>> president obama speaks about reducing gun violence in the u.s. says his administration will be taken up the affair. >> redditt hudson let the st. louis police force in 1999 to discuss what he considered problems in the criminal justice system. n-november he spoke to students at the university of delaware about institutional racism in our criminal justice is done. >> this semester there have been a number of incidents that suggest a real need to have an open dialogue about race on this campus and others. the event is free and open to the public like all national agenda events.

i encourage audience participation. mitchell hall as well as via social media. @ud race in america and you can join the discussion. you can make it into the conversation tonight. it is simply sad civil and respectful dialogue is expected. as i've said all semester, if you wouldn't stand up and say in public and hear michelle hall look around you. the understanding of race in america and on this campus but also be courteous. tonight, whether that's in this the law enforcement officers for justice reform and accountability, the coalition includes current and former police officers around the

country committed to challenging the institutional racism that is at the foundation of our criminal justice system and police culture throughout america. he's also the board chair for the st. louis, missouri project an organization focused on addressing problems in american prison industries beginning with an interschool prison pipeline. mr. had been was racial justice manager and program associate for the civil liberties union and also a former st. louis police officer. he left the force in 1999 to focus on addressing systematic problems in the criminal justice system from abuse police authorities and community relationships. if the author of the critical investigative reporters suffering in silence which cadillac human rights abuses in st. louis jails and which has led to several formal actions to address the conditions in them. please join me in welcoming redditt hudson to the university

of delaware. [applause] >> thank you for having me. everybody hear me pretty good? they have been running me ragged today. i've had quite the dead. i am getting my second wind now and am very glad to be here with you to talk about race in america and more importantly for me to talk about police community relations and some of the dynamics we have seen relative to raise in the united states the last eight teams, 24 months. it is important and i'm very glad to have the opportunity to speak to you and potentially if they decide to run any part of this on c-span, the country from a very different from law

enforcement and my colleagues who also share a fun person that round. a lot of them have been mainstream presentations or police points of view. you don't hear from officers who understand the history of policing in america and the relationship between police and the black communities that they serve in urban communities across the country. just to tell you about who i am before i get started. my name is redditt hudson. i'm a lot of things. i'm a father, son, former st. louis university basketball player, former aclu, currently naacp also is not here in that capacity in and speak straight to the capacity of my position and board chair of the ethics

project. i am here to talk to you tonight as candidly as i can in this space in our history for your generation, talking to the college students here and around the country have put us in a physician to affect real change in this has to happen. so to lay the foundation are you, i wanted to share some things with you about my experience when i was on the department and i would give you some remarks. to give you a sense, a foundational sense of some of the move make you seen in fergus and all the way around the world has been vilified wrongfully in so many corners it is really about. so early in my career i was

working with an officer, female officer. this officer happened to be a way to call officer. i will tell you not only white officers abuse their authority. white officers, asian officers. it is consistently in black and brown communities across this country. but i was working with this officer one day early in my career we got a call and it was a call for an officer in need of aid. it is for anyone who knows the law enforcement, a very serious call. it means officers. if you are in earshot of this call, stop whatever you are doing and expedite to the

officer's location who put out the call. he or she is in trouble, serious trouble. so this officer put out an aide call. he was in a foot pursuit chasing the suspect anyways calling out where he was. the call comes out, we expedite to his location and get there first and we see the officer who put the aid called out. we don't see a suspect. we see the opposite winded, breathing hard. what happened? are you okay? yeah, i'm okay. he's breathing hard. where did he go? did you see where the guy what? we run a street called ashland in north st. louis missouri. that is the black side of st. louis, missouri. this is a long block of houses and he's bent over like this.

i think he went in that house. he picked a house at random. we go up to the house company in the female officer. we get to the door. she is paid on the door. she had a mag light, and a black flashlight coming in the door as hard as she could. open this door. i'm not going to use the language. we are coming in here. we know somebody's in here and we are here to bring you out. we don't know if anybody's in the house or not, from the back of the house from the ruckus was created from the fund, we see a shape again to approach the door. wooden door, glass in the center and moving about the speed right here. slowly getting to the door.

the door opens, cracked. assuming there is a kid about 19 years old, african-american. i am standing there with this female officer. i am six -- eight. i'm out of shape now, but at this time i was working out everyday. was about 265, 270, single digit body. i had on a shirt sleeve shirt that was a size medium. so i could just look like i was just a scene out of it. [laughter] he opens the door. he said lady, i don't know what you're talking about. i live here. i have lived here all my life. everybody on this blog knows her family. they know me. i am here by myself right now. you've got the wrong house.

i guess that was the wrong answer because as soon as they got those words out of his mouth, she grabbed him by his throat, snatched him out of the doorway and taken to the the end of the porch. in north st. louis the porches or elevated. they set up real high. if you go over the edge, you are just going to fall from here to the floor. you will fall maybe 10 feet. she corrected in red in the face. i am looking at this and if somebody hits you like that and i'm sure if somebody hits you like that, generally speaking you will do one of two things. you are going to put up your hands and tried to block something else that may be coming at you or you may offer up some discouragement for that

kind of behavior. he threw his hands up. i don't know if she thought he was trying to engage or what, but she hit him again. path to the face, pop to the grade. she is hurting him and this happened fast. so i see this in at this point i grabbed a uniformed officer and take her to the north side of the porridge. it was an officer in need of aid call. i've been to every officer in the area expedited this location. he had canceled the aid call which slowed them down son, but not completely because if you understand police work, you know people want to see what the aid call is about. so they came anyways.

then come the blackmail come the black male officer up the steps come together on the front of the house. he looks at me, looks at the veteran officer in the corner. he goes over, what is going on? what happened? she pointed the guy laying where she left him and said that slb assaulted me. the black officer said oh yeah, he goes over to the guy. get up. he looked up at him and said i can't get out. the officers had get, fill in the blank, up. he said uci can't get up. he grabbed a share, picked him up and slammed him into the house so his face was against the house and his hands are behind his back and cuffed him. he still leaning against the house.

he said now get down because i'm taking you in for assault on an officer. the kid was winning on the house looking on in. he said man, i'll never forget the look in his eyes. it was a mix of anger, hurt, surprise, fear, all of that because he was looking at this brother in front of him thinking why are you doing this to me. he said a one-month time. man, uci can't go. the officers said i know. he dropped down and grabbed his kid by his ankle. if you've got your hands bound behind your back and you can't move them and somebody grabs you by as your ankles and pulled up as hard as they can towards the ceiling, what do you think happens? you hate your head 30 hard, don't you?

she dragged him down the front of the yard and threw him in the car, got back to the station and we all get into it. first the female officer says to me, let me tell you something. if you ever interfere with me while i'm doing police work, that is how she characterized what she had done, police work, i will never ride with you again. i severity think that's a pretty good idea. i am with that. the other officer, me and him go back and forth a little bit. the sergeant here's what's going on, squashes the whole thing. we've got work to do, put us all back in service and we went back in service and that was that. what always bothered me about that encounter, what has always stayed with me to this very day was the reason is they kept telling the officer you see i can't go.

the reason he was saying not was because when he first came to the door he saw me and the other officer standing there in cracked the door open. he was standing there on crutches. she snatched him off his crutches to do that ahead and nobody was in the house and it was his home and he was in violation of no law. no law. i've got one more for you to set the foundation and then we will talk. anthony collins. the young kid, 21, 22 at the time. 2006 comes to us, it is brought to our attention. this is when i was at aclu about

an assault committed on him by police officers in st. louis at a traffic stop, one of the check point situations where they set up a checkpoint in every car that comes through has to stop. he is at the check .1 night and he stops, that the officer is at a distance and he can understand what the officers direct him to do or what he wants them to do. so he gets out of his car to find out more about what he needs to do because he had somewhere to be. he had somewhere to be. he gets out of the car. the officer says get back in the blank blank car. because he had somewhere he urgently needs to be. he approached the officer anyway and find out what it is he needs to do so you can move to the check point. instead of offering an explanation for his simple act

of noncompliance which the state can get you killed. the officer proceeds to assault him physically. he misses him, chokes him out with the maze and they are getting ready to arrest him for assault on an officer or resisting arrest. anytime police beat you up, they charge you with resisting arrest. i don't know if you know that are not. he pleads his case and at some .1 of the supervising officers arrived and a decision is made to finally let anthony get medical attention, which they initially denied to him and to release him. this is largely due to the fact that some point they realized the assault the officer committed for anthony had caused him to miss his flight back to

iraq for his second tour of duty in the united states army. i interviewed anthony at length. here is this black kid, the soldier described to me how he felt that he had no right here in the united states that anyone were bound to recognize how he had always felt this way because the police had always treated him this way and his family this way including his mother. was disappointing to say the least. these kinds of experiences are part of the daily lived reality of black people everywhere in this country, particularly in the urban cores of america and

we need to fully understand when you see black lives matter, this is what they are talking about. it's not the only thing they are talking about, but they are talking about the real lived experiences of people and they are tired. we are tired. fathers and sons, mothers and daughters have all but asked aryans going back to who knows when there's an accountability for any other because as police officers, we can always fall back on a narrative that heroism, sacrifice. some of his favorite words of the most public release apologist you see all the time in the mainstream media. people like harry haut, former new york city detect it. the town crier police apologists. people will justify anything the police will do on the street.

this is where we are. and what about the more serious cases we've seen. where we have seen absolutely no accountability for officers. eric gardner, murdered. in front of us. make no mistake, murdered on the street as he pleaded for his life. the officer using an illegal chokehold barred by his own department policies. the willfully does this is your expectation that him and his cohorts are going to be held accountable. in the aftermath of that, you get a police union boss, pat lynch, new york city police union president chin up, chest

out. that'll do just this murder for calling on the officers to turn their back on the mayor of new york, mayor to baguio for having the nerve to describe the experience of him and his family when he attacks to his biracial kid about how to deal with the police. lynch would do better to stop having officers turn backs officers turn backs on the human rights of the constitution that extends to other citizens they serve. he would do much better in that regard. sandra bland, sandra bland who encounters an officer and rightfully is indignant at a nonsense stop and do correctly asserts the right under the constitution only to be met with

the content of the officer to be met with a black woman to assert her rights to have. he is asking her -- he is directing her to put out a cigarette after the summons he was issuing her was issued. their interaction is done. if i'm the police and i'm on the street with you and you have received a summons from the semiconductor business, i am out. i am back to my car. i'm not standing there saying by the way put the cigarette out and if you don't somehow it will escalate to the point i tell you i am going to light you up. i'm going to hit you with a 50,000 volts because i don't like your attitude. we have got to come to a place for officers see the inherent dignity and value of everyone at every life and the people they serve their communities. the reason i'm going through

this is because we do have some media coverage here and i think it's important. this goes out nationally for people to hear a different perspective from law enforcement. one that acknowledges the reality of our ugly history when it comes to race and racism in our criminal justice system. to me arise. the child was shot within two seconds of the police officer arriving. he barely exited the vehicle. this was an officer who had a history of failure in his performance area. the department left to go to the cleveland police department saying he was unfit for duty particularly when it relates to firearms. he thinks he saw to mayor reaching for his waistband when you are notified by one collar that it could be a toy gun. whether a toy gun or a real gun, for you to pull up on a

potential shooter is asinine. but then you fire. within two seconds he put her on the ground and in the back of the car before you administer health to this child. that happens in black communities. contrast that with the recent shooting of the white young men in louisiana, six-year-old boy, tragic, shouldn't have happened, but the two black officers who shot the kid have been indicted, quickly and $1 million bond set for both of them. freddie gray. freddie gray. he did not leave his home in baltimore on april 12, 2015 with a broken back and a crushed windpipe. and he didn't do it to himself. but yet officers would assert if that is the case then become indignant and we all believed

him. the state attorney for baltimore who had the courage and integrity to indict the officers was met with the vitriolic and aggressive response in the attacks on her and her family at a police union bear and the officers say because i'm telling you they want zero accountability. zero, nine. that is why the movement you see going around you. that is why the unity you created amongst you in the communities you come from whether it's white, black, asian, lgbt, that is why the unity you built and the movement is so vital to the change we need to see the because historically there has been no recognition of the value for black lives in this country. and it's okay to say black lives

matter. yes we've had our moments. there's moments when people of all races have come together given us victories. but there has never been in the history of this country, never a consensus that says you know what, everyone here should be equally valued in every process we have. there's always been at least half the country, millions of people, more than half who would fight that with everything in them. that is the american reality. i'm not talking about american narrative. i'm talking about the american reality. when it comes to press an income but there's good reasons for the officers to be sure they won't be held accountable especially when it comes to black lives. trained on martin, another kid

killed by george zimmerman, unmanned from what i've heard gives us an example of a text book coward. all of his fights are with women and children. he engages after he is told not to buy the real police. he shoots to death a child he physically fought well outweighed him by 100 pounds. then he gets off on the floor to stand ground of. contrast that with marissa alexander's case. in florida, a woman whom upon being confronted by a man who had a history of physically or brutally assaulting her and who in that moment and now she was about to physically and brutally assaulted her, she produced a weapon, a gun and said no, you are not. and she fired a shot, a warning shot in loretta, hitting no one, killing no one.

and she was sentenced to 20 years in prison. the process distorted by race against assay results like that and you can believe a lot of people in florida were good with that, comfortable with it. the last case i want to talk about. there are more, but i know we are a limited time. michael brown. michael brown was killed 10 minutes from my house. chilled by garret wilson in ferguson. there were credible witnesses have described the scene of the shooting that contradicted during wilson's account and it is a case that should've been tried on the facts in front of the jury. but a prosecutor was determined to prevent that can dump information up front of the grand jury and told them to sort through it which included the

testimony for whom it had been established as fact that she could not have had and was not physically present at the time michael was shot. this was a prosecutor who has a history of that kind of thing. 20 years earlier and a tory shooting jack-in-the-box parking lot when the jack-in-the-box was filled with students from a local school and police carried out an operation with students with two suspects, killing them both. both of them on armed. one of them a gainfully employed father. that goes to a grand jury and is later discovered that the grand jury in the grand public afterward, macola lied about key elements of testimony in the case. but he gets this case then does the same thing with it and darin wilson was allowed to leave and get his story straight.

much was made about what michael brown may or may not have been doing earlier that day. was there a strong-arm robbery? black criminality of the criminalization of black victims is common in this country. but again, that go specifically to the race of the person involved. you don't always handle youthful poor choices that way. i was randomly on the way the other day and i came across an act or named mark walberg. and if you know who mark walberg is? show of hands. famous guy. when mark was a kid like michael brown, he brutally assaulted two men, one of whom he knocked unconscious while shouting racist onset and. the vietnamese guy. another man he'd be sold

brutally that he permanently blinded him and one eye. on the taped a show of me and mike, he shoved somebody. you had officers and officials and elected people say that is enough. his death is warranted because look at the kind of kid he was. he pushed that guy. good thing we gave mark walberg a chance to get his life. that's a good thing we saw that he was redeemable. what about black on black crime? people ask what are the protests on black kill other blacks. that is an offset for the human rights violation, civil rights violation and brutality are people sworn to protect and serve us and who are empowered to act on us by law.

first, people commit crimes against the people around them. where you live so it's black. hispanic on hispanic crime. a better question is worth the coverage of the protest in organized efforts to address violence in black communities that take us all the time in st. louis. i've been a part of many of them and many colleagues are invested in non-going continuous decade-long effort to push back against the kinds of things we see that contribute to violence in our communities and directly address them at the community level, the grassroots level. some cases toward the door. what we have not been able to do is slow to be funding authority underresourced public education, slow underemployment or so the mass incarceration that results from inequities legislated into our lives and the target

enforcement that follows. we haven't been able to do that. deprivation hopelessness to put together anywhere and you will get what you get. whether that is in st. petersburg, russia, warsaw, st. louis, missouri, the bahamas, wherever. you create those conditions. you will have what you have. it is not mysterious. but it's not only the violence we talk about when we address it in our communities and i think it is important to talk about this. when it comes down to for us is the loss. we lost that future. wipe my tears she has been? what might he or she has given to us and what if we lost? a future. i would say this and be clear. violence in our community is a problem and i'll tell you specifically the problem i have in a minute.

the number of features foster violence in our communities as it begins with approach the criminal justice system that is at its core. it works in concert with the private prison industry that portrays publicly on the stock market and its legislative lobby. the prisons they contract to build and run for profit remain 90% occupied. i'll say this about the issue, the specific columns i have with it. it pains me that our young people, descendents of the community that has been targeted for abuse, marginalization and

deprivation, enslaved, exploited, diminished at every turn. would now turn the gun on us and each other. that part of it pains me. i look at what happened in chicago, saint louis and other cities and i pray for a raise consciousness in those communities to get a clearer picture of who they are and where they are and how will we got where we are. moreover, i would call out our entertainers, the ones who profit from the depths of our brothers, who we have community the death of your brother is your mission in life and if it

is not your mission, you ain't not in with us into profit from sending not listen to us and we see the blood strewn in our streets in glorifying and encouraging further when you write to your freedom of expression to keeping real with what we've paid for with the blood and sacrifice of the people who came before you, get conscious, man. wake up. stop allowing yourself to be used by the system that has destroyed us since we landed. ..

not the american reality. and we are going to have to dig deep within ourselves. to make the discussion more comfortable, let me say this. and not just in this room but nationally, for the nation. here's how to make this racial discussion, we talk about black and white but we have other races in this country. black and white, here's how to make that more comfortable. understand it, except and we can go forward. the problems i'm talking about here tonight and that i talk about in all the places that i discussed them, when it comes to race and racism and

institutional racism and our history with it, no one in this auditorium tonight is under indictment, the white people in the room, is under indictment for any of this. why? because you didn't create the conditions. we were all born into this reality. it was like this when we got here. this is what we were born into. you didn't do this. trust me, it was like this when you showed up. if you are a life. our responsibility is to acknowledge fully what the reality is. not a narrative. the reality of our history is, and then do something about it collectively together. that's our role. that's what will allow us to have this discussion.

i was told i'll have 30 minutes and i know i'm getting better. there are things we can do to change the dynamic between police and communities that they serve, the police community relationship and the breakdown in it, was the genesis of the movement that we see. of course, it has expanded to include discussion of race, whether education, employment, health care, you name it. but relative to policing community, the first and foremost peace that we have to address is accountability. accountability. there's already plenty of good trinket i hear people talk about this train, that new training. we've got great training already but it's worthless if you don't of officers that adhere to the policy and you are not held

accountable when they don't. eric garner, murdered while officers violated their own policies to take his life and nobody is held accountable. all we get is pat lynch with his chin up and his chest out looking like a doofus. accountability is everything and it starts from inside the system. one of the things i would like to see, and national coalition of law enforcement officers for justice reform and accountability which is a diversion group of current and former officers from coast to coast, l.a. to new york. one of the things is doing the movement within the criminal justice system itself national nationally, starting with people who come from affected affected communities, black and brown communities, who work in the criminal justice system, judges, attorneys, police officers, corrections officers, we can collect ourselves within that system and demand the changes

will to see relative to how it operates in our community. there are enough of us, and it's right. we have the moral high ground here, man. that's one of the things i would like to see. another thing that i think would go a long way toward resolving some of the issues we've seen is a special prosecutor in all cases involving use of force by police officers result in serious injury or death. the relationship between prosecutors and police departments are too close to have a reasonable expectation of prosecutors going after any in the department they work in alliance with almost 100% of the time it. bobby julich is a prime example of that. he was recently sued after mike brown's case come recently sued in the last month or two a a grand jury that he illegally removed from the grand jury because he thought he had a

propensity to look at things different. is a former aclu attorney. i think i know who he is. they have announced his name publicly. case of john doe but i'm pretty sure i know who he is. they take them off the grand jury in violation of state law. do you think they don't shape outcomes? do you think they don't decide who gives justice and who doesn't? which leads me to my next point. in cases involving police misconduct of police force that results in serious injury or death, eliminate the grand jury. eliminate the grand jury. this is a secretive process that into many cases involving police misconduct result in the elimination of accountability for police officers because the prosecutor has advocated for the officer in front of the grand jury so that i want to be tried on the facts. it does not have the arguments for indictment take place where

the public can be present. the last thing i will tell you is to support the movement that you see. it's an american movement. don't be afraid of black lives matter. these of young people who are american citizens just like you but they want their rights recognized. and the right to live and the right to dignity recognized. and it's not negotiable for them. it's not up for really discussion. they our citizens here, too, and they fully understand the history. so as i close my remarks, i am first of all of me as i was able to get through the. off a i was out on my feet when i walked in this room. they ran me ragged today, i'm telling you. i had no idea what i was in for when i got up at 4:30 a.m. to fly to delaware. but i'm glad i came and i

appreciate you giving me your time and valuing what you thought i might have to say, enough to be here tonight and i look forward to engaging you. i don't think she said the questions need to be respectful, and they do, but nothing is off limits. you can challenge me or asked me was a because i believe in free and open dialogue i think that's the way forward, and thank you for your patience with me tonight. thank you. [applause] >> was that too long? >> no. your fine. thank you so much for being here. you are the final speaker in this series we got all semester long about race in america. we talked about the black lives matter buffa. we've talked about the civil rights movement. so your your kind in this unique

role as having served as a police officer and now kind of speaking out against the uncivil things you saw. as the cofounder of the national coalition of law enforcement for justice reform and accountability, along name, how did go from being a police officer to seek and all those same officers accountable? >> it wasn't a huge transition. when they came to the department again with the same ideology, the same personal philosophy, the same disposition, everything about me was the same when i joined the department. i think that's what led me leading network because i am who i am. i was profoundly disillusioned though. more than i was before i became a police officer. i became profoundly disillusioned with the criminal justice system in the united states at the conduct of some of my colleagues in particular. i knew i had to stop being a

part of that system now. let me be clear about this because i realized i haven't said this not an advocate suborned iq. there are good police officers. there are good police officers. there are good people doing a very difficult job under very difficult circumstances who have to make very difficult decisions and sometimes. and they deserve our support because it is a tough job your my contention is that the number of officers that will willfully abused that authority in your human rights and your civil rights is too big a number to not have a systemic policy response in place to deal with those. but there are good officers in the country. >> so i want to pull up, so you had a couple of op-ed's or

editorials that have come out in the past year talking about your experiences as a police officer. and i would recommend people look at these two articles from the "washington post." so my students, brandon said you spoke about this, the story spoke about a young black man with the crutches was frustrating and upsetting to read about. where the other situations you have encountered like that? >> the situations i've encountered, the situations i've been made aware of, it's a very common experience to see people's rights abused for little or no reason at all, for simple acts of noncompliance. yes, i am aware, for example, of colleagues. it's very interesting because he and i finished were probably i

wouldn't say we are adversaries but we were not necessarily best buddies. his father was a chief of police at one point for the st. louis city police department and is taken into politics, opposite a guy who was the first african-american mayor in history of st. louis that i worked on his security detail. his name was friedman obviously june and i was on his security detail. i used to be in shape. i'm telling you. but this guy while he was at the department he was in the bureau, detective bureau at a walking. he was a sergeant eddie walked in on one of his officers who was threatening a black subject in a chair with a taser held at his genitals telling them that is going to tell him what he wanted to know, what he wanted, he would say what you want him to say, or else. and my colleague walked in on that and he stopped it,

rightfully, and he wrote i got out. he seized the taser and immediately, as you'd expect, he was ostracized, marginalized. a guy who stopped them, the sergeant. we don't deal with you, at the war trial for this thing i was the only person who showed up, him and his dad ironically, only to people who showed up in support of them. every other officer for the unit and everyone else was aligned against them. how did he stop them from threatening this suspect and ruin his good name? so incidents like that until you i can't impress upon you enough. these are not isolated few and far between kinds of things. these things are part of the daily lived experience and the collective experience of black people all over this country. >> so 15 years out of your

experience in the st. louis police department, i've got a picture here from demonstrators who are reacting after learning that the police officer who shot michael brown would not face charges outside the police station and ferguson mystery. this is just about a year ago on november 24. 15 years after being out of the police force what was your reaction when you heard officer darren wilson would not be charged speak with disappointed at not surprised. i knew and the case was in, doing everything he can to anyone who understand any part of the process when it comes to grand juries and indictment. it was clear early on that he was going to do everything he could to avoid holding darren wilson accountable. and i wasn't surprised by it. nor was i surprised by the reaction of the community. let me share you -- share something with you to give you a sense of the community. you see this young people turned up. is what they have lived. here's what their parents have lived.

i think they know your rights workshop about four months ago and said lewis during which at the end of gentlemen mid '50s early '60s stood up and said, when i was coming up as a young man, a police office on the moving furniture out of an apartment and came and question me about it. maybe he was taking it but no, he was moving from one apartment to another apartment. he explain to the officer, a white officer, that i'm moving, i'm going to move to this apartment from this apartment because i'm taking my stuff out. later that same day and evening at night the same officer had him face down in the mud with a shotgun at his head, accusing him of stealing and saying that he was taking things from an apartment. same officer. that took place 30 years ago where mike brown lived. 30 years ago.

so imagine the it related experience of history of the people in that communities and then when they see them as i told you we had credible witnesses, credible witnesses that contradicted darren wilson story which he got together. he was never sent to trial and nobody ever got a chance to hear the testimony against the burden of facts that darren wilson prison. even if you accept his version, even if you accept his version, as an officer if i'm using deadly force against you because i feel threatened or you are dead to me, why did you fire any shots at michael brown while he was running away from you? if i'm moving away, am i a threat to you know? and my threatening to? mif threat? i'm not. why are you firing at me? you don't think at a weapon because your statement was that he was wrestling and fighting

with you over yours. and you retain it. he didn't get it so he has nothing. it should have went to trial. >> in addition to your work with looking at police behavior, you've also done some research on human rights abuses and particularly the st. louis city jails. with the aclu released this report something in silence, available online in 2000 i get demonstrated numerous human rights abuses in st. louis city jails. what has changed since then? >> not much. initially the city was in complete and utter denial. we were told we had -- ultimately everything we alleged in the report was proven to be true, and then some. they're facing a number of lawsuits now based on the 10th of conduct and behavior we described in the report, but systemic change is very

difficult. you have to people inside the system who acknowledged the problem and work to change it, and we haven't seen that in they are facing lawsuits as with the. they're trying from what i understand in recent months to make some changes inside the system but it's difficult. the prison system in america is what it is. rampant human rights abuses. we as a society even if we don't believe it, we passively accept the idea at least that the moment you cross the threshold of a java prison your constitutional rights are suspended. which is particularly ironic in jail settings where you being in many cases held over for trial. innocent until proven guilty still but they are violating human rights on a daily basis. i'm talking about brutal beatings, sexual assaults, medical deprivation which can be deadly. have you had medication that you are incarcerated that you need

to live and survive and it's been tonight, that's the problem. we found all of those things we would get that report, and i'm glad we're able to shed some light on it but i know that is widespread. >> is going to take more work. >> and it's going to take a commitment of us collectively to come to a place where we understand about you of living up to our ideals. >> i think one of the common questions from my students as part of the series, there's a class to associate with this and my 25 students asked questions. to do research on the speakers and many of them are concerned and interested about his body cameras. our body cameras and efficient solution? is there something else that should be done to a police officers accountable? >> i think body cameras are a great part of solving the issues that we have with police abuse.

the issue of accountability of course. with those body cameras you can rest assured there's going to be a fight all the way through that process to the point where we see how they are uniformly and consistently used by the majority of police departments or all departments, as many departments right now are on one hand, accepting the idea that okay, these body cameras are a good idea they provide is an objective record, but at the same time to try to limit the public's access to the footage of the body cameras produces, or they want to hold it for 14 days or 21 days before it's released. that's ridiculous ethical thinkers in those desperate enough trust for anybody to be accountable with the idea of a police department having cell access in custody of video footage that is came from officers conduct who may be under investigation for some potentially criminal act but you guys will be the ones, it's the

fox going to the in house. additionally, though, i think empowered civilian oversight is something that should be in play, although i haven't seen very many models of nationally that i would describe as wildly successful, usually because they lack the kind of authority and autonomy that would make them effective angle of oversight of the police department. and to go to argument they are, civilians to understand what we do. you don't understand how process and procedure get you don't know what it's like to make a split-second decision, and on and on and on. but don't ever discount commonsense and the valley of explanation to if you can tell me why you did what he did and i can look at what you get i can stomach a pretty good decision about what side of right or wrong and legal and illegal land on.

>> so i want to hand the questions over to the audience that the medicare but we had a pretty exciting day on campus. we have a new president of the university as of today. we also -- >> is he here are? >> i think they're doing other events. >> he didn't come to this? [laughter] but today in addition to all pomp and circumstance running our new president, students had the national collegiate blackout standing in solidarity with students of color, ma largely motivated by recent events at the university of missouri, not far from where you live. you live in misery. what's happening on that campus? what's the history of race and racism on campus and had been students at the university delaware and across the country work to make a difference on their own campuses? >> it's a long history in misery. when the first kicked off people in my generation, i'm 51, and to what people that i know who

attended university, people who are old fashion older and are all on her face but they talk about what happened when they were there and have it lined up exactly with what's going on now. nothing is change. everybody was collectively very proud of what these young people at the university of missouri were able to do under these circumstances and we think it has implications broadly nationally because of the issue isn't old at the university of missouri. there's no state university in the country that i think doesn't face the kind of issue on some level from coast to coast. i think what students can is what they are doing already which is get involved. you see i think a beautiful synthesis of like-minded students from all backgrounds. this is black students but it's white students, asian students, hispanic students. he of international students coming together to say we want a world and we want a country where we are all equally valued

and equally respected. our dignity, lies, futures, and we're going to work together to create a that in spite of this nation's history and despite of the -- those who would fight against these young people to sustain a system that has put us in the position we are in now. >> so before i handed over to audience questions i think we're going to get some microphones set up so people can ask questions, but give any strategies in mind that could kick off these changes to better change the system? this comes from emily. where is some real practical things that can happen now? >> there are two. i don't believe in big, broad programs but there's a to and they dovetail nicely. the one is on me and others and those were in the system. i am a firm believer in the fact

that a significant part of the change that we want to see has to come from inside the system, the people in the system have the most immediate opportunity and those immediate power to enforce change in. the second thing is to add that effort to the already existing of an on the ground from coast to coast to work together with folks everywhere, black lives matter, any other positive movement that is moving at the direction for change, positive change and positive reform to work in coalition with those organizations for the changes -- and without pressure from the outside and a critical mass of people inside the system willing to the same commitment to change, i think we can see it happen. i think the climate in the country is right for you. it's not lost on anybody. it's not lost on anybody that the demographics in the country

are changing. and i think, you know, unfortunately many of the worst opponents of equal treatment under the law and equal access to opportunity of the people who would fight hardest against the kind of changes we want to see. there is no coincidence, none, it's not a coincidence that when barack obama was elected president, the covers came off. the covers came off, come on. as soon as he was elected president. we saw what this nation is about in pockets and we saw a growing number of local races who vehemently opposed to black progress and black leadership. but we don't have to succumb to the. we don't have to get into that because collectively at the end of the day we are all americans

and we all have -- we want what's best for communities, our family had a country. and together we can move in that direction but it has to be premised on the idea that equal treatment under the law has to become a reality and not just a narrative. >> thank you for actually my questions honestly and this personal narrative you offered. i'm sure our audience has lots of good questions. we tonight have microphones. on either side of the auditorium. we're opening it up for questions or if you raise your hand out to students can come down and had to the microphone if you have a question for our speaker. >> did i do a really good job? spirit he answered all your questions.

>> i set myself up for the abuse when i asked that question. >> down here in the front. >> and here comes the abuse. >> you talk about making conversation between -- [inaudible] >> i hear him. you all can't hearing. okay should it be comparable? i was just stating and will be a question you can respond to or stay that you can respond to get i think we need to feel that uncomfortableness so that we can then understand. because people can't understand without some kind of vulnerability, some kind of uncomfortableness spinning back i think a point is well-made and i to agree with you. i maybe should have had a different choice of words rather than comfortable. i should've said excessive.

the way to get us into this base where we can be a little uncomfortable is to understand that that's the bottom of it, nobody is under indictment. it's not going to be guilty and innocent in the sense people who are willing to work for change. so yeah, there's going to be some discomfort. it's unavoidable because of who we are as a country. and when i said i'm going to collect and share this as well. i'll save it for the end. there's a story i tell, and i'm sure to be vilified but it's true. i'm going to go ahead and tell it now, three minutes. my dad died in 1996, and my mom got remarried about four years later, nice guy. i was really happy for her. she seemed happy. i would go back to their home. the guy she married his name joseph jones, an avid reader. he had a book on his table that

i just happened to pick up and it was called black press, as in media, press, media. the black press. it was about the black press in america from about the mid-1800s to the early 1900s. first of all i really did realize we had a black press at that point in our nation's history. ntc come you can imagine the kinds of things they were writing about, all very intelligent, coherent. is really an unthinking wow. but i came across one when i say, trying to address prefixes to us, i came across one article. it was a response from editor of one of these black newspapers to a speech that he had heard, the speech. this speech was given by a white man who belong to the american colonization society, the american colonization society

advocated for the repatriation of african-americans back to africa. saying they don't belong here. we don't need a mayor. they can't make it here. we want them out of your. they should go home. especially freed lex. got to get out of the country. and in this speech what the editor of the paper angrily responded to in his response, the rate was coming off the page, was this comment, and i'm going to do research because i talk about it so much adventure to be challenged on it. the book exists. i can produce that but i haven't they been will to be clear about whether he was directly quoting this guy or if he was paraphrasing this guy. but either way, ma the words on the page were these, to the effect that blacks need to get out of this country. we need them out of fear. because this country, america,

the united states, will never treat them equally and value them equally. not god nor conscious nor religion or the bible could make it so. let that sink in. not god, religion, the bible, the things that animate human conduct behavior and life, none of these things could make this country, he believed, she'd blacks with anything other than the always been treated. who was he either quoting or paraphrasing? francis scott key. the man who wrote the national anthem.

that's what he believed. so when i say we are born into this rally, claiming it. and when i say that we have a real opportunity to bring substantive moral change to the nation, i believe it. we can do that. but we have to acknowledge the reality of who we are and where we have come from and not just the narrative. before i opened it up to an audience question, got a question from twitter as well as from some of my students, jordan and broke, and parker from twitter. basically you mentioned in several articles about racial sensitivity classes are not enough to help stop police brutality. what are some other tactics you recommend for either preventing that are repercussions for officers when they violate speak with the only one that works is

punishment. the only thing that will get us where we need to be when it comes to that is actual punishment for misconduct or violation of the right to the citizens who serve. everything else is going to fall short. into we see officers incarcerated for their violations, for the criminal acts. that's it. because many officers can be dismissed from a department for misconduct but only to be hired by the department in the next municipality over, or one state over. only punishment. when it comes to effecting change in behavior, the behavior of office as we see abuse their authority, that it. it's the bottom line. >> okay, let's open it up to the audience for another question. raise your hand if there is a question over here. >> hi.

gosh, okay, i was just wondering as a student, like i am personally studying policy. is something very interesting to me. what can we do to solve this? what action do you say, even a normal person could take or even some who wants to go into public service could do in order to help resolve this issue? >> first and foremost keep your foot on the gas. keep doing what you all are already doing to your organizing, mobilizing, taking actions across the country. don't stop. don't give up. don't slow down. and as you advance in your career or in your career path and leave the university, keep your ideals with you and get yourself in a position in some public policy position to affect public policy change. and be the same strong advocate in the public arena after you leave your as you are right now.

>> and this is a question students often have is sort of what can they do, where can they go from here? >> well, pretty much what i just told her. which it is keep doing what you're doing. you're having a tremendous, again, it's furious, from the standpoint that somehow the idea that you would watch and also do this job prevent them from doing his job, but what an indictment of the system that really does. you let that sink in what they tell you that if you watch me i can't work. that's ridiculous. but you are having an impact on the national discussion come on the national agenda which is a simple going to affect policy ultimately. you're having an intact so continue to maintain your enthusiasm and your energy and your clarity and your conscience and do the work you do as you

develop yourself individually and keep building the relationship that you are building. keep showing us how to build unity and bridges across the spectrum of people that come into contact with you. >> i studied technology and impact of technology on politics and i think that particularly surrounding this issue we have seen people using cell phones and smartphones to capture incidents like a few weeks ago, a viral video showing of resource officer added high school slung a student to the ground, tossing her several feet across the floor. i was telling you, none of the other students even reacted to this. this was the normal reality for the they officers since been fired but what can be done in schools to reduce this type of behavior? >> first of all we need to remove these officers from the school, period. we never had law enforcement officers in our schools to resolve what should be issues

that result at the school level. when i saw that videotape i was appalled. absolutely appalled. and i was a more uphold. talk about the students not reacting. i was even more appalled by the african-american administrator who said it's all right. they said it was all right. you must be crazy. for him to walk in and to assault a child like that was beyond the page, totally unassisted and unjustifiable. he should have been fired. and it's that kind of action that i think reflects exactly why, i'm harping on it tonight. i didn't realize i was going to but it's exactly why you now hear people say black lives matter. instead of in a white 16 year old girl, he would not have touched her like that. he would not have grabbed her by her throat, slander to the floor, stronger through the classroom. he thought he could do it in a

setting with a child and that goes to accountability i'm glad to see him gone and i hope he is out of law enforcement altogether. >> i know we'll have more questions than the ideas. i would hope to wrap up my questions with this one, but in delaware, speaking of youth, there's no minimum age for a child to be charged as an adult. it varies by state been in a report from al-jazeera america black youth are overrepresented among those arrested, detained added the two state prisons. the suicide and sexual abuse rates of young prisoners are much higher than older prisoners. how should states in prisons be treating youth as compared to adults? >> like you've. understand that even their brains are different. there's so much research in the area. you would not want to be held accountable, i wouldn't want to be held accountable for decisions i made at 12 or 13 or

14 years old for the rest of my life. i do understand accountability and responsibility and are serious crimes committed by young kids they need help accountable for but to deprive them of the opportunity of retention of ever having opportunity to give something back, from those they have taken away from, to become productive member in our society, that's not who we really are. luckily all of us should understand. there's not a person in this room, i'm not looking at a room full of angels, no, sir and no, man. i'm under no illusion that anybody in this room including myself could easily have been caught up, whatever, but here you are now at this stage in your life. this is the person that you are. fully prepared to do something positive in brilliant. i think that opportunity should be afforded to everyone after

we've held accountable and responsible for the things they do but particularly the younger you are, like the drug-related offenses and things like that, errors in judgment for many things, we need to understand that our youth are our youth, treats them to believe that we do adults in our system. >> let's take another question in the audience. down here in front. >> thank you. talking about accountability, i go back to wants to go back to detroit, the fires in 67. i look at sharpton and -- what was her name? morley, hardly? who? he had the rally when found out it was incorrect that she never got raped.

>> the little girl. >> okay. and then also looking at duke in the la crosse. where's the accountability from that side and for you not to speak any issues on that side of you were strictly talking about police matters but not the other side? why are you not standing up and questioning some of the people on the other side? >> so when people are falsely accused of a crime. >> that's always wrong. because i came here tonight to talk about what i'm talking about i came tonight to talk about police community. i did not come to talk with you that. i can specifically to talk about what i'm talking about. however, what we are taught about this equal treatment under the law and people being equally valid and equally in the process. when it was discovered that the

duke lacrosse players are falsely accused, they were exonerated and the woman was, i think, held to some account that i don't know for sure for what she had done. but there are instances of people exploiting situations. sharpton has been accused of that. this young lady officer, she was clearly guilty of that, but the weight of the instances that you and i could name that involve black people, in the public sphere or defaming or discrediting whites in the public sphere i think personally pales in comparison to the number of blacks who have been targeted and minorities and poor people have been targeted and injured by a system that's been in place since the country's genesis, and has persisted to this very moment and many of you sit here and talk. i just don't see come it's apples and oranges.

but sharpton was wrong for his false presentation of those facts come at the young lady was wrong and apply those duke players were exonerated. >> another question from the audience. you have a green shirt on, bright green shirt. >> considering the events in the past week with paris and refugees and all those issues going on, president obama's made multiple statements regarding them. but yet the one thing that became a turning -- tinting topic all i guess popular on social media was that he said pull off in one of his speeches. t. think the media is just perpetuating these stereotypes by country on the quote-unquote black things th these politicias do another politics that they stand for? >> probably yes, but that's the national media. i think people are now

sophisticated enough, the majority of people know that the mainstream american media does not necessarily the best primary source of information that you can have. at a think people take what they present to us at face value. we glean from and look for other sources of real sources to give us a complete picture. but the media and as president have had that kind of relationship for some time, particularly certain media outlets that would vilify him at every turn. now, i haven't said that. i'm not always 100% in agreement with the president on some of the things he said and does. i think that's a myth. data blocks just, no matter what, you know, we are rolling with the president obama picked yes, we supported or unsupported and i'm proud of the terms he said, but there's been issues with which i would disagree with the positions he's taken.

the media is going to do with the media does. they have to generate viewership, and a lot of times there is red meat for some other viewers. >> i think we have one more question on this site. right back there. >> i'm going to stand if you don't mind. >> yes, sir. >> i stand because i want you to see who i am. this past saturday we had a conference here at the chase center, and it's one of our auditoriums downtown. owere about 500 people there. it was about a 40-60 mix of black and white. and it really is and was all about this issue. i see is because that was the opening event of things to come. some kind of sort of offering a group. no, the young people who are asking what can they do, they can join the movement which is here in the delaware area.

the are a lot of things going on, end up going to get to a question, the art -- >> take your time. i'm tired, man. >> we've only got a few minutes left, so definitely get to the question sooner rather than later. >> i'm a few years older than you, probably about 30. i probably have a daughter your age. >> man. >> the kind of question is really where do we go from here? are we undertaking an impossible task? you went back in history. my mother worked this issue until she was 92. i don't know that she ever learned to like white people during that period, but she worked with them in an effort to try to change the world. she did shut down a number of drugstores that wouldn't treat,

wouldn't serve black people. so anyways, a lot of history in my life that keeps me at it. and that's a look at my grandchildren, particularly my grandson and all the issues of police, police issues they have, so anyway, i've been through a lot of those areas. is there a solution? is it just a matter of staying with it and working at it? and she mentioned that was never a time, that there was a pleasant time between the races in the country. so will there ever be? >> thank you so much. it almost sounds like, is there hope? are we fighting a losing battle? are people of color fighting a losing battle? >> well, my answer to that question is yes, there is hope, and yes, i believe that we are in a position to see that

evolves, the condition of better relationship between the people who live in this country of a different races come in to place. not due in no small part to the fact that the demographics of the country are changing. and in about 30 or 40 years round people would be the majority of this country. fast do anything to be afraid of because what you'll find is that people are people, and it's not going to be about using those numbers or not, turning the tables to seek vengeance that we're going to get you back, no. i don't believe that. i think the generation that is in front of us has a greater focus on human rights and equality than many preceding generations, notwithstanding the civil rights movement and all the great work that was done by whites and blacks and people all races in the movement. right now we see a confluence of changing numbers in our country racially, and changing ideas and motivation and energy of the

very people who are part of the changing numbers. so i think that there's an opportunity, if we have enough courage to acknowledge the reality of the country and what has been and will want to be, it into the work of getting to the place. i believe they can happen. i feel like i have to believe that because i've got kids, too. >> before i formally thank you for coming up what you think everyone here in the audience for being here. this is been a really important semester and talking about race, not just in america but on this campus, and i would want to as direct of this series continue the dialogue online come on twitter and on other forms. so please don't hesitate to contact me if you want to talk more about this. thank you so much for being here and thank you, redditt, for joining us for our final program. [applause]

>> [inaudible conversations] >> shortly president obama is due to announce his awaited executive action on guns. the hill writing that president obama is not bypassing congress by taking executive action on gun control. let's be specific as the president is not circumventing

congress. they have made it very clear then that going to affect and the president is doing what is well within his executive authority to do. she argued the president is using his presidential powers to strengthen fire arms regulations and republicans repeatedly blocked his past efforts. you can read more of this article at thehill.com today. in just under 20 minutes, the president will be speaking on gun violence announcing those executive actions mentioned earlier. he will be in the east room coming up at 11:40 a.m. eastern followed by your phone calls and comments. all of this on c-span. in this when we been asking what you think about the president's views on gun control. bonnie's is the do-nothing congress to force the action by the president of the american people most gun owners like myself want.

>> you can leave your comments and remarks that facebook.com/cspan. >> journalist and former voice of america director david ensor discusses this data gives international broadcasting and to washington and when the so-called information war against russia, china, the islamic state and others. the public diplomacy council and the center on communications hosted this event. >> we are honored and pleased to have someone also did almost everyone in this room, which is -- someone known to have one in this room, david ensor and former director of the voice of america. he's had an extraordinary career at npr and get abc news before the away. he's been a partner on a fellowship were developed a report which you see on the

harvard website and he is going to bring its estimate of it today. so david, the floor is yours. [applause] >> thank you very much. the question is will the mic be loud enough. if any wasn't dashed if anyone doesn't hear me, please let me know because i will speak louder. i can do that. i used to do it for a living. it's nice to be here today, and thank you very much for coming out. my print colleagues used to complain about the newspaper headline writers whose eccentric the content of the articles and create an attention grabbing headline. i'm afraid the title of this talk may frankly be in that category. the headline given to an article i recently published based on this paper and it makes a promise of more wisdom than i

probably come i think that anyone of us in the room has actually. answer me more than i have. but at least they get helps convince you to come in today, so perhaps it achieved its purpose. also the headline writer chose the term information war. my friend admiral, dean of the fletcher school, says he thinks the war of ideas is as flawed concept as the war on drugs. in practice he says we need a marketplace of ideas which presents positive alternatives and not just the negative side of radical islam. he's right, of course. so i do not have all the answers to washington can when the information war, or prevail if you prefer in the market place of ideas but i would like to try to offer you some thoughts on an the road for word from the perspective of someone who was as was mentioned honored to lead the voice of america for four years to have worked in public

diplomacy in afghanistan for 16 months before that, in the embassy, and who served the nation as a broadcast journalist for 30 years before that. for starters, we need to face facts. we will not do well enough in this arena into we take it more seriously. it's clear from our recent history in iraq, afghanistan and elsewhere that america cannot prevail globally with hard power alone. but the nation's capacity to participate meaningfully in the global contest of ideas has been allowed to decline in recent years even if the information challenges we face grow and change. in a world where vladimir putin weaponize is information and where terrorist recruits -- recruit on the internet, titanic has no one in overall charge of its information efforts. it has cut the budget for public diplomacy and spending on its journalism.

when the u.s. information agency was disbanded as a peace dividend at the end of the cold war, public diplomacy efforts were moved to the state department across the street and international broadcasting was put under a bipartisan board. let's start with the advocacy side, the public diplomacy side of that equation first. since 1999 when this happened, it has suffered quite frankly from week budgets and excessive leadership turnover. understandably but perhaps unfortunately, public diplomacy tends not to be valued at the department as highly as conventional diplomacy. frankly, in the digital age i think that way of thinking is out of date. in recent weeks both president obama and hillary clinton, the democratic candidate and former secretary of state, have called for american technology companies to help the government prevent terrorists from using social media and the internet to propagandize and recruit.

there's a whole post snowden debate about encryption tools and what's the proper place for our country on the scale between security and privacy. that's a big, complex topic and not the subject of my talk today, but i simply mention it as a front burner issue to underscore the nation's need for full-time sustained leadership in the area of information. there's a counter messaging aspect of this, too. the state department has a high $.8 million effort to counter basis recruiting online. the works critically important but, frankly, the effort is much too small. so maybe just as well that and the upcoming defense authorization bill, the pentagon is given permission to launch a bigger effort of its own. going forward, however, maintaining civilian control and high level coordination will be key as well strong partnerships with our allies in the region.

and, in fact, i believe the actual efforts on website chat rooms and social media should only be done by arab partners in the region and not by washington. of course there's much more to public diplomacy than just counting places on the internet. one of the most effective efforts in afghanistan when i served there in the embassy was our effort to strengthen the afghan media. it was highly successful. we and others, including the british government, did a lot to make the media sector in afghanistan vibrant, strong and meaningful for the country. but that sector along with others faces some new challenges that the taliban takes back territory, and as investment from overseas is reduced. it's going to need some continued support. we can't just leave it. one of the most powerful ways

though to project american values and help our friends around the world is to export the first amendment by broadcasting truthful journalism. because of the united states is one of the relatively few nations around the world where there is no state broadcast on the air, few americans realize that the voice of america is actually one of the most influential media organizations on the planet. because in november, this past november, the broadcasting board of governors issued its annual report on mobile audiences. ..

to create a firewall protecting independent journalism from interference by policymakers. but ask yourself this question. how can nine busy people run a large complex collection of companies as a part-time activity? the bpg has had difficulty, sometimes played an effective executive decision. it is not helped that the white house and the senate have often lets the unfilled for long periods of time. fortunately, chairman jeff shell and the current lord understand the structural problem and what to do with it. they rightly want to get out of the business of running u.s. international rod casting

month-to-month. the bpg recent appointment of a full-time executive officer for u.s. international media is an excellent first up in my view. what is needed is a full-time professional boss. but john lansing, the seasoned media manager in that role now now in its legislation giving him clear authority over all budgets and all personnel. unfortunately, there is a bill currently before the house of representatives house of representatives which hamas amended could actually make things worse. the current draft of h.r. 2323 would create yet another board and yet another ceo to oversee three of doa sister entities, radio free europe, radio free asia and the middle east brought testing network. so now there would be two separate and competing u.s. civilian brought fast enough

for. there'd be a needless duplication of oversight or management layers. it would also exacerbate an already unhealthy rivalry over undine and market roles between the radio freeze and voice of america. furthermore, the bill has languished ordering doa, which has always been a full service broadcaster to cover only nears relating to the united states or to u.s. policies. that would be a poison pill. it would be a recipe for declining audiences and impact. instead of confrontation and divorce as this proposed in h.r. 2323, what we need is a model of collaboration between doa and sister organizations. we need more projects like the russian language tv show current time created after the seizure of crimea. the show has increased in washington and iraq and is coproduced by rfc and doa.

it is seen on 25 stations in nine countries and almost 2 million russian inside the federation are able to download, stream it off the internet or see it on satellite television. neither rfc nor doa could've done this project alone. it takes collaboration. i would urge those of you interested to take a look at the build let your representatives and senators know what he think. i understand it's an argument made in recent days by his own radio real mom and i somehow might not be acceptable or even legal to for a federal ceo to oversee the independent grantees. the point is this. john lansing is not an administration federal appointee. he was chosen by a bipartisan board. he is protected by a political

firewall at the bpg represents and i think accountability to a full-time professional with oversight as a whole effort would be good for everybody and good for our country. let me turn now for a few minutes to what i think is the key question in our fast-changing media world. what should doa and sister energies be? in a digital world is a cacophony voices for broadcasters peddle half-truths, spin and disinformation is journalism done with the old-fashioned goals of object to the name talents, still the answer or is it time to advocate for government policies as many new escape route casters are already doing. this is not a new debate. it has been revisited many times since the doa founding is alan haas excellent history tells us. once again in recent years a number of influential voices have called to be a full throated advocate for american

policy rather than a journalistic enterprise. for this research paper or been working on the last few months at harvard, and i took a look at the models in the market place. comparing doa and bb see -- bbc world service of new advocates and i look at data on the ccv and the coverage by al jazeera arabic of the events in places like egypt and how that played out for them. if the goal is to seek to influence public's and strategic places around the world, i would say the evidence is pretty clear. influence is a difficult thing to measure but rest assured without measurable audience, you will not have it. rt, for example, claims a worldwide reach of 700 million people. but that claim is a liberally

misleading. the russians are using potential audience reaches their metric. in other words, every single person who sits underneath the satellite which has signal on it or who has a cable manual of hundreds of stations available, one of which is rt counts in the 700 billion. no one in the business uses the metric. it is meaningless. lovely professionals measure of factual audience that the voa audience estimate of 188 million based on careful polling by the gallup organization and others as the bbc service estimates bbc service estimate has a worldwide audience of 300 million people. per week. after the shooting down of a malaysian air jet over ukraine, the world media reported on mounting evidence that the weapon used was russian-made and could have been fired from a town held by russian backed rebels. rt in those early days cranked out a new theory on who could

have been responsible for practically every news cycle. maybe it was ukrainian ukraine answering to shoot down president clinton's plane. maybe it was a cia conspiracy. if the goal was confusion it may have been partially successful. if the goal is credibility with lots of people, not so much. while rt has not put out detailed backed up audience estimates, there are some numbers out there. in the u.k., for example, in may 2013 when the ukraine story with hot, rt was 175th out of 278 channels in the united kingdom had about 120,000 viewers. as our tooth coverage became increasingly one-sided and shrill, the number dropped. a year later it was 90,000, less than two tenths of 1% of the u.k. viewing population.

the united states rt claims a solid audience but it does not make public data from the nielsen company or elsewhere to back that claim up. a few years ago a press official told one reporter that rt american audience is too small to be measured. china's cctv with the budget and the multiple billions of dollars has poured money into broadcasting in africa get a result also appear to have been relatively disappointing. for example, in data gathered from kenya in 2013 showed 52% of kenyans watching a local channel called citizen tv. 17% watching cnn, 17% watching bbc and 2% watching cctv and not market at that time. in egypt when al jazeera arabic move to heavily biased content in the brotherhood, and lost a substantial share of it audience. very, very rapidly to some newer

channels but also to bbc arabic. i am not sure that we americans would be much better propaganda anyway but after looking at the numbers i am convinced of this. honesty on the air is not only the right to do, also the best business strategy for voice of america and other broadcasters funded by united to its government. of course that means telling the truth. even about us. coverage of the abu ghraib scandal, the snow didn't revelations, protest and ferguson missouri, that coverage was and had to be thorough, complete. each time doa reporters explain how they do it challenges, the journalism amounts to a civics lesson. but as far powerful in my view than any propaganda ever could be. after four years at the helm of

doa i have specific suggestions about how to build impact in audiences in specific market from what we call a we call it denied areas like russia, china and iran to bore mature markets like indonesia, latin america to key growth areas like africa. i would rather get to questions and discussions so i think i am going to just say that those points i have to make on all of those markets in what could be done and the minimum i.q. are summarized in the paper you can find on the website of the assurance senior center at harvard kennedy school of government. let me say this. we can do much more to influence our world for the better but we need to set up a clear leadership structure and would be to more adequately fund international broadcast in public diplomacy. back in 1961 president john f. kennedy recorded the same journalist edward r. morrow to advise them on information policy and run usia.

perhaps president obama or his successor should hire an information advice or similarly experienced. in the age of rt, isis online recruiting in our digital age is time for a country to more effectively engage in the marketplace of ideas. we should not delay. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, david. welcoming your questions and comments. as the one hand. >> good afternoon. my name is arnold sackman and i teach journalism in china. you have mentioned isis. you have mentioned the middle east, afghanistan. you have it then anything about china. i wonder if you can assess the

impact of china, the so-called information war, especially with the recent discussion by president exide and the fact there is sovereignty into the internet. >> well, china and the recent years has taken the whole subject area seriously. there are reportedly have been assigned a budget of over $7 billion to various projects in what we would call public diplomacy and broadcasting. i don't know if you've ever seen the building, but the headquarters is one of the most extraordinary pieces of architecture and clearly not cheap. there are scores of confucius institutes set up around the world. so china takes a subject very

seriously. they read joe nye of harvard who coined the term soft power. they read his books carefully and put them back in conversations about the matter. the problem for them at least in my view and you've got my resume. you know where i'm coming from. the truth is more powerful than propaganda will ever be. and if you look at, for example, talking about kenya, the numbers for cctv and kenya look at some of the coverage and talking to people who have looked at much more of it. you know, the chinese were telling their african employees who worked on the station, you can't mention the name of countries that have relations with taiwan. you know, countries in africa. they can't even be mentioned on the air. when you do a story about ivory

poaching come you mustn't mention the demand side, the chinese demand side. you end up with journalism that is desiccated. it isn't truthful. as long as they don't face up to the fact that doesn't really sell all that well, they're going to have a problem and we don't have to spend $7 billion to compete with them because our project is a better one. that said, it worries me the size of the budget. some of my colleagues at abc and cnn, very good people are now working for cctv. they have terrific production values, snazzy set. they have no money spared in terms of distribution, satellites and so forth. so it is a formidable effort by china and they held the long

view. they are a competitor that i respect that has certain drinks. i just wish we would become a bit more of a competitor, too because we have more strengths. perfect to get serious about it which is the point i'm trying to make in the speech. we used to be pretty good at this. the world is changing rapidly right now for ways in which humans communicate with each other. we need to be honest, so honest and we are not in my view. >> high. i am wondering if you could comment on this seeming dichotomy between putting more money in social media when that is the easiest format for countries around the world to close off with either a great firewall for a smaller firewall

seed could never reach the designed audience. what is the dichotomy between that and what is the other half? >> broadcasting, satellite come at us were difficult to blog. you can shut twitter off her face look in the flip of a switch in any country in the world if they desire. >> it's not quite as simple as that. this is something he works on pretty hard. pbg spent i don't know the exact budget number. per year that is millions. 10 or 12 i think. 17 million on internet's circumvention efforts of various kinds and that funds a continuous effort, hourly effort if not faster by certain companies that are good at this to set up work around so young chinese people in others around the world can still get on the

internet despite the great firewall and the efforts to shut things down and center things in china and other countries. is that enough? no, it's not enough but it means, for example, voa, new numbers not too long ago and the number of people in china who reach voa material's weekly i think is well over 2 million now. it's a huge country. you might say that's not money but not an insignificant non-dance. if we work at it, with more robust funding in the clearness of leadership and direction, we could do a lot more than that. 2 million people in china is an audience worth reaching. i wouldn't say it is not for the money to be trying to reach

people in china and other countries on the internet or for that matter through social media. that said, doing that alone is clearly not a public diplomacy strategy. i am a big believer in the more traditional levers that we have all used. when don bishop and i were in hand, we greatly increase the number of fulbright scholarships. that brings people to our country, you know, who have an experience they will take back with them in the changes people forever. many people in the room that examples of how much difference that makes. how many world leaders are national leaders have had that kind of exchange it. for study at one of our universities. programs encouraging that finger deep and powerful and we need to do those as well. the point is we should not put all her eggs in the social media

basket. i totally agree with you. on the other hand we should be in the basket that time. >> thank you. connie lund, reporter since 1968. congratulations on your great career. secondly, can i send a trip you to max caucus who died who was with us at the last forum the day before he died working to improve things. very sad. my question is how do you solve a problem -- the image we project now with donald trump and ted cruz and this is a man who might well become president. how do you do do diplomacy with people who encourage hatred? >> things for the temptation to get into politics. i think i'm going to forego the pleasure, however.

i am worried about the tone of the debate we are hearing the fire as i know many people realize which can be quite negative. we have to buckle up our seat belts because probably going to get bumpier before we have a president elected. i think that is the kind of thing you have to keep emphasizing to foreign audiences as well as domestically. but in the campaign a lot of things get bad. but the next president will actually do, that is what matters. there is more heat than light in an american presidential campaign many times. you are asking me to go rather beyond what i want to go here today to be honest. thanks for asking. should i be pointing to people? >> ken moscowitz.

there's a very coherent and persuasive presentation. thank you. he started by saying what sounded like we need a gentler, kinder information after that is not a war of ideas but a market place. i recall the war of ideas coming in the white house because we had these gentle arts in education programs which didn't have a policy of contacts. there was no gold bear that we needed something more muscular. i wonder if we are going to move to something which he seemed to sit just we don't need to spend more money on because the psi ops, the efforts that come out of the pentagon, secret funding of new services would be closed down. or is this some thing you are arguing against? >> what i'm trying to say, my opinion, all the other stuff you mentioned, the great programs if

you will is all part of an information policy. our country is white, gray and black programs than what we don't have a someone in overall charge of it who thinks of these things relate to each other. we should. this is a serious matter that should be handled at a high level. there should be people doing a full time. the other point is it's way underresourced. all of them including public diplomacy efforts, broadcasting of honest journalist and i'm also including various messaging and so forth at other agencies may be involved in. we just had taken a subject serious enough. it's not well enough thought through a not well enough funded. that is what i strongly believe. >> hi there. jim bullock. going back to your idea of having one person in charge and you