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Ashlee Day, the assistant director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs, speaks to attendees on the importance of speaking out and using your voice.

Faye White

Ashlee Day, the assistant director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs, speaks to attendees on the importance of speaking out and using your voice.

Faye White

Faye White

Ashlee Day, the assistant director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs, speaks to attendees on the importance of speaking out and using your voice.

February is upon us, which means so is Black History Month. We keep intentional remembrance throughout the entirety of February of the decades of vibrant and tragic history Black people in America have experienced and continue to experience in 2020.

To kick-off this paramount month, the Center for Community Engagement (CCE) teamed up with the Office of Multicultural Affairs (OMA) to host a Black Lives Matter discussion on Feb. 5. Ashlee Day, assistant director of the OMA, and Travis Kim, a CCE graduate assistant, co-led the discussion. The timing of the event combined the CCEs Winter Wellness Week and Black Lives Matter in Schools week.

As the CCE is committed to living and leading as an anti-racist organization, my colleagues and I thought it was important to have a program within Winter Wellness Week that involved a conversation around Black Lives Matter at Seattle University, Kim said. Keeping in mind that the schools in the Seattle University Youth Initiative are located in the Central Districta historically black neighborhood where families are now facing displacement and gentrificationwe wanted to create a space for students to discuss, learn, and engage with the Black Lives Matter movement.

Day and Kim decided to collaborate and put on an event that would base conversation around the 13 Guiding Principles for Black Lives Matter. They both agreed this was a solid starting point, but ultimately the conversation would be guided by the group of participants.

The couches and chairs set up in a circle in the OMA office space were filled with students, faculty and staff from different areas of the Seattle University community. Right off the bat, Kim asked the participants to shout out guidelines to establish community agreements that would be respected as the conversation progressed. Listening first, thinking before you contribute and moving at the speed of trust were some of the suggestions.

After a respectful plan was solidified going forward, Day asked the group to go around, introduce themselves and define what Black Lives Matter meant to them.

I believe that it is important to have conversations about race, and particularly as a Black person, it is important to remember that racism isnt over; anti-Blackness still runs rampant in our society and change is not going to happen if people are silent, Day said. I think for many, Black Lives Matter is just a hashtag that does not actually lead to actionable behavior in their day-to-day lives. However, being willing to talk about the Black Lives Matter movement and how we can align with the principles developed by Opal Tometi, Alicia Garza and Patrisse Cullors can help us move into taking action.

The responses around the room were highly personalized, and many participants noted they had never been asked to define what the movement meant to them personally before.

From there, Kim read out the 13 Principles of the Black Lives Matter movement: restorative justice, empathy, loving engagement, diversity, globalism, queer affirming, trans affirming, collective value, intergenerational, black families, black villages, unapologetically black and black women.

The discussion broke into small groups and discussed which one stood out to them the most. Each small group had their own enlightening conversations for about 20 minutes, then were brought back into the large group to share. Black mens mental health, the importance of Black womens roles and the inclusion of queer and trans people were some of the main topics that came up.

Finally, the event leaders introduced an I commit to activity ending in the words Black Lives Matter. The activity was a call to action on our part to take what we had learned and put it to practice.

Second-year Sociology major, Nick Andino, attended the event and committed to challenging biases.

I committed to challenging any biases I hold regarding all communities, specifically the Balck community. I am in a sociology class that teaches about how stereotypes form at a young age, so navigating anything I learned growing up and unlearning those biases is important, Andino said. Especially understanding I am POC, as well, land face many of the same issues so why would I perpetuate the stigmas myself?

Retraining thought processes and consciously being aware of seemingly invisible biases is a great place to start when combating the decades of mistreatment faced by the Black community. Continuing educationon the ingrained tenants of white supremacy as well as showing up, listening and believing Black experiences are seemingly small steps that, if done collectively, will eventually make a difference.

I hope the people who attended the event have a better understanding of Black Lives Matter beyond the sensationalized news media or the single story that they may have about what this movement really stands for, Day said. I also want people to realize that having conversations is just one part of the larger work that is needed to fight white supremacy in our world and that we all have to find ways to take action and commit to living out the Principles of Black Lives Matter.

OMA is hosting more events throughout Black History Month. On Feb. 20, they are collaborating with Campus Ministry to discuss Faith and Politics. They also have a Moral Monday event, Amplifying Our Experience: A Community Conversation on the Black Student Experience, on Feb. 24 at 6:30.

According to Day, it is a real conversation about the current state of the Black community at Seattle University. They hope African/Black/African American students, staff and faculty on campus will come to share their thoughts, express their hopes and help brainstorm ideas for new programming and initiatives.

More:
Black History Month Kicks off With Conversation About BLM - The Spectator

February 18, 2020 marks the day celebrated novelist Toni Morrison would have turned 89 if she were still among the living. Sadly, she departed from us last summer, and this Black History Month, different campuses are engaged in commemorative events for the Nobel Laureatefrom Oberlin Colleges day-long remembrance to University at Albanys special exhibit of Morrisons time in Albany.

I am teaching her most acclaimed Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel Beloved, an epic tale of slavery and black womens violent claims to freedom. The central eponymous figure, a ghost in the flesh, is how I now envision Morrison and her legacy.

There was a time when black feminist literary scholars struggled to extol the virtues of the writings of Living Black Women who were oftentimes viewed as inferior to the Dead White Men of the literary canon. Now that Morrisonand others who have gone before or after her, from Audre Lorde to Toni Cade Bambara to June Jordan to Michelle Cliff to Ntozake Shange to Paule Marshallhas joined that great pantheon of our beloved dead Black Women, I can only think of them as still living, as vibrant, haunting and fully embodied in the flesh as Beloved was for her formerly enslaved community.

I have taught three other Morrison novels throughout my teaching career. The first, Sula, was assigned to an English composition class when I was a doctoral studentand when I gave the mostly white students the creative assignment to fill in the gaps of the missing years when Sula had left her hometown, their stereotypical renderings of black female sexuality left me shaking my head, and realizing why Morrisons insistence on writing outside of a white gaze was so crucial to her imaginative writing. Sula was reduced to a Jezebel-type, but in the imaginations of both the author and her black female audience, we knew Sula was more complicated than that. Still, this first-time attempt at teaching college students was an eye-opener on how to navigate the white gaze in the teaching of texts that refused to center that gaze.

I have had better success teaching Morrisons novels in the womens studies classroom. I had assigned students in a feminist theory class the task of creating a visual response to the complex novel Paradise and have kept one of my favorite pieces from that assignmenta clay sculpture of the character Seneca healing from trauma by drawing lines on a cellar floor instead of cutting into her own flesh. The student who created this work was drawn to the character because she too had been in recovery for self-cutting. I have taught The Bluest Eye in a women and media class, in which students were challenged to collect mass media images and categorize them as either undermining the self-esteem of Pecola Breedlove, a dark-skinned black girl who longed for blue eyes, or potentially fostering self-love. These assignments fully engaged students as they personalized Morrisons stories and developed empathy with fictional characters, an aspect of Morrisons writing that is critical to her creative output in telling the stories of the most marginalized people and making us care about them. Long before #BlackLivesMatter, Morrison demonstrated the ethos of this philosophy through her writing.

To mark Morrisons birthday today, I invited a few black feminist scholars whose work I admire to share with me their own best practices, their favorite texts from Morrison and how they choose to teach it in the classroom.

The morning word broke that Morrison had passed, I received a text from Simone, a former undergraduate advisee, that read: I got the update and had to step away from my students. My heart is broken. Youre the only person I wanted to share this moment with.

Of the former students I spoke with that day, Simones text cemented one of the most important aspects of Morrisons legacy: how teaching Morrisons novels invite opportunities for mentoring.

As a feminist rhetorician, I see in Beloved a charge to translate its mandates about power and healing. Statements like Schoolteachers retort that definitions belong to the definers not the defined require that students see and question how language can shape or remake an individuals subjectivity. Landscapes like the clearing where Baby Suggs warns her listeners that in yonder they do not love your flesh charge students to understand how racial terror preserves a groups need for safe spaces and affirmation. Paul Ds reminder to Sethe that she is her own best thing, underscores Morrisons argument that Black women cannot neglect self-care in the wake of generational trauma.

To teach Beloved to young Black women like Simone is to commit to bearing witness as they discover how to see and manage their own reflection. It has meant reading multiple essay drafts as students position themselves around Morrisons characters, or extending office hours so you can read a draft aloud and affirm a students ideas. It will always mean rejecting surface readings and getting comfortable with rigor. It is to sit in vulnerability and embrace on-going work.

Fortunately, as Simones text indicates, it is never time wasted.

Before I decided to major in Comparative Literature, I was interested in being a biochemical engineer. The seduction of literary study was slow and surprising and, as with any romance, a rupture of all I thought I knew. When I teach, I confess that I am striving to educate the student I once was: an eager soul who does not yet know literature as uniquely powerful. For this reason, I love to teach Toni Morrisons Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination.

Playing in the Dark results from her William E. Massey Sr. Lectures at Harvard and her course in American literature. Owing perhaps to the pedagogical beginnings from lecturing and discussion, the book is concise and patient in its instruction. Morrison argues persuasively that there exists an Africanist presence in American literature, one that shapes the fundament of Americanness itself. I tend to present Playing in the Dark in two ways: sometimes, I lecture on the ideas of the text as a frame for understanding how to read American literature. In advanced classes, I provide students with the book itself for more in depth study.

Given all of Morrisons oeuvre, why would I teach her theoretical text, especially if my goal is to reach someone who is quite possibly intellectually aloof? Well. It matters how we tell stories, to whom, what about and why we believe them. The narratives we tell repeatedly, the narratives we championthose shape our world-making both as restrictions and possibilities.

Morrisons book stokes students to consider that the stories within American letters are shaped by a set of (mis)conceptions regarding Blackness. The corollary is that current narrativewhether in fiction, news media, social media, or family loreis also operating by the same logic. To be honest, I am less concerned about whether they are convinced, since after reading Morrisons work, you cannot unsee her point. What matters more is that, having discovered Morrison, students have learned how to read so much more than books.

One of my favorite Morrison texts to teach is her short story Recitatif. Morrison is so well known for her novels and essays, but Recitatif is too often overlooked, despite the fact that it is a gem of story and works really well in the classroom.

Part of my affinity for Recitatif lies in the storys curious structure: its a tale of two women, one white and one Black, who meet in an orphanage and several times over the course of their lives. Although their relationship is tenuous it is a significant touchstone for both of their very different lives. And while we learn a lot about mid to late twentieth century America through the events of their livessuch as the rise of rock and roll, affirmative action and school bussingwhat is never really clear is which woman is white and which is Black.

Instead, Morrison peppers the story with racialized generalizationsabout food, hygiene, work ethic and the likethat could apply to either race. Morrisons purposeful obfuscation of race really invites readers to consider what we really know when we know someones race. This is particularly interesting in the classroom. I invite students to speak openly about racial stereotypes and how they often function as a type of social technology for us to make sense of the world. Often, students first reactions is to argue that one character has to be Black or, alternatively, whitebecause everyone knows that these people are really like this or that. The moment they uncover their own flawed logic is always a transformative one.

Reading Toni Morrisons work makes me feel brave. Teaching her work makes me feel strong. Similar emotions, to be surebut when you are a black female college professor teaching the race-based work of Morrison at a persistently white institution, the subtleties in the definition of the words do matter.

In 2017, two years after the Black Lives Matter movement began to spread across college campuses, I launched a Black Lives Matter Social Justice course to explore Americas racial history and the pivotal events that laid the foundation for this social movement. I chose with care the books and articles that I wanted to students to read, selecting both Keeanga Yamahtta-TaylorsFrom #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberationand Toni MorrisonsRace-ing, Justice,En-genderingPowerto anchor the course.

Yamahtta-Taylors book was an obvious choice, as it was, at that time, the only book that explored the history of the Black Lives Matter Movement. Morrisons book was more of a personal choicea desire to have my students wrestle with a complicated text, a collection of essays that brilliantly analyzed how Americas racial and gender identity had been shaped and distorted by racism and sexism.I chose her book because I wanted them to be challenged. I wanted them to be uncomfortable. I wanted them to learn how to take single revelatory moments in Americas history and place them in a broader historical context.

When I first read this collection of essays, it kept me up at night, forcing me to think about who I was and who I wanted to be in this world. I thought about the power of the written word, and how Morrison used it to take Americas racial temperature and then explain to us what we were doing wrong and how we can make it right.

It is not an easy book to teach, but it is a necessary one. I knew that Morrisons collection of essays would help my students to understand how Americas propensity and desire to bury racial and gender issues kept, and keeps, us from reckoning with them. Teaching this book as a black woman in an environment where I sometimes feel that I have to fight for my voice to be heard makes me feel brave; watching my students struggle with the text and ultimately make sense out of it, makes me feel strong.

In both of these moments, I feel joy and gratitude for Morrisons work and for her words.

More:
How Black Feminist Scholars Remember Toni Morrison in the Classroom - Ms. Magazine

THE ONES WEVE BEEN WAITING FOR How a New Generation of Leaders Will Transform AmericaBy Charlotte Alter

The first wave of millennials tech savvy and type-A, thanks to hovering boomer parents is on the cusp of holding real political power. The number elected to Congress jumped from 6 to 26 in 2018, and mayoral offices and city councils are suddenly filled with them. More than one is running for president.

How this generation will wield power to change America when it fully acquires that power is the question Charlotte Alter, a national correspondent for Time, sets out to answer in The Ones Weve Been Waiting For.

To examine the issue, Alter retraces the careers of 10 elected millennials, weaving their voices together to describe the defining moments that unite this generation, from Sept. 11 to the election of Donald Trump in 2016. We see the progressive icon and Democratic representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her family deal with the aftermath of the 2008 crash; the presidential candidate and former South Bend, Ind., mayor Pete Buttigieg pondering generational purpose while staring at a cloudless sky as a Harvard undergraduate on Sept. 11; and the Republican representative Dan Crenshaw losing his eye in Afghanistan. We also meet some less well-known, up-and-coming leaders, like Svante Myrick, who at the age of 24 became the youngest and first person of color to be elected mayor of Ithaca, N.Y., and Braxton Winston, a 30-something Charlotte, N.C., City Council member who ran for office after protesting police shootings of black people.

Saddled with student debt, freaked out by climate change and school shootings, and driven by a sense that their parents arent going to fix any of these problems, millennials, Alter suggests, are ready to harness their political potential.

She does an excellent job detailing with persuasive data what has shaped and motivated this young generation so far. The recession is an invisible postscript that explains how millennials have been economically disadvantaged. The low salaries and scarcity of jobs that confronted many of us upon graduating from college meant it took us much longer than previous generations to find our way in the world, to say nothing of repaying loans we took out for our very expensive degrees. By the time jobs began to come back, in 2012, Alter writes, employers were looking for younger, cheaper graduates, leaving some of us stuck in underemployment.

The forever war has inextricably colored how we view American foreign policy: Millennials are far less likely than boomers to think the United States should get involved in the affairs of other countries. And how we use technology has transformed the way we organize politically. As Alter points out, movements like Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter began on the internet. (We also learn that Buttigiegs early internet use in college consisted mostly of just logging on to WNDU.com to look at a grainy picture of South Bend, a detail that will stay with me for a long time.)

Alter is upfront about the fact that we dont yet know what a millennial political revolution might look like, writing that by learning where theyve been, we can get a sense of where were going. The great millennial takeover is very much a work in progress; the average age of our congressional leaders still hovers in the 70s, and Senator Bernie Sanders (age 78) continues to poll highly among young voters in the Democratic primary far higher than Buttigieg, who remains unpopular with voters under 35.

Alters story is moving faster than she can write it. She depicts the young Republican representative Elise Stefanik, of New York, for instance, as trying to keep Trump at a safe distance but not be out of step with her party. However, with Trumps impeachment, Stefanik has transformed into one of Trumps biggest defenders and has raised considerable money for her re-election campaign because of it.

The Ones Weve Been Waiting For takes its name from a speech by Barack Obama during his 2008, millennial-galvanizing campaign, and its apt; it took us a little while to realize that boomers were not going to save the world and that any significant change would be up to us. Already, members of Generation Z, some of whom may be voting in their first presidential election this fall, have figured out how to engage in political activism at a much younger age than we did think March for Our Lives or Greta Thunberg but thanks to Alters timely book we can have a better understanding of why an entire generation was set back and whats driving it now.

See the article here:
Whats Driving the Millennial Political Takeover? - The New York Times

"The View" co-hosts Meghan McCain and Joy Beharhad another tense exchange on Tuesday as they discussed former New York City Mayor and Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg.

McCain took issue with racially insensitive comments from Bloomberg. She pointed specifically to comments he made about black and Latino males during an interview on PBS. As McCain noted, The Washington Post also reported on a lawsuit claiming that Bloomberg berated a female employee while she searched for a nanny.

Its a f-----g baby! ... All you need is some black who doesnt have to speak English to rescue it from a burning building," he reportedly toldthe employee. According to McCain, Bloomberg's comments make it difficult for Democrats to take the moral high ground against President Trump. A Bloomberg spokesman said the former mayor didn't make any of the comments alleged in that lawsuit.

"All I have to say is there are very fine people on both sides," Behar said, alluding to Trump's comments after the racially charged protests in Charlottesville, Va. She also claimed that he "belittled the Black Lives [Matter] movement."

BLOOMBERG SAYS MANY 'BLACK AND LATINO MALES' DON'T 'KNOW HOW TO BEHAVE IN THE WORKPLACE,' IN NEWLY UNCOVERED 2011 VIDEO

"I'm not defending Trump because I'm attacking Bloomberg," McCain said, before downplaying Bloomberg's recent popularity.

After some cross-talk, McCain added: "You know what, I just think it's so interesting that you have a problem that we are talking about a candidate the way we would any other candidate. He just happens to be at the top getting the attention right now, which is why we're talking about it right now.

"What? I'm supposed to give Bloomberg a pass? Not on this show!" Mc Cain exclaimed.

Behar responded by askingMcCain who she was voting for in the 2020 general election. "Who I vote for is none of your business. But I am not voting for Trump and I'msure as hell not voting for Bloomberg."

"So, then you're not going to vote," Behar said, throwing up her hands. "You're not voting for Trump and you're not voting for a Democrat, you said that already," she added.

BLOOMBERG TIED FOR LEAD WITH SANDERS IN CRUCIAL SUPER TUESDAY STATE OF VIRGINIA: POLL

McCain responded: "You know what, you guys have done a piss-poor job of convincing me that I should vote for a Democrat."

After the commercial break, McCain suggested it was "ridiculous" to expect "The View"not to talk about Bloomberg's comments. "There's an impression in the media and from youthat I'm gettingthat we should just give him a pass," she said.

It's unclear if she was speaking to Behar or co-host Whoopi Goldberg at this point.

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Behar defended herself though, saying she was merely bringing up counterpoints to McCain's.

"She brings up some of the bad side, I bring up some of the good side. That's all. That's what this show is about. It's called 'The View.'"

"I know, but you seem to have a problem whenever I have a different view," McCain responded.

Continue reading here:
McCain, Behar clash over Bloomberg: It's 'none of your business' who I vote for! - Fox News

Audia Jones is running for Harris County district attorney. (Courtesy of Audia Jones)

Harris County, Texas, has long played a leading role in Americas law-and-order regime. Its elected officials have presided over a 130 executions since 1972, and its police jail more people than many states entire prison systems.

In recent years, however, an insurgent progressive movement has emerged in the country, which includes Houston. Democrats swept local races back in 2016, in what conservatives at the time called the worst defeat for Republicans in county history. Among the victors was Kim Ogg, who became the countys first Democratic district attorney in more than three decades.

On the trail, Ogg vowed to reduce prosecutions for crimes like marijuana possession, enact bail reforms, and improve community trust and public safety. But she has delivered on few of the progressive promises she ran on. One of the candidates jockeying to replace her is Audia Jones, a former district attorney whose platform is among the most progressive of any DA running for office in 2020. That vision has helped Jones attract local support from groups including the Texas Organizing Project and the Houston GLBT Political Caucus, along with the attention of national political figures such as Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors and Tiffany Cabn, the criminal-justice reformer who was55 votes away from becoming the Queens district attorney. On February 13, Jones added another important endorsement: Senator Bernie Sanders backed her and three other progressive DAs running for office.

I spoke to Jones by phone ahead of early voting in Texas, which begins tomorrow, February 18.

Daniel Fernandez

Daniel Fernandez: You have experience as a prosecutor, but some of your opponents have spent decades working in Harris County. What experiences do you think youd bring to bear that these other candidates might not have? The Q&A

Audia Jones: We have a current district attorney whos made comments about being part of a progressive dynasty, and did not keep those promises. Im going in there having seen everything, and it didnt take me 10, 15, 20 years to realize our system was completely lopsided. What we intend to do is be evidence-based and data-driven. We want to start tracking the causes so that at the end of our first year we can say, Hey, weve done something different, and this is how its decreasing our prison population and the amount of spending we put towards imprisoning individuals. Our communities are calling for something different, and its time we give that a chance.

DF: Youre running for office amid a wave of progressive success in Harris County. How do you see yourself fitting within this movement for reform?

AJ: I always tell people in Harris County that the DA is the most powerful actor in our criminal justice system. Were the gatekeepers: The DA is the key to making this progressive movement a reality. We have had a slew of progressive elected officials who are doing great things, from the county commissioners court to the judges, and I think the missing link is the district attorney.

DF: The number of men incarcerated in Texas prisons and jails has decreased in recent years, even as the number of incarcerated women continues to rise. What plans do you have to address the needs of women caught up in the legal system?

AJ: Houston is the number one hub in the US for human trafficking. A lot of women are getting caught up in sex work or being victims of human trafficking. Essentially all weve done is incarcerate them, which does nothing to help. We also know we have a significant number of women who are victims of domestic violence, but from my own experiences in the district attorneys office, [I can say] we dont really provide resources for individuals who have been victims. And I think its time for us to provide life skills and resources, like going to a psychologist or psychiatrist to mentally battle through whatever it is that they went through.

DF: Another part of your platform is abolishing the death penalty. But jurors in your county have imposed just two death sentences in the last five years. Rather than concentrating on the death penalty, many people have called attention to the more than 17,000 people in Texas who face natural life sentences. What plans do you have for responding to the needs of these individuals who are facing this other death penalty?

AJ: One of our primary focuses is our conviction integrity review unit. In the first 100 days, we want to pull every case where individuals are sentenced to 10 or more years in prison and review all of the evidence and the details surrounding either the conviction or plea, including pulling in outside counsel to help on cases to make sure that any individual, no matter their sentence, has gotten a fair shake.

DF: Texas is also one of just three states in which 17-year-olds are prosecuted as adults. Would you use your discretion to stop trying and punishing children as adults?

AJ: Yes. Childrens brains continue to develop up until the age of 21 to 25. So when were specifically charging kids who are 17 as adults, even when were saying theyre not adults for a movie, theyre not adults for the purposes of purchasing alcohol or purchasing cigarettes, there is a huge disconnect. And again, I am the only candidate who has publicly stated we will no longer be moving forward [with adult prosecution] unless somebody has suffered serious bodily injury or sexually violent crime. We need to deal with children as children. Dealing with them as adults has done nothing but perpetuate the school-to-prison pipeline and increase our prison populations.

DF: Youve talked about redirecting resources to prosecute violent crime. But within that, what do you think is the appropriate response for someone who has been convicted of, lets say, a homicide or rape?

AJ: As far as the appropriate response, its our responsibility in the district attorneys office to weigh all of the factors. What was the cause [of the crime]? What was this persons history? Their mental well-being? Have they been in and out of the criminal system before? I think all of those factors need to come into play when were determining what type of plea agreement to seek or offer.

Our number one priority will always be to make sure that the community is safe, but I think second, is our responsibility to take that stuff into consideration, and then find an adequate and appropriate response as far as the time to seek and make sure that it is a parallel to the offense that they actually committed.

DF: Would you consider no longer seeking life without parole sentences?

AJ: Its something we need to figure out. Were convicting too many people and placing them on death row, essentially in solitary confinement, in these animalistic type conditions. And then 27 years later, were like, Oops, sorry. So we have to figure out, you know, what are our alternatives to life without parole?

DF: Reading your platform and hearing what youve said, it seems to me like your opposition to the death penalty is first, because of how many mistakes are made, but second, because it is remarkably cruel. And Im unclear as to why a life without parole sentence is any more humane.

AJ: Lets make sure Im clear. Im not saying its more humane. What Im saying is that I believe that it is different than someone receiving a death sentence. You cant exonerate someone who is already deceased. If someones sitting in jail, obviously, thats something that we want to prohibit.

I had a young man that came from Missouri. He spent 27 years in a life sentence without parole where they were able to determine, Hey, this, there was evidence that was withheld by the prosecutor. However, he was alive and he had the ability to be taken off of life without parole. Now, Im not saying life without parole is something were absolutely going to use because, like you said, our main goal is to end excessive punishment. However, if there are some rare occasions, there may be some evidence or something that led to looking at life without parole, but not the death sentence.

DF: Youve alluded to prosecutorial misconduct. Do you have plans for how your office would prosecute its own historical wrongdoing or the chronic abuse that continue to occur inside Harris County jails?

AJ: We will be holding everybody accountable. Historically what weve seen is the people with the most powerthe prosecutors, police officers, jailers, and individuals who are elected officialshave been held to the lowest standard. And what were saying is that at the very minimum well hold everybody to the same standard. So if we have a prosecutor in our office, who is found to have withheld evidence or to have intentionally done something [wrong] on a case, we will hold that individual accountable. Same thing with police officers. We will always support our great police officers, and there are some great ones, but we will be holding them accountable as if they were a regular civilian without a badge.

DF: After your term is completed, what do you think constituents should expect in terms of change?

AJ: Data and transparency are going to drive our entire office. What are our incarceration numbers looking like? What is the makeup of our Harris County jail? Have we decreased violent offenses? Have we increased the number of victims who have been able to move forward in life even though they went through something harsh or traumatic? And then being able to move forward with a strong and rebuilt Harris County district attorneys office because right now its decaying every single day. The turnover rate is astronomically high, theres a lack of leadership.

DF: So can you commit at this stage to what youd like to see?

AJ: Like, population, as far as number wise?

DF: Well, youve talked about being evidence-based and data-driven, and Im curious if you have benchmarks for where youd like to be.

AJ: A big goal will be trying to get the incarceration rates down 40 to 50 percent within that four-year period. And I know its a reach, but we intend to support felony cash bail reform, which I believe will keep people who are just poor or suffering from some type of mental health issue from just being in jail because they cant afford to get out. I think thats going to cut our incarceration rates significantly.

DF: Weve talked a lot about you and your ideas, but youve also spoken to the greater movement to end mass incarceration. How will you empower activists and community members to create lasting change in Harris County?

AJ: We want to open up the lines of communication between the DAs office and our community. Well be breaking our office into teams of three that will parallel each district we have in our city council. There will be three teams of prosecutors who live in that area who will attend civic club meetings and participate in school programs. Essentially well be creating tentacles of communication throughout the districts in Harris County, and doing it within the areas that our prosecutors actually live and raise their children.

I dont think weve ever had a sense of communication, a sense of transparency. And its refreshing for community members to see that and understand that these are our goals and that they have a line of communication back to us because I believe justice looks different in every area.

See original here:
Audia Jones Wants to Redefine Criminal Justice in Texas - The Nation