May 16, 2022 • 23 mins
Christian Wise Smith is an attorney, non-profit founder, children's book author, husband, father, and prosecutor with a heart of gold.
In this episode, he talks about a prosecutor's responsibility and how he has dedicated his career to helping people with minor convictions.
Guest IG: @ christianwisesmith
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, Money Movers, Welcome back to Money Moves, the daily
podcast determined to give you the keys to the Kingdom
of financial stability, wealth and abundance. Today's guest is an attorney,
nonprofit founder, and children's book author. He is currently a
(00:23):
running candidate for the Georgia Attorney General seat. Money Movers, Please,
welcome to the podcast, Christian wise Smith. Hi, Christian, Hey,
how's it going. Thank you for having me. This is
a tremendous opportunity and I'm honored to be talking to
you and everybody watching the show. Thank you well. Welcome
so much to our podcast. At Money Moves, we are
(00:44):
very intentional about educating our listeners and our audience on
the best ways to build generational wealth and educate our families.
And I think politics is, you know, a line that
sometimes people are very afraid to tow. But I think
what we've seen in the past couple of years in
terms of these social justice movements, we have all realized
the power that we have as individuals to influence politics
(01:07):
and how that in turn can influence the wealth that
we are building in our houses. So I am so
excited to have you here to share more on what
the importance of this role of Attorney General, and a
little bit more of your journey that's mine, that's I
want to start at the beginning. I want to know
a little bit more more about you, Christian. I want
you to your story is very inspiring. So tell us
(01:27):
what sort of got you here to this point where
you're running for this coveted Attorney general seat. Well, I
was originally grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio. It's where I
was born and raised. And I like to say that
I grew up in a justice system. Back on my
earliest childhood memory, the first thing I can come up
with the seeing my mother get arrested when I was
(01:48):
about five, and she got arrested a few times throughout
my childhood. And I was with my grandmother once and
I actually saw her get you know, stripped down her
underwear and arrested in front to me. And I grew
up seeing you know, a lot of my family members
in France struggle, you know, going through the system. I
have an uncle serving a life sentence right now from
(02:09):
murder um. My mother actually lost custody of me when
I was sixteen, and I made some bad decisions myself,
like I kicked out of school when I was seventeen,
and I really thought my life would be like everything
I saw growing up. I never imagine myself sitting, you know,
in a in a seat like this, with the opportunity
(02:29):
to speak to people like you. You know. I overcame
a lot just to finish high school, but thankfully I did,
and I became the first of my family to graduate
from college. Then I went on to get a master's
degree and then ultimately a law degree, and so you know,
being an attorney and being in out of political space now,
(02:50):
you know, I think stories like mine are relatable to
so many people, not just in the state of Georgia,
but across the country. People who have overcome adversity, you know,
people have had it off, and people who kind of
want to, you know, have that rags the richest kind
of story, um, you know, and I tell my story
for that reason in hopes of inspiring and showing people
(03:11):
that hey, if I can do it, you can do it,
we can do it. And uh, you know, thank you
for a game, for the opportunity to share it, you know,
And I mean not just I'm sure resonates with so
many people who are listening, you know, we've you know,
your story where you overcome these obstacles in your family home,
watching your mother, I mean that is heart wrenching. But
then to see you sitting here and being like, I've
(03:33):
now got a master's and a law degree, and I've
dedicated sort of your life to changing the lives of
so many others in Georgia. So we appreciate that so much.
Talk about now, Okay, you went to law school, you
got this masters, and you started a practice, and here
you are running for like a very big political seat.
What made you want to take this route and go
(03:54):
into politics. It starts back in so my first attime
ney job. I was an assistant prosecutor in the city
of Atlanta and Mr Court. I had a seventeen year
old kid who had been arrested for marijuana. And when
I saw him, you know, it was like I was
(04:14):
looking in the mirror. I was seeing myself at that age,
and he was in court with his mom, and I
remember asking him where he saw himself in ten years
and he said, I want to play in the NFL.
And you know, growing up the way I did. You know,
a lot of my friends myself we had dreams like that.
I think that a lot of you know, black young
man from inner cities, you know, one of the that
(04:36):
we we tend to dream toward our sports or entertainment careers.
And so you know, I made him aware of that
a drug conviction would prevent him from going to college
to play football. You can't get find that federal financial
ad if you have a drug conviction. So on the spot,
I created a diversion program for him. I said, if
(04:57):
you complete these conditions within this amount of time throughout
your case, so that you have the opportunity to, you know,
live the life that you say you want to live.
I mean, I don't know if this is the right term,
but those small mercies that you know, as someone in
a position of power, can afford on somebody else are
(05:17):
life changing, like life changing. You literally changed the kids
like And have you ever kept in touch with him?
Where is he now? Definitely? And if I can't, I
gotta tell this part of the story. Before I took
that job, I was a little hesitant because you know,
my background, my family, we only knew the justice system
from the opposite side. So I actually spoke to one
(05:38):
of my little cousins who served four years in prison
for mayors nineteen three, and I said, hey, man, you know,
what do you think about me taking this job? And
he said, because of our background, you will be able
to relate to people. You see the system, and you
will be able to help them get on the right track.
And so, you know, going back to the justice story,
(06:00):
his mother emailed me and said, thank you for giving
my son a chance. He's playing football at a junior
college in Oklahoma and doing great in the classroom. In
she called me, say hey, thanks again. He transferred to
the University of Tennessee. Thank you. She called again and said, hey, man,
you gotta come to a game. We wouldn't be here
(06:20):
without you. So I went up to a game that year.
His senior year, I went to three of his games.
But you know, the coolest part about this story is
that in the spring of eighteen, I went up to
Knoxville and saw him get a bachelor's degree in communications
from the University of Tennessee. So kid's name is Justin Martin.
I still talked to him a lot. He was at
(06:41):
my wedding. Wow, that's an incredible story, Christian. That's beautiful.
Really really was like a little brother. Now, so we
keep in touch a lot. So this also speaks to
the importance of these like I mean, you're a civic servants.
You are in a position of power that can change
the life of so many people, especially in our community.
(07:01):
We know that criminal justice reform is so important and
having the right people in power can really change the
face of an entire community. Can you talk to me
about your thoughts on criminal justice reform and how that
ties into what your role would be if you get
the position of Attorney general. So I really take to
(07:22):
heart the words and the original founding document of our country,
which wasn't the Constitution, it was a Declaration of Independence
of seventy two, forty six years ago. And then that
document is said that you know, we hold these truths
to be self evident, that all men are created equal. Well,
we know that throughout the history of our country, you know,
(07:45):
we haven't lived up to that, and particularly black and
brown and minority in a criminal justice space specifically, have
always gotten the short end of the stick. And so
having been a prosecutor for seven years and being on
the inside of the system and seeing how the system
really cared about conviction rates and find money, and the
(08:07):
system really perpetuated the system of recipivism or repeat offending
as we know it. So two years ago I ran
for district attorney in Fordson County in Atlanta, and I said, hey,
we need we need to put a stop to this.
And it takes someone like me who understands what happens
on the other side of it, to be able to
(08:28):
go in and say, you know, instead of locking everybody
up for every offense, you know, why don't we get
some services for people if they're suffering from mental health disabilities.
Why don't we get treatment for people if they have
substance addiction problems. Why don't we align people up with
job opportunities and educational opportunities, maybe if they've dropped out
of high school or having on hard times. Because if
(08:51):
we put somebody in jail and they can't make bail,
they're sitting there before they've even been convicted of anything.
They'll lose their house and lose the job. And once
you lose everything, once you get out and you have nothing,
a lot of times you commit a crime to survive. Yeah,
a lot of crimes that we see are survival crimes.
(09:13):
You know, I'm not talking about the rapes and the
murders and the that's different, you know, the non violent
I would say, low level crimes where people were literally
trying to survive. You know, we can change or reform
the system to make it better for folks like that.
And I have proof. I went out to Seattle, Washington,
and and they created a program out there called Lead
(09:38):
Law Enforcement Assistant Diversion. But they only focus on two offenses, uh,
sex crimes or prostitution and drug possession. So if anybody,
if police encounter anybody, you know, with those two things.
Instead of the traditional rout of prosecution jail courts, they
try to allow those people with services to help them
(09:59):
break out of those life styles and live better lives.
And so they had over five hundred success stories by
the time I visited the program in I mean, that's
a lot of people's lives that are changed. That's a
lot of individual lives and family lives and compete lives.
And you know, once those people have jobs and they
have housing, you know, property rates increase if you don't
(10:22):
have crime on the streets up. School system ratings go
up when property values increased. So it's all a cycle
that's connected, and the criminal justice system is in the
center of that, and we've been using our resources, in
my opinion, the wrong way for too long. And I
have to be candid if you go back to I
(10:42):
guess the foundation of how our criminal justice system came
to be. It all stemmed from slave patrols. After you know,
Emancipation Proclamation and after June tenth, once all black people
were free, we saw these things started spring up called
black colds and of black coats did was allowed poor blacks,
(11:04):
which were the majority of us at that time, to
be arrested for things that they called vagrancy laws that
meant poor living conditions. Well, if you just got kicked
off of a plantation and you have nowhere to go,
you didn't have the means to be exactly anywhere else. Yeah,
And a lot of black folks who fought in the
Civil War, who were armed in the Civil War, black
(11:25):
holes also allowed for them to be stripped of their
the weapons they had from fighting in the war. So
you started to see a lot of these folks put
back on plantations or put back into this How the
sharecropping system started with all of these came out of
Black Coast because there were no prisons at that time.
So they went back into involuntary labor. And then if
(11:47):
you know, you fast forward throughout history, I'll talk about
the city of Atlanta. The city of Atlanta didnt see
as first black police officer. I want to say, intwo
around nineteen, around the nineteen fifties somewhere, and you have
over a hundred years of history where everybody on the
law enforcement side were typically white men who were trained
(12:07):
and hunting black people who were escaped slaves, black code system,
and you know, it just it moves and moves and
moves into what we have today, which is why we
see so many cases of police brutality. Obviously high numbers
of you know, black and brown bodies in the system,
and you know, we need to start to do things
(12:28):
about that to level the playing field for everybody to
really be the country we said we wanted to be
where all men are created equal. So in this hotly
contested race for attorney General, what are some of the
other big ticket topics that are coming up? So most people,
I don't think, really understand the power the attorney general
(12:48):
has in Georgia. So if I had to rank it,
I would say the governor, you know, is the most
powerful elected official in the state, then the lieutenant governors
right underneath that. Then there as the attorney general. As
the attorney general is able to both work within the
criminal justice system and prosecute certain offenses. The attorney general
(13:09):
can hold local district attorneys accountable, police officers accountable. But
the attorney General also has the ability to bring lawsuits
on a civil side against anybody who violates the citizens
of the state of Georgia. So right now we see
things like the Affordable Care Act that a lot of
Republicans tends to refer to is Obamacare. We see that
(13:31):
being attacked. And so if we no longer have access
to affordable healthcare, you'll see so many people struggle to
be able to get you know, pay for their medications,
pay for treatments they need. The attorney general can stop
up and say, hey, I want to protect its powerful. Yes,
and so the attorney general can joint forces with other
(13:54):
attorneys general across the country and collectively, you know, you
can sue the federal government if you feel like laws
coming down from the fans are unconstitutional. If you have
a police agency within your state, you can sue that
police agency if they've shown practices of police misconduct or
police brutality. So there are a lot of things that
(14:14):
the Attorney General can do on both the Christian I
feel like you touched on something that's been a hot
topic within over the past couple of years, and you know,
there's a lot of different ways you can phrase it
where you're reallocating funds to police services or defunding the police.
Can you tell us a little bit more, because I
think that there's a lot of different narratives on what
(14:34):
that means and from the perspective that you hold on
how this could help or not the city of Atlanta
and and Georgia as well. So I prefer the term reallocate.
I think we need to reallocate resources and funds and manpower.
In an example I can give, let's take marijuana for example.
(14:55):
You know, marijuana is still illegal in the state of Georgia,
but we're starting to see it become legalized in several
other stuffs. Medical marijuana has now been legalized, but marijuana
like recreational marijuana, yes, yes, but we're saying other states
start to issue pardons for past marijuana convictions, and so
(15:17):
for people who live in the state of Georgia, you know,
like the kid justin who you know as worry about,
he could have been someone convicted of that. But so
here's what I mean when I say re allocate funds.
Instead of having police officers and district attorneys offices investing
into preventing or fighting those kinds of crimes, we can
(15:38):
have educational opportunities in place, and we can shift police
officers and district attorneys from those low level I would say,
drug offenses to more serious crimes like making sure we
stop you know, murders or gangs or you know, the
more serious offenses that endanger all of us. We can
reallocate our resources and manpower to fight those things if
(16:01):
we put the proper services in places for the things
where people really just need help. And I mean, this
is one of those topics that I feel, like, you know,
the average lay person like myself, we talked about all
the time, especially with the decriminalization of marijuana. Is it
that easy of a solution where it's like, Okay, you know,
you've now voted this person into power, and if you
decriminalize possession of marijuana, you know, under this weight, like
(16:25):
we can then literally open up pardons for people in
jail that have been sitting in jail for years? Is
it that easy? Every state is different, So some states
the governor has the ability to issue pardons, but in
Georgia there's a there's a board that does it. But
it all depends on who we have in office. Right,
if we have state senators and state reps elected who
(16:48):
wants to decriminalize it, then we'll get that done. It's
the city of Atlanta. A few years ago, their city council, Uh,
they decided to decriminalize possession under an within the city
of Atlanta, but the state law trump's you know, municipality law.
So you know, that's why voting is so important. And
(17:10):
I don't know, I maybe jumping ahead of you and
answering this question, but you know, you want people in
offices who have the same views that you have, and
who have views that are benefits for all people across
the board, you know, regardless of race, sexual orientation, political
affiliation background. You want people who want the best interest
for all of us instead of you know, what we've
(17:32):
traditionally seen is people in offices who only care about
their pockets or are groups of people, and it ends
up many other people. Oh my goodness, you know, the
power of the vote has become so much more. It's
always been so important. It's something that you know, our
forefathers fought for, but I think of late we've really
started to realize how important every boat counts, not just
(17:54):
at the highest level in terms of our president, but
down to these municipal levels, so that we can truly
elect officials that are for us and represent you know,
each of us and the things that we care about
and that are important to us. And we'll touch again
on voting, but I want to ask you a little
bit if you could talk about your nonprofit. I understand
you have a nonprofit called the National Social Justice Alliance,
(18:15):
and tell us a little bit more about its mission.
So I ran for district attorney. We had, unfortunately, the
George Floyd murder, Amad Aubrey was murdered, and Brianna Taylor
was murdered, and having all three of those things happened
back to back to back while I was in the
(18:36):
middle of running for office, I hit the point where
I said, I have to speak up and use this
fifteen minutes I have because I'm a black man running
for office. You know, to lead a criminal justice system
and I really came vocal about the history of how
black people were treated in the system and how district
(18:57):
attorneys could do something about it. Most of the time,
when you hear police brutality, people focus on reforming the police.
But the district attorney is a person who was able
to hold police responsible for police brutality or any misconduct,
just like they hold you are not responsible if we
do something. So after that election, UM, and thinking about
(19:19):
how I could keep the conversation going around that UH,
the National Social Justice Alliance was born and the mission
was to get as many local prosecutors from across the
country to commit to, you know, eliminating police brutality from
our system and agreeing the whole police officers accountable if
they crossed the line, agreeing to not take money campaign
(19:43):
money from police unions, the perception that you won't hold
police accountable if you have money from them. And yes,
district attorneys and police officers work together every day. Was
the police officers. You know, they make the arrests and
they make the cases and they bring to the yas,
but you don't work together like they're separate agencies. And
(20:04):
they should remain separate. Because the d A you know,
like I said, as the power to prosecute police. So
that was the original mission of the of n s
j A and how it was born. But now the
mission is a little bit more broad, where you know,
not only are we looking to work with d AS,
but we're also working with kids and teaching them about
(20:25):
that's great, That's fantastic, I really, I mean, it's just
such much needed work and we appreciate it because you
were out there in the trenches. All right, Christian. As
we wrap up this segment, I want to know, are
there any future projects that you're currently working on. I
read something about a media platform that will include a
talk show based on politics and social justice. That sounds
(20:46):
incredibly exciting. So yes, I started a online show called
Wise Up, where the mission is to educate, motivate, and elevate.
And we've had one big guest so far that was
actor comedian Desi Banks. Great, great friend, you know, great,
you know, young entertainer coming up. He has so much
(21:07):
heart and so to do the right thing. And so
you know, the biggest project though right now is this campaign,
you know, running for its general. I would be only
the twelfth black Attorney general ever in US. History, the
second black in the state of Georgia. We have had
one before in Georgia, and so I need everybody listening,
(21:28):
everybody watching h to support this campaign, to help us
get the word out, to let people know if we
want to check things up in a great way. The
website for the campaign is why Smith the number four
g a dot com. We would love to have your
support and help us become a g. But yeah, you know,
we'll pick up the Wise Up Show and have some
(21:48):
some more special guests and some fun segments on there
about everything we've been talking about about politics and voting
and just encouraging and inspiring you know, black brown minority
folks to reach for the stars because we can oftentimes,
you know, because of the daily struggles in life. You know,
sometimes it's not easy to see the sunlight. But I
(22:12):
mentioned it just to let people know, you know, the
sun can shine on us two and we can help
each other get into that sunshine. Well, I feel you're late.
Thank you so much, Christian for coming to the Money
Moves Podcast. We appreciate you, We wish you the best
of luck and can you one more time let our
audience know where they can find you on social media. Yes,
ma'am I G. It's at Christian wise Smith c h
(22:35):
R I S T I A n W I s
E s m I t h on ir G Facebook
is the same my name Christian Wise Smith. And then
again go to the campaign website why Smith the number
four g a dot com Why Smith number four g
a dot com. Alright, Money Movers, that's all the time
we have for today, but make sure to follow Christian
(22:55):
on all of his social media handles, and if we
have helped you make your money move, please make sure
to let us know by sending us a like, sharing
the knowledge, and or leave us a review on Apple podcast.
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(23:19):
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(23:42):
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podcasts from.
Hey, Money Movers, Welcome back to Money Moves, the daily
podcast determined to give you the keys to the Kingdom
of financial stability, wealth and abundance. Today's guest is an attorney,
nonprofit founder, and children's book author. He is currently a
(00:23):
running candidate for the Georgia Attorney General seat. Money Movers, Please,
welcome to the podcast, Christian wise Smith. Hi, Christian, Hey,
how's it going. Thank you for having me. This is
a tremendous opportunity and I'm honored to be talking to
you and everybody watching the show. Thank you well. Welcome
so much to our podcast. At Money Moves, we are
(00:44):
very intentional about educating our listeners and our audience on
the best ways to build generational wealth and educate our families.
And I think politics is, you know, a line that
sometimes people are very afraid to tow. But I think
what we've seen in the past couple of years in
terms of these social justice movements, we have all realized
the power that we have as individuals to influence politics
(01:07):
and how that in turn can influence the wealth that
we are building in our houses. So I am so
excited to have you here to share more on what
the importance of this role of Attorney General, and a
little bit more of your journey that's mine, that's I
want to start at the beginning. I want to know
a little bit more more about you, Christian. I want
you to your story is very inspiring. So tell us
(01:27):
what sort of got you here to this point where
you're running for this coveted Attorney general seat. Well, I
was originally grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio. It's where I
was born and raised. And I like to say that
I grew up in a justice system. Back on my
earliest childhood memory, the first thing I can come up
with the seeing my mother get arrested when I was
(01:48):
about five, and she got arrested a few times throughout
my childhood. And I was with my grandmother once and
I actually saw her get you know, stripped down her
underwear and arrested in front to me. And I grew
up seeing you know, a lot of my family members
in France struggle, you know, going through the system. I
have an uncle serving a life sentence right now from
(02:09):
murder um. My mother actually lost custody of me when
I was sixteen, and I made some bad decisions myself,
like I kicked out of school when I was seventeen,
and I really thought my life would be like everything
I saw growing up. I never imagine myself sitting, you know,
in a in a seat like this, with the opportunity
(02:29):
to speak to people like you. You know. I overcame
a lot just to finish high school, but thankfully I did,
and I became the first of my family to graduate
from college. Then I went on to get a master's
degree and then ultimately a law degree, and so you know,
being an attorney and being in out of political space now,
(02:50):
you know, I think stories like mine are relatable to
so many people, not just in the state of Georgia,
but across the country. People who have overcome adversity, you know,
people have had it off, and people who kind of
want to, you know, have that rags the richest kind
of story, um, you know, and I tell my story
for that reason in hopes of inspiring and showing people
(03:11):
that hey, if I can do it, you can do it,
we can do it. And uh, you know, thank you
for a game, for the opportunity to share it, you know,
And I mean not just I'm sure resonates with so
many people who are listening, you know, we've you know,
your story where you overcome these obstacles in your family home,
watching your mother, I mean that is heart wrenching. But
then to see you sitting here and being like, I've
(03:33):
now got a master's and a law degree, and I've
dedicated sort of your life to changing the lives of
so many others in Georgia. So we appreciate that so much.
Talk about now, Okay, you went to law school, you
got this masters, and you started a practice, and here
you are running for like a very big political seat.
What made you want to take this route and go
(03:54):
into politics. It starts back in so my first attime
ney job. I was an assistant prosecutor in the city
of Atlanta and Mr Court. I had a seventeen year
old kid who had been arrested for marijuana. And when
I saw him, you know, it was like I was
(04:14):
looking in the mirror. I was seeing myself at that age,
and he was in court with his mom, and I
remember asking him where he saw himself in ten years
and he said, I want to play in the NFL.
And you know, growing up the way I did. You know,
a lot of my friends myself we had dreams like that.
I think that a lot of you know, black young
man from inner cities, you know, one of the that
(04:36):
we we tend to dream toward our sports or entertainment careers.
And so you know, I made him aware of that
a drug conviction would prevent him from going to college
to play football. You can't get find that federal financial
ad if you have a drug conviction. So on the spot,
I created a diversion program for him. I said, if
(04:57):
you complete these conditions within this amount of time throughout
your case, so that you have the opportunity to, you know,
live the life that you say you want to live.
I mean, I don't know if this is the right term,
but those small mercies that you know, as someone in
a position of power, can afford on somebody else are
(05:17):
life changing, like life changing. You literally changed the kids
like And have you ever kept in touch with him?
Where is he now? Definitely? And if I can't, I
gotta tell this part of the story. Before I took
that job, I was a little hesitant because you know,
my background, my family, we only knew the justice system
from the opposite side. So I actually spoke to one
(05:38):
of my little cousins who served four years in prison
for mayors nineteen three, and I said, hey, man, you know,
what do you think about me taking this job? And
he said, because of our background, you will be able
to relate to people. You see the system, and you
will be able to help them get on the right track.
And so, you know, going back to the justice story,
(06:00):
his mother emailed me and said, thank you for giving
my son a chance. He's playing football at a junior
college in Oklahoma and doing great in the classroom. In
she called me, say hey, thanks again. He transferred to
the University of Tennessee. Thank you. She called again and said, hey, man,
you gotta come to a game. We wouldn't be here
(06:20):
without you. So I went up to a game that year.
His senior year, I went to three of his games.
But you know, the coolest part about this story is
that in the spring of eighteen, I went up to
Knoxville and saw him get a bachelor's degree in communications
from the University of Tennessee. So kid's name is Justin Martin.
I still talked to him a lot. He was at
(06:41):
my wedding. Wow, that's an incredible story, Christian. That's beautiful.
Really really was like a little brother. Now, so we
keep in touch a lot. So this also speaks to
the importance of these like I mean, you're a civic servants.
You are in a position of power that can change
the life of so many people, especially in our community.
(07:01):
We know that criminal justice reform is so important and
having the right people in power can really change the
face of an entire community. Can you talk to me
about your thoughts on criminal justice reform and how that
ties into what your role would be if you get
the position of Attorney general. So I really take to
(07:22):
heart the words and the original founding document of our country,
which wasn't the Constitution, it was a Declaration of Independence
of seventy two, forty six years ago. And then that
document is said that you know, we hold these truths
to be self evident, that all men are created equal. Well,
we know that throughout the history of our country, you know,
(07:45):
we haven't lived up to that, and particularly black and
brown and minority in a criminal justice space specifically, have
always gotten the short end of the stick. And so
having been a prosecutor for seven years and being on
the inside of the system and seeing how the system
really cared about conviction rates and find money, and the
(08:07):
system really perpetuated the system of recipivism or repeat offending
as we know it. So two years ago I ran
for district attorney in Fordson County in Atlanta, and I said, hey,
we need we need to put a stop to this.
And it takes someone like me who understands what happens
on the other side of it, to be able to
(08:28):
go in and say, you know, instead of locking everybody
up for every offense, you know, why don't we get
some services for people if they're suffering from mental health disabilities.
Why don't we get treatment for people if they have
substance addiction problems. Why don't we align people up with
job opportunities and educational opportunities, maybe if they've dropped out
of high school or having on hard times. Because if
(08:51):
we put somebody in jail and they can't make bail,
they're sitting there before they've even been convicted of anything.
They'll lose their house and lose the job. And once
you lose everything, once you get out and you have nothing,
a lot of times you commit a crime to survive. Yeah,
a lot of crimes that we see are survival crimes.
(09:13):
You know, I'm not talking about the rapes and the
murders and the that's different, you know, the non violent
I would say, low level crimes where people were literally
trying to survive. You know, we can change or reform
the system to make it better for folks like that.
And I have proof. I went out to Seattle, Washington,
and and they created a program out there called Lead
(09:38):
Law Enforcement Assistant Diversion. But they only focus on two offenses, uh,
sex crimes or prostitution and drug possession. So if anybody,
if police encounter anybody, you know, with those two things.
Instead of the traditional rout of prosecution jail courts, they
try to allow those people with services to help them
(09:59):
break out of those life styles and live better lives.
And so they had over five hundred success stories by
the time I visited the program in I mean, that's
a lot of people's lives that are changed. That's a
lot of individual lives and family lives and compete lives.
And you know, once those people have jobs and they
have housing, you know, property rates increase if you don't
(10:22):
have crime on the streets up. School system ratings go
up when property values increased. So it's all a cycle
that's connected, and the criminal justice system is in the
center of that, and we've been using our resources, in
my opinion, the wrong way for too long. And I
have to be candid if you go back to I
(10:42):
guess the foundation of how our criminal justice system came
to be. It all stemmed from slave patrols. After you know,
Emancipation Proclamation and after June tenth, once all black people
were free, we saw these things started spring up called
black colds and of black coats did was allowed poor blacks,
(11:04):
which were the majority of us at that time, to
be arrested for things that they called vagrancy laws that
meant poor living conditions. Well, if you just got kicked
off of a plantation and you have nowhere to go,
you didn't have the means to be exactly anywhere else. Yeah,
And a lot of black folks who fought in the
Civil War, who were armed in the Civil War, black
(11:25):
holes also allowed for them to be stripped of their
the weapons they had from fighting in the war. So
you started to see a lot of these folks put
back on plantations or put back into this How the
sharecropping system started with all of these came out of
Black Coast because there were no prisons at that time.
So they went back into involuntary labor. And then if
(11:47):
you know, you fast forward throughout history, I'll talk about
the city of Atlanta. The city of Atlanta didnt see
as first black police officer. I want to say, intwo
around nineteen, around the nineteen fifties somewhere, and you have
over a hundred years of history where everybody on the
law enforcement side were typically white men who were trained
(12:07):
and hunting black people who were escaped slaves, black code system,
and you know, it just it moves and moves and
moves into what we have today, which is why we
see so many cases of police brutality. Obviously high numbers
of you know, black and brown bodies in the system,
and you know, we need to start to do things
(12:28):
about that to level the playing field for everybody to
really be the country we said we wanted to be
where all men are created equal. So in this hotly
contested race for attorney General, what are some of the
other big ticket topics that are coming up? So most people,
I don't think, really understand the power the attorney general
(12:48):
has in Georgia. So if I had to rank it,
I would say the governor, you know, is the most
powerful elected official in the state, then the lieutenant governors
right underneath that. Then there as the attorney general. As
the attorney general is able to both work within the
criminal justice system and prosecute certain offenses. The attorney general
(13:09):
can hold local district attorneys accountable, police officers accountable. But
the attorney General also has the ability to bring lawsuits
on a civil side against anybody who violates the citizens
of the state of Georgia. So right now we see
things like the Affordable Care Act that a lot of
Republicans tends to refer to is Obamacare. We see that
(13:31):
being attacked. And so if we no longer have access
to affordable healthcare, you'll see so many people struggle to
be able to get you know, pay for their medications,
pay for treatments they need. The attorney general can stop
up and say, hey, I want to protect its powerful. Yes,
and so the attorney general can joint forces with other
(13:54):
attorneys general across the country and collectively, you know, you
can sue the federal government if you feel like laws
coming down from the fans are unconstitutional. If you have
a police agency within your state, you can sue that
police agency if they've shown practices of police misconduct or
police brutality. So there are a lot of things that
(14:14):
the Attorney General can do on both the Christian I
feel like you touched on something that's been a hot
topic within over the past couple of years, and you know,
there's a lot of different ways you can phrase it
where you're reallocating funds to police services or defunding the police.
Can you tell us a little bit more, because I
think that there's a lot of different narratives on what
(14:34):
that means and from the perspective that you hold on
how this could help or not the city of Atlanta
and and Georgia as well. So I prefer the term reallocate.
I think we need to reallocate resources and funds and manpower.
In an example I can give, let's take marijuana for example.
(14:55):
You know, marijuana is still illegal in the state of Georgia,
but we're starting to see it become legalized in several
other stuffs. Medical marijuana has now been legalized, but marijuana
like recreational marijuana, yes, yes, but we're saying other states
start to issue pardons for past marijuana convictions, and so
(15:17):
for people who live in the state of Georgia, you know,
like the kid justin who you know as worry about,
he could have been someone convicted of that. But so
here's what I mean when I say re allocate funds.
Instead of having police officers and district attorneys offices investing
into preventing or fighting those kinds of crimes, we can
(15:38):
have educational opportunities in place, and we can shift police
officers and district attorneys from those low level I would say,
drug offenses to more serious crimes like making sure we
stop you know, murders or gangs or you know, the
more serious offenses that endanger all of us. We can
reallocate our resources and manpower to fight those things if
(16:01):
we put the proper services in places for the things
where people really just need help. And I mean, this
is one of those topics that I feel, like, you know,
the average lay person like myself, we talked about all
the time, especially with the decriminalization of marijuana. Is it
that easy of a solution where it's like, Okay, you know,
you've now voted this person into power, and if you
decriminalize possession of marijuana, you know, under this weight, like
(16:25):
we can then literally open up pardons for people in
jail that have been sitting in jail for years? Is
it that easy? Every state is different, So some states
the governor has the ability to issue pardons, but in
Georgia there's a there's a board that does it. But
it all depends on who we have in office. Right,
if we have state senators and state reps elected who
(16:48):
wants to decriminalize it, then we'll get that done. It's
the city of Atlanta. A few years ago, their city council, Uh,
they decided to decriminalize possession under an within the city
of Atlanta, but the state law trump's you know, municipality law.
So you know, that's why voting is so important. And
(17:10):
I don't know, I maybe jumping ahead of you and
answering this question, but you know, you want people in
offices who have the same views that you have, and
who have views that are benefits for all people across
the board, you know, regardless of race, sexual orientation, political
affiliation background. You want people who want the best interest
for all of us instead of you know, what we've
(17:32):
traditionally seen is people in offices who only care about
their pockets or are groups of people, and it ends
up many other people. Oh my goodness, you know, the
power of the vote has become so much more. It's
always been so important. It's something that you know, our
forefathers fought for, but I think of late we've really
started to realize how important every boat counts, not just
(17:54):
at the highest level in terms of our president, but
down to these municipal levels, so that we can truly
elect officials that are for us and represent you know,
each of us and the things that we care about
and that are important to us. And we'll touch again
on voting, but I want to ask you a little
bit if you could talk about your nonprofit. I understand
you have a nonprofit called the National Social Justice Alliance,
(18:15):
and tell us a little bit more about its mission.
So I ran for district attorney. We had, unfortunately, the
George Floyd murder, Amad Aubrey was murdered, and Brianna Taylor
was murdered, and having all three of those things happened
back to back to back while I was in the
(18:36):
middle of running for office, I hit the point where
I said, I have to speak up and use this
fifteen minutes I have because I'm a black man running
for office. You know, to lead a criminal justice system
and I really came vocal about the history of how
black people were treated in the system and how district
(18:57):
attorneys could do something about it. Most of the time,
when you hear police brutality, people focus on reforming the police.
But the district attorney is a person who was able
to hold police responsible for police brutality or any misconduct,
just like they hold you are not responsible if we
do something. So after that election, UM, and thinking about
(19:19):
how I could keep the conversation going around that UH,
the National Social Justice Alliance was born and the mission
was to get as many local prosecutors from across the
country to commit to, you know, eliminating police brutality from
our system and agreeing the whole police officers accountable if
they crossed the line, agreeing to not take money campaign
(19:43):
money from police unions, the perception that you won't hold
police accountable if you have money from them. And yes,
district attorneys and police officers work together every day. Was
the police officers. You know, they make the arrests and
they make the cases and they bring to the yas,
but you don't work together like they're separate agencies. And
(20:04):
they should remain separate. Because the d A you know,
like I said, as the power to prosecute police. So
that was the original mission of the of n s
j A and how it was born. But now the
mission is a little bit more broad, where you know,
not only are we looking to work with d AS,
but we're also working with kids and teaching them about
(20:25):
that's great, That's fantastic, I really, I mean, it's just
such much needed work and we appreciate it because you
were out there in the trenches. All right, Christian. As
we wrap up this segment, I want to know, are
there any future projects that you're currently working on. I
read something about a media platform that will include a
talk show based on politics and social justice. That sounds
(20:46):
incredibly exciting. So yes, I started a online show called
Wise Up, where the mission is to educate, motivate, and elevate.
And we've had one big guest so far that was
actor comedian Desi Banks. Great, great friend, you know, great,
you know, young entertainer coming up. He has so much
(21:07):
heart and so to do the right thing. And so
you know, the biggest project though right now is this campaign,
you know, running for its general. I would be only
the twelfth black Attorney general ever in US. History, the
second black in the state of Georgia. We have had
one before in Georgia, and so I need everybody listening,
(21:28):
everybody watching h to support this campaign, to help us
get the word out, to let people know if we
want to check things up in a great way. The
website for the campaign is why Smith the number four
g a dot com. We would love to have your
support and help us become a g. But yeah, you know,
we'll pick up the Wise Up Show and have some
(21:48):
some more special guests and some fun segments on there
about everything we've been talking about about politics and voting
and just encouraging and inspiring you know, black brown minority
folks to reach for the stars because we can oftentimes,
you know, because of the daily struggles in life. You know,
sometimes it's not easy to see the sunlight. But I
(22:12):
mentioned it just to let people know, you know, the
sun can shine on us two and we can help
each other get into that sunshine. Well, I feel you're late.
Thank you so much, Christian for coming to the Money
Moves Podcast. We appreciate you, We wish you the best
of luck and can you one more time let our
audience know where they can find you on social media. Yes,
ma'am I G. It's at Christian wise Smith c h
(22:35):
R I S T I A n W I s
E s m I t h on ir G Facebook
is the same my name Christian Wise Smith. And then
again go to the campaign website why Smith the number
four g a dot com Why Smith number four g
a dot com. Alright, Money Movers, that's all the time
we have for today, but make sure to follow Christian
(22:55):
on all of his social media handles, and if we
have helped you make your money move, please make sure
to let us know by sending us a like, sharing
the knowledge, and or leave us a review on Apple podcast.
Make sure you tune in Monday to Friday to the
Money Moves podcast and subscribe to the Money Moves podcast
powered by Greenwood, so that you two can have the
keys to financial freedom that you so rightly deserve. Thank
(23:19):
you so much for tuning in Money Moves audience. If
you want more or a recap of this episode, please
go to the bank Greenwood dot com and check out
the Money Moves podcast blog. Money Moves is an I
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For more podcasts on i heart Radio, visit the I
(23:42):
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