44):
As a result, I have my notes from these conversations,
and throughout this conversation, I would like to share bits
and pieces of data that I have received, either from
them directly or I've researched myself. And I think that
in having a conversation about the merits of the cash
bail system versus the data, we can get to the

(31:10):
truth that you know you you you're seeking and maybe
even bring me to a point where I see some
of the things the way that you see.

Speaker 3 (31:21):
Them and vice versa.

Speaker 2 (31:24):
Yeah, yeah, well that's what I'm saying. Both of us
might might learn something here, but I want to start here.

Speaker 1 (31:29):
So I mean when I.

Speaker 3 (31:32):
Say one thing before, we about cash just bail, but
cash bails in general. Look, so we're clear. I am
sympathetic to the argument that we shouldn't have a system
that it says, well, if you have more money, you
are able to get out more than some of you
who has less money. I totally understand that argument. It

(31:54):
actually doesn't make a lot of sense to me. And
certainly we don't want any situation where you have a
white guy who's rich who committed murder going free because
he had a you know, he was able to bail
a million dollars and throwing number out, versus you know,
a poor black guy who had a much lesser crime
sitting in jail for three months. Ready forward attention, Like

(32:16):
I am, by the way, totally open and sympathetic to
that argument, and that argument actually resonates with me. It
makes a lot of sense.

Speaker 1 (32:22):
Okay, Okay, I appreciate you saying that.

Speaker 2 (32:25):
I think that the people in the documentary, the black
people that opposed the white narratives, I'll say it that way,
the leftist white narratives that came initially in the documentary film,
those people, I guess, without fuller context, indeed sounded like

(32:46):
the cash bail system works. Fine, nothing to see here.
Why would you let criminals back out on the street.
And I would imagine that there are some people who
have not heard this conversation from me or from you
yet that might still feel that way. And so for
the sake of the conversation, we will discuss it. The
things that you don't feel strongly about say them. I'm

(33:09):
not painting you with this brush, but we're indeed talking
about the results from your film. And of course, my
job is to defend the narrative, and it just so
happens to be the case that the narrative exists.

Speaker 1 (33:20):
With the.

Speaker 2 (33:22):
Far There weren't far left with progressive left folks in
the East Village, I want to say so. So I'm
going to share a statistic. This is from Pew dot org.
I'm using the data from JDI, which is Jailed Data Initiative.
Pew researchers examined race in recent jail populations, admissions, and
lengths of stay. Of the JDI data set, five hundred

(33:44):
and ninety five jails had data for twenty twenty two.
And here's the important part. Within those facilities, black people
made up on average twelve percent of the local community populations,
but more than double that of the jail populations.

Speaker 1 (33:58):
Right.

Speaker 2 (33:58):
So this, I think firmly establishes that black people are
overrepresented in jails.

Speaker 3 (34:04):
No no argument here.

Speaker 2 (34:07):
I want to share some more. In twenty nineteen, in
all three counties, black people were admitted to jail at
a rate of at least double and sometimes six times
that of white or Hispanic people, and spent up to
twelve days longer in jail than white people. So now
we're not talking about prison sentences. We're talking about jail sentences.
And this isn't this isn't necessarily sentencing because some of

(34:34):
these things happened before black people get to trial. Some
of their jail state takes place before they get to
see a judge rather pre trial detention. There you go,
That's what I'm looking for. So what we have here, though,
is that black people spend significantly longer than other races
for whatever reason, in jail, so they make up a

(34:56):
significant a higher percentage of the population and stay incarcerated longer.
The other thing, black people were admitted to jail at
higher rates and other groups for both misdemeanors and felonies
in all three counties, and typically spent the most time
in jail for felonies. Okay, so now we're talking about
higher harsher sentences, like longer sentences if your skin is darker.

Speaker 3 (35:22):
Yeah, wellt's do let's do pre trial attainment first before
we do sensing.

Speaker 1 (35:25):
Okay, okay, okay, yeah, good do you do you want
to respond here?

Speaker 3 (35:30):
Yeah? So I would say that, look, data, you know,
as this saying goes, you can torture data to say anything,
and your data is not incorrect. That all that data
is totally totally accurate. I'm not arguing at all those
data points, but I think the problem with data is
that if you don't contextualize them, you end up losing

(35:50):
a lot of meaning. And I think, Okay, so it
tically important.

Speaker 1 (35:53):
Give me some context.

Speaker 3 (35:54):
The first stat you gave was that the higher rate
of black men in jail is disproportioned to the population
set of that area. Again completely true, But the reality
is they're just more crime in the black community than
there is the white community, just as a percent of
the population there just is, so that that accounts for
why there's more of them in jail. But when you

(36:17):
bring up the idea of pre child attention and that
the raw number, again accurate, but the raw number doesn't
tell you a lot. Which you have to do is contextualize.
For example, once you once you account for prior criminal
activity for people in pre trial entertainment, that number is
still different, but it is much much smaller. The number

(36:38):
is five percent. There's a five percent difference in how
long a black person stays in jail versus a white person.
Once you have, once you've corrected for prior criminal history
and prior currency, means everything, because when a judge is
looking at a person in front of them, it's not hey, here,
he committed this one crime, and we're only going to
make an argument for this one crime. He has to

(36:59):
look at will this guy commit crime? Wile he is out,
and the best way for him to look at that
and make a decision based on that is has he
committed similar crimes before? If he hasn't, he should get out.
If he has, he's a higher risk. That's why they're
detained at at a at a higher rate. Pre criminal
history is probably the most important data point they have,

(37:23):
and I think again the context here is really important.
And by the way, the additional context, which important is
based on the areas where men are people mostly men
are going to in front of a judge. So in
urban areas where there are more black people versus non
urban areas where or less black people, there's hot, there's

(37:45):
in general white and black, there is a higher level
of pre trial detainment in those areas because that's just
judges see a lot of people they're you know, I
don't know, but a lot of them, I'm a guess
is guessing. As they see so many people, that's keep
them ill for longer, as opposed to areas they see
less criminality, they keep them in jail shorter periods of time.
So when you that number that you mentioned is an

(38:07):
average across the country, and it just happens to be
that black people geography are ten tend to be in
urban areas where there's more crime, and therefore there's more
longer detainment in those areas than rural areas. So I
think the context is important for those numbers, and I
think it does explain a lot of it. It doesn't explain
one hundred percent of it, but it does break it

(38:29):
down significantly. You tend to say that there is within
you know, three they say three percent is significant statistically
as significant pretty much those when you when you control
for those two things, it brings it down to three
percent or less in terms of how much longer they're
in uh they're detained for.

Speaker 2 (38:45):
Well, I heard you say five percent. And I've heard
this argument before, and I don't have what it takes
to in terms of notes or context or anything to
push back against it, but I've heard that pushed back
against that, that narrative that that argument pushed back against again.

(39:05):
In other words, the volley comes back, which indeed corrected
for equal apple to apples to apples, right, and and
then you still see the disparity that black people are
And it might have been prisons. It might have been prisons,
and it might not be pre child attention. Yeah, and

(39:26):
I get it, but I've heard that. I'm saying this
to say that I've heard that before, and even when
you further correct, UH, to make sure that it's apples
to apples. There is a bias against brown skin individuals
in the criminal justice system, full stop. And so I
appreciate you sharing that, and I wish that I had
the actual data here or you know, wherever I encountered

(39:49):
it before, but you know, I got what I got.

Speaker 1 (39:51):
So here's one thing I do want to speak to.

Speaker 2 (39:56):
UH.

Speaker 1 (39:57):
You mentioned.

Speaker 2 (40:00):
That there are more black people in jail because black
people commit more crime, and this is something that you
know is talked about quite a bit. And where I
have and many people, and I'm sure you've heard this before,

(40:21):
where I have seen this data. It typically comes from
the FBI or you know, something like that, but the.

Speaker 3 (40:29):
FBI generally general data.

Speaker 2 (40:34):
The actual data that we're looking at is arrest data.
So black people are arrested at higher rates, and that
the deduction is that black people are committing the crimes,
right and the connection that.

Speaker 1 (40:52):
I believe.

Speaker 2 (40:55):
It comes from the Equal Justice Initiative. I can't be
for certain, but again, all of this stuff and if
anybody wants to do a full on breakdown. I'm not
hiding anything here, indeed, and we're talking about prison, so
I'm talking about the entirety of the car SOOL system, not.

Speaker 1 (41:14):
Pretrial detainment.

Speaker 2 (41:16):
But it is the case that black people make up
approximately fifty percent of the exonerations. So black people are
wrongfully convicted for crimes at a rate of fifty percent,
which obviously over represents them in exonerations when black people
make up thirteen percent of the population. And so what

(41:39):
you have is a spotlight on the truth of that data,
which says, oh, black people are arrested, sure, but are
black people committing that rate of crime? You know what
I mean, you know, or whatever the case is. And
so I know that that's a very small distinction because
I get the thrust of what it is you're saying.
I'm not going to push back against that. Indeed, I

(42:01):
seeded that at the top of our conversation, but I
think that distinction is very important because over here and
over there too, we deal with data, and as you mentioned,
you can torture the data to say whatever it is
that you want. But I in no way am torturing
any data.

Speaker 3 (42:15):
I don't know. You know, you and I are honest
brokers and looks when it comes to yeah, you're right,
what we have is just arrest, right, because we don't
know who committed a crime wasn't arrested. We don't have
that data. I mean, I would assume that the arrest
rate and the committing crime may would be pretty similar.
I can't imagine.

Speaker 2 (42:36):
Yeah, and I'm not saying I'm not saying anything different,
but you're right.

Speaker 3 (42:38):
No, we obviously could only deal with data that we
have are supplied with, and all we have is arrest data.
We don't know who didn't who commit a crime and
didn'te arrest.

Speaker 2 (42:46):
One of the reasons that I'm pushing back against this
amy is because in this way, the reason I'm pushing
back against this is because you may not know this,
but I have to know this. So I'm subscribed to
some really extreme far right circles where they are like
proud racists, Nazis and clans people and all that sort

(43:06):
of stuff. People that you wouldn't like at all, but
I have to kind of know what they're saying.

Speaker 1 (43:14):
Sure, and.

Speaker 2 (43:17):
You know, I got sons, I got to raise, you
know what I mean? So what I find is that
a persistent narrative over there is I think it's something
like thirteen percent of black people commit fifty percent or
eighty percent of whatever number. There's like the statistic that
they throw around quite a bit. And the idea for

(43:40):
a person who is not doesn't feel how you feel,
doesn't feel how I feel, is just coming to this
conversation and hasn't made up their mind yet. If they
come across a data point like that, which sounds very
similar to what you said, I know you didn't say that,
but here's why I push back. They might think, oh, well,
black people are inherently criminal, and there is something inside

(44:04):
of melanated skin that causes these people to be vile
and criminal and harmful to each other and to everyone else.
And that is not true. And I think that you
come to the table as my fellow homo sapien sapien.
I come to the table as your brother, fellow homo
sapien sapient, and we give each other the capacity, we

(44:25):
allow for the capacity to be all things right. You
can be brilliant, you can be dumb as a rock.
I can be brilliant, I can be dumb as a rock.

Speaker 1 (44:30):
And on and on.

Speaker 2 (44:31):
Right, So that's why I push back there. But again,
you're right that indeed the criminality, as I mentioned, I
seated that up front, that that that tends to follow poverty,
and poverty is widespread in the black community.

Speaker 3 (44:46):
Right, that's a great but what's a great look oftentime?
And by the way, first of all, we stop the
the vile nature of the hard right. Right who makes
the argument you can you can't. You can't account for
how people will take data and and twist it to

(45:06):
their own disgusting, disturbing racist ends, like they're just going
to do that, right, you know, races is going to
be a racist But yeah, oftentimes we con and this
is a more really interesting we oftentimes conflate race and class.
And you're right, because more poverty, you know, one can
argue there there's it's a class issue versus a race

(45:29):
issue for sure, right, and that just it happens to
be Black people can more crimes because they are poorer
than the general population, and therefore it tracks more with
class than race. Yeah, obviously, it's it's a circumstance based
on circumstance, so both you know, Yeah, but yeah, look,
I mean, yeah, you're right.

Speaker 1 (45:50):
Yeah, yeah, I think that it's both right.

Speaker 3 (45:53):
You're right, I tell you you're right.

Speaker 1 (45:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (45:54):
No, and likewise, but yeah, my in my estimation, I
think it's both. This This country has a This was
founded as a as a country where one group of people,
unlike other forms of slavery around the world, one group
of people and the babies that they had and the

(46:15):
entirety of their lives were commodified and commercialized at best.

Speaker 1 (46:22):
At worst, they were like.

Speaker 2 (46:24):
You know how we have laws that says that you
can't interfere violate animals sexually.

Speaker 3 (46:35):
Oh okay. I was like, yeah.

Speaker 2 (46:37):
I'm trying to be you know, there were no such laws.
You were just property like a shed or a tool
or something like that. And so this country being founded
under those circumstances where there is a permanent subclass. Initially
they thought that there was going to be a permanent
subclass delineated by the amount of melanin in your skin.

(47:02):
And then the subsequent one hundred years of Jim Crow
like actual governmental laws saying.

Speaker 1 (47:08):
These people can't do this and these people can right.

Speaker 2 (47:13):
Has caused the framework of the racism visible or invisible
to a person like you, to a person like me.
I see more of it as visible. You perhaps may
see more of it as invisible. I'm not picking on you.
I just recognize that we have two different walks of life.

(47:34):
And then add to that class which classes something that
has affected societies around the world since the beginning of people.

Speaker 3 (47:42):
Right from the beginning of people.

Speaker 2 (47:45):
Right, so once you because race wasn't introduced as a
as a construct social construct until I believe, like the
fifteen hundred and sixteen hundreds, the term white didn't exist.
It was absolutely right. So how did one Well, there
are no white people in the Bible. You know why

(48:06):
Jewish people are white people is because of a case
I believe it was in the nineteen twenties of a
Middle Eastern gentleman who was a security guard. He arrested
a a young man who was the child of a
like a senator or something like that. He wasn't a
citizen because only white people could get citizenship. And the
father of the child that was arrested says, hey, this

(48:28):
arrest is invalid. It shouldn't count because he's not a citizen.
He shouldn't have that job. This case makes its way
to the Supreme Court. We talked about this on the show.
I forget the name and all that sort of stuff,
but it makes its way to the Supreme Court and
the gentleman who's at the center of the case, the
Middle Eastern gentleman, says, your honor, what race was Jesus?

(48:49):
And rather than say, you know, Jesus was Middle Eastern,
Jesus was a Jew. Jesus, you know, they said, Okay,
you're white, and all of these people are white. Right,
So this is how that term exists in this country.
Middle Eastern people can check white on the census and
all is fine in terms of the term white.

Speaker 1 (49:06):
That's my mom.

Speaker 3 (49:07):
Let her know that she's a white person. She was
born in Iran, and I think she might be surprised
by that.

Speaker 2 (49:12):
Yeah, and according to the laws in this country, absolutely
she qualifies as a white human being. But in terms
of because there's no scientific basis for races, did not did.

Speaker 3 (49:20):
Not help me on my college application process.

Speaker 1 (49:22):
I bet it.

Speaker 2 (49:25):
But but yeah, the term white again, don't don't get
me wrong. And it's been a while since we've covered this,
but it came about there was actually one person or
one group, and I feel like it might have been
either Portuguese people or Spanish people that originated the term,
but don't hold me to it. The idea was at
the beginning of the slave trade you needed to again

(49:45):
delineate the slaves from the non slaves. And whereas prior
to that, if you were an Englishman you were an Englishman.
If you were a Frenchman, you were a Frenchman. If
you were a Turk, you were Turkish, you know, And
there was no such thing as white as an encompassing group,
nor was there a thing as black as an encompassing group.
You just were from whatever group, village, tribe, country that

(50:07):
you were for, kingdom that you were from. And slavery
was the great purveyor of this modern construct that we
have of race, which again it's not science. There's no
scientific basis for race there, it just doesn't exist. But
in terms of how we stratify a society, it came
about because of that. That is why white people exist.

(50:30):
Because again, if you look in the Bible, none of
those people are white people. They're Romans, they're Greeks there,
you know, whatever it is they are. So that's the
origin story there anyway.

Speaker 3 (50:39):
And by the way, the first I think the first
requartered interracial marriage was Moses. His wife was black.

Speaker 1 (50:45):
See there you go.

Speaker 2 (50:46):
But I'm sure they didn't refer to her as a
black person, nor did they refer to Moses as a
white person. So again that mental construct is something that's.

Speaker 3 (50:55):
They said she was from the land of Kush, which.

Speaker 2 (50:57):
Is kusheitz A. Are black people black skin people too?
The neighbors to Israel not Israel.

Speaker 1 (51:03):
I want to say Egypt, It is Cush. We're in
the weeds. Let's get back to cash bill.

Speaker 3 (51:09):
Okay, I forgot that we're talking about.

Speaker 2 (51:13):
Yeah, man, I know we get we get lost in it,
but I want to give the listeners what they came for.

Speaker 1 (51:16):
So okay, let's go back. Now.

Speaker 2 (51:21):
I'm sure you've heard of the Commonwealth Fund on vera
dot org in these places, this is probably where you
sourced a lot of your data to. So I'll share
this for the benefit of our listeners. Three quarters of
people in jails have not been convicted of a crime, right,
So this means that they are waiting to see a judge.
That you're just arrested and you don't know this, Sami,

(51:42):
But for us us, I mean black people, we have
a term that we use. It's called being black and nearby.
So someone's like, Yo, what did you do? I was
black and nearby? Right, It's it's an old term.

Speaker 3 (51:56):
You don't think I've heard that term you have?

Speaker 2 (51:58):
Okay, great, Okay, so you understand, so you have context. Again,
I appreciate you letting me say it because our listeners
may not know too. But so again, black and nearby
is something that we would say if we get swept
up in something that didn't really have anything to do
with us and typically has to do with the police.

Speaker 1 (52:14):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (52:14):
So when I look at this statistic, three quarters of
people in jails have not been convicted of a crime.
And when we couple that with the data that we
shared before that black people stay longer, are overrepresented in
the population, etc. You recognize how this system currently can
be especially problematic for black people. Now, again, if the
presupposition is that black people indeed are committing the crimes, right,

(52:39):
we have a criminal justice system in this country that
supposes that presupposes that you are innocent until you are
otherwise proven guilty in theory that should be applied to
all citizens and non citizens. That is the criminal justice system.

Speaker 1 (52:56):
Right.

Speaker 2 (52:58):
Let me finish this data here of these arrests remain
incarcerated because they can't afford bail. I'm not going to
beat you up on this because you said initially that
you don't agree that rich people should stay in bail
be able to get out, and poor people should stay in.
I would imagine that if I take it further, you
believe that all people should be able to fight their

(53:19):
case from a position of strength, because even people that
commit crimes sometimes have a valid reason bro.

Speaker 3 (53:24):
Innocent till proven guilty. So yes, you should be strength,
no question.

Speaker 2 (53:29):
Now here's one of the harmful things that happens as
a result of this phenomenon.

Speaker 1 (53:37):
Do you know the name? Shoot?

Speaker 2 (53:40):
What is his name? I feel like his last name
is Browder khalifh Browder. Does that name sound familiar to you? Okay,
I'll look it up in a second, but I'm going
to share this with you and get your reflections. What
happens in a lot of these instances where people are
being detained, where they might lose employment, they might not

(54:06):
be able to care for loved ones, They are subjected
to horrible inhumane conditions. They human beings, like all creatures,
endowed with a nervous system nervous systems and brains are
what we use to move, So anything that can move,
so not trees and plants, but anything with a brain moves,

(54:27):
and a nervous system will seek its customary freedom, so
imprisoning a person if they feel wrongfully or unjustly, or
whatever the case they might consider, and they often do
plead guilty just to get out of jail, which has
a domino effect, a ripple effect on the rest of

(54:48):
their lives. You mentioned earlier that sometimes people might get
caught up in stuff and judges look at prior conviction
rates and then they hold that against them. Right, So
you can see how the cash bill system so far,
based on the data we've covered, can be problem especially
problematic for black people. And the black people in the

(55:08):
Bronx or wherever you might have interviewed may not know
this data. And the white people from the East village
may have had a chance to read the books I'm
pointing to books in my studio I'm missing when it's
downstairs where my turntables are. But anyway, this is something
that I think is worth considering your reflections. And then

(55:31):
I want to tell you the story about I believe
his name is Kalie Brouder specifically, what so you know
how pleading guilty just to get out might be sort
of again that snake eating its tail.

Speaker 3 (55:46):
Look, I don't have data on that on how many
people end up doing that versus not. I do know
that generally when it comes to playing, what you find
is the vast majority of people in jail have pleaded
down to something. Right in general, what they do is
that oftentimes what they you know, you will oftentimes say, look,

(56:08):
how could a guy be in jail for two years?
Three years? I'm just making a number up for what
seems like a relatively small crime. The reality is that
most people have even though they're arrested for a whole
host of crimes, including crimes are far worse, just in
order to get people out of the system, right, because

(56:28):
the system the problem. Look, and also part of the
problem is yeah, there's there's there's over silver credited, right,
not just the jails themselves, but the system itself is overcrowded.
And just to get them off the docket, well then
I'm doing and say, look, we'll plead you down to
a lesser a lesser crime, and though you committed a
larger crime, because we just want to get you off
the system. And that happens quite a bit. So oftentimes

(56:49):
people will point out, well, why is this guy in
jail for three years for a for an offense that
seems kind of light when reality is it was a
larger offense he committed. But they just pleaded down to
get to get out of the system. In terms of
people pleading who didn't commit crime in order to get
out of the system.

Speaker 1 (57:05):
And just that's hard to know.

Speaker 3 (57:06):
It's hard to know. And by the way, I can't
imagine anything worse. I gotta be honest, very few things
I can imagine being worse than you sitting at jail
for a crime you know you didn't commit. That's a
horrific feeling. It's a feeling no one should feel, no
one should go through. It's it's it's inconceivable to sit
there and say, I'm in jail for however long and

(57:28):
I didn't commit this crime. It's terrible. And I want
to point out one more thing about because we talked
about policing for a little bit. We're not here to
talk about policing as much, but you brought it up.
I think it's important. Look, I am certainly a person
who believes in more policing versus less policing. You can
call it over policing. I don't. I don't. I wouldn't
call it that. But there are times like for example,
and this goes against the narrative of the right, when

(57:51):
they were supporting stop and frisk. I never understood that
policy that seemed. I would never if I was mayor
of a city. There's no way I would support stop
it to stop a random person and then frisk them
because they call their skin. No, I would fight against
that and have fought against it. I don't think that
kind of policy I don't agree with. Just because you

(58:11):
have more policing doesn't mean it can't be the right policing, right.
What you don't want is more policing of the wrong
type of policing, like stop a risk.

Speaker 2 (58:20):
I appreciate you saying that, I again, we need that
three day conference. I'll come to the table with all
of it. But I've encountered two different studies done on policing.
One that followed money more funds don't translate into safer communities,
and two more officers don't translate into safer communities. But

(58:42):
what I have found is that programs that are designed
to prevent crime, as you mentioned, as we talked about
access to jobs, access to education, infrastructure, transportation, head start,
after school programs, these sorts of things have a drastic
impact on how much crime is prevent is committed in
a community. And so I want to be responsible again

(59:03):
by saying that. Again, my listeners would be very upset
if I didn't offer that to the conversation, not to
you necessarily.

Speaker 1 (59:10):
I want to share a brief story.

Speaker 3 (59:12):
Say one quick thing is that pace we are all
born as poles. Okay, let's be honest. Kids are polls, Okay,
because they're not until they're actually until we give them guidance,
right and structure and community. They're kids and jerks, right,

(59:32):
these are It takes. It takes policy and parenting and
programs in order to to make children understand that you
can't this is not how you're gonna you're gonna progress
your life going forward. Now you've you've got you've got
to understand. You live in a society, you live within structures,
and we have to give kids that and we have
to give adult that too. Right. We have to also

(59:53):
that that that process never ends it's a life is
a constant fighting back against Polary.

Speaker 2 (01:00:02):
We love putting you on the radio, but no, I
hear what you're saying. And I think it's up to
the people that we elect to recognize these truths about us,
our human nature, but also not condemn us to be
that in perpetuity.

Speaker 1 (01:00:22):
And so.

Speaker 2 (01:00:24):
You know, there are some people, as you mentioned, you
prefer a heavy handed approach when it comes to dealing
with this sort of thing, and I, just in being fair,
I prefer one that has a lot more empathy. But
also I make I think a solid argument, a data
driven argument that it's also more effective. And I'm not

(01:00:45):
saying that you don't. You just haven't made it on
this show yet. You're welcome to come back and then
make a data driven argument yourself.

Speaker 1 (01:00:50):
I won't. I don't want to box you into a.

Speaker 2 (01:00:54):
Framework that you can't get out of, but I just
don't know that that would be possible, not to the
extent that you know.

Speaker 1 (01:01:02):
My understanding brings me to him.

Speaker 2 (01:01:05):
So. Khalif Brouder was born ninety three. He died in
twenty fifteen. He was an African American youth from the
Bronx who was held at Riker's Island Jail Complex without
trial between twenty ten and twenty thirteen for allegedly stealing
a backpack containing valuables. During his imprisonment, Browder was kept
in solitary confinement for seven hundred days. Two years after

(01:01:25):
his release, Brouder hanged himself at his parents' home. His
case has been cited by activist campaigning for reform of
the New York City criminal justice system, and has attracted
widespread attention in the years following his death. Now that's
a little bit of background. That was indeed his name,
but he became sort of a beacon for people to
take a look into this phenomenon where you can be

(01:01:47):
held imprisoned, not convicted of a crime and never have
your day in court, or you know, have them kick
that can down the road continually. And in his case,
they offered him plea deals or plea bargains or whatever
the case is. I know people personally who've done this,

(01:02:10):
And again, we cannot know if a person actually committed
a crime or they didn't. Only the closest we get
to the truth is whether or not a person is convicted.
But I have encountered the data here and so I
know that someone has tracked at least some facet of
it how often these plea deals are offered, or how
often they're accepted or something like that. That kind of

(01:02:30):
gives at least some insight into how prevalent this issue
is with respect to black men in particular, because again,
the activists saw this and they're like, oh my god,
what is going on here?

Speaker 1 (01:02:43):
But in his case, it just took a toll on him.
He took his own.

Speaker 2 (01:02:47):
Life sadly, and he is remembered for the person that
spent three years in jail. He went to solitary confinement,
and he never accepted a plea deal because he in
his mind at least I cannot know, I cannot know
how many. But he says, I didn't steal a backpack,
So I'm not going to say I stole a backpack.
And his time there took its toll on him. Many

(01:03:08):
people believe that this is the reason that he ended
his life, just because he couldn't reacclimate to society and
he was withdrawn after he got out.

Speaker 1 (01:03:16):
And whatever the case is.

Speaker 2 (01:03:17):
And so this gives some insight an aperture into what
that must be like and when you and I are
having a conversation about the cash bail system, and we're
looking at how I don't want to put you in
a position that is not fair.

Speaker 1 (01:03:33):
So let me say.

Speaker 2 (01:03:35):
Let me say there's a person, a person who says
he's objective. She well, color is she. I wanted this
to be as far away from you as possible. She's objective,
and she wants safe neighborhoods, and she feels reasonably safe
in her neighborhood right now. She sees no reason to
change things because her life is fine. She doesn't live

(01:03:56):
in fear of the police. She doesn't live in fear
of being black and nearby. She doesn't live in fear
of all of this data that we have to beg
people to listen to so that they might think we're
telling the truth instead of painting us as that didn't
do nothing, meme. And she says, you know what, I

(01:04:21):
feel bad that this is the truth. Okay, do you
see this person who will see that? Yes, there are
many problems here. Cash bill is problematic on some levels,
but the levels where it has been problematic have not

(01:04:44):
made their way to me yet, so I have not
seen them. Jail's being overcrowded exacerbates that condition. I did
not know it. Do you see this person maybe deciding
that you know, crime prevention has its merits, not defunding

(01:05:07):
the police, but the defund the I guess the step
two of the defunding the police, it has its merits.
And I can see this criminal justice system as the
intersection of race and class disproportionately affecting my brothers who

(01:05:28):
are black or brown or otherwise marginalized differently than the
rest of the population. And as a result of that,
I will.

Speaker 1 (01:05:38):
Call it what it is.

Speaker 2 (01:05:40):
It is a racist, classist system that allows privilege to
exist where it shouldn't, and it condemns poverty, not merit
or lack thereof where that maneuver would be unjust could
you see a person coming to that conclusion? Sure, you

(01:06:02):
see that person coming to that conclusion in the East village?

Speaker 3 (01:06:05):
No, I mean yes, yeah, yes, yes, these village. Yes.
You know what's fascinating is okay. So there's a number
of there's really in a couple of very interesting studies
about and this is when it comes to look, I'm
not going to argue to you that the jugital system
doesn't have significant structural issues it does. I don't think
it has racial issues. I think that the issues are

(01:06:28):
outside of race. I think one of the great arguments
on how it's not a racist issue or race based
issue is the studies have been done by I think
the two that I saw were Harvard and Penn State,
and they looked at hundreds of thousands of cases, and
they looked at I think with seventy seven thousand different
judges specifically, and they looked at the black and the

(01:06:50):
white judges, and there was no statistical difference between the
black judges and the white judges in both how they
dealt with pre drawal, attention, and sentencing. To me, what
that means is it's not an issue of race overall
that Yet, one could argue the class argument is a
better in my view, of better argument that one can make,

(01:07:12):
and I think there's merit to that, particularly when it comes,
like I said, when it comes to bail, it isn't
fair that somebody with more money has an ability to
get out and a poor person doesn't. I think that
the system should be structured in the judge should look
at somebody, doesn't matter what kind of money do you have,
and he makes a decision look based on your criminal history,
based on what you're saying to me in court, based

(01:07:33):
on my years of judgment. Do I think you're going
to commit more crime being out on jail. If I don't,
you should be out of jail and fight your case.
And if I think you're going to commit more crimes
and be a dangerous society, you should stay in until
your case is seen. And by the way, I also
think there needs to be expeditious trials. I think it
takes the system is so clogged, it takes way too long,
and people are sitting in jail and horrible wrikers is

(01:07:53):
a horrible place to sit in jail for months before
you're seen for a judge. That part needs to be fixed.
I totally agree with that, but it's just hard for
me I look into data to say it is a
it really is race based versus other issues.

Speaker 2 (01:08:08):
Yeah, and I think that a popular narrative, Maybe narrative
is not the right word, but a popular maybe a
trope or a stumbling block or something like that, whatever

(01:08:29):
the word is that exists, is that people on your
side don't see race because you don't want to, and
people on my side see race because we want to right,
And you said something earlier.

Speaker 3 (01:08:46):
That about the confirmation bias is that we all sell
from it. We all sell from it. Do I see myself?
I have to check myself a lot, because yeah, we
tend to see what we want to see. And I
think we all need to step out this. Look, this
is why we're having this. You're not afraid to have
a conversation because you want to see the truth like
I want to see the truth. Yes, we both come
from different perspectives. But yeah, when you said when you

(01:09:09):
give me data, I go, yeah, that's that is something
I need to contend with and deal with. When I
give data, it's thing you have to see it, contend
with and we you and I do that, but we
all suffer from it. And that's that doesn't help our
society when we're just in our different little silos or
refuse to look out of it. That's why this conversation
is so helpful and I think so important.

Speaker 1 (01:09:28):
Okay, okay, thank you for saying that.

Speaker 2 (01:09:31):
But what I want to submit, just for my friend Ami.

Speaker 1 (01:09:40):
Is that.

Speaker 2 (01:09:43):
A racist structure or superstructure can exist while being propped
up by black people. There were black slave owners, right,
Black people own slaves, and they were some of the
harshest slave owners in the country. Even the white folks

(01:10:05):
that saw them were like, yo, you go on od
with that, because that was the economic model that made
the most sense during that time. There are black people
that hate their blackness, that they espouse proximity to whiteness.
There was a story that we covered widely. You may

(01:10:27):
have heard of it. There's a gentleman by the name
of Tyree Nichols. He lost his life in Tennessee because
he was beat to death by I think it was
like four or five police officers. This was in twenty
twenty three. It was a high profile case. They were
all black and they beat him to death. And I
will still say with all the data in the world
that policing is biased against black people, right. And the

(01:10:51):
word that people don't like for me to use is racist.
So I can say biased against black people, and I
can use that as an example, just the same as
I can use when Rodney King was beat you know,
that was another high profile case. I can use a
number of shootings and all that sort of stuff, right.
But more important than all of this, like anecdotal evidence,
is I can look to data and like like you do,

(01:11:13):
and where you see judges that are black that are
convicting at similar rates to white people, and you don't
see racism because you see black judges doing to black
people what white judges do to black people. I see
a racist superstructure doing to black people what the racist
superstructure does, which is there are biases against black people,

(01:11:34):
you know. And I live in this this particular space
I live in. I live in the how are police trained?
Where do police fail tests?

Speaker 1 (01:11:45):
Does what is the.

Speaker 2 (01:11:48):
Word I'm looking for, diversity training actually help police confront
their biases? You know, all these sorts of things. And
the truth is that it's so ingrained in this country
that it's very, very hard to deal with. So while
we have tried to contend with these issues over and
over again, where I see things that work are things

(01:12:10):
like crime prevention efforts that you know, mom, Donnie was
just elected there. I'm sure you had a field day
with that, yeah, man, And you know some of the
things that he ran on, if I if I understand correctly,
are some of the ideas that were espoused. And in

(01:12:31):
the step two of the defund the police sort of
uh call call call to action, You know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (01:12:38):
And so.

Speaker 2 (01:12:41):
When I look at a cash bail system, I look
at a system that is causing more harm than good.
When I look at the cash bail system, I see
a system that is biased against black people. The word
racist is it's it's a It's a word that is
triggering to a lot of people, but that's kind of
what it is from my perspective. I will not impose

(01:13:02):
that on you, but I think I make a solid
case for it. And I've only been talking to you
for maybe an hour. I've been in this space for years,
and I'm not trying to see that. The reason why
I keep saying the same thing over again about not
wanting to use the word racism is because if that
word can be used against me, I need to make

(01:13:23):
an argument without using that word, and I.

Speaker 1 (01:13:28):
Often do.

Speaker 2 (01:13:32):
Because people will get up and walk out of the
conversation if they think that you're calling them racists. Because
for some reason, people still feel like that's a bad word.
In Trump's America, it's not nearly as bad as it
once was, but people still feel like that's a bad word,
and we can't have an honest conversation about how to
heal unless we have an honest conversation about how to
how to name and identify the things that are troubling

(01:13:57):
our society, facets of our society. People don't want to
be born and be criminals, and who would like who
would want to be born? And this be your reality?
Nobody exactly, And so calling it what it is is
that's my job. You see it very differently, but I'm
a lot closer to this and calling it that without

(01:14:18):
saying anybody's being racist. These are systems that everyone inherited.

Speaker 1 (01:14:24):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:14:24):
It's like we inherited a house, but we also inherited
the problems, and we need to fix the problems that
come with the house, even though we didn't create them.
But we need to say, hey, there's a crack in
the wall, you know, in order to like go and
get the things that we need to do to fix it.
And so obviously we're going to need to have more conversations.
I want to make sure that you have the last word.
It's the right thing to do, and I love you
and I want you to come back. So if I've

(01:14:45):
said anything that mischaracterizes you, misrepresent you, misrepresent your films,
anything like that, please say it and then of course
leave our listeners with any connective tissue so they can
see your films, follow you on social media.

Speaker 1 (01:14:55):
Et cetera.

Speaker 3 (01:14:55):
So I'll make I'll make one two last points to
end this that you brought up, which are they interesting?
So I agree with you that they that we have
denuded the power of the word racist. I think will
differ on why that is. Like, I don't think it's
Trump's America that that took the power away. I think
that we the word has been overused to the point
where now people are called race and they go, you know,
everybody's called the race these days, so it means nothing.

(01:15:16):
And I think when the tragedy is that the the
racist has has has been taken of its true meaning
and evilness and ugliness. But I think that I'm you know,
to go back to the to the to the really
interesting point you made about this racist superstructure and how
black people have fallen into it just like white people. Look,

(01:15:39):
I don't know, I'm just deeply uncomfortable with the idea
of telling a black judge you don't know, you just
you you, you don't have agency, you just make your
your decisions because you're part of this racist superstructure. I
think a black judge would push back and say, yo,
don't tell me I don't know what I'm doing. I'm
I'm I'm Clarence Thomas, like any like any black judge, No, no,

(01:15:59):
I get it, No, I get it. But like any
black chither go look, don't tell me I don't know
what I'm doing. Or a black cop wouldn't say, don't
tell me I don't know what I'm doing. Like you're
taking away agency from them to saying they get the world.
I think they get the world as well as I
do and you do. In the case of black people
doing bad things as cops, yeah, you know why, because

(01:16:20):
they're people, and they're bad people, and they're good people,
and sometimes there are a black cops, bad black cops.
Sometimes there are bad white cops, and vice versa. So yeah,
I never liked that argument because I just feel it
takes agency away from people in the positions of power
who will tell you I do know what's what's up,
I do know what's happening, and I'm still doing X, Y,

(01:16:40):
and Z. So I aways leave it as that. Well.

Speaker 2 (01:16:44):
As I mentioned, I want you to have the last word.
We do need that three day seminar. Man, so let's
pay it.

Speaker 3 (01:16:49):
I'm just telling you where when I will be there.

Speaker 1 (01:16:51):
Yeah, let's do it.

Speaker 3 (01:16:53):
Do an event with your listeners. I think I'd be amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:16:56):
Sure, man, we're doing in La Man. We're out there all.

Speaker 2 (01:16:58):
The time and you know, doing all kinds of stuff.
But how about this before you go social media where
people can see the film learn more about you and
the stuff you're doing.

Speaker 3 (01:17:07):
Yeah. So my social media is at Ami Horo. It's
all the handles for all the different social media handles,
and they can watch the video at hold your I know,
Prager You organization, I love you love less. But they
can see the full video there and then they can
comment on the video there and I will respond to it.

Speaker 1 (01:17:25):
Ami Horowitz Man, thank you again for your time.

Speaker 3 (01:17:27):
Brother, It's my pleasure.