Guest: Dr. Joyce James
You are tuned in to ninety one point seven FM Co op Community Radio streaming online koop.org and you are listening to Nonviolent Austin Radio Hour. Take it away, Jim.
Jim Crosby:Take my story and tell it to the congress. Gonna make them see what they're doing to me. Making minimum wage ain't making a living. Time to raise it up. Yeah.
Jim Crosby:Raise it up. Time to raise it up. Got two jobs and can't pay the rent. Can't afford insurance, can't save a cent. He'll take a tour, mister politician, in my neighborhood, my neighborhood, and see if you can truly tell me you serve the common good.
Jim Crosby:Serve the common good. The common good. And you say you're gonna take my children, take my kids from me, my kids from me. Not till my body's cold and dead and my spirit flies free. Spirits are flying free.
Jim Crosby:Take my story, tell it to the congress. Gonna make them see what they're doing to me, what they're doing to me. Take my story.
Stacie Freasier:Thank you, brother Jim. Hello, circle.
Robert Tyrone Lilly:Greetings of peace.
Stacie Freasier:Brother Rob?
Robert Tyrone Lilly:Yes. Yes. Welcome to the co op radio station ninety one point seven FM. You're listening to the Austin Nonviolent Radio Hour with myself, brother Robert Tyrone Lilley, aka brother Rob. And to my left is our guest for the day, Joyce James.
Robert Tyrone Lilly:She'll be introducing herself with more detail in a minute. And we wanna bring in also Stacy Frazier, my cohost, and Jim Crosby, who just heard on the And he did a phenomenal job strumming on that on that beautiful instrument.
Stacie Freasier:Thank you for that monthly musical interlude, Jim. You bet. Music is part of the resistance for sure.
Robert Tyrone Lilly:Absolutely. So we're in for a treat today. We have a guest with us, Joyce James. Is it doctor Joyce James? Is is it doctor Joyce James?
Joyce James:Honorary doctor.
Robert Tyrone Lilly:Honorary honorary doctor.
Robert Tyrone Lilly:because I know I've I know I've heard folk identify you as doctor.
Joyce James:Always call me doctor.
Robert Tyrone Lilly:Okay. So so so everyone who is listening, we have a treat for you today. We have Joyce James in here of Joyce James Consulting. She's also the founder of the Groundwater Analysis, which she'll be talking about today, which is a training that she does with the local police department. And our conversation today is gonna be around a lot of the work that she's done over decades in this community, but also grounded in that idea of working with systems and working with law enforcement in our community.
Robert Tyrone Lilly:And what does that mean, especially through the lens of a of a racial analysis or anti racist analysis. So, doctor James, would you just introduce yourself for the audience, credentialize yourself, let them know who you are.
Joyce James:Yes. Thank you so much for having me. I'm Joyce James. I'm president and CEO of Joyce James Consulting. I come to you with a thirty three year history working in state government, leading the state of Texas' Child Protective Services Program, also led the Center for Elimination of Disproportionality and Disparities, and the state office of Minority Health at Health and Human Services.
Joyce James:I've been since 2013 working out of my own consulting company with various systems and institutions across the country and in Texas and my work is very much focused on a groundwater analysis of racial inequities meaning that the groundwater is contaminated in all the systems that the systems produce the same disparate outcomes for the same population of people and therefore recommending that systems turn the mirror inward, become critical lovers, and understand institutional and structural racism.
Robert Tyrone Lilly:Thank you. Thank you so very much. I just wanna quickly kinda share why this conversation is important to me and how I became acquainted with, doctor James. So years ago after getting released from prison, I worked for the for Goodwill. And I was cleaning offices.
Robert Tyrone Lilly:I was cleaning one of the child protective services offices in the evening. And, you know, you go from office to office making sure the trash baskets are emptied and and, you know, there's no dust and dirt on the on the equipment or the floor. And all of a sudden, one day, went into one office and I noticed these stack of documents, and they had the words anti racism on it and undoing racism on it. And I was like, what in the world is this? This is interesting.
Robert Tyrone Lilly:So I I ventured closer, took a peek, and there was a reading list from an organization called the People's Institute for Survival and Beyond. I had never heard of them before. But then also I scoured through the documents. I wasn't supposed to be doing this, so don't tell anybody. I'm looking through the documents.
Jim Crosby:You just told the world.
Robert Tyrone Lilly:I just told the world.
Joyce James:And it's recorded.
Stacie Freasier:Cat's out of the bag.
Robert Tyrone Lilly:And it's recorded. But don't let it get back to goodwill because I'm a have to go back there one day, at least get some clothes. So anyway, long story short, I'm scouring through this, and I and I see this this information about a meeting for a thing called the disproportionality committee in our local community. I was in Abilene, Texas at the time. So if you could just grab a hold of a couple of pieces of that information, the People's Institute and the Disproportionality Committee, and let folk know and and let me say let me put a bow on it.
Robert Tyrone Lilly:And all of these things I learned later were associated with the long legacy of the work of doctor James. So please tell us a little bit more about that history and your experience with those institutions.
Joyce James:Yes. And and I would just have to say that it's it's a very long history because it's a long journey from my position as a child protect services caseworker down in Port Arthur, Texas to being the assistant commissioner for Texas child protector services. The work started, kinda like in my heart and in my soul when I was a caseworker because I found myself with a caseload of primarily black teenagers, who were, for some reason, having to be placed outside of their home community because we didn't have local placements. So, you know, what's driven me all the way up to all the places that I've been privileged to be are the faces of the children who made up my very case first caseload. I would put kids in my car and travel them long distances across the state of Texas, and I would drop them off in placement facilities where I never would have wanted my own children to be.
Joyce James:And I did that for a very long time because I did not feel like I had the analysis, the language, nor the safe space to raise issues around what I was seeing happening to kids. So I did a lot of things in the midst of that, and I was silent for a long time about what I knew was some form of racism, but I didn't yet have the analysis that I later gained from the People's Institute for Survival and Beyond. And so eventually, years later than I like to admit, but in all transparency, years later I realized that my silence was harming and so I began to speak out on these issues when I was a program director down in the Beaumont, Texas region. Started looking at data, seeing the disparate outcomes for the same population and began to develop at that time a model for engaging around data, leadership development, cultural competency, community engagement, both internal and external engagement, cross systems collaboration. And later, I learned from the People's Institute that we would have to look at our policies to ensure that they were anti racism policies and that we would have to understand the history of racism if we were to be able to undo it.
Joyce James:And so fast forward, a lot happened in between. But fast forward, when I was privileged to be appointed to lead the child protect services program for the state of Texas, I brought with me that knowledge from the region, the beginnings of a model that I wanted to implement at the state level. And my first month on the job was to examine data for the state, and it mirrored what I found in the areas where I worked. You know, later, I realized that in every state in the country, the foster care system is disproportionately represented with black children and with native American children here in the state of Texas. And so armed with my data, the first month on the job, I was able to, in response to the governor's order that we examine our enforcement actions based on that data, I was able to be instrumental in having studies done that remove single parent household and poverty as the cause for the racial inequities and to show that there was racial bias, in the work and in the decisions that we were making and that we really needed to have a deeper analysis of racism.
Joyce James:And so just, you know, real quickly, it's a long story, but I was able to, testify before the legislature and believe it or not, in 2005, Texas became the first state in the country to have law on the books in senate bill six. And the law may still be on the books, but law for the first state in the country requiring us to address the disproportionality in the foster care system. And we knew that it couldn't just be the work that we were doing, that we had to engage the voices of community, that we had to hear from people who were living the experiences of having their children removed and even having their rights permanently severed. And so the legislature actually gave us unprecedented resources and mandates that we would train our staff in culture competency. We would engage the community.
Joyce James:We would work with other systems. And a lot of that happened and we developed a state level task force to look at that. And then we realized that it was important to really move that down to the regional levels. And so we began to create those community advisory committees because we also then had staff from the legislature specialized to be in the region and at state office to address the inequities. And that's how those committees came to be formed.
Robert Tyrone Lilly:Disproportionality committees.
Joyce James:Right. And and as as soon as the governor's office said that we would be required to train our staff in cultural competency, I knew it couldn't be the same old training that we had been doing for twenty plus years where you sit at the computer and you answer some questions and you check the boxes and then you click done and you print yourself off a certificate. Right? And voila, you were, you know, you understood it. But see, I knew we needed to bring the People's Institute in.
Joyce James:And so, in 2005, we reached out to the People's Institute. In our budget was money for undoing racism. In our state budget was money for undoing
Robert Tyrone Lilly:racism. Unprecedented.
Joyce James:Right? Unprecedented. And and, actually, we started to do training. We we were not sitting in rooms by ourselves. We had other systems leaders in there because what I have come to understand is that the same vulnerable populations that are touched by the child welfare system are also touched by multiple systems that serve as a foot of oppression and have a collective impact on the same people.
Stacie Freasier:Interlocking systems.
Joyce James:Interlocking The groundwater is polluted in all of them and you cannot just clean it up in one place and so those community advisory committees actually became to be the source of looking inside of the system, right? Making sure. That we were accountable for the things that we said we wanted
Robert Tyrone Lilly:to do. I wanna chime in there, then I wanna bring in my two cohosts. So thank you so much for giving us that history. So what what what I found so impressive about and I didn't know doctor James. I just had begun to hear a name from Sharon Owens in Abilene, Texas, who became a mentor for me in that disproportionality committee.
Robert Tyrone Lilly:What I saw I didn't and I had not had access at that time to the People's Institute for Survival and Beyond there, undoing racism training. It would be years. It would be a I would get it there, but later on, it would be years before I could actually absorb it in ways that started to really make sense to me. The first time, I was only like, it was a surface level introduction. But suffice it to say, what made her impressive to me without knowing it was two things.
Robert Tyrone Lilly:One, I had been hearing about how she took data and forced the state to look at she controlled for everything, but the only thing that could not be controlled for was race. It was the only constant through all of the research, whether you talked about schools, whether you talked about criminal justice, whether you talked about foster care, whether you talked about the child protective services, it was the main constant that held. Right? So that and the data supported that, the numbers, which is what systems always depend on for decisions. Right?
Robert Tyrone Lilly:So she showed us the numbers. And then the second thing that I was impressed with with the disproportionality committees, and then later, I'm gonna segue into the the groundwater analysis and talk about police. Because this thing that I experienced in Abilene with the disproportionality committee, I was a community member impacted by the criminal legal system. The disproportionality committee essentially was creating a space for systems leaders and community members to meet on the same level in the same space. Now I'd now, ideally, we were all supposed to be equal in the room.
Robert Tyrone Lilly:Now, of course, we sometimes you have to calibrate and adjust for that. But, you know, the fact of the matter is I was in the room with police chief. I was in the room with child protective services directors and supervisors. I was in the room with people that I could not necessarily walk up to their office and knock on the door and say, I'd like to have a meeting with you. But in that room, I could have proximity to them.
Robert Tyrone Lilly:They could hear me speak. I could also bring in impacted people along with me to participate in those conversations. And this was, I'm told, a policy that was now being established all over the state of Texas. It just phenomenal. So Stacy.
Stacie Freasier:If you're just tuning in, you are listening to Nonviolent Austin Radio Hour here on Co op Community Radio ninety one point seven FM. Thank you all for joining us online as well. Coop.org. And we are sitting in beloved community with doctor Joyce James, who is, hard to to credentialize because of how impressive your body of practice has been in this state of Texas and beyond. So I'll just leave it with you're a racial equity consultant with Joyce James Consulting for Nick.
Joyce James:Yes.
Stacie Freasier:So I have a question for you. How how have you sustained your practice throughout all of these systems, all of these years?
Joyce James:I believe that one of the primary reasons, that I've been able to continue to do this work even when the state started to, dismantle and push back. I understand, the design of systems and that they are very resistant to change, but I also know because I have personal experience with the fact that when we organize and we have an analysis of racism and we understand it at the systemic versus operating from the individual pointing fingers and laying blame perspective that we can keep people in the work and and in the conversation and so, you know, keeping myself going, I have been to seventy five, eighty two day undoing racism workshops And I'm going to one in March in New Orleans.
Robert Tyrone Lilly:And I hope to be a part of that too.
Joyce James:Because I constantly seek to build my knowledge and capacity so that when I speak, there's very little to challenge about what I'm saying. And so I've worked really hard to know the data, to couple that with the, real life stories of people who live the experiences of racism, every day and to to use that to say it's it's not about calling white people racist. It it's really about understanding the harm that racism has done to all of us, and it's not just about what white people do that we see the results of in the systems that we work in. Just a quick example, when we looked at our data in child welfare, it was not specific to any particular race or ethnic group who was making the decisions. And so we had to understand, racism at a much deeper level.
Joyce James:And I think that's what has helped, to keep me in the work even though it's getting more and more difficult today with the current pushback on what language we can use and and the meaning of DEI which is misconstrued all over the place to believe that that people have been in position simply because of the color of their skin. You know the fact is that that had happened prior that you know white people were the ones who were in position simply because of the color of their skin and that was legal. It was legal for systems and institutions to serve, benefit and privilege white people exclusively and you had to be white to get those benefits. And so when we know the truth about history and we have an analysis of racism, we can all be in this fight together.
Stacie Freasier:Absolutely.
Robert Tyrone Lilly:Jim, do you have anything you wanna
Jim Crosby:chime in with? Couple of questions just about, I think, the way things evolve and are evolving. First, I'm not a great numbers guy, but I but I appreciate people who are. And that data you're talking about, are there two or three main numbers either now or through the years that have, you know, stood out to you that you've been able to present, you know, as as a key part of your analysis? And the other question is is, again, as things evolve, you've worked so much with governmental governmental institutions.
Jim Crosby:What's what's the combination now or your ideal combination of of government and private, you know, entities working together?
Joyce James:Well, certainly the data is is really important. You know, my mentor who is Ron Chisholm with the People's Institute used to say you don't need data to know racism exists. Right? But when you understand systems, then you know that you have to have that to move people along. So just a quick example is that black women are two to three times more likely to die doing or shortly after delivery.
Joyce James:Even when they are highly educated with advanced degrees, live in good communities, have high paying jobs, do everything that their doctors tell them to do, their birth outcomes are worse than white women with less than a high school education. That white women are more likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer, black women are more likely to die. Black children starting in pre k on k through 12 are more likely to receive disciplinary actions in public schools when the behaviors are the same as their white peers. Black and brown youth are more likely to be adjudicated, sent to state lockup, and certified to stand trial as adults even when their crimes are the same or less egregious than that of white youth who will often get sent to treatment. And let me just say too one of the other things that really I believe helps me to keep people in the conversation is that there is no intent that systems become more punitive to people who are white and that it is important that we all know the whole story because if all we see is that black and brown youth for example are the ones in juvenile lockup or black men are more likely to be in state jails and prisons.
Joyce James:If that's all we know, then our belief is that they must be more criminal. But what we have come to understand is that when the factors are the same, race is the number one predictor of a person's outcomes in their relationships with systems and with institutions. And you asked me another follow-up.
Jim Crosby:Public private, or or governmental versus
Joyce James:Yeah. Yeah. I I currently work with community based organizations. I have done work at the the state and and and federal level with local jurisdictions. And what I find is that when you can bring a mix of people together in a conversation, to gain an analysis of racism, that that is the best opportunity to bring public, private, community based, and people living the experiences together.
Joyce James:You know, one of the things I'm really excited about my work with the Austin Police Department is that they have given us permission to invite community to be in these groundwater analysis sessions in the academy with new cadets. And that makes a huge difference in terms of if we're just talking to soon to be police officers, that they're not really hearing the experiences of community. That is not just coming from the facilitators of the session, but it's coming from people who bring real life examples into those spaces. And and that really creates the best opportunity for mutual learning and accountability.
Robert Tyrone Lilly:And I had the privilege of being one of those individuals in very recent times last year, 2025. I got a chance for the first time to participate in the groundwater analysis training. Now I wanna say very clearly, I've coveted a relationship with you. I've told you that as much with your conference at the building bridges breaking barriers. Is that correct?
Robert Tyrone Lilly:Building bridges breaking barriers.
Joyce James:Building bridges removing barriers.
Robert Tyrone Lilly:Removing barriers. Thank you for the correction. And, you know, I was I wanted to get my own experience with the groundwater analysis. I'm I'm a survivor of multiple instances over the course of my life of police brutality. And the and I'm gonna also be very candid and say that there have been times where I can attribute a compassion to one instance where it could have ended up worse for me than what it was.
Robert Tyrone Lilly:And it was an officer that was involved in facilitating a different outcome. So I've had diverse experiences over my years, that being the one that most stands out to me. But that said, generally speaking, my attitude and outlook on law enforcement has been somewhat cynical. And going there, I went in with a bit of caution, but I trusted doctor James. And so when I went through the door, I got a chance to see a room filled with young people, mostly young people, who, for whatever reason, have designed their sights on law enforcement.
Robert Tyrone Lilly:And we were in this room, and one of the first things I'm hearing that they're talking about is the history of policing in America. So tell us a little bit about what that training is like from your perspective and what you hope to produce in those cadets and overall in that system. And then I think round it off or we we can find a way to continue with that. But round it off and tell us how does how do we continue to maintain engaging with this system in a way that, you know, keeps them accountable?
Joyce James:We my work with Austin Police Department actually goes back to 2020, and it was following that the city council made where for a time they'd stopped, the police department from hiring and hosting, additional academies because the city at that point was acknowledging racism in the city of Austin, not only in policing, but in education and in health and in multiple others. And they acknowledged all that in in resolution, 66. And so as the police department was really working to try to figure out how they were gonna comply, in a way that would allow them to begin hiring again because they were shortage staff. Lots of things were going on that, you know wasn't ideal for the police department. But anyway just real quickly there had been several studies that had been done by different groups and of course the equity office was created around 2016 or so I think it was and and there were people in the equity office who knew my work in child welfare.
Joyce James:Because when People's Institute came to Austin to start doing training, I actually invited chief Stan Nee and his leadership team to come into that undoing racism workshop with us. And so that there was an early introduction of this work to the police department. And so I was actually recommended by the equity office to look at all the studies that had previously been done and to roll that up into some trends and patterns. So now you have all the studies, what do you do? Because they all said the same thing, Right?
Joyce James:And I'm saying no more studies. Yeah. Right? Let's not do any
Stacie Freasier:No more white papers.
Joyce James:Right? No more white papers. You know, I had a executive commissioner one time who went to an introductory three hour undoing racism training and said he would never use term white papers again. That's how powerful that workshop is. There you go.
Joyce James:But anyway, so ultimately, I I did an kind of an evaluation of all the reports. I also did a client a racial equity climate assessment of the internal culture at APD which was administered at that time to all sworn and civilian officers and it really came back and clearly showed that internal to the organization there was something in the culture that would set black officers apart from the others in terms of how they experience the system. So eventually there was a contract that was done with me by the city manager's office that I would train staff at APD. Started with chief manley and executive leaders first went through my groundwater workshop and after they went through it there was a decision made that we would train all sworn and civilian officers. And so prior to getting to where we are right now, we've trained probably including the 13 academies that I've done, close to 2,000 sworn and civilian in APD.
Joyce James:We were also doing a lot of work internally at that time looking at policy, looking at training in the academy, doing focus groups
Robert Tyrone Lilly:Can we pause you just for a second? We do apologize. It's time for us to take a break.
Stacie Freasier:Yep. We're at the midway point, and we're gonna hear some station out announcements, and we'll pick right back up.
Stacie Freasier:You are listening to Co op Community Radio ninety one point seven FM here in Austin, Texas and streaming online everywhere at koop.org. I am your the cohost of the show, Stacey Fraser. I'm joined by Jim Crosby, brother Robert Tyrone Lilly, Doctor. Joyce James sitting in conversation today. I just wanted to root us in the spirit and purpose of this show.
Stacie Freasier:Our movement teacher, Doctor. Martin Luther King Jr. Developed a framework and it's quite digestible and it's something that I encourage everyone if you're interested to learn, the six principles of nonviolence and then the the six steps of nonviolence. So, nonviolence is a way of life for courageous people. The beloved community is the framework for the future.
Stacie Freasier:Attack the forces of evil, not the persons doing the evil. Accept suffering without retaliation for the sake of the cause to achieve the goal. Avoid internal violence of the spirit as well as external physical violence, and the universe is on the side of justice. So with that as our undergirding for how we're moving through the second half of this conversation, doctor James, you were talking about the 30, I believe, someone, 30 academies that you
Robert Tyrone Lilly:have 13. 13.
Joyce James:13. Yes. 13 academies.
Stacie Freasier:I inflated that number a bit. But 13 academies and
Robert Tyrone Lilly:Speak it over. Speak it over.
Stacie Freasier:Exactly. I I I have to meet this moment with a question for you about policing in America and what we're seeing right now with immigration customs enforcement and and just get your honest gut wisdom and perspective about what is going on from your understanding of of policing bodies in this country.
Joyce James:You know, and that's, that's a really deep question because it's it's not just in police and even though it's very visible and critical and and dangerous in terms of what's going on. But when we think about the history of policing and know that it has its origins in, patrolling enslaved people and, catching runaway folks and enslaved people and lynchings and and beatings and all of those things. I really think that it's deeply rooted in the lack of humanity that is attached to certain groups. I really believe that that that's kind of the the crux of it is that there is not the value in of people's lives. Right?
Joyce James:And so when when we when we look at policing for example and and we look at the differences in treatment, that even when all the factors are the same in policing that an unarmed black man is more likely to be shot than a white man with a gun. Right? And so when when you look at that in terms of and and white people take a risk when they when they stand up on the side of racism. So when people are saying well now they're shooting white people and I'm saying when white people stand up against racism they become targets as well. And so I'm you know working to undo racism requires a level of risk taking because people need to understand what happens when you speak out against racism and when you speak on the side of people who have historically been dehumanized that that's a kind of what we see happening going on in our country today.
Joyce James:Know there's a lot of discussion we probably won't have time in this show to talk about it in terms of the divide with what's happening with ICE and the Hispanic Latino population and people saying, that black people have gone through this experience. You know, we've had it. They lynched us. They beat us. They they sold away our children.
Joyce James:So we're seeing some similar patterns of that happening yet racism still keeps us divided. So you know if you want to kind of go back to let me just tell you the components of this groundwater analysis because after we did a lot of work in internal facilitation in APD, we came up with over 100 strategies that we recommended be implemented. And we worked, including sitting every Monday morning in the chief's leadership meeting from between twenty twenty and almost to twenty twenty three before we there began to be a shift. So we worked with chief Manley, then we worked with chief Chacon, then for a period of time, chief Henderson, who was an interim, and now there's Chief Davis whom I've actually never I haven't met her yet. But our work was then moved to just be in the academy.
Joyce James:So we were we had trained commanders and lieutenants and sergeants and field training officers and all those positions and then we will move to do work in the front end of the academy. Now I lift up that the cadets go through my training before they actually go to anything else in the Academy. My question and just being in all transparency is how much of that is retained throughout the eight month Academy and through I believe another like twelve to fifteen weeks worth of field training. At one point we had a touch point where we would meet with cadets right before they graduated, do focus groups, then we would meet with them again before they went to the streets. And so you know as as proud as I am that APD is a leader in that this is not happening in many places across the country, you know the proof is in how officers will show up in the communities.
Joyce James:You know will the community see visible signs of anti racism, that it has really taken root, in the culture of APD and we don't have an analysis, of that yet.
Robert Tyrone Lilly:What needs to be done to ensure that?
Joyce James:Well I believe in and like with any system if you're not examining the impact of your work then you don't know who's benefiting from it and so it would require some taking a look at over the course of time that this work has been done. The question is so what? What difference has it made? Now it has made a difference some internally in terms of APD changing some of the requirements to become a police officer, taking away the requirement that a bad credit was an automatic disqualifier. It's not anymore.
Joyce James:Looking at marijuana as an automatic disqualifier, it's not anymore. Right? And some of the changes I've seen is less new officers coming in solely with a military or former law enforcement background. We have folks coming who were working at HEB who were selling cars who are just out of Texas State getting a criminal justice degree. So lots of changes happening but a lot more work that needs to be done and the community is saying that being in that space with APD and part of that training is the best thing they've seen the police department do and we all hope that it will continue.
Robert Tyrone Lilly:Jim, do you have something you want to chime in with? Any inquiries or prodding?
Jim Crosby:No. It's it could be because I've got a big question, but it's not on this subject directly. So if we have time at the end, I wanna bring it in.
Joyce James:Can I just name for you the components of that groundwater analysis that we've been talking about? So and and these components were derived from an analysis and study of the Texas model for addressing disproportionality and disparities that I used in my work in child welfare that I now use as a framework whatever system I'm working with including APD. But the first component says that racial inequities looks the same across all helping systems and the second one says that systems contribute to the inequities, right? And so the rationale for that that we give is if we only saw the inequities in one place or a few we might be able to say it's about what's wrong with the people But the fact that we see it everywhere for the same populations in Texas and everywhere else across the country tells us that we have to examine how systems contribute. And I actually come to that from the People's Institute when they asked the questions about systems.
Joyce James:How does the system exclude, exploit, oppress, and underserved certain populations? And then the third component says that the outcomes are not about a few bad apples. Right? When George Floyd was murdered, you know, police organizations all across the country came out with it's not about racism, it's just about a few bad apples. And my response to that is that the system places the blame on a few bad apples when it is the culture of the institution that dictates the behavior of everyone who works inside.
Joyce James:And when people say, well how can it be about the institution and not about individuals? My response is for decades we've had outcomes that are disparate for the same populations and we've had that no matter who's working in the system. So it is the culture that dictates. And then that fourth component says that racial inequities are concentrated in poor communities and communities of color and so we spend a lot of time examining why people think the people that live in those communities are poor. And of course we get the lazy like living off of government assistance, spending our tax dollars response until we can help people to understand the relationship to systems.
Joyce James:And then the last component is the one that we try to give hope to people with because we have many examples that if you put the right kind of training in place and if you use an anti racism framework that the system will reduce disproportionality and disparities and improve outcomes for all populations. All boats rise. All boats rise.
Robert Tyrone Lilly:Something comes to my mind as I'm listening to you, and I and I don't wanna if if if you have any okay. So what comes to my mind is I'm thinking about my own perspective on this training, And I keep hearing the word inoculation. You know, sort of like go to the doctor and you get a shot to inoculate you from a disease that's in the atmosphere in the in the community. Right? That you could potentially come in contact with and contract.
Robert Tyrone Lilly:So if racism is a disease that exists in our society, then in some way this training should be inoculating the people who now are in institutions that have a propensity to drive people to a place where they're more likely to see a per certain persons or certain groups as less than human, and hence, could be you know, treat them with inhumanity, then this this kind of training is supposed to inoculate them. So back to the question about, so 13 cadet classes, all of the leadership, various leaders trained, new leader that hasn't yet been, you know, you have had not yet had contact with them. How do how do we as a community, you know, hold this system to this particular commitment? Because at the end of the day, right now, I don't foresee in the near future this institution evaporating or going away. And I am an abolitionist.
Robert Tyrone Lilly:I'd like to and I think right now what's happening in Minnesota is allowing people to see that there are ways in which communities can keep themselves safe. They're doing it against ICE. Right? But putting that in perspective, because I'm also a pragmatist. The reality is that tomorrow APD is not going anywhere.
Robert Tyrone Lilly:So the question that becomes for the average person like myself, how do I you know, I can have a vitriolic attitude towards them and have no contact whatsoever. Or is there a medium ground a a a ground in which I say, I'm a part of the fabric of this society. This institution is a part of the makeup of the society. How do I effectively engage with this institution to hold it accountable so that there's some civility, humanity, and, you know, consideration for the my life and the lives of the people that I value in my community. Just, you know, if there's anything you can grab out of that, grab
Stacie Freasier:And before you answer that, I will say we are down to our last fifteen minutes of this conversation here with doctor Joyce James of Joyce James Consulting. This is Nonviolent Awesome Radio Hour here on Co op Community Radio ninety one point seven FM, k o op.oorg streaming everywhere. And, Rob, thank you for bringing that salient question for our last quarter for now.
Joyce James:Yes. And, you know, community engagement is critical between systems and the people they serve. And it's and we did a lot of that in early work that we were doing with APD and you know there are still some community meetings that I hear about that take place. We were actually targeting and making sure that we were going into communities whose experiences with law enforcement like they like trust and and so there has and I always tell the people in the organization in public systems that they have a higher level of accountability to the community because a lot of times people will say, the community needs to stop teaching their children to be scared scared of the police or they need to and I'm saying when the system changes its relationship to the people in the community then on only then, right, will anybody feel comfortable assuring their children that they're safe with policing. And so I really think it's gonna take making sure and community may have to ask for those meetings.
Joyce James:I don't know, right? I know that I have a meeting coming up with Chief Davis this month and you know it is my intent to share what I'm hearing from community who APD has invited, to come into those spaces. Because in the past we were saying if APD wants officers from Austin you have to gain the trust of the Austin community and you have to be willing to go in community and ask the community what kind of culture needs to exist within the Austin Police Department for you to tell your son or daughter or relative or loved one that you think they should be a police officer. And so we have to have engaged in that kind of dialogue. In the absence of that we still have the stigma that's associated with policing and it doesn't necessarily have to always be something that directly happens to a person but if you see enough happening to people who look like you, if you see enough happening to people in the community where you live, you don't have to have a direct experience to build up a wall, right, and to have that lack of trust that exists.
Joyce James:And so you know Brother Rob I would say that it's important for community to also invite systems leaders to come into spaces and and and be willing to come and and listen to the questions that people have about how are they changing the culture of their institutions and in regard to police so that we are protecting and serving the entire community, not just some.
Robert Tyrone Lilly:I hope our listeners hear that very loud and clear. So I'm hearing you say that there's a responsibility on community itself to make its voice heard, to ask system leaders, to man, in fact, to to sit with us and confer with us about the things that have mattered to our interests. Right? I think that's a beautiful exhortation, one that I'm willing to take up. Right?
Robert Tyrone Lilly:You know, even though I'm formerly incarcerated, I still consider myself very much a part of the fabric of this community. Hence, the reason why I'm privileged and considered a privilege to and an honor to be here on Co op Radio sharing my voice and perspective with our listeners in the community.
Joyce James:And and I say that because I've been a top level leader in a system. And and so I'm not just pie in the sky this. I I know what it means to respond when the community calls, and I know what can happen. In when I was head of the state and Texas is a state administered system so I was responsible for all 254 counties. There were some ministers in Houston who were walking around our Houston CPS office, walking picket actually, black ministers group.
Joyce James:They were concerned about removals of black children and not having those children placed in relative placements and so a lot of times the staff would just say they would ignore them until they left and then one day they sent a letter inviting us to come to a meeting and the regional director there calls up to state office and says what are we gonna do and my response is we're going to the meeting and I'm coming down to Houston and I will go with you. And we went to a meeting, and we heard horrific story after horrific story about how awful the system was treating kids, even things like we were removing black kids in for bounty, like the days of enslavement, it was just really horrible. Right? And when it was my time to speak, I acknowledged the holes. I acknowledged that we that we wanted to see children placed with their families as well.
Joyce James:And it just so happened that we were starting to do the work around disproportionality and we were forming a task force in Houston. And I invited the leader of that organization to join us on that disproportionality task force. See sometimes leaders only want to talk to people who agree with them, to people who are not critical of them but your biggest critic can become your biggest supporter and we saw that happen by just inviting this gentleman into that space and to an undoing racism workshop that he didn't believe a state agency would ever be engaging in and it changed a whole relationship. And so community sometimes has to make the call and it's up to systems leaders to decide how they will respond. The thing that I think we all have in common around policing, what we can put in the center of our work is that we want officers to go home at night after their shift.
Joyce James:We don't want them hurt on the job but what I'm saying to the officers is the opposite is true. When a member of our family or one of us stopped by the police we want to go home too And so if we can all agree to that then that's something we can put in the center of any conversation that we're gonna have and figure out how we work together to make that happen.
Jim Crosby:My big question
Robert Tyrone Lilly:Mhmm.
Jim Crosby:Have been part of what Rob and Stacy and I at nonviolent Austin are oriented towards is spreading classic Kingian nonviolence far and wide, training and getting the training ourselves and sharing the training. And that's a lot of what I hear you doing in terms of, training and and, doing the groundwater work. And where how do you hear the community calling now? And then further context is I've wondered as I think about Gandhi, as I think about doctor King, the movements they were involved with, and that created the demand for the training. I've been heartened in the past week or so by by school walkouts and and young people getting involved.
Jim Crosby:I've wondered if environment, you know, in recent years was gonna be the ecology was gonna be where nonviolent activism really kicked in. What do you see the promise there as far as you know, what what's the equivalent now of the black church in the sixties as far as, you know, foundation for that?
Joyce James:You know, funny you asked that because I I I really believe that the faith based community, has to get back to the business that the faith based community, to to the power that they previously had in these efforts and that there needs to be a shift. I think the faith based community needs to become immersed and clear about the role of the church in undoing racism. Right? I mean when we think about what we won't learn about history anymore I think the church is the one who should be picking that up and saying if they're not going to teach it in the schools there then we're going to teach it at Sunday school or we're to have Saturday school or we'll have whatever it is we need to do but people have to be energized and moved, right? That's one of the reasons why I held a summit for the second year was to bring people together and and we opened with a praise and worship session.
Joyce James:Right?
Robert Tyrone Lilly:I was there.
Joyce James:Because we there we didn't always have access to the systems that's failing us. And I'm not suggesting we go back to not having them at all but they're becoming less and less accountable and less and less dependable to us and so we really have to come together and organize and those of us who understand racism we have to find a way to remove the silos out of which we work and organize together so that we are more powerful. And I believe it's going to take another movement because that's the only way change has occurred in this country is through an organized movement and and it's gonna take creating a movement to before we get too far deep back into the throes of racism. When you push against the walls of resistant institutions they give But when you think you've done enough and you stop, they revert back to their old way of doing business and that's what I've seen happen in many systems.
Robert Tyrone Lilly:Will there be a third conference?
Joyce James:Yes. There'll be a third summit. We're gonna start planning pretty soon. It'll be in December again this year. And we're looking forward to bringing people together, around a common anti racism movement.
Stacie Freasier:What are some ways that folks, we're winding down here, what are some ways that folks can find you, find your work, and get involved if they're interested? How can locally?
Joyce James:Well they can they can find me on social media all those platforms plus they can find me at joycejamesconsulting.com and see about the work and you know generally I've done lots of work in Austin. Let me just say I've worked with transportation, I've worked with watershed, I've worked with downtown alliance, economic development, the music venues and so a lot of people know about the work in Austin. What's difficult is to get people to sustain and stay on their journey towards becoming anti racism, right? And so just I have to be specific in picking up my partners who believe in this and I'm looking forward to bringing some people together on a regular basis to a virtual, platform so that we can begin talking about what a movement looks like.
Stacie Freasier:That's wonderful. Thank you Doctor. James, for your contributions to our movement.
Joyce James:Thank you for having me.
Robert Tyrone Lilly:Thank you for coming on out today. And I just want to say by way of informing our audience, there's going to be a wonderful slate of programs at the Austin Film Society. We wanna encourage you to look at their calendar today. There'll be many opportunities for you to learn and grow. I'm hearing that they have a beautiful platform.
Robert Tyrone Lilly:This I think of four documentaries around 1992, the LA rebellions. So we want you to we wanna encourage you to go to that website and check it out.
Stacie Freasier:And Nonviolent Austin. You can find us at nonviolentaustin.org. We're part of the nonviolent cities project of campaign nonviolence, campaignnonviolence.org. And we have a community potluck this Sunday. Don't worry.
Stacie Freasier:It shouldn't interfere with Bad Bunny's halftime performance, which I'm really excited to watch. It's gonna be at, Princeton Palace, 2505 Princeton Drive, four to 06:30. And take us out with some music, Jim. Up next is Democracy Now here on Co op Community Radio. We'll see you all next month.
Robert Tyrone Lilly:You for joining us.
Jim Crosby:I ain't gonna study war no more. Ain't gonna study war no more. Study war no more. More. Ain't gonna study war no more.
Jim Crosby:Ain't gonna study war no more. Study war
Jim Crosby:no more. Gonna lay down my sword and shield down by the riverside, down by the riverside, down by the riverside, gonna lay down my