August 30, 2025 • 42 mins
Khansa Muhammad is the Vice President of the Los Angeles Reparations Advisory Commission, appointed by former Mayor Eric Garcetti, President and Co-Facilitator of the National Assembly of American Slavery Descendants, founding steering member of a Coalition for a Just and Equitable California, anchor organization and founding member of NAASD Los Angeles.
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https://civilandhumanrights.lacity.gov/press-releases/reparations-report-executive-summary
https://www.instagram.com/iamfridayjones/
https://www.instagram.com/diprimaradio/
https://civilandhumanrights.lacity.gov/press-releases/reparations-report-executive-summary
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Kay Bla Talk fifteen eighty. It's time for Friedman Friday
and looking forward to talking with Commissioner Konsum Mohammad. She
is part of the City of Los Angeles Reparations Advisory
Commission and also in her alter ego Friday Jones, a
(00:21):
long time reparation activist, and we will be talking with
her momentarily. Want to update you on a couple of
stories which we may have a shot at talking about
next hour. The President has decided to end Secret Service
protection for Kamala Harris, effective immediately. She had gotten an
(00:45):
extra year of Secret Service protection. You know, presidents get
it for life. Vice presidents get it for six months,
but President Biden had arranged for her to have it
for an extra year. And I think it's largely to
do with the fact that, much like Barack Obama, she
had more death threats than any other person in that
(01:08):
position a vice president. Well now it's over, and so
you know, it's part of the revenge tour, the idea
that this man is zero empathy responsibility manners. Okay, let
me not go there. Let me stay on the reparations conversation,
(01:31):
because that's what we do here on Freedman Fridays every week,
and that's the purpose of this hour every week is
to keep reparations on our minds, keep us up to date,
and make sure that we are part of the solution
and educated. It came about almost two years ago when
(01:53):
I was in a room with a lot of leaders,
African American leaders, people that are doing solid, amazing work,
and the fact that these folks knew almost nothing about
what is happening with reparations here in the state of
California or in the many other states that now have
city commissions scattered throughout. There's only a few that actually
(02:16):
have state commissions, but it's growing all the time, even
under Trump. And so I realized in that meeting that
I needed to do more because if these people are
tapped in on a leadership level don't know what's happening
with reparations, what does that say for the average person
who's just trying to keep the lights on. And so
(02:37):
that's why we've been doing this for the past almost
two years. I want to encourage you, if you've missed
these shows, you can get yourself up to date on reparations.
We have all of them are cataloged wherever you get
your podcasts, but you can also find them on YouTube,
and I would particularly point you to the broadcast we
(03:00):
recently did the three weeks ago with doctor William Sandy
Derity really a great one, but we've got all kinds
of folks because every perspective on reparations is welcome into
this conversation, because the idea is to hear from everyone
so we can have real informed conversation. But also I
(03:25):
think that the normalization of reparations, not as a fringe issue,
but is something that we are seriously considering and doing
is important. There is, for example, and I don't know
how many of you are tracking this, right across right
up the street, I should say, from Oakland in Alameda
(03:48):
County is a city called small city called Hayward, and
they have now created something called the Russell City Redress,
which is, as we know, restitution and re dress are
part of reparations. It's not the whole thing, you know that,
but the fact that hundreds of families who had their
land taken from them in the nineteen sixties in Hayward,
(04:12):
California are now going to get at least something. It's
not going to be today's value of the land, but
it will be at least something they've now raised close
to a million dollars. Okay, you're talking about hundreds of families,
so that's not going to be a lot of money.
But it's part of this movement which says you don't
(04:35):
just get to get away with it. It's part of
what was unleashed by Bruce's Beach here in California. And
I'm so pleased that the Golden State have been able
to be a leader in this, even though people will say, oh,
technically we weren't a slave state. Well, that is one
of the reasons why the City of Los Angeles Reparations
(04:55):
Commission report is so important, as is the California one.
And there's other cities that are doing their own within
California based on or inspired by California. But I think
these I understand what doctor Derrity was saying. We don't
want the federal folks to come back and say, well,
(05:17):
you already got reparations in Hayward, in Evanston, where the
scope and the magnitude of what has to happen to
really repair the impact of Jim Crow and enslavement and
all of the subsequent harms is going to take the
federal government because, as he said, they're the only ones
(05:39):
that can print money. But I do think that all
of these small steps are part of the momentum, part
of the normalization of reparations. And hey like, it's a
concrete step. If that descendant of a homeowner who had
their land stolen by the city in the sixties gets
(06:00):
twenty thirty fifty grand, it is something. It is not
the whole thing, but it is something. It is a
step in the direction. And so here in Heyward, we're
talking about folks that are still living. In some cases
it will be descendants, but mostly it'll be folks that
(06:21):
are still living. And there they're older Americans. It's called
the Russell City Redress Fund. They apologize back in twenty
twenty one. An apology, an empty handed apology, is what
I call it. The county also apologized in twenty twenty three.
And so now they have put together about a million
(06:45):
dollars between the county, the city, two different districts in
the city. Actually I think it's a little over a million.
And so they're going to sixty years after the fact,
they're going to start handing out some checks there in Hayward, California.
Baby steps, but we're clocking them. All right. We've got
Commissioner LA City Reparations Advisory Commissioner Kans Mohammed joining me
(07:11):
when we come forward on KBLA Talk fifteen eighty. All right,
she is here, and I'm so excited. She is a
LA City of Los Angeles Reparations Advisory commission member. She's
also a longtime reparations activists. Outside of official circles and
(07:32):
committees and such, she is known widely in the reparations
movement as Friday Jones. She is commissioner. She is a
name known as Conshamed, same woman, and she's a graduate
of Howard University in the LA African American Women's Political
(07:52):
Policy Institute. Good morning, commissioner.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Good morning, how is everything. What's up KBLA family. I'm
so happy to be here.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Yeah, happy to have you in. So okay, So we're
gonna cut right to the chase here. The executive summary
of the City Reparations report has come out, and now
we've been waiting for next steps, right, which is yes,
which is the report, which is a full report and recommendations.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Right correct, And you know we are imprecarious times. If
anyone has been paying attention. I know the KBLA family
has been paying attention. But I actually if I'm being honest,
and so I'm speaking unofficially as the commissioner so that
I can say the things that I will.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Okay, so you're Friday Jones, So I'm Friday Jones.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
However, I do want to start actually building you know,
advocacy for what I know is coming in the pipeline,
if that makes sense. We all know, thank goodness, because
of our controller. We know that the city has no money,
right he's been talking about it if you follow him
on social media, mister Mehia, we know the city has
(09:11):
no money. However, we cannot let the purses of municipalities
be the barometer for whether or not the harms that
have been done to constituents and citizens you know, are
going to be repaired. That to me does not fly,
and I feel like that is kind of where we are.
(09:32):
But through our process, you know, we had a community
organizations that we invited into our process, and so really
today I'm kind of speaking to those people. I'm speaking
to folks that live here in Lamart Park, whether you're
black and in the valley, whether you black in South Central,
this morning's heartfelt sort of plea is for you, because
(09:56):
I want people to activate behind this. We're in a
very unique opportunity with the city because even I don't
agree with everything happening at the state level, we're in
a state that is having a reparations movement, and I
want to shout out c Jeck. They are up in
Sacramento today doing the good will of the people. And
then we're in the city in one of the largest
(10:16):
cities in the country. We also know that California because
of our size at the federal level, like we have
the most senators. We have what are the other people
Congressmen we have the most.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Well everyone has two senators, but yeah, we have the
most Congressmen. We have our biggest congressional delegation.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Right, well, senators too per state and then Congress. You know,
we have a nice chunk of the pie. And not
that they all are voting for Democrats. And we're in
the process of fighting with Texas and whether or not
we're going redistrict, and we're in weird times, but we're
really in a time that I think it's pivotal and
it's a time that requires people to be energized, and
so that is why I came out here. We know
(10:56):
the five pillars of reparation, compensation which no one wants
to talk about, restitution, satisfaction, rehabilitation, and guarantees of non repetition.
And the guarantees of non repetition for me are important.
If you look at our executive summary report, which was
our academic partner, cal State Northridge and doctor Gamage, she
(11:20):
was the lead marketing damage was the lead researcher for
cal State Northridge, and if you look at Mockingbirds reports,
which have both been combined in that executive summary, the city,
particularly LAPD, has about one hundred year reign of terror.
So if you've had one hundred year reign of terror,
I need one hundred and twenty five years on whatever
(11:40):
our pilot program is. And obviously with a timeline like that,
it's not about what's in the budget right now. It's
about having vision and longevity in order to say we
actually understand what this means and we're willing to do
these five things. So that's the perspective that I'm coming.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Mm hmm, okay, not we don't have money today. But
what is your one hundred and twenty five year plan.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Yes, one hundred and ten percent. If you all remember
on August thirty first last year, see see how God
work Black August. You know, when they were trying to
arrest us at the capitol last year as we were
trying to fight to get Senator Bradford's bills put forward.
We are one year later. We're one year later, and
(12:26):
now we have the city coming out. And that was
intentional from the beginning. For those who may have heard
me on the station before, we talked about wanting to
give the state the ability to legislate how they wanted
to legislate. And in my opinion, you fumbled the ball
because had they put forward Bradford's bills and allowed the
two in particular ahead to the floor to be voted on,
(12:48):
the one that kavan Ward worked on, which was the
land return bill, would not have gotten vetoed by our
governor because they would have been an agency. There would
have been twelve million dollars.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
I believe you would have vetoed it anyway, but wow,
then it would have been I've been on him. Yeah, right,
if we would have had to see right, he would
have had to come up with another excuse.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
Correct.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
So the point is it's a year later and now
the city is coming forward with its report. I wanted
to go forward with some of the recommendations. I kind
of took on Bradford's understanding that there had to be
a department. So I did recommend, or the commission recommended
that there be a department. That is, how's actually under
(13:28):
the Civil and Human Rights Department. We know the city
had cuts, However that department is aware of this process.
That department already kind of works in a civil rights
and human rights space. That's literally the name of the department.
So let's go ahead, and how's you know, an agency,
(13:48):
a city department that will administer these reparations for the
next one hundred and twenty five years right there under
you know, the direction of Capri General Manager Caprimattics. She's
an excellent lead and I think that her staff would
care for the recommendations. We also need to have some
sort of physical area and so after the fires, and
(14:11):
I understand, you know, in terms of governance, you can't overlap.
But I've also taken this body of work to me
is a template like for any Municipality, USA. To me,
all reparations policies are that you can there are so
many things that need to be repaired that you almost
can just create a template and say, you know, people,
(14:31):
go make it happen. And so that's kind of where
I'm at. Unfortunately, Palisades is in the City of Los
Angelus's boundaries and under their jurisdiction. But Alta Dina is
not right. And so my rationale in thinking in recommending
Alta Dina almost be like a sister pilot physical area
(14:55):
is the fact that the county itself is implicated in
our report through their District Attorney's office, because it is
the county who did all of the prosecuting that happened,
whether it was with the Black Panthers, you know, whether
it was the co Intel pro running through LAPD. Cointelpro
obviously is federal, and so in my opinion, in my assessment,
(15:17):
even though the harm may have been largely done through LAPD,
the Mayor of the City of Los Angeles on multiple
occasions has gone to the federal government for funding for
whatever we did it. During COVID, we have had our
county be called upon that happened obviously during the fires right,
(15:38):
and so it's not a foreign idea that the mayor
of Los Angeles would go seeking funds elsewhere. And so
to me, it was important to actually make that a
mandate that said, the mayor has to go to the
federal government and ask for funding to do this one
hundred and twenty five year proposed project. The mayor has
to go to the county. Let's go ahead and make
(16:00):
Altadena a sister city. But I've worked with some advocates
in Alta Dina and said, you guys need to go
get this. Go get this from the county. Even if
we can't make it happen on the city side, you guys,
go and get it. I believe you advocate from where
you are. It's a model for the National Assembly of
American Slavery Descendants, of which I am also the president.
So I put it out there to the folks in
(16:22):
Altadena who are active and busy. I don't know what
they're going to do with it, but it's an idea.
The other two areas would include I believe it's the
Vermont Corridor, and we wanted to name that after a
bus driver and I think her name was her last
name Imperial Highway Arcola Philip Corridor. Let's name it after
(16:47):
someone who actually she was like the first African American
woman who like worked driving the buses for the city.
So let's lift her up and let's remember her during
that corridor. And of course we're on the Crenshaw Corridor,
which has already been renow the Malcolm X Corridor. So
let those be the two sort of areas and hubs
where we actually provide services with with the city offices
(17:10):
that we're talking about. And as I've already mentioned, as
far as the funding sources, LAPD obviously needs to chunk
over some funds. They take up a significant portion of
the city's budget. And so since they did the most
of the harm, we can talk about, we don't have
the money because they have all the money the County
of La and obviously the Federal Bureau of Investigations and
(17:34):
a percentage of California's in the city's cannabis taxes, because
the City of La pays into the state a significant
amount of cannabis taxes. And we can't forget that the
state built a bunch of jails. We all were here
like in the nineties, like you know, the federal money
seemed to come down in order to build the jail.
(17:56):
So again it's all to the.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Jails to house the people who right selling and smoking cannabis, right,
which is now legal and a hugely profitable industry.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Right. So we had a war on drugs, So let's
have a war on drugs fund to go along with
our reparations fund so that we can go ahead and
get these repairs started, get this reparation started, you know,
with you and guidelines of those five principles so that
it's meaningful and so.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Yeah, so those are those are some of the things
that we're looking at as far as recommendations based on
the report itself.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Based on the report itself, I think that you can't
like we're in a you can't argue against Trump like
Trump Trump, Trump is the devil. You know, you can't
be out here on the news and say, okay, I
have to protect my immigrant family and you know, whether
(18:52):
your maxine water is, whether you're mayor bath. You can't
put it all on the line and then go, oh,
we just don't have any money. Like that does not
fly for me. And when the state the California Black
legislators basically didn't bring Senator Bradford's two of his three
bills to a vote. What they said in the press
(19:13):
was that they had a ten year plan. Right, we
haven't seen their ten year plan. We have the ability
here to take these recommendations and make it into a
hundred year plan and not just kick the can down
the road. And I really really don't want us to
do that. The other thing that we're kind of seeing
now at the state and the world informs my work.
(19:34):
One of the things that we're seeing with the state
with what is it cal State Universities and the six
million dollars to do a genealogy study, which is to
me a huge waste of taxpayer money. However, I expect
that a lot of that funding, in addition to cal State,
will also go to NGO's non governmental organizations. And after
(19:57):
the homeless War on the homeless, I don't know if
you have a warn homeless. That doesn't even sound right
like that sounds like the wrong kind of energy. But
with all the funding that was spent with a homeless
at the state level, at the city level, when there
was an accountability and there was an audit and it
was like, okay, show us you know show us how
many homeless have been removed. It almost was like a
(20:20):
net zero, and so I wanted to make sure that
there were some sort of what do you call it,
like protections built in, like we're gonna work with nonprofit sites.
But yeah, there's there's oversight. You have to do annual
reporting thirty only thirty five percent, which is generous, can
be used for your general overhead. Meaning if you're paying payroll, fine,
(20:41):
pay your payroll, but you're not going to take one
hundred percent of this money and pay your director. You
know you're not gonna take one hundred percent of this
money and pay your staff. We actually need you to
produce what it is that we expect you to produce,
and if you don't produce it, you can't come back
to the city and want to be one of our
NGO partners for at least a three year three to
(21:04):
five year window. And I think we as I'm not
a legislator, like I've never won an elected office position,
but I have to run. You have to run to
win unless someone you know dies and you can like
slide in or something like that. Those things happen every day.
But the point is we want it to be thoughtful
(21:26):
with our expectations of nonprofits that might be doing this work.
And so yeah, and you know we're Downtown Crenshaw, right,
We are in the neighborhood of downtown Crenshaw. So you
gotta throw land trust in there. You have to throw
a land trust in there for the beneficiary class. It's
(21:46):
important to have that element because land and disposition of
land is a real thing. Yes it is.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
We're right up against new traffic and sports. We're gonna
continue unpacking some of these recommendations from the LA City
Reparations Advisory Commission. What we think they might be. What
we have a good idea they maybe when it's unveiled
in September when we come forward with Friday Jones. It's
a Freedman Friday and show is k BLA talk fifteen eighty?
Speaker 2 (22:17):
What is that?
Speaker 1 (22:19):
What does that sound mild? It's a Freedman Friday and
Reparations longtime activists Consumhamed aka Friday Jones is here. So
we were giving you an exclusive sneak peek of the
recommendations of the La City Reparations Advisory Commission, which is,
(22:40):
you guys have completed your work.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
We have completed our work. The department that we were
housed under again, the Department of Civil and Human Rights,
is in the process of finalizing this report and then
we will have our once over of the final report
and then it'll be released to the public. And these
are just ideas. I want to frame it is that
(23:03):
these are ideations of what municipal reparations could be. And
these are some of the ideations that were presented to
the city and we will see, you know, what happens.
I am and will always be an advocate. I was
bullied as a kid, so I don't like bullies. I
don't like being told no. I have the privilege of
(23:26):
working in a business and an industry where you know,
when you work for wealthy people, it's figure it out.
It's not no, like no, it's not an option. And
that's kind of how I feel about reparations. And I
do feel although we're making this demand on these governmental bodies,
it's also our duty, you know, we do Asada. If
(23:47):
we have a duty to fight for freedom, it is,
you know, our duty to protect and love one another,
and so it's our duty to do this work. Now
you don't have to do it forty hours a week.
But you have a duty to do this work. And
it's important that I'm here and I'm at a at
kb LA and I'm here with you Dominique, just reminding
people of our role and our responsibility uh in this work.
(24:11):
And we are moving into a phase where the city
will have done its work.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
So the report comes out, we'll get the final final.
We have the preliminary which is available right now. If
you haven't read it, you can find it on LA
and Civil LA.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Civil Rights. We love LA. That's not the thing. La
is LA for everyone for everyone. Yeah, we're gonna look
it up so that we don't know what it is
LA for all right, yeah, La for all. I think
it's LA for all. Anyway, we're gonna work out the
actual details. But you can go to that website you
can see the report. The other thing, you know, as
(24:44):
we're talking about, oh my god, we don't have any
money one of the things. And this was like my
idea because this was supposed to be housed all with
the researches. In terms of development, and if you know
anything about business, your development partner is the rainmaker. They
are the person who figures out how to find the money.
And so we actually had mocking Bird, and that was
(25:05):
Mockingbird's role. You know. I recall in one of our
very first meetings, they did like a lightweight presentation, and
I was like, well, where the corporations, because I thought
we were gonna look at corporations that were aligned, had
some sort of programs that might be aligned or like
reparations adjacent, so that we could tap into a public
(25:28):
private partnership. And it was like, oh, well, so many
of the corporations, you know, have a negative representation when
it comes to black people. I'm like, that's America. Like
sometimes I understand we'd be on like sanctimonious stuff, but
we can't be sanctimonious, like if we're gonna argue about that,
like the dollar bill itself is dirty, so don't I mean,
(25:51):
if you are eighteen sixty five corporation like Cargill, which
is also one of the biggest foundations in the United States.
I mean, I'm not gonna get mad that the eighteen
hundreds happened because I don't believe in white guilt. I
believe in doing what is necessary for all constituents, and
that includes the American freemen, descendants of persons who are
(26:13):
enslaved in the United States. And so I think sometimes
like the emotion that comes from whether it's white folks,
black folks around reparations, particularly when it's like negative energy,
like we don't need.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
That well, and that's one of the reasons why we
have to keep talking about it, just to normalize. But
I'm just going through the steps here. So the Executive
Summary and Examination of African American Experience in Los Angeles,
the interim report, came out August twenty twenty four. It's available.
You can find it at Civil and Human Rights dot
Lacity dot gov or just type in LAS for everyone
that is what it is dot com dot com. And
(26:49):
so the next step is for the complete report, which
includes recommendations, which is coming out next month.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Well, it'll come to the Commission next month, and I
think it's out to the public by year. And I
feel like holidays like Thanksgiving ish.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
So you're getting a really really sneak peak, right, you.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Are getting a sneak peek. And if you follow me
on social media, I really I will be looking for
our local activists organizations. BLM has been very thoughtful BLM
Los Angeles, and I want to shout out doctor Malina Abdullah.
She has opened the center over there in Lamart Park
in order for me and other reparations organizers to speak
(27:29):
about what has been happening, you know, Brotherhood Crusade. There
have been some church organizations that are not in the
top of my mind but have been active through this process.
And I want to make sure that I, you know,
now that the commission is ending, I want to make
sure that the advocacy part that needs to be maintained
(27:50):
by the public is And again that is the whole
premise on why I am here.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
Okay, So steps executive summary came out, goes back to
you guys, the full summer goes back to the commission
for a review, then it'll go to the public toward
the end of the year. We think, at what point
does this go in front of the city council?
Speaker 2 (28:14):
You know, through this process, so like, there are a
bunch of rules when you're a commissioner, and we could
not we cannot technically advocate for specific legislation as a commissioner,
So I cannot reach out to my city council member,
which is Heather Hut, and say hey, Heather Hut.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Yeah, I vaguely remember that I used to be a commissioner.
I was a commission in the Status of Women, but
it was a long time ago. So but we know
that part of the process is that the recommendations of
the commission are meant to go.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
To the mayor. Because remember, this is a blue ribbon.
We were a blue ribbon, we were impaneled by the
former mayor, right, and so this is a blue ribbon
directly to the like you know, from.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
So it goes. So the next step will be the
final report. Whenever its release, we'll go to the mayor.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
Yes, and don't get me wrong, I'm sure city council
members will all receive copies. However, this report has been
at the at the request of the mayor, and so
that is ultimately who the recipient is.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
Okay, so what because I mean, that's the executive branch, right,
they don't.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
That's the executive branch. She does have some executive powers. Also,
I like the timing of this. Initially we were trying
to be in the So the city has a fiscal calendar,
not a calendar year calendar, meaning not from January to December.
It actually goes from July first to June thirtieth of
every year, it's a fiscal year, so this is a
(29:42):
good time for us. We were hoping to be in
the fiscal year this year, but we also didn't want
to rush the process. So I'm actually okay with the
fact that the final report will be coming out at
the end of the year because I know February is around.
When you know, February March, I think is when the
mayor announces their budget, so we will be in the
budget season. So from you know, a calendar perspective and
(30:03):
from a governmental calendar perspective, we're actually sitting in a
good place, which is also why I want to take
this window of time going into the ending of the
year to rally the troops. For folks who don't follow
me on social media, please follow me on all social
media at I am I, the letter I the words am,
I Am Friday Jones. I'm particularly active on Twitter because
(30:27):
you will see more coming from me to rally the
troops in Los Angeles, and whether it's unions you know
Seiu I see out there on the front lines, whether
it's our unions. This is a time where you should
be tapping into this work because it's meaningful.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
Right, so that the mayor can make execu some executive decisions, right,
but the it is the job of the council to
create city policy law, and so you can't advocate that.
I get that, I understand. So I guess what would
the official process would be The mayor would make a
recommendation to the council, or the people would pressure the
(31:07):
council or like what are the is there or is
there even a process in place to take these recommendations
and implement them as policies.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
I'll see the next time I come back here, I
will have that answer for you, because I've not looked
beyond what our responsibility is. But I do know I
have to go back into advocate mode, and so I
do think there has to be public pressure. We know,
what do they say, pressure bus pipes and it's time like.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Pressure bus pipes and mixed diamonds.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Yes, And you can't have you just this hundred when
I literally was like one hundred year reign of terror,
I mean from the charter, from the formation of the
charter for the City of Los Angeles.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Like there's one of the most striking things about that
executive summary is the way that the LAPD is implicated.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
Well, they're implicated. But KKK helped to found the city
of La Charter, as we understand it. And so one
hundred years, like we were talking off air, I'm caregiving
for my grandma. She's ninety six, she'll be ninety seven
years old. And so you know, to me, one hundred years,
it's not like, oh, that's so long ago, let's move on.
(32:21):
It's not important now. No, Like, there are generations of
Angelinos and we all know I'm not from here. I'm
born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. But there are
generations of Angelinos that have been here for some time,
that have been here since the nineteen hundreds. There are
folks definitely with the great migration in the nineteen fifties
(32:42):
that happened out of the South. Yes, we also came west.
And so you have generations of people that have been
here and some of them have lived fifty years of
what has been going on. And if you came in
the fifties, that was the height. You gotta remember, Nixon
jumped off his worn drugs to specifically to get black
people like that was very specific, coming down from the
(33:05):
Potus himself, from the Chief, the Commander in chief and
dollars were put into cointelpro in lapd Like we can't
we can't just go, oh, it was so long ago. No,
as I'm in here, you know, caregiving for this woman
and the men in my family, I don't know about
the men and other people's family. The men die sooner,
(33:29):
and I think they die sooner because they were largely
on the front lines, like the back Black Panthers. It
was men and women. But we saw, like the murders
happen here, and we like it happened in La Like
this is not me a kid from Brooklyn reading about
it in Brooklyn. This is me as an adult commissioner,
(33:50):
really understanding the intricacies of it. And you can't just go,
oh my god, we don't have any money anyway. So
let's get back to some of these recommendations. So the
land Trust, the purpose would be to create a beneficiary
asset right designed to create physical offices in what has
been turned the City Department of Freedom Freedmen Affairs, specifically,
(34:13):
you know, within these physical areas, we want to have walkability,
we want to build businesses. We want the businesses for
the beneficiaries to thrive within the one mile regions for
the physical areas that we talked about earlier. We know
with the Cringehaw Corridor, there are some specific design recommendations.
We want to take tech and bring some tech into
(34:36):
these spaces, into these physical spaces in a way that
there's an asset that creates not just like something for today,
but it actually it has sustainability. And you know, we
have to think about these things in an expansive way.
I know, one of the people that I talked to
help the Google with building out like their tech city,
(34:59):
and so there there are some really progressive things. We
already have a mandate in the city to be green.
I forget by the year it might be like twenty
thirty two, which I don't know if we're hitting that goal,
but you know, we have a green mandate already. So
to me, you fold the green the tech. You know,
this this idea of a land trust for beneficiaries, for
beneficiary businesses. You make it happen and you make it
(35:24):
so that it can thrive. It's important that we also
extend protections and there were three recommendate recommended classes. You know,
American freemen obviously being the descendants of persons enslaved in
the US emancipated by the thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution.
We have Jim Crow survivors specifically who I think born
(35:50):
prior to the Civil Rights Act of nineteen sixty eight,
and then obviously the War on Drugs survivors because the
co intel pro I mean, I remember, like as a
kid watching what do you call those like the military
battle rams going to houses in south in South Central,
Like I remember seeing that as a kid, and this
(36:13):
is from three thousand miles away, and so you can't
have that kind of thing happening and just choosing to
do nothing about it. I also think that, you know,
the city has to look at existing protections, you know,
and see how there can be protections in order to
make you know, we are already, uh what a sars
(36:36):
S city. We are a sister city. No with the
with the immigrants sanction. We are a sanctuary city. And
so I do, on a personal level, feel like we
have to look at some ways to provide sanctuary for
people where we have documented harm and we can't act
like it doesn't continue.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
We all know, talking about reparations sanctuary like something like that.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
Sanctuary.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
We are a Reparation city.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
About that.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
Uh yeah, I love that. Consum Mohammed aka Friday Jones
is here. We'll continue this conversation. We're going to summarize
some of these recommendations. You're going to have to come back.
All that is straight ahead on KBLA Talk fifteen to eighty. Okay,
Friday Jones is here at Kansum Mohammad. It's a Friedman Friday,
and she's agreed to stay an extra few minutes after
the top of the hour so we can unpack a
(37:24):
little bit more of this since we missed a few
minutes at the top, just to make sure, because we're
going to do a part two clearly, but just to
land on a Friday ahead of this Labor Day weekend
and leave you with a solid feeling of what what
we have to look forward to advocating for and what
some of these recommendations might be. Okay, just to recap
a little what you've told me so far, that you
(37:46):
want that the commission, not just you personally, but the
recommendations of the commission. Advisory Commission would include the creation
of a reparations department under the la A Civil Rights
Department that you want to concentrate efforts in a physical area,
which means becoming a possibly sister city with Altadina since
(38:10):
they're not officially part of La City. And concentrating the
services and programs of the reparations department in the Crenshaw
Corridor and the Vermont Corridor yep, to have the Vermont
Corridor renamed the Areola Phillips Corridor after one of the
(38:34):
first or the first black woman bus operator there. To
take a percentage of the cannabis taxes for the city
and from the city and use it to fund these
reparations programs and activities. And then to create a land trust,
(38:54):
which would I'm not quite sure what role that would play.
Maybe we can go a little deeper into that, to
bring in sustainable tech into areas where you have a
high concentration of descendants of enslaved persons in this city.
And two, I'm not I wasn't really clear. I'm over
(39:16):
here taking notes that we that you have three categories
of folks that we're talking about, freedmen, emancipated persons, and
Jim Crow survivors. Well that's four. And then the War on.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
Drug survivors, Well, the two were one. And then the
definition is is the emancipation but the American freedman.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
Okay, so that's one category. Emancipated enslaved person's a ka
Friedman is one, Jim Crow survivors is one, and more
on drug survivors. Yes, yes, okay, And that's what I
got so far. I may have missed a couple.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
No, that that was it, and we you know, we
didn't get into some of the fun stuff, but there
were things around mental health, housing and transitional housing in
particular because we know we live a lot of life
in transition. You need twenty years of stability to really
actually build financial work wealth in terms of stolen labor
(40:15):
and hindered opportunities. You know that Octavia Lab Extension, that's
that is already at the main library downtown. We need
to bring those again into communities so that they're even
more accessible. That's obviously something I think that can be
easily done. If you all recall Mayor Garcetti had a
(40:35):
Latin X initiative that ran through his office that was
able to tie into studios in order to advance Latin
knows in in that space. In the production space we have,
you know, the television the same television studios. We have
record labels that are here, and so I think we
need to create a pathway, you know, to to CBS studios,
(40:59):
Fox Studios, Culver, we have Amazon studios here. We need
to create pathways. SAG and I've talked about this and
you can go to their website. But SAG has diversity committees,
but they don't have a black committee like at all,
which is odd to me, and so to me, that's
a reflection. Anninburg comes out Stacy Smith from the Annenburg Research.
(41:24):
You know, they come out every year about what's going
on in Hollywood, and so it's well documented. And because
it was LAPD busting up that Central Avenue, you know,
Central Avenue had black businesses, it was flourishing, and LAPD
made it so that black folks couldn't just be outside
and stand on a corner or you know, be in
those places of business without the businesses being shut down
(41:46):
and busted up. And so it's important that as we
rebuild this land trust, that we rebuild these corridors again
with sustainability in a way where we are investing in
those businesses. So I mean, we can go on as
we go into the next hour, but you know, even
our education in this area that we're going to be
(42:07):
and let us have a place for young people. Let's
have a community safety program so we can remove some
of the police interfacing. You know, within our community. There
are things that can be done. It's a matter of will.
I also think it is a matter again of us
stepping up to the plate and making these kinds of
demands of the city and not always be voyeurs and
(42:29):
observers and talking about what is happening and why don't
we know? Well, you have to show up, and that's
part of the.
Speaker 1 (42:37):
Work at I Am Friday. Jones always shows up. She's
gonna stay with me after news, traffic and sports. But
thank you for joining for Friedman Friday once again. You're
listening to KBLA Talk fifteen eighty
Kay Bla Talk fifteen eighty. It's time for Friedman Friday
and looking forward to talking with Commissioner Konsum Mohammad. She
is part of the City of Los Angeles Reparations Advisory
Commission and also in her alter ego Friday Jones, a
(00:21):
long time reparation activist, and we will be talking with
her momentarily. Want to update you on a couple of
stories which we may have a shot at talking about
next hour. The President has decided to end Secret Service
protection for Kamala Harris, effective immediately. She had gotten an
(00:45):
extra year of Secret Service protection. You know, presidents get
it for life. Vice presidents get it for six months,
but President Biden had arranged for her to have it
for an extra year. And I think it's largely to
do with the fact that, much like Barack Obama, she
had more death threats than any other person in that
(01:08):
position a vice president. Well now it's over, and so
you know, it's part of the revenge tour, the idea
that this man is zero empathy responsibility manners. Okay, let
me not go there. Let me stay on the reparations conversation,
(01:31):
because that's what we do here on Freedman Fridays every week,
and that's the purpose of this hour every week is
to keep reparations on our minds, keep us up to date,
and make sure that we are part of the solution
and educated. It came about almost two years ago when
(01:53):
I was in a room with a lot of leaders,
African American leaders, people that are doing solid, amazing work,
and the fact that these folks knew almost nothing about
what is happening with reparations here in the state of
California or in the many other states that now have
city commissions scattered throughout. There's only a few that actually
(02:16):
have state commissions, but it's growing all the time, even
under Trump. And so I realized in that meeting that
I needed to do more because if these people are
tapped in on a leadership level don't know what's happening
with reparations, what does that say for the average person
who's just trying to keep the lights on. And so
(02:37):
that's why we've been doing this for the past almost
two years. I want to encourage you, if you've missed
these shows, you can get yourself up to date on reparations.
We have all of them are cataloged wherever you get
your podcasts, but you can also find them on YouTube,
and I would particularly point you to the broadcast we
(03:00):
recently did the three weeks ago with doctor William Sandy
Derity really a great one, but we've got all kinds
of folks because every perspective on reparations is welcome into
this conversation, because the idea is to hear from everyone
so we can have real informed conversation. But also I
(03:25):
think that the normalization of reparations, not as a fringe issue,
but is something that we are seriously considering and doing
is important. There is, for example, and I don't know
how many of you are tracking this, right across right
up the street, I should say, from Oakland in Alameda
(03:48):
County is a city called small city called Hayward, and
they have now created something called the Russell City Redress,
which is, as we know, restitution and re dress are
part of reparations. It's not the whole thing, you know that,
but the fact that hundreds of families who had their
land taken from them in the nineteen sixties in Hayward,
(04:12):
California are now going to get at least something. It's
not going to be today's value of the land, but
it will be at least something they've now raised close
to a million dollars. Okay, you're talking about hundreds of families,
so that's not going to be a lot of money.
But it's part of this movement which says you don't
(04:35):
just get to get away with it. It's part of
what was unleashed by Bruce's Beach here in California. And
I'm so pleased that the Golden State have been able
to be a leader in this, even though people will say, oh,
technically we weren't a slave state. Well, that is one
of the reasons why the City of Los Angeles Reparations
(04:55):
Commission report is so important, as is the California one.
And there's other cities that are doing their own within
California based on or inspired by California. But I think
these I understand what doctor Derrity was saying. We don't
want the federal folks to come back and say, well,
(05:17):
you already got reparations in Hayward, in Evanston, where the
scope and the magnitude of what has to happen to
really repair the impact of Jim Crow and enslavement and
all of the subsequent harms is going to take the
federal government because, as he said, they're the only ones
(05:39):
that can print money. But I do think that all
of these small steps are part of the momentum, part
of the normalization of reparations. And hey like, it's a
concrete step. If that descendant of a homeowner who had
their land stolen by the city in the sixties gets
(06:00):
twenty thirty fifty grand, it is something. It is not
the whole thing, but it is something. It is a
step in the direction. And so here in Heyward, we're
talking about folks that are still living. In some cases
it will be descendants, but mostly it'll be folks that
(06:21):
are still living. And there they're older Americans. It's called
the Russell City Redress Fund. They apologize back in twenty
twenty one. An apology, an empty handed apology, is what
I call it. The county also apologized in twenty twenty three.
And so now they have put together about a million
(06:45):
dollars between the county, the city, two different districts in
the city. Actually I think it's a little over a million.
And so they're going to sixty years after the fact,
they're going to start handing out some checks there in Hayward, California.
Baby steps, but we're clocking them. All right. We've got
Commissioner LA City Reparations Advisory Commissioner Kans Mohammed joining me
(07:11):
when we come forward on KBLA Talk fifteen eighty. All right,
she is here, and I'm so excited. She is a
LA City of Los Angeles Reparations Advisory commission member. She's
also a longtime reparations activists. Outside of official circles and
(07:32):
committees and such, she is known widely in the reparations
movement as Friday Jones. She is commissioner. She is a
name known as Conshamed, same woman, and she's a graduate
of Howard University in the LA African American Women's Political
(07:52):
Policy Institute. Good morning, commissioner.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Good morning, how is everything. What's up KBLA family. I'm
so happy to be here.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Yeah, happy to have you in. So okay, So we're
gonna cut right to the chase here. The executive summary
of the City Reparations report has come out, and now
we've been waiting for next steps, right, which is yes,
which is the report, which is a full report and recommendations.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Right correct, And you know we are imprecarious times. If
anyone has been paying attention. I know the KBLA family
has been paying attention. But I actually if I'm being honest,
and so I'm speaking unofficially as the commissioner so that
I can say the things that I will.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Okay, so you're Friday Jones, So I'm Friday Jones.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
However, I do want to start actually building you know,
advocacy for what I know is coming in the pipeline,
if that makes sense. We all know, thank goodness, because
of our controller. We know that the city has no money,
right he's been talking about it if you follow him
on social media, mister Mehia, we know the city has
(09:11):
no money. However, we cannot let the purses of municipalities
be the barometer for whether or not the harms that
have been done to constituents and citizens you know, are
going to be repaired. That to me does not fly,
and I feel like that is kind of where we are.
(09:32):
But through our process, you know, we had a community
organizations that we invited into our process, and so really
today I'm kind of speaking to those people. I'm speaking
to folks that live here in Lamart Park, whether you're
black and in the valley, whether you black in South Central,
this morning's heartfelt sort of plea is for you, because
(09:56):
I want people to activate behind this. We're in a
very unique opportunity with the city because even I don't
agree with everything happening at the state level, we're in
a state that is having a reparations movement, and I
want to shout out c Jeck. They are up in
Sacramento today doing the good will of the people. And
then we're in the city in one of the largest
(10:16):
cities in the country. We also know that California because
of our size at the federal level, like we have
the most senators. We have what are the other people
Congressmen we have the most.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Well everyone has two senators, but yeah, we have the
most Congressmen. We have our biggest congressional delegation.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Right, well, senators too per state and then Congress. You know,
we have a nice chunk of the pie. And not
that they all are voting for Democrats. And we're in
the process of fighting with Texas and whether or not
we're going redistrict, and we're in weird times, but we're
really in a time that I think it's pivotal and
it's a time that requires people to be energized, and
so that is why I came out here. We know
(10:56):
the five pillars of reparation, compensation which no one wants
to talk about, restitution, satisfaction, rehabilitation, and guarantees of non repetition.
And the guarantees of non repetition for me are important.
If you look at our executive summary report, which was
our academic partner, cal State Northridge and doctor Gamage, she
(11:20):
was the lead marketing damage was the lead researcher for
cal State Northridge, and if you look at Mockingbirds reports,
which have both been combined in that executive summary, the city,
particularly LAPD, has about one hundred year reign of terror.
So if you've had one hundred year reign of terror,
I need one hundred and twenty five years on whatever
(11:40):
our pilot program is. And obviously with a timeline like that,
it's not about what's in the budget right now. It's
about having vision and longevity in order to say we
actually understand what this means and we're willing to do
these five things. So that's the perspective that I'm coming.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Mm hmm, okay, not we don't have money today. But
what is your one hundred and twenty five year plan.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Yes, one hundred and ten percent. If you all remember
on August thirty first last year, see see how God
work Black August. You know, when they were trying to
arrest us at the capitol last year as we were
trying to fight to get Senator Bradford's bills put forward.
We are one year later. We're one year later, and
(12:26):
now we have the city coming out. And that was
intentional from the beginning. For those who may have heard
me on the station before, we talked about wanting to
give the state the ability to legislate how they wanted
to legislate. And in my opinion, you fumbled the ball
because had they put forward Bradford's bills and allowed the
two in particular ahead to the floor to be voted on,
(12:48):
the one that kavan Ward worked on, which was the
land return bill, would not have gotten vetoed by our
governor because they would have been an agency. There would
have been twelve million dollars.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
I believe you would have vetoed it anyway, but wow,
then it would have been I've been on him. Yeah, right,
if we would have had to see right, he would
have had to come up with another excuse.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
Correct.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
So the point is it's a year later and now
the city is coming forward with its report. I wanted
to go forward with some of the recommendations. I kind
of took on Bradford's understanding that there had to be
a department. So I did recommend, or the commission recommended
that there be a department. That is, how's actually under
(13:28):
the Civil and Human Rights Department. We know the city
had cuts, However that department is aware of this process.
That department already kind of works in a civil rights
and human rights space. That's literally the name of the department.
So let's go ahead, and how's you know, an agency,
(13:48):
a city department that will administer these reparations for the
next one hundred and twenty five years right there under
you know, the direction of Capri General Manager Caprimattics. She's
an excellent lead and I think that her staff would
care for the recommendations. We also need to have some
sort of physical area and so after the fires, and
(14:11):
I understand, you know, in terms of governance, you can't overlap.
But I've also taken this body of work to me
is a template like for any Municipality, USA. To me,
all reparations policies are that you can there are so
many things that need to be repaired that you almost
can just create a template and say, you know, people,
(14:31):
go make it happen. And so that's kind of where
I'm at. Unfortunately, Palisades is in the City of Los
Angelus's boundaries and under their jurisdiction. But Alta Dina is
not right. And so my rationale in thinking in recommending
Alta Dina almost be like a sister pilot physical area
(14:55):
is the fact that the county itself is implicated in
our report through their District Attorney's office, because it is
the county who did all of the prosecuting that happened,
whether it was with the Black Panthers, you know, whether
it was the co Intel pro running through LAPD. Cointelpro
obviously is federal, and so in my opinion, in my assessment,
(15:17):
even though the harm may have been largely done through LAPD,
the Mayor of the City of Los Angeles on multiple
occasions has gone to the federal government for funding for
whatever we did it. During COVID, we have had our
county be called upon that happened obviously during the fires right,
(15:38):
and so it's not a foreign idea that the mayor
of Los Angeles would go seeking funds elsewhere. And so
to me, it was important to actually make that a
mandate that said, the mayor has to go to the
federal government and ask for funding to do this one
hundred and twenty five year proposed project. The mayor has
to go to the county. Let's go ahead and make
(16:00):
Altadena a sister city. But I've worked with some advocates
in Alta Dina and said, you guys need to go
get this. Go get this from the county. Even if
we can't make it happen on the city side, you guys,
go and get it. I believe you advocate from where
you are. It's a model for the National Assembly of
American Slavery Descendants, of which I am also the president.
So I put it out there to the folks in
(16:22):
Altadena who are active and busy. I don't know what
they're going to do with it, but it's an idea.
The other two areas would include I believe it's the
Vermont Corridor, and we wanted to name that after a
bus driver and I think her name was her last
name Imperial Highway Arcola Philip Corridor. Let's name it after
(16:47):
someone who actually she was like the first African American
woman who like worked driving the buses for the city.
So let's lift her up and let's remember her during
that corridor. And of course we're on the Crenshaw Corridor,
which has already been renow the Malcolm X Corridor. So
let those be the two sort of areas and hubs
where we actually provide services with with the city offices
(17:10):
that we're talking about. And as I've already mentioned, as
far as the funding sources, LAPD obviously needs to chunk
over some funds. They take up a significant portion of
the city's budget. And so since they did the most
of the harm, we can talk about, we don't have
the money because they have all the money the County
of La and obviously the Federal Bureau of Investigations and
(17:34):
a percentage of California's in the city's cannabis taxes, because
the City of La pays into the state a significant
amount of cannabis taxes. And we can't forget that the
state built a bunch of jails. We all were here
like in the nineties, like you know, the federal money
seemed to come down in order to build the jail.
(17:56):
So again it's all to the.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Jails to house the people who right selling and smoking cannabis, right,
which is now legal and a hugely profitable industry.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Right. So we had a war on drugs, So let's
have a war on drugs fund to go along with
our reparations fund so that we can go ahead and
get these repairs started, get this reparation started, you know,
with you and guidelines of those five principles so that
it's meaningful and so.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Yeah, so those are those are some of the things
that we're looking at as far as recommendations based on
the report itself.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Based on the report itself, I think that you can't
like we're in a you can't argue against Trump like
Trump Trump, Trump is the devil. You know, you can't
be out here on the news and say, okay, I
have to protect my immigrant family and you know, whether
(18:52):
your maxine water is, whether you're mayor bath. You can't
put it all on the line and then go, oh,
we just don't have any money. Like that does not
fly for me. And when the state the California Black
legislators basically didn't bring Senator Bradford's two of his three
bills to a vote. What they said in the press
(19:13):
was that they had a ten year plan. Right, we
haven't seen their ten year plan. We have the ability
here to take these recommendations and make it into a
hundred year plan and not just kick the can down
the road. And I really really don't want us to
do that. The other thing that we're kind of seeing
now at the state and the world informs my work.
(19:34):
One of the things that we're seeing with the state
with what is it cal State Universities and the six
million dollars to do a genealogy study, which is to
me a huge waste of taxpayer money. However, I expect
that a lot of that funding, in addition to cal State,
will also go to NGO's non governmental organizations. And after
(19:57):
the homeless War on the homeless, I don't know if
you have a warn homeless. That doesn't even sound right
like that sounds like the wrong kind of energy. But
with all the funding that was spent with a homeless
at the state level, at the city level, when there
was an accountability and there was an audit and it
was like, okay, show us you know show us how
many homeless have been removed. It almost was like a
(20:20):
net zero, and so I wanted to make sure that
there were some sort of what do you call it,
like protections built in, like we're gonna work with nonprofit sites.
But yeah, there's there's oversight. You have to do annual
reporting thirty only thirty five percent, which is generous, can
be used for your general overhead. Meaning if you're paying payroll, fine,
(20:41):
pay your payroll, but you're not going to take one
hundred percent of this money and pay your director. You
know you're not gonna take one hundred percent of this
money and pay your staff. We actually need you to
produce what it is that we expect you to produce,
and if you don't produce it, you can't come back
to the city and want to be one of our
NGO partners for at least a three year three to
(21:04):
five year window. And I think we as I'm not
a legislator, like I've never won an elected office position,
but I have to run. You have to run to
win unless someone you know dies and you can like
slide in or something like that. Those things happen every day.
But the point is we want it to be thoughtful
(21:26):
with our expectations of nonprofits that might be doing this work.
And so yeah, and you know we're Downtown Crenshaw, right,
We are in the neighborhood of downtown Crenshaw. So you
gotta throw land trust in there. You have to throw
a land trust in there for the beneficiary class. It's
(21:46):
important to have that element because land and disposition of
land is a real thing. Yes it is.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
We're right up against new traffic and sports. We're gonna
continue unpacking some of these recommendations from the LA City
Reparations Advisory Commission. What we think they might be. What
we have a good idea they maybe when it's unveiled
in September when we come forward with Friday Jones. It's
a Freedman Friday and show is k BLA talk fifteen eighty?
Speaker 2 (22:17):
What is that?
Speaker 1 (22:19):
What does that sound mild? It's a Freedman Friday and
Reparations longtime activists Consumhamed aka Friday Jones is here. So
we were giving you an exclusive sneak peek of the
recommendations of the La City Reparations Advisory Commission, which is,
(22:40):
you guys have completed your work.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
We have completed our work. The department that we were
housed under again, the Department of Civil and Human Rights,
is in the process of finalizing this report and then
we will have our once over of the final report
and then it'll be released to the public. And these
are just ideas. I want to frame it is that
(23:03):
these are ideations of what municipal reparations could be. And
these are some of the ideations that were presented to
the city and we will see, you know, what happens.
I am and will always be an advocate. I was
bullied as a kid, so I don't like bullies. I
don't like being told no. I have the privilege of
(23:26):
working in a business and an industry where you know,
when you work for wealthy people, it's figure it out.
It's not no, like no, it's not an option. And
that's kind of how I feel about reparations. And I
do feel although we're making this demand on these governmental bodies,
it's also our duty, you know, we do Asada. If
(23:47):
we have a duty to fight for freedom, it is,
you know, our duty to protect and love one another,
and so it's our duty to do this work. Now
you don't have to do it forty hours a week.
But you have a duty to do this work. And
it's important that I'm here and I'm at a at
kb LA and I'm here with you Dominique, just reminding
people of our role and our responsibility uh in this work.
(24:11):
And we are moving into a phase where the city
will have done its work.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
So the report comes out, we'll get the final final.
We have the preliminary which is available right now. If
you haven't read it, you can find it on LA
and Civil LA.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Civil Rights. We love LA. That's not the thing. La
is LA for everyone for everyone. Yeah, we're gonna look
it up so that we don't know what it is
LA for all right, yeah, La for all. I think
it's LA for all. Anyway, we're gonna work out the
actual details. But you can go to that website you
can see the report. The other thing, you know, as
(24:44):
we're talking about, oh my god, we don't have any
money one of the things. And this was like my
idea because this was supposed to be housed all with
the researches. In terms of development, and if you know
anything about business, your development partner is the rainmaker. They
are the person who figures out how to find the money.
And so we actually had mocking Bird, and that was
(25:05):
Mockingbird's role. You know. I recall in one of our
very first meetings, they did like a lightweight presentation, and
I was like, well, where the corporations, because I thought
we were gonna look at corporations that were aligned, had
some sort of programs that might be aligned or like
reparations adjacent, so that we could tap into a public
(25:28):
private partnership. And it was like, oh, well, so many
of the corporations, you know, have a negative representation when
it comes to black people. I'm like, that's America. Like
sometimes I understand we'd be on like sanctimonious stuff, but
we can't be sanctimonious, like if we're gonna argue about that,
like the dollar bill itself is dirty, so don't I mean,
(25:51):
if you are eighteen sixty five corporation like Cargill, which
is also one of the biggest foundations in the United States.
I mean, I'm not gonna get mad that the eighteen
hundreds happened because I don't believe in white guilt. I
believe in doing what is necessary for all constituents, and
that includes the American freemen, descendants of persons who are
(26:13):
enslaved in the United States. And so I think sometimes
like the emotion that comes from whether it's white folks,
black folks around reparations, particularly when it's like negative energy,
like we don't need.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
That well, and that's one of the reasons why we
have to keep talking about it, just to normalize. But
I'm just going through the steps here. So the Executive
Summary and Examination of African American Experience in Los Angeles,
the interim report, came out August twenty twenty four. It's available.
You can find it at Civil and Human Rights dot
Lacity dot gov or just type in LAS for everyone
that is what it is dot com dot com. And
(26:49):
so the next step is for the complete report, which
includes recommendations, which is coming out next month.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Well, it'll come to the Commission next month, and I
think it's out to the public by year. And I
feel like holidays like Thanksgiving ish.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
So you're getting a really really sneak peak, right, you.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Are getting a sneak peek. And if you follow me
on social media, I really I will be looking for
our local activists organizations. BLM has been very thoughtful BLM
Los Angeles, and I want to shout out doctor Malina Abdullah.
She has opened the center over there in Lamart Park
in order for me and other reparations organizers to speak
(27:29):
about what has been happening, you know, Brotherhood Crusade. There
have been some church organizations that are not in the
top of my mind but have been active through this process.
And I want to make sure that I, you know,
now that the commission is ending, I want to make
sure that the advocacy part that needs to be maintained
(27:50):
by the public is And again that is the whole
premise on why I am here.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
Okay, So steps executive summary came out, goes back to
you guys, the full summer goes back to the commission
for a review, then it'll go to the public toward
the end of the year. We think, at what point
does this go in front of the city council?
Speaker 2 (28:14):
You know, through this process, so like, there are a
bunch of rules when you're a commissioner, and we could
not we cannot technically advocate for specific legislation as a commissioner,
So I cannot reach out to my city council member,
which is Heather Hut, and say hey, Heather Hut.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Yeah, I vaguely remember that I used to be a commissioner.
I was a commission in the Status of Women, but
it was a long time ago. So but we know
that part of the process is that the recommendations of
the commission are meant to go.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
To the mayor. Because remember, this is a blue ribbon.
We were a blue ribbon, we were impaneled by the
former mayor, right, and so this is a blue ribbon
directly to the like you know, from.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
So it goes. So the next step will be the
final report. Whenever its release, we'll go to the mayor.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
Yes, and don't get me wrong, I'm sure city council
members will all receive copies. However, this report has been
at the at the request of the mayor, and so
that is ultimately who the recipient is.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
Okay, so what because I mean, that's the executive branch, right,
they don't.
Speaker 2 (29:22):
That's the executive branch. She does have some executive powers. Also,
I like the timing of this. Initially we were trying
to be in the So the city has a fiscal calendar,
not a calendar year calendar, meaning not from January to December.
It actually goes from July first to June thirtieth of
every year, it's a fiscal year, so this is a
(29:42):
good time for us. We were hoping to be in
the fiscal year this year, but we also didn't want
to rush the process. So I'm actually okay with the
fact that the final report will be coming out at
the end of the year because I know February is around.
When you know, February March, I think is when the
mayor announces their budget, so we will be in the
budget season. So from you know, a calendar perspective and
(30:03):
from a governmental calendar perspective, we're actually sitting in a
good place, which is also why I want to take
this window of time going into the ending of the
year to rally the troops. For folks who don't follow
me on social media, please follow me on all social
media at I am I, the letter I the words am,
I Am Friday Jones. I'm particularly active on Twitter because
(30:27):
you will see more coming from me to rally the
troops in Los Angeles, and whether it's unions you know
Seiu I see out there on the front lines, whether
it's our unions. This is a time where you should
be tapping into this work because it's meaningful.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
Right, so that the mayor can make execu some executive decisions, right,
but the it is the job of the council to
create city policy law, and so you can't advocate that.
I get that, I understand. So I guess what would
the official process would be The mayor would make a
recommendation to the council, or the people would pressure the
(31:07):
council or like what are the is there or is
there even a process in place to take these recommendations
and implement them as policies.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
I'll see the next time I come back here, I
will have that answer for you, because I've not looked
beyond what our responsibility is. But I do know I
have to go back into advocate mode, and so I
do think there has to be public pressure. We know,
what do they say, pressure bus pipes and it's time like.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Pressure bus pipes and mixed diamonds.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Yes, And you can't have you just this hundred when
I literally was like one hundred year reign of terror,
I mean from the charter, from the formation of the
charter for the City of Los Angeles.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Like there's one of the most striking things about that
executive summary is the way that the LAPD is implicated.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
Well, they're implicated. But KKK helped to found the city
of La Charter, as we understand it. And so one
hundred years, like we were talking off air, I'm caregiving
for my grandma. She's ninety six, she'll be ninety seven
years old. And so you know, to me, one hundred years,
it's not like, oh, that's so long ago, let's move on.
(32:21):
It's not important now. No, Like, there are generations of
Angelinos and we all know I'm not from here. I'm
born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. But there are
generations of Angelinos that have been here for some time,
that have been here since the nineteen hundreds. There are
folks definitely with the great migration in the nineteen fifties
(32:42):
that happened out of the South. Yes, we also came west.
And so you have generations of people that have been
here and some of them have lived fifty years of
what has been going on. And if you came in
the fifties, that was the height. You gotta remember, Nixon
jumped off his worn drugs to specifically to get black
people like that was very specific, coming down from the
(33:05):
Potus himself, from the Chief, the Commander in chief and
dollars were put into cointelpro in lapd Like we can't
we can't just go, oh, it was so long ago. No,
as I'm in here, you know, caregiving for this woman
and the men in my family, I don't know about
the men and other people's family. The men die sooner,
(33:29):
and I think they die sooner because they were largely
on the front lines, like the back Black Panthers. It
was men and women. But we saw, like the murders
happen here, and we like it happened in La Like
this is not me a kid from Brooklyn reading about
it in Brooklyn. This is me as an adult commissioner,
(33:50):
really understanding the intricacies of it. And you can't just go,
oh my god, we don't have any money anyway. So
let's get back to some of these recommendations. So the
land Trust, the purpose would be to create a beneficiary
asset right designed to create physical offices in what has
been turned the City Department of Freedom Freedmen Affairs, specifically,
(34:13):
you know, within these physical areas, we want to have walkability,
we want to build businesses. We want the businesses for
the beneficiaries to thrive within the one mile regions for
the physical areas that we talked about earlier. We know
with the Cringehaw Corridor, there are some specific design recommendations.
We want to take tech and bring some tech into
(34:36):
these spaces, into these physical spaces in a way that
there's an asset that creates not just like something for today,
but it actually it has sustainability. And you know, we
have to think about these things in an expansive way.
I know, one of the people that I talked to
help the Google with building out like their tech city,
(34:59):
and so there there are some really progressive things. We
already have a mandate in the city to be green.
I forget by the year it might be like twenty
thirty two, which I don't know if we're hitting that goal,
but you know, we have a green mandate already. So
to me, you fold the green the tech. You know,
this this idea of a land trust for beneficiaries, for
beneficiary businesses. You make it happen and you make it
(35:24):
so that it can thrive. It's important that we also
extend protections and there were three recommendate recommended classes. You know,
American freemen obviously being the descendants of persons enslaved in
the US emancipated by the thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution.
We have Jim Crow survivors specifically who I think born
(35:50):
prior to the Civil Rights Act of nineteen sixty eight,
and then obviously the War on Drugs survivors because the
co intel pro I mean, I remember, like as a
kid watching what do you call those like the military
battle rams going to houses in south in South Central,
Like I remember seeing that as a kid, and this
(36:13):
is from three thousand miles away, and so you can't
have that kind of thing happening and just choosing to
do nothing about it. I also think that, you know,
the city has to look at existing protections, you know,
and see how there can be protections in order to
make you know, we are already, uh what a sars
(36:36):
S city. We are a sister city. No with the
with the immigrants sanction. We are a sanctuary city. And
so I do, on a personal level, feel like we
have to look at some ways to provide sanctuary for
people where we have documented harm and we can't act
like it doesn't continue.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
We all know, talking about reparations sanctuary like something like that.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
Sanctuary.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
We are a Reparation city.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
About that.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
Uh yeah, I love that. Consum Mohammed aka Friday Jones
is here. We'll continue this conversation. We're going to summarize
some of these recommendations. You're going to have to come back.
All that is straight ahead on KBLA Talk fifteen to eighty. Okay,
Friday Jones is here at Kansum Mohammad. It's a Friedman Friday,
and she's agreed to stay an extra few minutes after
the top of the hour so we can unpack a
(37:24):
little bit more of this since we missed a few
minutes at the top, just to make sure, because we're
going to do a part two clearly, but just to
land on a Friday ahead of this Labor Day weekend
and leave you with a solid feeling of what what
we have to look forward to advocating for and what
some of these recommendations might be. Okay, just to recap
a little what you've told me so far, that you
(37:46):
want that the commission, not just you personally, but the
recommendations of the commission. Advisory Commission would include the creation
of a reparations department under the la A Civil Rights
Department that you want to concentrate efforts in a physical area,
which means becoming a possibly sister city with Altadina since
(38:10):
they're not officially part of La City. And concentrating the
services and programs of the reparations department in the Crenshaw
Corridor and the Vermont Corridor yep, to have the Vermont
Corridor renamed the Areola Phillips Corridor after one of the
(38:34):
first or the first black woman bus operator there. To
take a percentage of the cannabis taxes for the city
and from the city and use it to fund these
reparations programs and activities. And then to create a land trust,
(38:54):
which would I'm not quite sure what role that would play.
Maybe we can go a little deeper into that, to
bring in sustainable tech into areas where you have a
high concentration of descendants of enslaved persons in this city.
And two, I'm not I wasn't really clear. I'm over
(39:16):
here taking notes that we that you have three categories
of folks that we're talking about, freedmen, emancipated persons, and
Jim Crow survivors. Well that's four. And then the War on.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
Drug survivors, Well, the two were one. And then the
definition is is the emancipation but the American freedman.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
Okay, so that's one category. Emancipated enslaved person's a ka
Friedman is one, Jim Crow survivors is one, and more
on drug survivors. Yes, yes, okay, And that's what I
got so far. I may have missed a couple.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
No, that that was it, and we you know, we
didn't get into some of the fun stuff, but there
were things around mental health, housing and transitional housing in
particular because we know we live a lot of life
in transition. You need twenty years of stability to really
actually build financial work wealth in terms of stolen labor
(40:15):
and hindered opportunities. You know that Octavia Lab Extension, that's
that is already at the main library downtown. We need
to bring those again into communities so that they're even
more accessible. That's obviously something I think that can be
easily done. If you all recall Mayor Garcetti had a
(40:35):
Latin X initiative that ran through his office that was
able to tie into studios in order to advance Latin
knows in in that space. In the production space we have,
you know, the television the same television studios. We have
record labels that are here, and so I think we
need to create a pathway, you know, to to CBS studios,
(40:59):
Fox Studios, Culver, we have Amazon studios here. We need
to create pathways. SAG and I've talked about this and
you can go to their website. But SAG has diversity committees,
but they don't have a black committee like at all,
which is odd to me, and so to me, that's
a reflection. Anninburg comes out Stacy Smith from the Annenburg Research.
(41:24):
You know, they come out every year about what's going
on in Hollywood, and so it's well documented. And because
it was LAPD busting up that Central Avenue, you know,
Central Avenue had black businesses, it was flourishing, and LAPD
made it so that black folks couldn't just be outside
and stand on a corner or you know, be in
those places of business without the businesses being shut down
(41:46):
and busted up. And so it's important that as we
rebuild this land trust, that we rebuild these corridors again
with sustainability in a way where we are investing in
those businesses. So I mean, we can go on as
we go into the next hour, but you know, even
our education in this area that we're going to be
(42:07):
and let us have a place for young people. Let's
have a community safety program so we can remove some
of the police interfacing. You know, within our community. There
are things that can be done. It's a matter of will.
I also think it is a matter again of us
stepping up to the plate and making these kinds of
demands of the city and not always be voyeurs and
(42:29):
observers and talking about what is happening and why don't
we know? Well, you have to show up, and that's
part of the.
Speaker 1 (42:37):
Work at I Am Friday. Jones always shows up. She's
gonna stay with me after news, traffic and sports. But
thank you for joining for Friedman Friday once again. You're
listening to KBLA Talk fifteen eighty
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