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In case you missed it, this year&#8217;s Detroit Regional Chamber&#8217;s Mackinac Policy Conference is now online.  Check out the line-up of sessions and watch on demand.

2024 Mackinac Policy Conference

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Stories from American Black Journal

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National Minority Health Month spotlights disparities faced by people of color

April is National Minority Health Month, <a href="https://www.nimhd.nih.gov/programs/edu-training/nmhm/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">an annual observance</a> aimed at shedding light on the persistent health disparities faced by racial and ethnic minority communities. <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/national-minority-health-month/index.html#:~:text=April%20is%20National%20Minority%20Health,action%20to%20end%20these%20inequities." target="_blank" rel="noopener">This year’s theme</a>, “Be the Source for Better Health: Improving Health Outcomes Through Our Cultures, Communities, and Connections,” emphasizes understanding how social determinants of health impact minority health outcomes.<span data-ccp-props="{&quot;134233117&quot;:false,&quot;134233118&quot;:false,&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335551550&quot;:0,&quot;335551620&quot;:0,&quot;335557856&quot;:16777215,&quot;335559685&quot;:-20,&quot;335559737&quot;:-20,&quot;335559738&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:0,&quot;335559740&quot;:276}"> 
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<li><a href="https://wordpress.detroitpbs.org/american-black-journal/detroit-symposium-aims-to-tackle-health-disparities-facing-black-men/">Detroit symposium aims to tackle health disparities facing Black men</a></li>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.detroitpbs.org/american-black-journal/mental-health-awareness-month-highlights-disparities-and-stigma-in-the-black-community/">Mental Health Awareness Month highlights disparities and stigma in the Black community</a></li>
</ul>
Originating from National Negro Health Week established in 1915 by Booker T. Washington, National Minority Health Month gained formal recognition from Congress in 2002. It serves as a platform to educate and raise awareness about health issues affecting minority populations, urging action to promote healthfulness and reduce disparities.<span data-ccp-props="{&quot;134233117&quot;:false,&quot;134233118&quot;:false,&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335551550&quot;:0,&quot;335551620&quot;:0,&quot;335557856&quot;:16777215,&quot;335559685&quot;:-20,&quot;335559737&quot;:-20,&quot;335559738&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:0,&quot;335559740&quot;:276}"> 
For National Minority Health Month, Dr. Hayley Thompson, director of Wayne State University’s Center for Health Equity and Community Knowledge in Urban Populations (<a href="https://check-up.wayne.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CHECK-UP</a>), talks with “American Black Journal” host <a href="https://twitter.com/SHDetroit" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Stephen Henderson</a> about the efforts to tackle health inequities in Detroit and Michigan.<span data-ccp-props="{&quot;134233117&quot;:false,&quot;134233118&quot;:false,&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335551550&quot;:0,&quot;335551620&quot;:0,&quot;335557856&quot;:16777215,&quot;335559685&quot;:-20,&quot;335559737&quot;:-20,&quot;335559738&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:0,&quot;335559740&quot;:276}"> 
They talk about CHECK-UP’s collaboration with researchers, community partners, and corporations and the importance of building trust between minority communities and medical institutions. Plus, Thompson also discusses the leading causes of death for African Americans and the importance of assessing social needs during medical encounters.
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<h2>Stay Connected: </h2>
Subscribe to Detroit Public Television’s<a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/detroitpublictv56"> YouTube Channel</a> and don’t miss American Black Journal on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 9:30 a.m. on Detroit Public TV, WTVS-Channel 56.
Catch the daily conversations on our<a href="https://wordpress.detroitpbs.org/category/american-black-journal/"> website</a>,<a href="https://www.facebook.com/AmericanBlackJournal/"> Facebook</a>,<a href="https://twitter.com/amblackjournal"> Twitter</a> and<a href="https://www.instagram.com/amblackjournal/"> Instagram</a> @amblackjournal.
<h3><a href="https://wordpress.detroitpbs.org/category/american-black-journal/">View Past Episodes &gt;</a></h3>
Watch American Black Journal on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 9:30 a.m. on Detroit Public TV, WTVS-Channel 56.

National Minority Health Month puts spotlight on health disparities faced by people of color

Black women entrepreneurs face uphill battle for business growth

Venturing into the world of entrepreneurship comes with challenges.  However, for Black women entrepreneurs, the hurdles can be much higher and different. A study from the <a href="https://www.nawbo.org/">National Association of Women Business Owners</a> shows 42% of U.S. businesses are owned by women, yet those businesses grow at only half the rate as businesses owned by men. To learn more about the unique challenges African American women entrepreneurs face, &#8220;American Black Journal&#8221; host <a href="https://twitter.com/SHDetroit">Stephen Henderson</a> spoke with two Black women entrepreneurs from Detroit. 
RELATED: <a href="https://wordpress.detroitpbs.org/american-black-journal/detroit-united-front-forms-to-build-better-equity-inclusion-for-black-businesses/">Detroit United Front forms to build better equity, inclusion for Black businesses</a>
RELATED: <a href="https://wordpress.detroitpbs.org/future-of-work/american-black-journal-small-business-workshop-covers-small-businesses-recovery-sustainability-amidst-covid/">Small business workshop covers business recovery, sustainability amid COVID</a>
Linda Hendricks, co-founder of the <a href="https://www.detroitdancecenter.com/">Detroit Dance Center</a>, and Chinonye Akunne, the owner of <a href="https://ileraapothecary.com/">ILERA Apothecary</a>, join Henderson to discuss what led them to become entrepreneurs and share their advice for budding business owners. Plus, they talk about the financial and marketing grants they received through <a href="https://www.comcastrise.com/">Comcast RISE</a>, a program created during the pandemic to assist small businesses owned by women and people of color. 
<h2>Full Transcript:</h2>
Stephen Henderson, Host, American Black Journal: Linda and Chinonye, welcome to &#8220;American Black Journal.&#8221;
Linda Hendricks, Co-Founder, Detroit Dance Center: Yes. Thank you for having us.
Stephen Henderson: So, I always think that one of the most daring things you can ever do in life is to go out on your own and start a business, decide that you&#8217;re going to fair for yourself out in the market economy. Of course, that looks really different for people of color than it does for the majority population, and it looks really different for women than it does for men. So, you both face both of those challenges. I want to start with both of you just kind of telling your story, how you came to decide that this was for you and what you ended up creating. Linda, I&#8217;ll start with you.
Linda Hendricks: Okay, sure. So, I&#8217;m one of the co-owners of Detroit Dance Center. We are located in midtown Detroit. And myself and my two other partners, Dominique and Jasmine, we all used to teach together. We taught dance together at a dance studio in Detroit. We taught together, I was a teacher, they were students, and then we all became teachers, and then the pandemic happened. And so, we were kind of on a hiatus.
Everybody was sitting at home in Zoom classes and everything like that. It started off as just a little playful banter if I had a studio, I would do this, if I had a studio, I would do that. The discussion became a little serious. Moving forward, next thing you know, about a year later, we opened up our studio in September of 2021, and it was kind of we were trying to figure it out during the pandemic, but that&#8217;s how we all got started.
Stephen Henderson: Yeah, and what were some of the risks, I guess, that you felt or some of the challenges that you faced in making that decision?
Linda Hendricks: Oh, definitely, yeah. The pandemic, that&#8217;s really what it was.
Stephen Henderson: We&#8217;ll start there, right?
Linda Hendricks: Yeah, it was really that. We were thinking would parents want their kids to be around other kids so close? And, if we had classes, how many kids can we put in a classroom and work on social distancing? So, it was really unknown how the public would react. Would we have students, starting in 2021, that would want to be in-person and not have to do virtual dance classes?
Stephen Henderson: Yeah. Chinonye, tell us how you came to decide to be an entrepreneur.
Chinonye Akunne, Founder, Ilera Apothecary: Yeah. So, I always tell people entrepreneurship found me. And I say that because about eight years ago my brother came to me needing a natural deodorant. He was changing his lifestyle, changing his diet, and was going vegan. So, he wanted something that was vegan and that actually worked. At the time, I studied chemistry in college, I also got my master&#8217;s in public health. And so, I was&#8211;always been tinkering with formulas and things like that.
So, I was able to make it for him. And on this journey of making this natural deodorant, I realized that some of the chemicals in my workplace, I was working at a global automotive company at the time, I was making sure we were by weighting the chemicals that were coming into our plants, and some of I saw a lot of crossing. And so, I said, &#8220;If I&#8217;m banning this from coming into a plant because it&#8217;s unsafe for people to work in a large manufacturing environment, then why are we putting it on our skin?&#8221; Even though it&#8217;s at smaller doses, but we&#8217;re still doing that every single day and that&#8217;s just compounding onto us.
And so, I was like— I just started doing my research. I started talking to friends and family, and when I learned about how many people were suffering with different skin ailments from eczema, to psoriasis, dry skin, being allergic, I was very shocked because I had never experienced any of that. And so, I realized that my brother came to me for a reason and I was going to create the solution. So, that&#8217;s when I created Ilera Apothecary, and the goal of Ilera is to make people feel confident in their skin. Ilera literally translates to &#8216;health&#8217; in Yoruba language in Nigeria. I&#8217;m a first-generation American, and so, really tying my roots, tying my education, tying who I am into a product that helps people. And so, essentially that&#8217;s how Ilera Apothecary came to be. And that&#8217;s what we&#8217;re about, growing confidence through skin care.
Stephen Henderson: Yeah. So, I do want to talk a little about the program that has helped you guys with some financial assistance and other things. But before we get there, I want to talk about what some of the day-to-day reminders, I guess, that you get about the challenges that exist because of who you are. The things that might be easier for other people who&#8217;re starting their own businesses, than they are for you. Chinonye, I&#8217;ll start with you this time.
Chinonye Akunne: You know, it&#8217;s interesting because in business, you don&#8217;t know what you don&#8217;t know until you come across that hurdle, and then you have to start figuring it out. And I don&#8217;t have just a dedicated group of people that I can go and say this is what I&#8217;m dealing with, how can you help me? Or where do I go? It&#8217;s like, I talked to one person, they introduced me to another person. And so, the time to resolve issues, the more that I&#8217;m learning about business and getting familiar with that, it decreases. But you have to be intentionally in those spaces to even get that access. And I know, when I was applying for the Comcast grant for marketing, it was like, I don&#8217;t need the money right now. But what I need is for people to know about my business because essentially the money will come back from there. And so, really just understanding what you need in business and how you can make it work for you, even if it is something as a tangible dollar.
Stephen Henderson: Yeah. I mean, this idea that you need the support of other people, other people who own businesses, other people who know what it&#8217;s like to start a business. Linda, talk about how that challenge looks, if you&#8217;re an African American woman and trying to make a business work.
Linda Hendricks: Yeah, absolutely. Well, one good thing about me and my business partners is that we are career professionals first and dancers second. We have that passion for dance. We love to dance, but we do other things. Myself, I am an internal auditor, I&#8217;ve been so for over 20 years. My partner Jasmine is a chemistry teacher, so she works on all the curriculum development. And then, Dominique is a project manager. So, with those things, we&#8217;re able to work the business, put out processes and procedures, and operations, and know about customer service. However, we struggled a lot with that marketing. So, being able to use that Comcast grant to join other groups that are similar with doing dance studios, and how do you get students in, and bring in the babies that you can help them grow up within your studio and everything like that.
So, that has been a struggle. And then on a personal level, because we are minority women, we&#8217;re also mothers. So, our husbands have had to take on the role of Mr. Mom if you want to say, because we teach classes in the evening. So, my husband is running around, picking up the kids from school, dropping them off, and he comes home late at night saying, &#8220;Oh, I&#8217;m pooped.&#8221; I&#8217;m like, &#8220;Oh, really? Interesting.&#8221; So, that&#8217;s a challenge of just being able to definitely have that support system, being able to operate in the evenings when most family, or even women are at home, be it taking care of family or running errands or just being the family Uber.
Stephen Henderson: Yeah. So, I want both of you to talk just a little about the grant, the Comcast Rise grant. But also, I want to have you give some advice to people out there who might be thinking about starting their own business and maybe apprehensive about the idea, maybe don&#8217;t think that it will work or that they&#8217;ll have the support. Talk about both of those things and how they kind of work together. Linda, I&#8217;ll start with you this time.
Linda Hendricks: OK. Yeah, definitely. With the Comcast grant, definitely the application process, I think, prepares the person and entrepreneur to be able to make sure that they have all their ducks in a row before their hitting market. So, it asks a lot of questions about what is your budget? How do you foresee yourself after 12 months? What are some of your obstacles? What are some of your risks? What are the markets looking like?
So, just those questions alone, if you don&#8217;t have those answers to those questions you might not be in that position quite yet to hit market. But it&#8217;s not a, it&#8217;s done for and you can&#8217;t do anything about it. It&#8217;s really like, this is what it&#8217;s going to take as an entrepreneur. You&#8217;re always going to plan, you&#8217;ll always have to forecast, you&#8217;re always going to have to figure out how can you shift or change with the market or the environment of what&#8217;s going on. So, my tips are, really thoroughly look at those questions on the application. You know, answer them to the best of your ability and be, what am I trying to say, realistic with those answers. And if you can do those things, I think you would have a, hopefully, a good shot at that.
Stephen Henderson: Chinonye, what would your advice be?
Chinonye Akunne: Yeah, absolutely understand your &#8216;why&#8217;. Why are you going into business? Often I found that people have said they&#8217;re going into business because they don&#8217;t want to work for another person. What they don&#8217;t realize is that when you go into business, you get a lot more managers. You&#8217;re answering to your customers, you&#8217;re answering to your employees, your vendors, everyone. And so, really understand what value are you bringing? Why you? And what difference are you trying to make with your business?
Also, just like Linda said, understand your business, know your numbers, know, like I said, know the value that you bring, and really make sure that you&#8217;re organized and you have your ducks in a row, but also don&#8217;t think that you have to know everything. Don&#8217;t wait for perfection to get to where you want to be. People fail so many times, but as long as you get up after every single one of those failures, you&#8217;ve learned something new where you can then go and take it to the next thing that you do. But don&#8217;t think that you need to have all the answers and make sure that the answers that you do have, you have them organized. Ask a lot of questions and understand your &#8216;why&#8217;.
Stephen Henderson: That advice about understanding failure, there is no such thing as a business owner who&#8217;s never failed, right. But you learn from those failures, you don&#8217;t just give up. Wonderful advice from both of you. Linda and Chinonye, thank you very much for being here.
Linda Hendricks: Thank you. Thanks for having us.
Chinonye Akunne: Yes, thanks for having us.
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<h2>Stay Connected: </h2>
Subscribe to Detroit Public Television’s<a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/detroitpublictv56"> YouTube Channel</a> &amp; Don’t miss American Black Journal on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m and Sunday at 9:30 a.m. on Detroit Public TV, WTVS-Channel 56.
Catch the daily conversations on our<a href="https://wordpress.detroitpbs.org/category/american-black-journal/"> website</a>,<a href="https://www.facebook.com/AmericanBlackJournal/"> Facebook</a>,<a href="https://twitter.com/amblackjournal"> Twitter</a> and<a href="https://www.instagram.com/amblackjournal/"> Instagram</a> @amblackjournal.
<h3><a href="https://wordpress.detroitpbs.org/category/american-black-journal/">View Past Episodes &gt;</a></h3>
Watch American Black Journal on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 9:30 a.m. on Detroit Public TV, WTVS-Channel 56.

Black women entrepreneurs face uphill battle for business growth compared to men

Dodge_Charger_Michigan_State_Police_car_3-scaled

American Black Journal host Stephen Henderson examines the results of an <a href="https://www.michigan.gov/documents/msp/Executive_Summary_Wolfe_et_al_MSP_external_benchmark_FINAL_REPORT_2021_745157_7.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">independent study</a> from the Michigan State University School of Criminal Justice showing African Americans were stopped by Michigan State Police troopers at disproportionately high rates in 2020. The study also showed Black and Hispanic drivers were more likely to be searched and arrested after a traffic stop.
Stephen sits down with <a href="https://www.michigan.gov/msp/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Michigan State Police</a> Director Col. Joe Gasper and <a href="https://www.michigan.gov/mdcr" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Michigan Department of Civil Rights</a> Executive Director John E. Johnson, Jr. to investigate the findings and the steps being taken to address these racial disparities.
<h2>Full Transcript:</h2>
Stephen Henderson: Let&#8217;s start with both of your reactions to this report and what it says about policing in our state, and then we&#8217;ll talk about kind of where we&#8217;ll go from here. But these are very stark conclusions drawn by this report, and I think they demand a lot of our attention. Colonel Gaspar, it&#8217;s your department that is the subject of this report. Tell me what your reaction was to all of this.
Col. Joe Gasper, Director, Michigan State Police: Yeah, I think that, you know, we&#8217;re in a time and in the country right now, really, where, you know, all police departments need to be looking internally and externally to making sure that, that we&#8217;re evolving and that we&#8217;re demonstrating best practices. And sometimes when you engage in some self-reflection, you have a reminder that, you know, sometimes it&#8217;s not what you want it to be.
Col. Joe Gasper: And this would be one of those times where we saw some disparity that was concerning to us. And so we wanted to make sure that we understood it. So we hired Michigan State University and partnered with them, and they did the analysis on our on our traffic stop data. And it was not where we want it to be.
Col. Joe Gasper: So now we&#8217;re in a time period here where we need to better understand it. You know, the goal of the report was to identify if there was disparity. Clearly, there is disparity. And now we&#8217;ve got an opportunity to understand why that&#8217;s occurring.
Stephen Henderson: Colonel, I wonder if you were surprised by what you saw, I mean, it&#8217;s always, I think, a little jarring to see things drawn out in statistics, right and data. But I guess what I&#8217;m getting at is what was your sense of how this issue was playing out in the department before you saw the numbers?
Col. Joe Gasper: Yeah. You know, I think that when you, you know, when I looked at something like this and we see the in the beginning, it kind of the aggregate data where it was. And, you know, obviously, that&#8217;s something that we wanted to understand a little bit more.
Col. Joe Gasper: And I think when the numbers came out, I&#8217;m confident that our troopers are out there doing what they&#8217;ve been trained to do and in and you know, where the disparity is now. And clearly, it&#8217;s concerning to everyone involved. And now the goal needs to be to do what we can to reduce that disparity.
Stephen Henderson: So, John, this is an issue that you and I have discussed before. It&#8217;s an issue that I know you&#8217;ve worked on for a really long time trying to draw attention to this disparity. Give me your reaction to the report.
John E. Johnson, Jr. Executive Director, Michigan Department of Civil Rights: Thank you, Stephen again for having us on this. And our reaction was there was not one of surprise, as you can imagine. As you&#8217;ve indicated, we&#8217;ve worked on these issues for decades, beginning with right or wrong with the Detroit NAACP and surrounding suburbs of Detroit, where we identified racial profiling going on in a number of areas and it continues today.
John E. Johnson Jr.: So this is not a surprise. I do, however, must applaud Colonel Gasper for ordering, commissioning this report, releasing the data of it and owning up to what it says and then making some recommendations as to what he sees needs to be done in order to improve the conditions going forward. So we applaud him for that and our department stands ready to work with him in any way that we can in order to actualize the recommendations that he&#8217;s put forth already.
Stephen Henderson: Yeah. So, John, as you point out, I mean, you&#8217;ve done a lot of work here in the city of Detroit on civil rights issues for a really long time as well. I&#8217;m really curious what you think the distinction might be between this data about state police and what we might see if we did the same kind of report with DPD.
Stephen Henderson: You know, there are a lot of citizens who complain about their interactions with Detroit police. Do you think this is a problem that would look the same here as it does at the state police?
John E. Johnson Jr.: Well, I think that issue was raised recently by some folks in regards to DPD. And I think what allegations made by the public defender that arrests have escalated against people of color during the pandemic based on possession of weapons. I don&#8217;t think any law enforcement agency is excluded from this.
John E. Johnson Jr.: And one of the things I hope comes of this and what Colonel Gaspar has done is that other agencies would take stock of themselves and do their own internal audit to be able to bring the truth to light. That&#8217;s and he&#8217;s shown himself to be a leader in this category, and I hope other folks will follow suit.
John E. Johnson Jr.: You know, there&#8217;s other problems in other areas. A result shows have come out about Lansing and the 85% rate of Black juveniles arrested over there. So it&#8217;s as we know, it&#8217;s something that unfortunately that exists throughout our law enforcement departments and as a culture that needs to be addressed as we know it. I&#8217;m glad Col. Gasper is taking the steps to do that.
John E. Johnson Jr.: Some of the recommendations that he&#8217;s put forward to some of the ones that have been recommended in the MSU report of which we&#8217;re speaking, I think would bring a lot of accountability. And that&#8217;s what we seek. It&#8217;s good to have policies, but it&#8217;s more important to have accountability when people don&#8217;t violate those policies and procedures, and that must be in place also.
Stephen Henderson: Colonel Gasper, two of the things that jumped out at me from the report in terms of recommendations, obviously, you know, training of officers in some sort of sensitivity, I guess you might call it, to differences cultural differences, but then also, you know, the racial makeup of the department itself.
Stephen Henderson: Now, neither of those is a snap your finger kind of solution. These are things that departments struggle with all the time. So tell me what your approach is going to be to those things.
Col. Joe Gasper: So the training that&#8217;s probably an easier thing to accomplish. We&#8217;ve already started to make some significant modifications in the area of training in the last couple of recruit schools that we&#8217;ve done. We have a couple hour block every week in the evening where we have the recruits in the current environment, a virtual environment, and they sign on to a cultural competency or cultural awareness speaker.
Col. Joe Gasper: And so we&#8217;ve had a number of speakers from various communities. One obviously is from the African-American community and it&#8217;s been very insightful because especially from a historical perspective, you know, that obviously is an important part of, you know, some of the challenge that we have here and making sure that our members are aware of that history is very important.
Col. Joe Gasper: We are actually implementing a much more comprehensive history of policing in our recruit school we&#8217;re hoping to start that as soon as our next school here in the next several weeks, and then offering that in an in-service capacity too. And then just broadly paying attention to how do we bring in more specific training when it comes to cognitive or implicit bias?
Col. Joe Gasper: The cultural awareness, there&#8217;s a lot of troopers that that may not grow up in a very culturally diverse area of the state or the country and would not have any way of really knowing some of that background. So that&#8217;s an important part. So we feel really confident that we&#8217;re going to be able to be successful with that. And a huge component of that too is partnering with the community.
Col. Joe Gasper: And we recently solicited input and interest from the community to come be part of our several-day scenario-based training, and we wanted the community to actually be role players for that. So that was successful. We can plan to continue that, but then also continuing to partner with some of our community groups, some of our universities and colleges to work on that training.
Col. Joe Gasper: The recruiting, you know, we&#8217;re not where we want to be or not where we need to be. You know, we need to continue to try, you know, a big component of recruiting and getting people into the department is making sure, especially from a diversity perspective, that that young people or people that are interested in coming into the Michigan State Police, that they can see themselves not only as a trooper but in various ranks throughout the department, so that there is, you know, the idea that they might be able to promote or even potentially lead the agency at some point.
Col. Joe Gasper: We&#8217;ve had African-American directors in the past, we&#8217;ve had female director in the past. And so so that&#8217;s important. And then again, right now, it&#8217;s just really working with the community to see what we can do to partner together to create that interest.
Stephen Henderson: So, so, John, I want to ask you about the kind of broader context of discussion about police reform and you know, there are a lot of people talking about much more drastic changes to the way that we fund policing the way that we structure policing. Are there things from that narrative that you would throw onto the pile here as well and say that we ought to be thinking about in terms of the state police?
John E. Johnson Jr.: Well, yes, there&#8217;s a package of bills have been introduced in the Legislature that would allow us to have more police accountability. So certainly we embrace those. In this instance, again, I just would have to refer back to the study that was done by MSU and where it shows even post-stop, the level of searches that are involved with people of color are significantly higher than those of other races.
John E. Johnson Jr.: So I refer back to some of the recommendations made in the report, specifically seven through nine with which deal with post-stop outcome results and recommending that the Michigan State Police track when searches are conducted. The outcomes of those searches, the disposition of those searches and also recommendation number 12 with which wants to mesh the trooper&#8217;s characteristics with the traffic stop database.
John E. Johnson Jr.: So we begin to get a profile of the troopers who are beginning who are making these stops in which they are significantly higher percentage of people of color being arrested than others per the census and per other things so. So those are sort of the, I think, the progressive sort of recommendations that could be embraced that again would bring more accountability, which is what we seek.
John E. Johnson Jr.: Again, we laud Colonel Gasper for, we laud his leadership and just the fact that he is reform-minded. So we&#8217;re behind him all the way with that and like him to embrace on these other things, which will take the reforms to the level where there&#8217;s, again, some accountability.
Stephen Henderson: Hey, Colonel Gasper and John Johnson, it was great to have both of you here to talk about this important work. And Colonel Gasper, of course, we wish you the best in implementing these recommendations.
Col. Joe Gasper: Yeah, I appreciate that.
Stephen Henderson: Okay, thank you.
John E. Johnson Jr.: Thank you.
&nbsp;
Subscribe to Detroit Public Television’s<a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/detroitpublictv56"> YouTube Channel</a> &amp; Don’t miss American Black Journal on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m and Sunday at 9:30 a.m. on Detroit Public TV, WTVS-Channel 56.
Catch the daily conversations on our<a href="https://wordpress.detroitpbs.org/category/american-black-journal/"> website</a>,<a href="https://www.facebook.com/AmericanBlackJournal/"> Facebook</a>,<a href="https://twitter.com/amblackjournal"> Twitter</a> and<a href="https://www.instagram.com/amblackjournal/"> Instagram</a> @amblackjournal.
<h3><a href="https://wordpress.detroitpbs.org/category/american-black-journal/">View Past Episodes &gt;</a></h3>
Watch American Black Journal on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 9:30 a.m. on Detroit Public TV, WTVS-Channel 56.

Study Shows Black Drivers Were Stopped by Michigan State Police at Disproportionately High Rates 

Mental Health Awareness Month

Host Stephen Henderson talks with <a href="https://www.cnshealthcare.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CNS Healthcare</a> President and CEO Michael Garrett about how people can take care of their mental health this holiday season. The two discuss the impacts the COVID-19 pandemic, incidents of systemic racism and increased gun violence have had on people’s mental health in communities of color, as well as the importance of finding resources to combat trauma, stress and anxiety. They explore the stigma associated with mental health in communities of color, and how to reduce it.
Plus, Garrett shines a light on the Oxford High School shooting and the impact on students, parents, teachers and community members’  mental health. He shares special tips and <a href="https://wordpress.detroitpbs.org/school-shooting-resources-for-families/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">resources</a> on how parents should talk with their children and understand what their kids are saying, thinking and feeling.
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Subscribe to Detroit Public Television’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/detroitpublictv56">YouTube Channel</a> &amp; Don’t miss American Black Journal on Sunday at 9:30 a.m. and Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. on Detroit Public TV, WTVS-Channel 56.
Catch the daily conversations on our <a href="https://wordpress.detroitpbs.org/category/american-black-journal/">website</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/AmericanBlackJournal/">Facebook</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/amblackjournal">Twitter</a> and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/amblackjournal/">Instagram</a> @amblackjournal.
<h3><a href="https://wordpress.detroitpbs.org/category/american-black-journal/">View Past Episodes &gt;</a></h3>
Watch American Black Journal on Sunday at 9:30 a.m. and Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. on Detroit Public TV, WTVS-Channel 56.

Making Mental Health Better for Communities of Color

%%title%% %%sep%% Coping with COVID-19 %%sep%% %%sitename%%

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A number of civil rights groups, including the NAACP and ACLU, have filed a federal lawsuit against Georgia over its controversial new voting law. The legislation includes massive changes to absentee and early voting, and it places restrictions on the locations of ballot drop boxes. Similar voter suppression bills have been introduced by republicans in the Michigan legislature and several other states. Stephen spoke with <a href="https://www.detroitnaacp.org/">Detroit NAACP</a> president, Rev. Wendell Anthony, who recently received the national NAACP activist of the year award.
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Wendell Anthony on voter suppression bills and the Black vote

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“What we know as Black people, whether we get paid or not, we know we have to face these inequities.”—Yusef Shakur
Thanks to a grant from the Kresge Foundation, <a href="https://www.miroundtable.org/">The Michigan Roundtable for Diversity and Inclusion</a> is expanding its anti-racism work in the city of Detroit. Stephen talked about the roundtable’s plans with its new deputy director of strategy and innovation, Yusef Shakur.
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<h3>Read full transcript</h3>
Stephen Henderson  About this new position of yours with Michigan Roundtable for Diversity and Inclusion, how did this come about?
Yusef Shakur, Deputy Director, Strategy &amp; Innovation, Michigan Roundtable For Diversity &amp; Inclusion  I&#8217;ve been working for the organization 4 and a half years. Prior to that, I had community connections in terms of them supporting some of our community initiatives. I think in terms of being able to push the organization to go deeper in terms of racial and social justice and being able to earn my keep as continue to develop as a leader within the city. And personally, through pursuits of continuing to get better to transformation as well as pursuing higher education. And opportunity presented itself and Steven, the board saw the potential and we seized the moment.
Stephen Henderson  Go deeper, that&#8217;s a that&#8217;s a great phrase to describe what I imagine you&#8217;re trying to do here with this with this position. People who know you around the city know you&#8217;re a guy who&#8217;s about action and not just talking. And I suspect that that&#8217;s part of what you&#8217;re up to.
Yusef Shakur, Deputy Director, Strategy &amp; Innovation, Michigan Roundtable For Diversity &amp; Inclusion  Absolutely, a thing in particular, look, before the era that we&#8217;re currently in is challenging ourselves to take a position of racial or social justice.  Again, in particular black folks we&#8217;ve inherited a lot of inequities, and as a result we fought against it. A lot of other people, you know, in the current time, like this work is led by nonprofit, but what we know as black people, whether we get paid or not, we have to face these inequities. We have to figure out how to do it, so we&#8217;re trying to bring that type of mentality w whether you get paid for this or not, we have to change this. And this is this is bigger than what we can get paid for is just fortunate that someone was going to get paid for it. So being able to find that common thread in there. But also, Detroit is a predominately black city. The suburbs are predominantly white, and that heightens a lot of the contradictions that goes on. So being able to put ourselves in the ring to challenge those contradiction.
Stephen Henderson  Talk about some of the things in the short term you would want to focus on in this new role.
Yusef Shakur, Deputy Director, Strategy &amp; Innovation, Michigan Roundtable For Diversity &amp; Inclusion  So, currently what we&#8217;re doing is we&#8217;re pushing ourselves to take whatever, whatever role that we engage. We&#8217;re taking a position, a racial social justice position that is non-negotiable and also using critical race theory as a guide to how to how do we do the work. Over stating that diversity doesn&#8217;t mean that you&#8217;re anti-racist. That we&#8217;re showing up. being anti-racist, that we&#8217;re showing up dealing with the hard issues of poverty and so forth. Over stating that we&#8217;re, that we represent the most marginalized and the most marginalized, particularly is a reason are black people. But also create an opportunity to develop and build them up in terms of shifting what we perceive as power, as the stakeholders, seeing the people, those who are oppressed as the stakeholders, that their lives matter, that the equity of being here three or four generations of Detroiters matters. And so, the position that the community has that we built and also in the process of doing another one, so digging deeper within the hearts of the neighborhood and creating an opportunity to uplift those voices.
Stephen Henderson  This is, of course, a moment where I feel like there&#8217;s more people paying attention to these issues than before now and now. I&#8217;m talking about non-black people. And of course, you have these constant reminders of how all of this is now that people can capture with their cell phones the kind of experiences that black people have all the time. How do you lean into that moment in this new world? What opportunity does that, does that give you?
Yusef Shakur, Deputy Director, Strategy &amp; Innovation, Michigan Roundtable For Diversity &amp; Inclusion  So what, what we did was I had the great honor of graduating from University of Michigan School of Social Work in 2019, and there they they&#8217;ve incorporated was called (PODS) privilege, oppression, diversity and social justice. And we hear it clicks, it clicks in terms of because what we know is people say they want to have tough conversations, but in reality, they want to have soft, soft conversations. And so, to get to the challenge, we have to create discomfort. And a lot of times discomfort is for non-black people. And in helping to understand that, we have to examine the power of privilege and how it impacts oppression and to get to get an authentic diversity, we have to land on racial social justice. So, over studying that journey, over studying those roles. You know, there&#8217;s different expressways, but they interconnect. So even like you and I, you know we&#8217;re two black men, but we probably come from two different experiences. So, getting into the roots of what those different experiences to allow us to really value who we are. Because in reality when we step out, no one&#8217;s going to look at our differences. They just want to see two black men, but also, they accept us differently. And so, this is within the work, ignorance is something that we all uphold. But ignorance has become a way of life and so being able to uproot that ignorance as well as uprooting racism is the objective.
Stephen Henderson  Yeah, I wonder what you think of the opportunity to not just take this message to young people, but to adults. I feel like it&#8217;s often more difficult to get these messages across to people who&#8217;ve been stuck in their ways for a really long time and maybe don&#8217;t think there&#8217;s anything wrong.
Yusef Shakur, Deputy Director, Strategy &amp; Innovation, Michigan Roundtable For Diversity &amp; Inclusion  But they will impact people across racial, gender and social economics, is authentic. You know, just being very real. And also or substituting the word real for being vulnerable. Cause we think you&#8217;re being real; you&#8217;re being vulnerable and it&#8217;s not. So, the ability to be vulnerable is more education than anything. And I&#8217;ll just share two brief stories with you. I remember growing up in Manistique, Michigan, you know it snow in a day, it&#8217;s completely white up there, right. And I&#8217;m talking about the experience of growing up with abuse, when my mother was being abused by her boyfriend. And it was a little white kid in the back of the room. Had to be no more than about 13, 14, everybody disperses she&#8217;s in the back row crying. So, I&#8217;m like what was going on what’s wrong. He was like, man, when I grew up, my mother was experiencing the same thing. So, what that told me again what we&#8217;re taught, abuse only happens in black families, drug addicts only happen in black families. Or when I talk about my father being in prison, me meeting my father, there was a young man who was 17, 18 that he wanted to come back to my hotel, he wanted to talk to me. Like man, my father never told me, my mother never told who my father was, but I think he was mad at her. So again, these social issues that we face, they face to. But until we&#8217;re able to be vulnerable with ourselves and realize like this is a black and white issue, but it&#8217;s bigger than a black or white issue. And who created the opportunity for us not to see the human connection? Because the ills that we&#8217;re facing, not only are they threats to you and I as black people, but there are threats to humanity. And if we&#8217;re truly calling ourselves, human beings, then we need to transform ourselves to create a better space for those who are the most impacted and where we don&#8217;t also find ourselves on that road. And so, I think being authentic allows us to get to that position.
Stephen Henderson  Yeah, so where do you start? It&#8217;s a new role, but as you point out, you&#8217;ve been there for some time. What&#8217;s first on your agenda
Yusef Shakur, Deputy Director, Strategy &amp; Innovation, Michigan Roundtable For Diversity &amp; Inclusion  So first of agenda again, was going inside the organization and being able to revamp how we&#8217;re going to approach things, establishing the (PODS), looking at privilege, looking at oppression. I&#8217;m also, again openly saying that we as an organization, we&#8217;re anti-poverty, we&#8217;re anti-racist. You know, again we know a lot of white folks talk that, but, you know, when it&#8217;s time to show up, you know, because of their discomfort, they show up differently. And so being able to, like if we&#8217;re going to model change, we need to be the change and not just a slogan. So being able to internally hold ourselves accountable, also placing ourselves on the side of those who are the most oppressed and allowing them to lead us by engaging them in areas that helped transform them.
Stephen Henderson  You know that internal focus is something that too many organizations aren&#8217;t really willing to do. What is it about the Michigan roundtable that you think leads them to say, hey, look, we understand we&#8217;ve got to look at ourselves.
Yusef Shakur, Deputy Director, Strategy &amp; Innovation, Michigan Roundtable For Diversity &amp; Inclusion  So I&#8217;m blessed to be able to work with co-workers that already have been doing that work. Stacey Stevens, prior to me getting there, actually, the reason I am here is because of her ability as a white woman and looking at the privilege that she holds in that space to say, hey, we need another black person, we need another black woman or another black man, we need to break down these silos. Even though we&#8217;re doing the right stuff, we&#8217;re doing it wrong, because internally it&#8217;s not reflective of what our theories are. And so being able to have that and also know Steve who&#8217;s my boss, putting to continue to challenge him and put him in discomfort conversations in this kind of work and him not taking that personal. I would say like, this is bigger than anything that he can get paid for. And so, trust, as you know, doing this work we got to trust each other. And trusting each other is building real sustainable relationships in the barracks, in the barracks where we&#8217;re showing our ugly selves, because again, this work has existed before I was born. And the goal is for it not to exist after I&#8217;m passed, but we have to get to a point were having the confidence and faith, So the confidence and faith that they have in me I have in them. And also, just be honest with you, like if you told me growing up like this is where I would be, and I would be like, man you crazy. Like this is because this wasn&#8217;t the reality, but you know it shows you the power of God. It shows you the power of transformation, education and commitment to continue to do better. I think most, I mean, some people don&#8217;t agree with me, but I think most people do agree with is that I&#8217;m consistent, that I&#8217;m passionate and that I&#8217;m very sincere and authentic.
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Facing Inequities

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Staying safe while driving has long been a concern for African Americans. Although the automobile provided mobility and independence during the 20th century, African Americans were further exposed to systemic racism while driving throughout the country.
Here&#8217;s a preview of the PBS documentary titled “<a href="https://video.dptv.org/show/driving-while-black/">Driving While Black: Race, Space and Mobility in America</a>,” which is now available for <a href="https://video.dptv.org/video/driving-while-black-race-space-and-mobility-in-america-achvfr/">streaming at PBS.org</a> (for Passport Members).
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Driving While Black

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Governor Gretchen Whitmer&#8217;s executive order declaring racism a public health crisis is bringing attention to the systems and policies that result in health disparities impacting people of color.
Dr. Kimberlydawn Wisdom of <a href="https://www.henryford.com/">Henry Ford Health System</a> talks about the governor&#8217;s declaration and what it means for the community.
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Racism as a Public Health Crisis

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<h2>On the next American Black Journal,</h2>
The <a href="https://www.detroitk12.org/">Detroit Public Schools Community District</a> is making plans to reopen schools in the fall. Stephen Henderson talks with Superintendent Dr. Nikolai Vitti about the changes being put in place to keep students, teachers and staff healthy and safe in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Plus, Dr. Vitti offers his personal perspective on the issues that have led to the global protests against systemic racism.  And, master storyteller <a href="https://www.satorishakoor.com/">Satori Shakoor</a>, founder of <a href="https://www.twistedtellers.org/">The Secret Society of Twisted Storytellers</a>, talks about the life-changing stories and messages coming out of the pandemic and George Floyd protests. Also, we&#8217;ll have a powerful performance of the Negro National Anthem, &#8220;Lift Every Voice and Sing,&#8221; by the <a href="http://www.sphinxmusic.org/">Sphinx Organization&#8217;s</a> Exigence Vocal Ensemble.
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<h2>Watch for upcoming videos:</h2>
[/et_pb_text][et_pb_video_slider controls_color=&#8221;light&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.0.9&#8243; hover_enabled=&#8221;0&#8243; global_module=&#8221;1816&#8243; saved_tabs=&#8221;all&#8221;][et_pb_video_slider_item admin_title=&#8221;Double-click to add Full Episode&#8221; src=&#8221;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Xit6UXUCQM&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.0.9&#8243; show_image_overlay=&#8221;off&#8221;][/et_pb_video_slider_item][et_pb_video_slider_item admin_title=&#8221;Double-click to add Segment 1&#8243; src=&#8221;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsbBp_RdR4s&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.0.9&#8243; show_image_overlay=&#8221;off&#8221;][/et_pb_video_slider_item][et_pb_video_slider_item admin_title=&#8221;Double-click to add Segment 2&#8243; src=&#8221;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6MtbaELyDQ&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.0.9&#8243; show_image_overlay=&#8221;off&#8221;][/et_pb_video_slider_item][et_pb_video_slider_item admin_title=&#8221;Double-click to add Segment 4&#8243; src=&#8221;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzX5JqRfBeo&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.0.9&#8243; hover_enabled=&#8221;0&#8243; show_image_overlay=&#8221;off&#8221;][/et_pb_video_slider_item][/et_pb_video_slider][et_pb_text _builder_version=&#8221;4.0.9&#8243;]Don&#8217;t miss American Black Journal on Sunday at 9:30 a.m. and again on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. on Detroit Public TV, WTVS-Channel 56.
<h3><a href="http://www.pbs.org/show/american-black-journal/">View more from American Black Journal &gt;</a></h3>
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6/28/20: American Black Journal – Dr. Nikolai Vitti / Satori Shakoor / Sphinx Org

abj-roundtable-zoom

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Stephen Henderson talks with Karen Dumas (Communications Strategist) Brandon Brice (“Straight Talk” host, 910 AM Superstation), Kerry Leon Jackson (The Urban Conservative) and Greg Bowens (PR &amp; Political Strategist) for an in-depth discussion of the local, national and global protests against police brutality and systemic racism.
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A Roundtable on Police Brutality and Systemic Racism

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<h2>Tonight on American Black Journal: </h2>
We&#8217;ve assembled a special roundtable of guests for a candid conversation with Stephen Henderson about the protests that have erupted around the world after the death of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, at the hands of a white Minneapolis police officer. They&#8217;ll talk about what&#8217;s different about these demonstrations. Plus, the guests offer their perspectives on police brutality against people of color and the recent calls for defunding police departments.
Featuring:
<ul>
<li><a href="http://karendumas.com/">Karen Dumas</a>, Communications Strategist, Images &amp; Ideas, Inc.</li>
<li><a href="https://brandonbrice.com/">Brandon Brice</a>, &#8220;Straight Talk&#8221; Host, 910 AM Superstation</li>
<li><a href="https://twitter.com/attykj?lang=en">Kerry Leon Jackson</a>, The Urban Conservative</li>
<li><a href="https://www.deadlinedetroit.com/columnist/Bowens">Greg Bowens</a>, PR &amp; Political Consultant, Bowens &amp; Company</li>
</ul>
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<h2>Watch Now: </h2>
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Subscribe to Detroit Public Television’s<a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/detroitpublictv56"> YouTube Channel</a> &amp; Don’t miss American Black Journal on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m and Sunday at 9:30 a.m. on Detroit Public TV, WTVS-Channel 56.
Catch the daily conversations on our<a href="https://wordpress.detroitpbs.org/category/american-black-journal/"> website</a>,<a href="https://www.facebook.com/AmericanBlackJournal/"> Facebook</a>,<a href="https://twitter.com/amblackjournal"> Twitter</a> and<a href="https://www.instagram.com/amblackjournal/"> Instagram</a> @amblackjournal.
<h3><a href="https://wordpress.detroitpbs.org/category/american-black-journal/">View Past Episodes &gt;</a></h3>
Watch American Black Journal on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 9:30 a.m. on Detroit Public TV, WTVS-Channel 56.
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6/21/20: American Black Journal – Roundtable On George Floyd Protests, Police Brutality & Systemic Racism

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Stephen Henderson talks with Detroit NAACP President, Rev. Wendell Anthony, about why these protests and marches are different from the ones we’ve seen before, the importance of white Americans hearing from white America, and significance of 9 of the top business leaders in MI taking a public stance to address racism.
See more on Detroit Public TV’s One Detroit Mondays and Thursdays at 7:30p.
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Detroit and business leaders take a stand against racism

[et_pb_section fb_built=&#8221;1&#8243; _builder_version=&#8221;4.0.9&#8243;][et_pb_row _builder_version=&#8221;4.0.9&#8243;][et_pb_column type=&#8221;4_4&#8243; _builder_version=&#8221;4.0.9&#8243;][et_pb_text _builder_version=&#8221;4.0.9&#8243; link_option_url_new_window=&#8221;on&#8221;]As we have all watched in the past week, the horror of George Floyd’s death, the call to end police brutality, crowds demonstrating in across the state, many have joined friends in the black community in support. Sometimes, it’s hard to know the right thing to say – or the best way to lend support. One Detroit’s Will Glover talks with Charity Dean, Director of Civil Rights, Inclusion, and Opportunity for the City of Detroit about where people can start.
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Lending support to the Black community

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Pain and frustration over police brutality and racial justice have led to protests and demonstrations not only in Michigan, but nationwide. Christy McDonald talks with Lt. Governor of Michigan Garlin Gilchrist about what true policy changes can be made to combat systemic racism.
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<h2>Watch Now:</h2>
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<h2>Full Transcript:</h2>
Garlin Gilchrist, Lt. Governor of Michigan: We cannot leave any opportunity to participate and make sure that we are represented in a decision-making process on the table. So that means being involved in protests and demonstration, but also being involved in neighborhood work, being involved in legislative work, being counted in the census, voting in every election, all the way up and down the ballot.
Christy McDonald: Joining me now is Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist. Garlin, it&#8217;s good to see you. I&#8217;ve got to ask you, how would you describe what we&#8217;re seeing here in the country and in Michigan in this past week and a half?
Garlin Gilchrist: Well, Christy, thank you for having me. You know, what we&#8217;re seeing is this collective it&#8217;s exhausting primordial scream from communities across the country, particularly black communities across this country who are just, yearning for justice, yearning for access to opportunity and just constantly dismayed when we see another life taken unnecessarily, unjustifiably and in a way that was completely preventable.
Garlin Gilchrist: But that is unfortunately the culmination, or just yet another culminating point of the years of prejudice and structural racism that led to the dismissive, dismissive treatment of black people and black bodies. So I think that&#8217;s what you&#8217;re hearing and seeing in communities across our state and across the country. I think people are stepping up and meeting to feel like their voices. They need to shout louder so their voices can be heard. And I think those demonstrations, frankly are warranted.
Christy McDonald: You&#8217;ve been very active on social media and Twitter and Facebook and speaking directly saying, I hear you, I see you. You&#8217;ve also been at some of the protests. What are people telling you and being able to reach people directly?
Garlin Gilchrist: Well, I think it&#8217;s important to go where people are. That&#8217;s my job as a public servant, to go where they are to listen and to make sure that we can ultimately use this office to be responsive to people&#8217;s needs. And so when I was on the west side of Detroit, I&#8217;m so what I saw was a group of young people who were ready for change, who were hungry, who were ready to be engaged.
Garlin Gilchrist: And so my message to them was that we cannot leave any decision-making opportunity on the table. We cannot leave any opportunity to participate and make sure that we are represented in a decision-making process on the table. So that means being involved in protests and demonstrations, but also being involved in neighborhood work, being involved in legislative work, and being counted in the census. Voting in every election, all the way up and down the ballot.
Garlin Gilchrist: That&#8217;s what we need and then we need to be involved in the accountability mechanism for public officials going forward. How can we design the right types of policy solutions that we want to see from law enforcement, whether it&#8217;s more civilian oversight, different use of force protocols, better, more training when it comes to de-escalation and or implicit bias, or recruitment of more diverse officers that look like the community or more investment in community policing.
Garlin Gilchrist: These are the sorts of things that people want to see. And so my message is let&#8217;s work together to make it happen.
Christy McDonald: Do you feel like you&#8217;ve had these conversations over and over and over again? And then how do you plan on taking your office as the highest-ranking black official in the state of Michigan? Now you have the Racial Disparities Task Force coming out of the COVID 19 crisis. How do you plan to shape that into policy that we can address the inequities here?
Garlin Gilchrist: Yeah, unfortunately, this has been a conversation for my entire life. I mean, I got pulled over unjustifiably for going 24-25 mph when I was on my way to high school in Farmington, for example, just because of what I looked like.
Garlin Gilchrist: So, you know, I understand that this is a problem that has existed and it rhymes with the issues that we&#8217;re seeing with the coronavirus when it comes to black people being disproportionately impacted, in part because we live in places that have an environment that is more poisonous, in part because we live in places where we have less access to the health care system.
Garlin Gilchrist: And so what I&#8217;m trying to do in this position with the support of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is working to make sure that we have policies, the rescue response that we can make sure that the equitable investments in education and health care infrastructure are being made and directed so that we can make sure that we can respond specifically and say, you know what? Testing accessibility is the front door to treatment for vulnerable populations.
Garlin Gilchrist: So that&#8217;s why we stood up almost 30 testing sites in the hardest hit zip codes across the state that are primarily zip codes, where the majority of people who live there are people of color with who score high on Social Vulnerability Index due to the social determinants of health which include co-morbidities, lack of access to food and education resources, and also just, frankly, the systemic racism that has kept people down for far too long.
Garlin Gilchrist: So having these inputs into the decisions, I believe that&#8217;s quite different than what we see in the leadership in Michigan, and that&#8217;s reflective of the diversity of the leadership team that we have in our state not only with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and I, but also Dr. Joneigh Khaldun, Chief Medical Executive. We have the most diverse leadership team in the country when it comes to responding to the coronavirus, and I believe that is an opportunity for us to demonstrate the impact of that.
Christy McDonald: What are you telling your kids?
Garlin Gilchrist: I mean, so my kids are my twins are six, and my baby girl will be one on Juneteenth this month and we&#8217;re letting them know that we just have to be careful. Right now, I think, you know, teaching kids good hand hygiene is never a bad thing. But as in terms of the coronavirus, when it comes to the demonstrations, we&#8217;re telling them that people are outside and they&#8217;re shouting because they want everybody to be treated fairly.
Garlin Gilchrist: They don&#8217;t want anyone to go outside and feel like they are in danger. And so they can see it, they can see it from our window and stuff like that. So they ask good questions. And we show them the things on TV that aren&#8217;t violent because of violence, frankly, is not representative of actually the spirit of the demonstration that will actually change.
Garlin Gilchrist: We don&#8217;t show them that. We do show them what it means for people to speak out and speak up. I used to be a community organizer in the early part of my career so they&#8217;ve actually seen this before, so it&#8217;s not new to them but we wanted to describe what it looks like here at home.
Christy McDonald: What are the conversations that you&#8217;re having now on a daily basis, coming out of all the protests that we&#8217;re seeing and people who are saying, look, now it&#8217;s time to have some different conversations than we have had before.
Garlin Gilchrist: You know, I&#8217;ve been really heartened that leaders and law enforcement agencies across the state have reached out and wanting to be supportive and productive and helpful, and they have ideas. We&#8217;ve seen legislators who already have legislation in the hopper that&#8217;s looking to change standards for training and for police and law enforcement agencies.
Garlin Gilchrist: And community leaders feel like we have an opportunity at this generational moment for more people to be engaged in this decision-making process. And so I think that we need to really pounce upon this opportunity. And I think that this pandemic of COVID 19, this what has felt like ever-present for my entire life and certainly for generations, this stain of racism and oppression, we have the ability to address both of these at once in some way, and I believe that we can make progress on both.
Christy McDonald: Let me ask you before I let you go about opening this state up. All of a sudden, the announcement came yesterday flurry of activity from people who feel all of a sudden that they&#8217;re going to be able to go out and be about again. What would you say in terms of either cautioning people or letting them still understand that we are still moving through this, even though much more is going to be opening up?
Garlin Gilchrist: The biggest thing is that the coronavirus unfortunately hasn&#8217;t changed. It&#8217;s still as contagious. It is still as deadly. We don&#8217;t have an antibiotic treatment. We don&#8217;t have a vaccine, so people still need to be careful. While it is true that the public health data and infrastructure and the testing capacity, the testing results have shown that we can move along our spectrum, our phased approach. We can do that.
Garlin Gilchrist: But we need to do so carefully. To be very clear, the safest thing you can do is stay home if you can, if you don&#8217;t have to leave. That is the safest thing you can do unambiguously. But if you go out, people need to wear their masks. People need to social distance. People need to wash their hands. And you know, frankly, in the demonstrations, I haven&#8217;t seen enough masks. I haven&#8217;t seen enough social distancing.
Garlin Gilchrist: We need to see more of that. So that does concern me. Like, I&#8217;m worried about people who are going out and fighting and yearning and calling for justice, but putting themselves at risk in the midst of a global pandemic. So people need to be vigilant about that as well, because in order for us to continue advocating we need to stay alive.
Christy McDonald: All right, Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist, it&#8217;s good to see you. We&#8217;re going to continue to follow everything that happens here, and we appreciate your time.
Garlin Gilchrist: Thank you, Christy, stay safe.
Christy McDonald: It&#8217;s good to see you, you too.
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Michigan Lt. Governor Garlin Gilchrist on the Roots of Racial Unrest

Youngleaders3

<h5 class="byline">By <a class="url fn n" title="More from Louis Aguilar" href="https://www.bridgedetroit.com/author/louis-aguilar/" rel="author">Louis Aguilar</a>  from BridgeDetroit | <time class="entry-date updated dtstamp pubdate" datetime="2020-06-03T07:08:23-04:00">June 3, 2020</time></h5>
Throughout the Detroit protests, many young people have stepped in at key moments to advocate for systemic change and a radical difference in the policing of Black and brown communities.
During the five days of protest, the crowds are diverse and, at times, appear to be majority white, Millennial and Gen Z.
“These children are trying to break segregation biases, these are the children of L. Brooks Patterson, they are breaking that county line,” said Meeko A. Williams, 35, who helped organize the first protest on May 29 at the Detroit Police headquarters downtown. He was referring to the former longtime Oakland County executive who, for some, is a symbol of late 20th-century racial divide between the city and suburbs.
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The Detroit protests have drawn diverse young crowds that, at times, appear to be majority white. (Photo by Louis Aguilar)
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“Unemployment has hit 40 million Americans, making them reconsider what they are doing with their lives and we are the ones working all of the hours,” said Williams.  He encouraged older activists to  “stand with” young people.  “We don’t need to be down-splained or old-splained to,” he said.
The killing of George Floyd, a Black man, by a white policeman in Minneapolis is the catalyst for nationwide protests in at least 150 cities, suburbs and small towns. Police brutality is only part of  what draws Detroit protesters. There are signs and speeches railing against institutional racism and widening income inequality.
On Monday, a 16-year-old Black Latino, Stefan Perez, emerged as a leader.
<blockquote>“Williams contends activists don’t want trouble but are insistent on ‘rapid change’. He called for the end of mass incarceration, release of all nonviolent offenders, and an end to the ICE system.”</blockquote>
Perez said he is of Black, Mexican, Nicaraguan and Puerto Rican heritage. Early on, he held a sign that said “Stop ICE Terror”, referring to the hardline tactics toward immigrants by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The federal agency has faced withering criticism by human rights advocates for separating children from families, the policing of southwest Detroit and the overall treatment of immigrants.
Perez also affiliates himself with the group By Any Means Necessary.
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A Detroit resident holds a sign urging peaceful protest at the Monday, June 1 protest. (Photo by Louis Aguilar)
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During the miles-long march, he continued to urge protesters to remain peaceful. At the end,  marchers could see a blocks-long row of police in riot gear. Perez was one of the young people in front of the crowd screaming at the several hundred protesters to walk away from the police. And they did.
As Perez talked to reporters on the street after the march, he got a call from Mayor Mike Duggan.
“When I was watching the videos of your leadership tonight, I had tears in my eyes,” Duggan told Perez, who put the call on speakerphone. “You are everything that’s special about the city of Detroit.”
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16-year-old Stefan Perez has emerged as one of the many young people who continue to march and stress peace during the Detroit protests. (Photo by Louis Aguilar)
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The teen told Duggan: “I am not going to lie to you, though, I’m still going to be out here protesting peacefully.” After the march, Perez took a bus back to his southwest Detroit home.
Organizing is part of the history of Detroit. It is the home of the labor movement, the largest NAACP chapter, the birthplace of the Nation of Islam, and in 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Walk to Freedom drew 125,000 people and is known as one the largest civil rights demonstrations in the nation’s history.
The current president of the Detroit chapter of the NAACP, the Rev. Wendell Anthony, recalled an incident in 2000 when a Black man died from a chokehold by a security guard at Fairlane Town Center mall in Dearborn.
“Seven thousand of us marched in Dearborn. We didn’t break a window, we didn’t burn a car, we didn’t throw a molotov cocktail, we marched,” Anthony said during a Sunday news conference with Duggan, Police Chief James Craig and other civil rights leaders.
“We believe in marching,” Anthony said. “I’m proud of the young people who are marching, protesting.  It’s good to see young whites, Blacks, Asians and Hispanics and Arabs and Jews marching together for justice. They are also marching for peace. They are not trying to do this to  tear the city up. They are marching because an injustice has been performed.”
On Sunday, the city announced a curfew as police officials and the mayor urged protesters to remain peaceful. Officials shared information on arrests and said outside agitators were part of the reason gatherings turned violent.
The fourth day of protests began with the establishment taking a hard line. A second night of curfew had been announced a few hours before the 4 p.m march.
<blockquote>“We don’t need to be down-splained or old-splained to.” – Meeko Williams</blockquote>
A small group of protesters are coming to spark violence, contended Duggan and Craig during a Monday news conference. Craig held up a rusty railroad spike to show one of the items confiscated from someone arrested during the Sunday protests.
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Detroit police and fire department personnel were prepared for a long night of clashes with protesters at the Monday, June 1 march. (Photo by Louis Aguilar)
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Protesters use walkie-talkies to communicate during the events and have “supply vehicles” with “rocks, bottles and fireworks,” to throw at police, Duggan said.
Williams contends activists don’t want trouble but are insistent on “rapid change.” He called for the end of mass incarceration, release of all nonviolent offenders, and an end to the ICE system.”
“That’s why I originally had the protests at the police station because we wanted Black and brown children released with no charges.”
The Detroit Police headquarters — the meeting point of the marches — had been barricaded for the first time on Monday for the event. As protesters assembled at the corner of Michigan Avenue near police headquarters, hundreds of police and fire department personnel were assembling  at nearby West Riverfront Park.
Speaker after speaker at the Monday event extolled nonviolence and a need to focus on the issues facing Detroit.
“I understand there are people in the Detroit police who need to be talked to and need to be handled. Because I’ve seen unnecessary aggression among some of them, but not all of them,” said a Detroit resident who wanted to identify himself by TT Gawd.
<blockquote> “I’m proud of the young people who are marching, protesting. It’s good to see young whites, Blacks, Asians and Hispanics and Arabs and Jews marching together for justice. They are also marching for peace. They are not trying to do this to tear the city up. They are marching because an injustice has been performed.” – Rev. Wendell Anthony</blockquote>
He told the crowd how he tried to stop violence after the Saturday protest.  “I was up front trying to talk to a bunch of young black kids who got riled up by a white male to fight the police. And then he vanished and the black kids got arrested,” Gawd says.
“I got pepper-sprayed and got tossed in the ground. I understand rioting in Minneapolis, but not in Detroit. We don’t need it here. We’re just coming back from that right now,” he says. The crowd erupted  in huge applause.
Even amid the worst moments of violent clashes, there are many social media videos of young people stepping up to play the role of peacemaker.
On Saturday night, several young Black males stood up to protesters hurling rocks at the windows of the Nike community store on downtown Woodward Avenue. The store windows remained intact.
During the Sunday night standoff, multiple people walked between the line of police and protesters urging non-violence. Those pleas failed as some protesters began to hurl objects and fireworks toward the cops and the cops aggressively responded.
The Rev. Maurice Hardwick, senior pastor of Power Ministry’s Church, is among the Detroit faith-based leaders who have attended the protests. He tells protesters Detroit should lead the reform movement.
“You want what we already got,” says Hardwick. “You want [city leaders] to say it’s wrong and we need to fix it. We already got that. There is no need to burn, there is no need to loot, there is no need to taunt the police.
“We should be a model and an example. Let’s lead the way.”
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Protests continue in Detroit more than a week after George Floyd’s death

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COVID-19 and racial violence are taking a terrible toll on African Americans. Detroit has been a hotspot for the disease, which has disproportionately cost the lives of black residents. Then amid the pandemic, the news of the death of George Floyd, an unarmed man killed by a Minneapolis police man in a particularly gruesome manner while he begged for his life, rocked black communities across the nation. American Black Journal host Stephen Henderson talks to Assistant Professor Riana Anderson of the University of Michigan School of Public Health about the escalating anxiety and depression all this has caused and what African American families can do to maintain their mental health during this time of danger and stress.
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Disease, racism and the struggles of the African-American families to maintain their mental health

2020-05-29_1131

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<h2>On the next American Black Journal,</h2>
<a href="https://www.waynecounty.com/elected/executive/home.aspx">Wayne County</a> Executive Warren Evans talks with Stephen about COVID-19, its impact on the county, and how it is disrupting the 2020 Census count. Plus, the pandemic&#8217;s disproportionate impact on African Americans, combined with a jump in violent racist acts across the country, are taking a huge mental health toll on people of color. <a href="https://publichealth.umich.edu/">University of Michigan School of Public Health</a> Assistant Professor <a href="https://www.rianaelyse.com/">Riana Anderson</a> talks about how to reduce racial stress and trauma.
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<h2>Watch now:</h2>
[/et_pb_text][et_pb_video_slider controls_color=&#8221;light&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.0.9&#8243;][et_pb_video_slider_item admin_title=&#8221;Full Episode&#8221; src=&#8221;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSYyIDnZ4Cg&#038;feature=youtu.be&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.0.9&#8243; show_image_overlay=&#8221;off&#8221;][/et_pb_video_slider_item][et_pb_video_slider_item src=&#8221;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHdx-lA2Brs&#038;feature=youtu.be&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.0.9&#8243; show_image_overlay=&#8221;off&#8221;][/et_pb_video_slider_item][et_pb_video_slider_item admin_title=&#8221;Seg 2&#8243; src=&#8221;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VF6_U2MNuZM&#038;feature=youtu.be&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.0.9&#8243; show_image_overlay=&#8221;off&#8221;][/et_pb_video_slider_item][et_pb_video_slider_item admin_title=&#8221;Seg 1&#8243; src=&#8221;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uIGDMKwBUU&#038;feature=youtu.be&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.0.9&#8243; show_image_overlay=&#8221;off&#8221;][/et_pb_video_slider_item][/et_pb_video_slider][et_pb_text _builder_version=&#8221;4.0.9&#8243;]Don&#8217;t miss American Black Journal on Sunday at 9:30 a.m. and again on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. on Detroit Public TV, WTVS-Channel 56.
<h3><a href="http://www.pbs.org/show/american-black-journal/">View more from American Black Journal &gt;</a></h3>
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5/31/20: American Black Journal – Warren Evans / Mental health toll on African Americans

2019-12-23_1541

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<a href="https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-danny-burton-restart-his-life-after-32-years" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Danny Burton</a> spent 32 years in prison on a <a href="https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/Race_and_Wrongful_Convictions.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrongful</a> murder conviction before being released. Stephen talks with Danny and a member of his legal team about what led to his conviction being overturned.
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Wrongfully Convicted

Screen-Shot-2019-12-19-at-2.30.21-PM

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header_4_text_shadow_blur_strength=&#8221;header_4_text_shadow_style,%91object Object%93&#8243; header_4_text_shadow_blur_strength_tablet=&#8221;1px&#8221; header_5_text_shadow_horizontal_length=&#8221;header_5_text_shadow_style,%91object Object%93&#8243; header_5_text_shadow_horizontal_length_tablet=&#8221;0px&#8221; header_5_text_shadow_vertical_length=&#8221;header_5_text_shadow_style,%91object Object%93&#8243; header_5_text_shadow_vertical_length_tablet=&#8221;0px&#8221; header_5_text_shadow_blur_strength=&#8221;header_5_text_shadow_style,%91object Object%93&#8243; header_5_text_shadow_blur_strength_tablet=&#8221;1px&#8221; header_6_text_shadow_horizontal_length=&#8221;header_6_text_shadow_style,%91object Object%93&#8243; header_6_text_shadow_horizontal_length_tablet=&#8221;0px&#8221; header_6_text_shadow_vertical_length=&#8221;header_6_text_shadow_style,%91object Object%93&#8243; header_6_text_shadow_vertical_length_tablet=&#8221;0px&#8221; header_6_text_shadow_blur_strength=&#8221;header_6_text_shadow_style,%91object Object%93&#8243; header_6_text_shadow_blur_strength_tablet=&#8221;1px&#8221; box_shadow_horizontal_tablet=&#8221;0px&#8221; box_shadow_vertical_tablet=&#8221;0px&#8221; box_shadow_blur_tablet=&#8221;40px&#8221; box_shadow_spread_tablet=&#8221;0px&#8221; z_index_tablet=&#8221;500&#8243;]
<h2>On the next American Black Journal,</h2>
<a href="https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-danny-burton-restart-his-life-after-32-years" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Danny Burton</a> spent 32 years in prison on a <a href="https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/Race_and_Wrongful_Convictions.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrongful</a> murder conviction before being released. Stephen talks with Danny and a member of his legal team about what led to his conviction being overturned. Plus, Wayne County brings in the <a href="https://www.neighborhooddefender.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem</a> to reimagine the county&#8217;s approach to handling public defense cases. Wayne County Executive Warren Evans and the head of the Neighborhood Defender Service in Detroit talk about how the change will help improve fairness and reduce <a href="https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/Race-and-Wrongful-Convictions.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrongful convictions</a>.
 
<h3>Watch Now:</h3>
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&nbsp;
Don&#8217;t miss American Black Journal on Sunday at 9:30 a.m. and again on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. on Detroit Public TV, WTVS-Channel 56.
<h3><a href="http://www.pbs.org/show/american-black-journal/">View more from American Black Journal &gt;</a></h3>
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12/22/19: American Black Journal – Wrongfully Convicted / Neighborhood Defender Service

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header_6_text_shadow_blur_strength_tablet=&#8221;1px&#8221; box_shadow_horizontal_tablet=&#8221;0px&#8221; box_shadow_vertical_tablet=&#8221;0px&#8221; box_shadow_blur_tablet=&#8221;40px&#8221; box_shadow_spread_tablet=&#8221;0px&#8221; z_index_tablet=&#8221;500&#8243;]
<h2>On the next American Black Journal,</h2>
Stephen talks with marketing specialist <a href="https://www.ericsthomas.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Eric Thomas</a> about his recent <a href="https://www.freep.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Detroit Free Press</a> guest  column on the need to <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/contributors/2019/11/30/detroit-black-race-business/4261342002/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">preserve Black spaces in Detroit</a> as the city continues to go through a major transformation. Plus, we&#8217;ll get an advance look at the redevelopment plans for Detroit&#8217;s historic <a href="https://detourdetroiter.com/detroit-shrine-of-black-madonna-bookstore-reopening/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Shrine of the Black Madonna</a> Bookstore &amp; Cultural Center.
Featured Image: Brothers walking down Woodward Avenue, Photo by <a href="https://pixabay.com/users/arthurpalac-1391856/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=4062079" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">arthurpalac</a> via <a href="https://pixabay.com/?utm_source=link-attribution&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=image&amp;utm_content=4062079" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Pixabay</a> cc 2.0 
<h3>Watch Now:</h3>
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&nbsp;
Don&#8217;t miss American Black Journal on Sunday at 9:30 a.m. and again on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. on Detroit Public TV, WTVS-Channel 56.
<h3><a href="http://www.pbs.org/show/american-black-journal/">View more from American Black Journal &gt;</a></h3>
[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]

12/15/19: American Black Journal – Preserving Black Spaces / Shrine of the Black Madonna

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American Black Journal and BridgeDetroit collaborated on a three-part series titled, “Do Black Lives Matter in America?”
Hosted by ABJ's Stephen Henderson and former BridgeDetroit Engagement Director Orlando Bailey, the Emmy award-winning series examined the urgent issues and injustices endangering the lives of people of color and the search for viable solutions. The episodes focused on systemic racism, police reform, diversity in the media and community safety.

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