Community Leadership in Social and Racial Justice, Part Three

City of Peachtree Corners, Georgia residents, and leaders speak out about change and actively becoming a more anti-racist community.

This third episode of this mini-part series includes community activist and multimedia consultant Mo Reilley and activist Michael Murphy-McCarthy (Director of Information Technology and Information Management Systems at The North Georgia Conference of The United Methodist Church.) Join them along with Peachtree Corners Life podcast host Rico Figliolini and series co-host Karl Barham in this intensive discussion to try and solve these issues. Recorded socially safe online and in the City of Peachtree Corners, Georgia

Timestamp:

[00:00:30] – Intro
[00:05:29] – Thoughts on the Protests
[00:09:57] – Why Now?
[00:12:07] – Can this Happen Everywhere?
[00:23:38] – Defunding
[00:34:59] – Racism in Schools
[00:43:25] – Zoning Issues
[00:53:34] – Having More Voices at the Table
[00:59:07] – Actionable Steps
[01:10:13] – Closing

“I don’t know what the ask is, but I believe that out of giving that, we can coalesce and come up with some specific actions that we want to ask the city to do. And this isn’t just about standing on the street. This is about affirming people, gathering voices, gathering more voices, starting to work together, trying to create some change.”

Michael Murphy-McCarthy

Podcast Transcript:

Rico: [00:00:30] The serious issue that over the last month, two months almost, has taken to the streets of every city in the country. So, you know, we, Karl Barham and I have put together this series. Karl did a lot of the heavy lifting and all the work on this really, I’ve got to say of bringing the guests together. And, so Karl take it from here, introduce who we have today.

Karl: [00:00:56] Oh, absolutely. Well, this is our third installment of a discussion we thought was important to just show the people in local communities like Peachtree Corners here in Georgia can have conversations about social justice, racial justice. Talk about their experiences, talk about things they’ve seen in the community. Talk about ways that we can learn from each other, ways that we can improve the community, not just for ourselves, but for our children. As we go forward, back in May on the 26th of May, everyone has probably seen the video. George Floyd being killed by a police officer during an arrest. A couple of weeks later in June 12th, another 27 year old African American father was shot and killed by Atlanta police officer while he was responding to a complaint of a man being asleep in his car. Anyone could watch that and would agree, including the officer that that’s not the outcome we wanted to see, or they would hope that would happen. But if you think about it, we’re 30 days past the beginning of the black lives matters movement protests and various protests around the country. And we’re, the conversation has opened up, it’s hitting corporate America and businesses. It’s happening in churches. It’s happening in schools, it’s happening in households. And so today on Peachtree Corners Life, we invited some local residents and leaders in the community to start this discussion here. And if you’ve seen any of the first two episodes, you can go to Peachtree Corners Life to see some of those conversations. And today, I am honored and privileged to have two more local residents leaders, and members of the community just to continue that conversation. So people could see that we can talk about this. We can maybe offer some suggestions and opinions on how we feel about, how it impacts systemic racism and some of these things that help allow things like what’s happening in the police, in law enforcement, what’s happening with black people, how it’s impacting different areas. So I’m going to ask our guests, Mo Reilley, who is a resident and entrepreneur and a mother of several wonderful children to introduce herself first. And then I’ll introduce Michael.

Mo: [00:03:27] Hey everybody I’m Mo Reilley. You pretty much did my introduction for me. I’m from the Midwest originally. But we have been in Peachtree corners for over seven years. I guess we came shortly after it actually became a city, which is kind of cool. I have three boys. I have twin ten-year-olds and a four year old. I guess for the sake of this discussion, we could also mention that they are biracial. My fiance is black. He works in Tech Park, Atlanta Tech Park, even though this is Peachtree Corners. And, yeah, I’m excited to join the conversation with you guys.

Karl: [00:04:08] Excellent. Next up Michael Murphy-McCarthy, is also a resident. He is a local leader active in many civic pursuits. And I’d love for you to tell a little bit about yourself, Michael.

Michael: [00:04:24] I moved to Georgia in 1995 to go to grad school. And bought a house in the city and had a job downtown and was living the, the city life. And then my job moved out here to
Peachtree corners and my wife and I were debating what to do and we had a three year old. So we decided to just move up here to Peachtree Corners and had a nice short commute for a long time about, 14 years. And then my, employer decided to mess up my life and move the office back inside the Perimeter. But I’ve stayed here in Peachtree Corners and expect to stay here. So I’ve been here in Peachtree Corners now for, almost 18 years. So my son who’s 21, went up through the schools, graduated Norcross high school. And, so I’ve seen quite a bit of change in this area. I remember when the BP gas station, on 141, which is no longer there was like a major landmark. It was across from the CVS. Seems like a far distant past.

Karl: [00:05:29] Well, the city’s evolved quite a bit, since then, and it’s continuing to evolve. For one of the things that’s impacting all of our communities around the country is what’s happening with black lives matters and the protest. So I’m curious if I, if I wanted to start off with as we were in the middle of COVID-19 and all of the, the social distancing, what was your reaction when you saw George Floyd and the protest that came out of that that’s been going on for 10 years, but as that started to come alive again, what’s your reaction to what’s been going on, around both the racial injustice that’s being displayed and, and the protest. Maybe Michael, you could start?

Michael: [00:06:24] Well, since you brought up COVID, I’ve been social isolating since March. Haven’t actually worked out of my office since then. And, you know, has been a bit of adjustment since then. When George Floyd was killed. My reaction was not again. Because you know, there’s been Ahmaud Arbery, there’s just, you know, obviously a long list of black men who have been killed by the police, in the streets. And I usually don’t watch a lot of online video, but I watched the video of George Floyd and, I guess actually watching a video of it impacted me, pretty strongly. And I’ve in response I decided to break isolation for protests. It’s funny. I haven’t been to a grocery store or a restaurant anywhere, but I’m out on the streets regularly protesting now. Because I’m just angered and fed up by how people are being treated and that we have sanctioned killing of black men in the streets of America. And I find it completely unacceptable.

Karl: [00:07:41] Mo I’m wondering, you’ve got young black men you’re raising and I can imagine the impact that you might’ve felt.

Mo: [00:07:55] Yeah to Michael’s point, we hadn’t really been doing anything either. We’d been in the house. And of course, immediate rage took over myself and you know, basically all of my friends and anybody who saw the video that I’m connected with, it immediately took me back to what is that six years ago to Michael Brown in Ferguson. And when that happened, I just remember being like, we have to go there. I was just trying to figure out anyway to get involved. Can we go there? How do we, how do we help? How do we get involved? So with this, we did not go down to the protest the very first day. I remember it just like turning up and feeling that I wanted to go, okay, we have to go. We have to go. But on top of the COVID you could kind of see with everything that was already happening in Missouri and kind of in other big cities that everything was going to reach a fever pitch very quickly. So I made the personal decision. Okay,
we’re not going to go. We’re not going to take the boys. And they have gone to protests with me. We went to the abolish ice protest. They’ve been actively involved in things before. I knew this one was going to be just a little bit different. So I stayed home, but I immediately got involved the best way I could from the house. Making phone calls, watching the live streams, sending out resources, donating, connecting people with Atlanta solidarity in case there were arrests that were made. I did everything and have been doing everything I could from the house while also communicating why mommy is glued to her phone and why she’s on the computer so much and, you know, sharing a little bit with the boys what we feel is okay to share with them, and just navigating it that way on top of COVID. And that’s, that’s the other reason why, we chose not to go out as a family, you know, it was kind of multi-tiered.

Karl: [00:09:57] I’m wondering in your conversations with, you know, friends, family, what is it about this that triggered this, this wider spread awareness? we know that it’s happened before there over the last 10 years. But something hit, With people on this one, I’m wondering, what is it, do you think you’re hearing from people that you talk to that makes, makes them more aware and more angered by what they’re seeing?

Mo: [00:10:32] I think, you know, to Michael’s point really enough is enough. Because news and I’m not talking about mainstream media, but actual live news comes at you so quickly with Facebook and Twitter and Instagram. And with everybody being able to go live and catching it in real time. You’re not faced with the delay of it being shown on the news or the recap at 6:00 PM or 11:00 PM and oh, this happened earlier. You know, it was literally like this happened, there was already a crowd of people that crowd is growing. Boom. And there is nothing good about what happened, but to just use the phrase of a perfect storm. You know, with COVID more people were at home, more people, it was like a pause. Everybody’s awareness is already heightened and we’re kind of already tuned into what’s going on. We’re already looking at the news. We’re already checking social media and then bam. It was there. And to that point, you know, a lot of people are not at work right now. So there’s more people available to get involved, whether it be at the protests or online, or going to, you know, the meetings or being part of these zoom meetings and conversations. So I just think, you know, good, bad and indifferent in such a time as this and why not now? And now that it’s here, there’s no letting up.

Karl: [00:12:07] Is there an element of it that with Michael Brown and so many others, those were in you know, whether it’s New York, city, Baltimore, other places, cities where, you know, there’s going to be this intersection of law enforcement and others. And, and these things can happen because it’s not here. When you think of Minneapolis and Minneapolis, for those that have been there, has, an urban city area, but a lot of it is suburban. But if you’re not from there, you can think of the Midwest as pretty much laid back and seeing that this is repeating all over the country. Not just in the cities or in the coast, it’s happening in communities all over. Is there, is there an element of this that might be where, where people feel this could happen in their neighborhood? Can this happen in Gwinnett County and Fulton County and Alpharetta and Duluth in Peachtree corners. Is this something that, that you think can happen here? Not so
much because, the police force is a particular way, but just the systemic racism that allows that to happen, it can manifest itself anywhere in the country.

Mo: [00:13:24] Do you want to jump in Michael?

Michael: [00:13:27] You can talk again or I can jump in.

Mo: [00:13:34] Jump in.

Michael: [00:13:36] I, I’m not sure. You know, cause I’m thinking Minneapolis has a history of issues with the police. And so, you know, if you’ve been, yeah, so it’s on the one hand of all it’s, you know, nice thinking mid West. But on the other hand that you’ve been paying attention to Minneapolis, you know, that they’ve had a history of issues. I, I think in some ways it comes down to what Mo said about it being a perfect storm more than necessarily the incidents. But on the other hand, watching that video, I think there’s something about the fact that. There was just this kneeling for eight minutes and 46 seconds. That’s a long time to just very intentionally kneel on someone. It wasn’t a quick pull out the gun and shoot him three times in two seconds or, you know, as they’re running away. This was a very, very slow, deliberate act. And you know, he could’ve gotten up after four minutes. He could have gotten up after five minutes and he would have lived, but eight minutes and 46 seconds of slowly, deliberately killing him.

Karl: [00:14:53] With witnesses on camera and three other law enforcement officers present, that paints a very telling picture.

Mo: [00:15:04] Yeah. I just think, to your question about, you know, people wondering, can it happen here and is it possible, you know. Of course, because, there is a system in place where, as Michael said, you know, police brutality is sanctioned. We can’t act like law enforcement and the system of policing didn’t originate in slavery. All of the systems that are in place come from that time. And we’ve yet to address it. We’ve yet to disband it or abolish it or defund it or whatever words, you know, people are using whatever the mission is. So of course it can happen here because just a couple of weeks after George Floyd, it did happen here. Sure, it was over on university Avenue, but Rayshard Brooks was killed. Just you know, 20 minutes from where we live in Peachtree Corners. So it’s here. It might not be directly, you know, in this zip code and it might not be in Alpharetta, but you also have to think about, why is that? Well, you have to look at the demographics of the city. If your city is naturally segregated and it’s a higher white population, then is the possibility of police brutality or police killings less than, you know, in the inner city, the Metro city of Atlanta. Sure. Because that’s what statistics show us. You know, we, and we saw Major Kane come and give her presentation at the city council meeting. And I honestly was just left with more questions. So I have a list and you know, and I know you’ve reached out to some of them to have them on the show and, you know, she used there’s these buzz words, and she just kept saying, and we do this for transparency, and we do this for transparency and she kept saying it, and I’m thinking, so if you have an early identification review board, how many incidents involving use of four police officers happened
before the review? The example she gave, and I don’t know if it was actual statistic or if it was a flippant example, was that say if the, early identification review board is looking at everything annually. And this officer happens to have used force 10 times an alarm goes off or a bell rings and then, you know, that person is placed for review. So we’re waiting an entire 12 year period or whatever their reporting period is. And allowing this one officer to have 10 instances of use of force before we’re reviewing them. How does that work? What outside agency is reviewing the use of force reports, because Gwinnett County police department, Atlanta police department, wherever you are, they cannot police themselves. You simply can’t. And she kept talking about, you know, how these reports happen and how things are sent up the chain of command. How do I know your chain of command is not corrupt? And if it’s a bunch of white cops reviewing their buddies what’s, what’s being missed in between? And I’m just, so I have a lot of curiosity and questions about the use of force reports, how they’re reviewed when they’re made public, what action is taken with the officer after they’ve been pinged, you know, a multitude of times for use of force. What is happening? And she was saying there’s transparency. But I’ve Googled. I don’t and if I don’t know what to look for or where to look, that’s not transparent. You’re telling me the information is there, but if you’re not telling me, Hey, you can go on the Gwinnett County police department and click on this link. And this is going to show you, which of our officers were disciplined or fired or looked into for their use of force. You’re not being transparent. We have no idea who’s policing us.

Karl: [00:19:33] That’s very interesting. As you mentioned that specific event example, because that’s often how systemic racism, is sometimes not seen or addressed. Because if the system is set up in a way where, those reviews or, or third party accountability isn’t happening. It’s easy for folks and it’s a tough decision for many of my friends in law enforcement. There was a, a brotherhood that exists and they’re doing a very hard, dangerous job for protecting us. Their, their job very often they work late, they work hard. but if there are individuals that in a particular instance, Is doing something that doesn’t fit the values of the, of the police department stepping in, deescalating, helping, you know, my brother’s keeper, helping the other ones stay within the values that they’re, that they strive for. If there isn’t a culture that’s that’s okay. Say, look, you know what you got, you’re getting out of hand or if someone else is seeing something, they don’t say something to get the person, whether it’s mental health, counseling, coaching, retraining, all of these different tools that are available. Someone’s got to be there. That can be that objective person that’s looking at it. So I don’t know if there’s a citizen review board for our…

Rico: [00:21:09] Not in Gwinnett County. But you bring up a good point though, Karl. The, and it is a police culture because I mean, if you’re looking at the Atlanta police force, they could 58 or 60% black African Americans on the police force. It’s majority minority on the police force and yet they still have issues, right? So it is a cultural thing within the police force where they’re protecting themselves. This is what unions do. Also, if it’s union honest and protect themselves, we’ve been through this discussion where, you know, they’ll negotiate salaries and stuff, and maybe even bring back police officers that are not, that were suspended at one point let’s say. Or quite frankly I know, for example, Gwinnett County police trains quite a few police in their Academy, they have a great Academy. They train them well, I believe. But after a year or two,
these guys, they leave and they join other city police forces. And then you get, and I’ve seen it because I’ve had some friends from New York, New Jersey, the Northern States. Where they retire and then they come down and then become police officers in more rural towns. So, you know, and they’re used to doing things a certain way. Maybe that culture is, you know, coming here. I mean, it’s, I don’t think a police force does any different from, from one place to another as much, because, because of what you said too Karl, they face a lot of, there’s crime in the streets. I mean, there’s things that are bad. They can get killed. They’ve been targeted for assassination themselves even. But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t have, we shouldn’t have respect for each other, that the police force is not there as a violent tool of government, that it’s there to keep everyone safe and, you know, and we just have to, I think we have to see how we get past where we are. So then we can, we can, I don’t know. I don’t say personal dismantling. I don’t know. I don’t know how Mo and Michael feel about dismantling. I think changing and maybe actually dismantling is the word defunding, right? Dismantling it. I guess if we’re going to use words like that as what you want to do, you want to remove the parts that need to do the police duties way from the parts that don’t need police to be doing that, right? You don’t need it.

Karl: [00:23:38] There’s always rhetoric. Like Rico, you’re mentioning these terms of defunding, dismantling the police force. There’s an element of it that’s political rhetoric that folks will do and play in that arena. Well, let’s just keep it simple. What do you think is meant by changing the police force, whether it’s to defunding or dismantling. What do you, what do you think people are asking for there? I’m curious your opinion on that.

Rico: [00:24:07] My opinion? Or let’s go to Mo maybe.

Mo: [00:24:13] Well, it means what it says. I think, especially now with, policy budgets and everything being looked at in most of the major cities. There is no city right now that should be having an increase of funding going to their police force. I’m looking at the numbers last year, right? Gwinnett County police department responded to 516,570 calls. Over a half a million police calls. Do they have a tough job? Yes. We also have to look at what community issues are happening and what is happening in people’s brains, that they are calling the police 516,000 times instead of in many instances. Talking to your neighbor, talking to the person that you’re saying is acting suspicious or ignoring it. That’s an option too, depending on what it is that you’re seeing and what it is that you’re calling the police for. And so, you know, Major Kane, did say that they have, some nonprofits and some organizations on standby that they can call if somebody is having a mental break or having an episode. And the goal is not always necessarily to take people to jail. But I know that if you go very, very baseline and scale, we’re talking about way down, starting at like my kid’s age and start looking at, the inequality and inequity in the school system. That’s where things start. So you start going through these systems and it’s like, okay, well, where else could that money be going instead of shoveling it into the police systems. And allowing them to have more riot gear when we don’t have enough PPE for the hospitals and the facilities that are handling COVID. Things are not balanced. So the defunding conversation has to happen because I’m not understanding why medical
programs, community outreach programs, educational programs, and all of these things are being cut and people can understand what defund that means. But when we started talking about defund police, people are like, I don’t get it. I don’t understand. Yes, you do. But maybe it’s scary or maybe you don’t understand. And there are websites and there is literature out there to help people understand, but you have to take a huge chunk of this money and redistribute it over here so that we can start seeing a balance happen in our communities and in the systems that are in place.

Rico: [00:27:14] Wouldn’t it be better if, I remember there was a zero budget thing done there Reagan’s time. I’m not saying that that would be it, but you know, you start from a budget of zero. What do you need to accomplish the thing that you need to do? Right? Policing break-ins, murder, robberies, whatever it takes, money police force. Wouldn’t it be better. Because just, you know, I think it was a, was it the Blasio? I think, but just the other day I said, we’re going to take a billion dollars from the police. We’re going to move it somewhere else. That sounds easy. That’s a lot of money. What would the using a billion dollars for it to begin with then, that he could easily take that away. And still do what the police is supposed to be doing at least on a minimal basis, right? Because how does that work? I mean, I don’t know. I’m bringing up some more questions cause I don’t think it’s as easy as moving money around because if it was that easy. It’s definitely a cultural thing. It can’t just be that, but I do agree with you Mo and I’ve always felt that education from Pre-Kindergarten or from taking care of our kids because they all start innocent. No one is born a racist, they all start innocent. If we could just bring them up the right way with the right mentors, then I think we’d have a better world, but I agree with you there for sure. And it’s hard work. It’s not going to be easy. It’s really hard work doing that.

Michael: [00:28:52] One of the things that I think about when I hear defund police is it’s terrible marketing. People just have a viscerally bad reaction to defund the police. Yes, we, we defund education. We defund healthcare all the time, but we don’t even talk about it in that language because people wouldn’t, you know, that language to do those things would not be acceptable either. And I, I do think that we have, a priority issue here with what we do with our money. And that, you know, reevaluating how much we’re spending on policing and healthcare and all these things are a big piece of it. Cause we we’ve created. a society where we spend more money on militarizing the police and on sticks and on punishment and on the prison pipeline and, on weapons than we do on creating a caring community where we actually take care of each other. And, and if we created, if we put our money into education and health care and building better community, we wouldn’t be locking people up in the same way that we are.

Karl: [00:30:15] I think you’re, you’re that that’s a really good insight you’re sharing because I could see someone listening to the conversation and hearing defund police. And immediately I used to remember a description, the wall comes up and says, you’re saying make me less safe. And, and I don’t think that’s what you’re saying. So there’s a nuance to listening to, to this movement, to this statement around defund police. But let’s say there was a billion dollars out there that could be moved to other places. If you replace defund police with, address racial injustice, let’s take a billion dollars and put the smart people in government universities, elected
officials and give them a billion dollars and say, look, let’s start with one system at a time. Criminal justice. Let’s look at the data. Let’s look at who, who gets pulled over. What specific actions, different behaviors can drive different outcomes when you pull somebody over. If, if someone is sleeping in their car in a Wendy’s drive through and you get the call and whatever the circumstances are, there’s an awareness that the outcome of that should be someone get an Uber. So let’s take some of that billion dollars and let’s give everybody an Uber credit card where you could send people home that needs to be sent home when there’s no immediate threat to life and so on. If you look in the education system, there’s, there’s many statistics out there that show people of color get, higher disciplines. They get less access. So that’s happening and it’s, I don’t know that any single individual is intentionally doing that. Let’s take some of that billion dollars and let’s figure out why that’s happening and put systems and things in place to help decrease that. If you go to the healthcare system, COVID-19 exposed, who gets impacted? We can’t get the right people if you’re frontline workers, that’s giving us groceries, can’t have, family leave if they get sick, they can’t afford to get sick. Even though they’re providing the service, let’s take some of the billion dollars and do that. But I think there is the part of this where you look at the systemic nature of what’s going on and people’s response. And if you could, I think you said it right, Michael, market that make that sound interesting. Make that sound a more just society. Sound like something people would want to do. I think people could understand with a constraint budget that maybe some of those funds could be better used in these other areas, especially if it brings about a more just society where people can be more evenly or equitably, responded to, or their needs being met. Food for thought.

Rico: [00:33:17] In a, in a utopian society. We’d all be equal, right? We’d all have the same income. We’d all have the same pleasures, same life. We’d be enjoying life. We wouldn’t be worried about all these other things, right? Politicians keep coming back to us and they tell us, well, if we do universal basic income where everyone has at least a minimum income, we should be all firing. We’re in, you know, I’m Italian heritage, born first generation American. I saw my father work for 18 hour shifts and stuff to, to build a business, to do, do what you hear immigrants do all the time, right? But we’re all tribal too, in a way, right? We all like to be among ourselves sometimes. Now that’s been changing. I know from my generation, for example, I wanted to be Americanized. I learned the language, and became American right? My kids, second generation American don’t even know how to speak Italian. I know how to speak it a little bit. My cousin will slap me around a little bit because bad grammar maybe but, you know, but would be that they assimilate, right? My kids, you know, Mo. You’re married to an African American, right? My kid’s going out with an Asian American. You know, I went out with, Hispanic girls when I was in Brooklyn. I mean, we grew up different, right. We have different, but not everyone’s like that. So it’s a cultural thing. That’s going to take generations to change. Maybe this is the beginning. Cause that eight minute, eight plus minute is just, I mean, it’s wrong. I mean, anyone that looks at it that has got to be sad about it.

Karl: [00:34:59] Here’s an interesting thought around that line. And I, and I look at growing up watching and being taught about racism from, from my family, my dad, and so on. There was always, he would always talk about the individual racism. Someone comes up to you and treats
you badly and, you know, be aware of that, you know, it could be dangerous or these things, some people’s hearts are that way. Don’t know that we could change that rapidly. There’s only a few things that can change people’s hearts and they may be better served finding it through, through their pastors. And other means to do that. But, but this, this systemic one is the one that my dad would tell me about and that’s the one that I think, today people have an opportunity to impact that. So I would say I’m not terribly concerned of the individual racism, that people have in their hearts. That exists. It’s a problem. We want that to change. But it’s been interesting. if you take, education, if you apply to an Ivy league school like Harvard they’re there, everyone is not on a level playing field and getting into a school like Harvard, there’s going to be challenges and people talk about affirmative action and all these different things. But I know for a fact that most schools have legacy programs. That means if your parents went to the school, it gives you a leg up to get into school. That sounds like a form of affirmative action. If someone now, if everyone didn’t historically have the same opportunity to go to all these schools, that’s built in systemic racism, playing out in a way that’s hidden, but it’s commonly acceptable.

Rico: [00:36:44] Do you know where that came from though Karl? That came from the thirties and twenties, where there were too many Jewish people entering those colleges and they decided to create a legacy program to stemie that.

Karl: [00:36:57] So, right. So what if you break the chain? Right? So there’s a lot of things. I mean, monuments are coming down. Things are changing. But I don’t know, I’m not particularly focused on any particular one thing, I just know that if people want to impact change, They can look at and search for these evidence and examples of systemic racism in their workplace, in their church, in the schools, in any part of society and take the beautiful talents that people have. Leadership, business leaders out there, individual leaders get involved and pull together that coalition that could change it, if you see it’s unjust. You know, folks can influence and change policies if that’s what they want to do to help everybody. If you want to help people of color, you know, changing hearts is great, but I can tell you there’s a, there’s a very specific action that could be done to change systems. Break the chains that these systems have that could be holding people back.

Mo: [00:38:05] I think, just to your point about education, because things sometimes seem very grand or distant when we talk about colleges and, and things like that. So just to bring it back to Peachtree Corners, right. Gwinnett County is a bubble outside of Metro Atlanta, Forsyth down there. You know, you come up here sometimes you don’t even know what’s going on in the city. Peachtree Corners is its bubble. And then inside there, you have its own little bubbles. Because when you look at Simpson elementary and Peachtree elementary, you can very clearly see between them, Berkeley Lake and some of the other schools that we are still very much segregated in our community. Our community is segregated. There’s no way to get around that. And I don’t know if that we’re still falling victim to redlining that happened 60, 70, 80 years ago, or sooner than that. Or if it’s just been, yes, it started with redlining and segregationist policies, and then people just got comfortable. Simpson elementary is over 70% white. How, how is that even possible? And how are the parents who are sending their kids to Simpson oblivious to that,
or not aware or not cognizant of. What’s happening in our community. It’s 70% white and only 7% black. And speaking to the disciplinarian and the school to prison pipeline. As far as suspensions and disciplinary actions, the white students make up less than 1%. Black students it’s over 4%. So there’s less black kids in your school. And yet here we are seeing that they’re suspended and disciplined more then the white students who are the majority. My kids go to Peachtree before COVID, anyway, we don’t know what we’re doing now. Who knows? So Peachtree is 40% black, 40 ish percent Hispanic, Latinex, and then 10% white. So it’s still an issue, right? We’re still segregated. We’re just on the completely opposite side. Everybody feeds into Pinckneyville. All of these surrounding schools. That’s the middle school. That’s where all of our kids are going. When you get up to the middle school level, things start to balance out. You’re about 30, 32, 33% white. Same for black. Same for Hispanic, Latinex. White students equal 3% or lower of suspension and disciplinary actions and black students are suspended at a rate of 14% or higher. Are you telling me somehow that black kids are, they’re acting out more, they’re fighting more, something is happening? No, the system is built against them from the very beginning. And so when you talk about people being community leaders and making effective change and making a difference in what to do moving forward, you don’t have to be an elected official. You don’t have to be a business owner in the community. You don’t have to serve on the board. You have to just look outside your front door. Holcomb bridge is literally like the proverbial railroad tracks. It’s what it is. And it’s been that way. And it’s why my kids and most of their friends are over here. And you have all of these other kids that are in Amberfield and Simpsonwood and all these other neighborhoods. And we are not even really considering buying a house over there because one, if my kids have to transfer to Simpson, they’re going to be the only black kids in their class. Almost guaranteed. My fiance, who’s the big black guy with dreads, when he wears a hoodie or he’s out wanting to jog in one of those neighborhoods or he’s out hanging out, is he going to be able to be comfortable knowing that none of his neighbors are gonna call the police on him? No. Our community is segregated and people have to take that into consideration. It’s not a far off thing. It’s not happening just in Atlanta. It’s not happening just in Detroit where I moved here from, that’s not the case. It’s here, it’s at our front steps. So if people actually want to affect change, you literally have to look at your cul-de-sac. Why does it look like this? And how can we change it? And that’s where it starts.

Rico: [00:43:25] Can I jump in a second? Because I agree to some extent for what you’re saying, racism is like Karl said individual, right. And Simpson is majority white and because of the way, just to play the other side of that, right. It’s majority white because the area is majority white, that, that feeds into. The homes are a certain price level because that’s the nature of these homes. You’re not going to make them any cheaper. This is the way the neighborhood is. If you can afford to live here. I haven’t seen in my, since 95, I’ve seen plenty of people come and go. I don’t see, and I’ve, I I’m familiar with red lightening and worked for Chuck Schumer for a year through a constituent work and I worked with the democratic party in Brooklyn, so I’m familiar with that. I don’t see that here. At least not now. Was it here 20 years ago? I have no idea. But I don’t see that now. I see, what I see is it’s an economic, it’s almost like a class thing versus racial thing on that aspect of it. Right? More expensive homes. You have to have the income to come here to buy. I mean, my son can’t move here. He’s going to have to buy a
condo somewhere where it’s cheaper because he can’t afford it. And that’s fine because he’s a younger guy, he’s twenty-four years old, right, so.

Karl: [00:44:48] But Rico, if I could, if I could build on that a little bit. So if you peel that back, we do, and you worked on the zoning and zoning when we make multi-year strategic plans and there’s a dynamic here that there are expensive homes here and others. The millennials and many of the folks that are looking at downsizing, retiring needs a place to live. Building, affordable housing and communities by design, by construct is a way to do that. Now this isn’t new other cities have done it. People are evolving it and you can look around the country and get best practices. But it takes will. It takes, this is important to us, so that in different community that have that dynamic historically, we can’t change the past. The next housing we build, they’re building townhouses across the street next to the town center. Those houses could be different. They could be a half million dollar town home. They could be more affordable townhomes, which would change the demographic that’s there that now are the only ones that are working in grocery stores. And so people could afford.

Rico: [00:46:00] Okay so.

Michael: [00:46:01] Can I jump in?

Rico: [00:46:02] Karl, I’m sorry, just to add one more, one more thing to that. Those townhouses are on inexpensive property. They’re going to be whatever the market value is there. You’re right. Unless it’s rezoned and you force a subsidy, there are ways to do that. I used to be on the planning commission too so I understand that. There’s 165 apartments that supposed to be built right on, right next to town center. You know that, right? So that’s affordable housing for sure to a degree. Now I wish they were condos and not apartments because that’s where at least it’s ownership, right? And reasonably priced condos, not like a ridiculous price. Those I can see, and they should have been something, that could have been a great way to do that. But it’s not.

Karl: [00:46:45] So Michael, you’ve got perspective here being here for awhile, please, please share.

Michael: [00:46:57] I’m very concerned about what’s happening in Peachtree Corners and like, Karl, I think one of the things you said when you reached out to me was that not a whole lot is being said here and, by the city leadership. And I’m going to get around to the housing and school thing. I got a slightly long story here. My, what, what struck me in the last few weeks is that, you know, frequently people after shootings and things say, you know, there’s lots of thoughts and prayers and stuff, but we’ve actually gone through a period of time where we’ve not even had that where our mayor said, it’s better not to say anything. And it’s better just to listen. If you want to be our mayor, you ought to speak up and say something. You ought to be talking to the people who are feeling oppressed. You ought to be educating yourself on why people are out on the streets protesting. That it’s not okay to just sit back and go, I’m a white guy, I’m not afraid of the police, I don’t know what you’re feeling. The, the opt, I got a slightly
different thing out of the police presentation at city council. I love those, review of it, but what I got out of it is okay, so, what do you do when you don’t know what to do? You bring in the police to talk about why they’re already doing things correctly? When a lot of us don’t, you know, have a lot of concerns and questions about how are things being done, but what does our city council do? Bring the police in to talk about, don’t worry, we’re already doing it okay. And then you follow that up with a presentation on why the South side of the city, where the minorities live, where the poor communities are, why they’re blighted and why we have to dissolve them so we can tax them because they’re blighted. We’re not going to tax the whole city. We’re not going to tax the white parts of the city. We’re not going to tax the wealthy parts of the city. We’re going to tax the blighted parts of the community through redevelopment zones. I don’t think that was good, wait, Rico, let me talk. I don’t think that was good optics for the meeting that their first public meeting, after all this hits is to have the police come in and to say, we’re doing it okay. And then to follow it up immediately with the presentation on the blighted south side? Give me a break. That ain’t right. To get around to Simpson and what’s going on on the North side, I happen to be living in that zone. I, as I mentioned, my job moved up here, I moved out here. I bought a house here, so I could have a really short commute, literally on a bad day to work I see 6 cars. That’s how short my commute was. I frequently saw more deer than cars on the way to work. And what struck me and disturbed me after I moved here was the fact that my neighbors were proud that nobody in apartments went to the same school that my son went to. They were proud that it was mostly white. They wanted to keep it white. They wanted to keep the townhomes and the apartments out of the area. When you go out to the forum to the new town center, why did the city buy that land? To keep apartments out of the Simpson elementary school. They could have bought, built their town center somewhere else. They build it across from the forum to protect the home values of the people who send their kids to Simpson elementary. Okay, that’s my rant.

Rico: [00:50:56] Alright. Can I, can I, do you mind? One is I ended the, just to clarify the facts, Michael, the CID or the tax Haven part, the taxing part, it’s a self taxing district to the businesses that are in the district that want to spend their money there.

Michael: [00:51:16] I’m not talking about the CID.

Rico: [00:51:19] Then what are you talking about? That’s the overlay that they were talking about. I think, if I remember correct.

Michael: [00:51:24] I’ve gone to some of the evening planning meetings and I’m not sure of all the exact details, but they are talking about creating redevelopment zones in blighted areas. That’s a completely separate issue than the CID.

Rico: [00:51:39] Right. But I believe it has, the component with self taxing district that they would allow them to be able to tax themselves, which is what, you know West Gwinnet or whatever, West village, whatever they do. But I, you know, there’s another facet of it. But the apartments across the way that was, that’s the town centers, I’ll tell you that there was a lawsuit at the very
beginning back when Charlie Roberts had that property. Way back when the people were saying, he actually said, actually the lawsuit was brought to say that they would try to block his rezoning there because of racism. So that goes back. I don’t know, 20 odd years ago or something.

Michael: [00:52:24] Rico, I understand you’re going over facts and a little history and maybe I mean slightly more nuanced interpretation, but I fundamentally believe that our city has structural racism in it. And what you are doing by talking about the facts in such a manner is to defend, possibly, that what I’m trying to point out is we have issues here that we need to deal with. And I thought that was the point of the conversation here.

Rico: [00:52:49] Yeah, that is. I’m not defending them what I’m trying to put out is facts. So I, at least, well, let’s deal with the facts. We want to deal with the facts of, of everything. So let’s deal with the facts though. That’s all I’m saying. There are 165 apartments that are going across there by the way, is my point. So they’re are apartments going there. There may not be the 300 apartments originally that was supposed to go. But when Charlie Roberts sold that to get there, to be able to put his 165, which by the way, he was zoned to do, he could have kept the property and done the 300 apartments there. He decided to sell part of it. That’s part of that issue by the way, just to keep things straight, but there will be apartments there that are about 160 units.

Karl: [00:53:34] I’m curious Rico though, as, if, if you stepped back from, from the particular actions that any city takes, bridges and town centers and apartments and more, the question is who are the stakeholders that are being impacted by those decisions? And we can, we can reasonably say there are people of all ethnicities, all socioeconomics and in a city the size of Peachtree Corners or any local city. But the people making the decisions, the people that are influencing those decisions, I’m just curious how diverse that is. Concerning, considering when a decision is made like that, are the voices being heard and being represented that could influence because if you bring in a different perspective, the same decision may be decided on. That, that’s not the question. The question is if only a few folks can make the decision and admittedly, whether the mayor or other people may have a particular point of view, that may differ from others, there’s a blind spot. So when you start talking about systemic community leadership, I’m curious, what, what is the role of community leaders, residents, in making sure that these big decisions that may impact the community that has systemic racism built into it, are they getting information? I think they are really smart people that run, that run the city and other places. My question is, are they getting the information they need to understand the impact of the decisions they’re making on various people. And if the answer is yes, if they’re getting counsel and guidance from all parts of Peachtree Corners, whatever side of Holcomb bridge, whatever school, the parents, if they’re getting that and you can’t just say, we asked for it and we didn’t get it. If folks are shut out from the system, at some point they stopped talking. But if you really want to pull those voices in, that’s part of what people can do. Stepping up, whether run for office, whether they’re get involved in, in local, in local matters or outreach on the other side. There, there, I remembered, a mentor of mine, he, he gave us a really interesting
challenge with leadership team. I, I worked for an organization that was in an industry that was mostly male dominated, aerospace. If you go and you look at any aerospace company, there’s going to be mostly men dominating in there. And I remembered, he challenged, everybody on his staff to improve the recruiting, onboarding development and promotion of women in the aerospace industry. And so we had a very specific task. We had to go out to organizations and build relationships so we can identify engineering talents and management talents, sales talents, and find ways to bring them in. That was literally on our goals. We got paid and compensated based on how we perform them in particular way. Now, I didn’t argue with it. If he said, that’s what you had to go do, but was it the right thing to do? He was thinking of something larger then just making a particular number, but here’s the funny thing. And I measured it. When we hired women in sales and in aerospace, they often outperform men. Who knew? You wouldn’t know that, but he had an insight. He challenged us to change. He challenged us to bring, make us uncomfortable and bring other people to the conversation. So in community leadership, it’s going to be uncomfortable for folks to start to engage in real ways, challenge themselves to get different voices. But if you’re a person that doesn’t feel you understand someone else, someone else’s culture, somebody else’s experience in life, and you have a title, self appointed or, or not. A leader or member of the community. The challenge to you is what are you going to do to change that? And that’s, I think, you know, the optics of, of, of a particular meeting. If you, one resident saw the meeting in that way. The question is, did others? And it happened, but do you learn from it or do we show up at a meeting two months from now and it’s the same thing? There’s no learning that happens. I don’t know the answer to that, but I think this is a time where folks are really starting to examine their biases and their blind spots. And I’m just curious to see, you know, does this continue beyond this moment in time? And it leads to action and change. That’s what’s going to be interesting to see. So I’m curious on, what, what advice would you give to folks and just taken from your perspective, people can do to get, more active, aware and involved whether individual or community leader. And Michael, I know you’ve been organizing some, some protests and activities, but, maybe you could share some of the things that, that people can get involved with locally.

Michael: [00:59:07] So we started, I mentioned I started going to protests, and I’ve actually avoided the big ones in the city. I’ve been more focused on local. I know it’s an old phrase, but all politics is local. So I’ve gone to the two Peachtree Corners ones that were organized by our youth. Great events. And, I’ve been, after chatting with some friends and deciding that we could go out and do this, decided to, just go out along Peachtree Parkway periodically in support of black lives matter and have been, slowly growing that event. We had our biggest turnout this morning. We’ve decided to do weeklies from 7:00 AM to 9:00 AM down just North of Holcomb bridge. And I’m hoping more people will turn out. We, we have a revolving group of people and in order to do a weekly, that’s what we need. So if you can come, great. Part of it is to show our support of black lives matter and show support for people who are coming and protesting with us and the people driving by. We’ve had people, you know, pull over, get out of the car and scream I love you to us, and get back in the car and take off. And we, we it’s been, it’s clearly affirmative to the people who are driving by. And I know that’s not gonna create the structural change that we need and necessarily deal with the structural racism here in Peachtree Corners.
But I think it’s important that we get our voice out there and we let people know that there are people, other people in the community who, support black lives matter and support creating change in the community. And another side thing that I’ve seen, that’s a huge benefit from this is that I believe that there’s a bunch of us who are in our own little grassroots gardens. Like there’s a group of us up here in North Peachtree Corners who are organizing around HD95 and helping to get, some political, we’re supposed to be nonpartisan here, so I’ll just say political candidates, elected or reelected. And, you know, we’re trying to organize. And one of the things we’re very clear is our garden is too small. We’re in a bubble. You know, Mo referenced bubbles, and the bubbles in the different part of the city need to connect for the garden, I’ve been using the garden analogy. We need to connect our gardens, and reach out so that we can become more effective. And, I don’t know what the ask is, but I believe that out of giving that we need to come to, we can coalesce and come up with some specific actions that we want to ask the city to do. And this isn’t just about standing on the street. This is about affirming people, gathering voices, gathering more voices, starting to work together, trying to create some change.

Karl: [01:02:01] Thank you. Mo, I’m curious to get your thoughts.

Mo: [01:02:09] On how to move forward and make the world a better place?

Karl: [01:02:14] If you got that one, I’d think you’d be quite wealthy. But we could start with what little small, innocent folks that live in their homes and in their communities can do.

Mo: [01:02:28] Well, I hope people in our community watch these conversations that you guys have been hosting. And then continue having the conversations. Recognize that there’s an issue and choose to take action. I think part of the reason why things have been the way they have for so long is because of the people that benefit from the system. So, you know, we’ve talked about why certain people have not agreed to come on the show and it’s either, if you support black lives or equity in education or any of these things say that. And if you don’t support it, say that, or I’ll be left to assume that your silence leans in that direction. So I think that’s first and foremost, recognizing that there are some serious issues in Peachtree Corners with diversity, inequality, inequity, and it starts from Pre-K up. It starts from the way the lines are drawn for the zoning, for the school boards, it starts with the fact that, you know yes, we have a beautiful town center and yes, there’s new townhouses, but when the townhouses costs 400, 500, 600, $700,000, certain people are being kept out of the community. Yes. Apartment buildings are being built, but are they affordable apartments or are they luxury apartments that start at 1200, 1500 for a one bedroom. And so the people who are serving our community, that work at Sprouts that work at Wendy’s that work at Cool Runnings, the Jamaican restaurant that work at J Alexander, they work at all these places, but they can not live in our community, right? All of these things, people have to open their eyes become aware and then take action to change that. It starts at home. You have to talk to your kids about why there’s no black kids in their school. And do you want that to change? Do you want them to have a diverse group of kids that they’re playing with on the playground? What are the actionable steps there? When we return to the school and you start ignoring COVID and the protests go away, you can’t just close
your eyes and become blind to the situation that’s happening. So beyond that, I’m part of a couple mom groups in the neighborhood, and I know folks love to do book clubs. So there’s plenty of literature on the subject. I would encourage white people to do anti-racism work. There are books, you can get. Me a White Supremacy, White Fragility, you can look up, Rachel Cargill, the Great Unlearn, Brittany Packnett Cunningham, Laila F. Sod. These are all people that you can Google. You can find them on social media. There’s tons of resources that go beyond us having this conversation. If you actually want to effect change within yourself first with your kids, with their school, and then out into the community.

Karl: [01:05:55] That’s really, really helpful to hear some of those, cause these things start individually, and people could build it and expand out from that. Rico, I’m curious if you’ve got any, any thoughts on, as you’ve heard this discussion, this is our third, our third one in this. And the purpose is to start the dialogue, but any takeaways and things that you think might really help folks as they go through their own journeys?

Rico: [01:06:25] Well, Mo, thank you for the list of reading. Number one that does help and some of those books are, are on my list as well, so to, to read. But you know, it’s a good way. And Michael, I didn’t mean to get on you, but it’s good to have this tough conversation, right? And it’s good to point out different things in it. And Karl and I had at one point said, why don’t we just get, you know, maybe you get, get three white people on to just talk about from their perspective that they used to think, and maybe that they changed their minds and their thinking different, you know, it’s hard to change people’s minds. I think, you know, And there’s different things that you can affect. I think. You know, listen, the Simpson elementary school being majority white, again, I think that’s just, you know, I don’t want to re-go through that, but some things are the way they are, because that’s the lines and stuff. That’s not necessarily, that school’s been there for so long that this Peachtree Corners has grown out and it’s, can’t even accommodate the kids at one point that it could accommodate. So from within this circle, if you want to call it a bubble of a Pinckneyville middle is right down the block and it’s majority minority. And yes, it feeds from three different elementary schools. The biggest thing, you know, and that’s just to set the playing field, but the biggest thing is involvement, right. But involvement has to come like Joe Sawyer when he ran for city council, involvement has to come to go to the planning commission. To you know, if you’re going to talk about, you know, rezoning and how do you affect lower-income rezoning? I’ve talked about that when we you know, when I was on the planning commission, how do we do that? Of course Gwinnett County at the time would tell me we can’t do those things, it would be illegal, we get lawsuits, we’d have to protect it. It’s like, I don’t see it. I just, I don’t see putting multi-units like 13, like apartments next to homes. Doesn’t work that way. You know, it just doesn’t. But if we’re all involved, if we all have a voice at the table and it’s hard when maybe two people work in a family and maybe they’re doing two jobs, three jobs and they can’t get there, we have to make it easier for them at least to participate. See the stuff online, be able to communicate online. We’re doing all our telework and online, there’s no reason in the world why we can’t communicate online to our representative. And if they’re not being responsive, throw them out. I mean, that’s, that’s politics. That’s the way this works. That’s the way it’s always worked. If we’re not, if we want to make the change, we need
to do it from the inside out. Unless you want a revolution that takes down a government, that’s a whole different story and I don’t want to go there. But the best way to do it and the way that people will accept it better is from inside out to do that work. And it has worked, but you know what? There are people that just don’t want to do that work. It’s easier to just talk about it. If you’re going to be there, you need to do the work, get your representatives and go to those meetings. I mean, really, it doesn’t take a lot of votes to put a city council person in or a state Senator or a house seat. Now, president, you know, can’t talk about that. But, and I don’t understand how 3 million people can vote for one person. Not that I was for her, but vote for the one that’s in their house now. I just don’t know how that goes, but you have to be involved and I don’t want to keep going on, but that’s, to me that’s a…

Karl: [01:10:13] Alright, I’ll wrap up by saying, first, thank you all for coming out. Let’s have this conversation. We would normally be doing this together. We’d be doing it while breaking bread and having coffee or drinks and talk. And we can’t do that now. But I think it was still important that we have this conversation and that more of these happen. My only tips to folks would be, fundamentally falls around three things. One, this weekend I hear that Hamilton will be streaming on Disney plus, so if you want to talk about getting involved, doing more with, with the talents that you have, take a watch at Hamilton. And you don’t have to do all the things he did, but you could do what you can in your own community and in your own house. The second thing, I would say for those folks that, you know, feel that there’s an injustice that they’re starting to realize, and they know something about it doesn’t feel right, and they want to do something. It’s really simple. If you want to tell people that you support social justice, more than words, where you put your time and where you put your resource, money tells people what’s important to you. So, whether it’s protesting, whether it’s supporting schools, whether it’s supporting things in the community. Think about where you spend your time, where you put your resources, if you want to help drive more, equity in the community you live, you live in. And the last thing I’d say for folks to think about, reach out. And if you haven’t talked to someone that’s different from you, it’s a great time to start doing that. Learn to understand different perspectives. And for those that are uncomfortable with it yet, that’s okay too. This may not be your time and moment, but I’ll tell you something, your kids are changing. And they’re going to follow. The millennials and the generation to follow are going to force us to change it regardless. So it’s a question when you want to jump on the bus, but I do think that that the next generation is going to dictate how and what this society is like. So thank you Mo. Thank you, Michael and Rico again for allowing us to have these conversations.I appreciate you for creating this platform to do that. Take care everybody have a good day and tune in to Peachtree Corners Life podcast. It’s streamed, this’ll be on Facebook live along with the other conversations. And, you know, start having your own. Thank you everyone.