S1: From Kerkow media. So what are you going to do
S1: about it?
S2: This is an important show. L.A. is one of those
S2: cities that has it all. Beverly Hills, Malibu, Bel Air,
S2: on the one hand, Skid Row, what's south central and
S2: even a place called the fashion district on the other
S2: communities of color that have a surprising, even shocking challenge
S2: when it comes to balancing reasonable people's needs and their
S2: environmental realities. Today, we're visited by a woman who has
S2: experienced both the challenges of growing up and now helping
S2: to manage those communities, as well as having held a
S2: position of power and influence with the Los Angeles Board
S2: of Police Commissioners. She has a unique and important perspective.
S2: This is politics. Meet me in the middle. I'm Bill
S2: Kurtis and once again, my co-host, Jane Olbrycht. She's an
S2: international trade attorney.
S3: She's fought
S2: for U.S. economic and business interests to high level government
S2: officials all
S3: over the world. And she's a
S2: member of the U.S. Supreme Court bar and she's also
S2: been involved with several U.S. presidential campaigns.
S3: Hey, Jane, how are you doing?
S2: Nice of you to join us. Good.
S4: It's always a pleasure to be here.
S2: And zooming in, our special guest, Shane Murphy Goldsmith.
S3: She's the
S2: president and CEO of Liberty Hill Foundation, one of the
S2: nation's most admired social change
S3: foundations. And she's also the
S2: co-chair of the California Funders for Boys and Men of Color. Previously,
S2: Shane was the vice president of the Los Angeles Board
S2: of Police Commissioners, as well as the executive director of
S2: Pece Ventures passes people assisting the homeless. She served as
S2: a senior adviser to Eric Garcetti when he was a
S2: city council
S3: president overseeing
S2: housing, economic development, the city budget, public safety and LGBTQ issues.
S2: Shane is also at the Free Foundation Stanton Fellow. She
S2: was focused on dealing with youth and justice issues.
S3: Welcome, Shane.
S2: Nice to have you here. Thanks for joining us.
S5: Hi. Thank you so much for having me.
S2: Shane, you've certainly dedicated your life to helping architect a
S2: better life for people who kind of need a foothold.
S2: Part of your inspiration came from your own family and
S2: how you grew up. Take us on a quick journey
S2: of your childhood, if you would.
S5: I grew up pretty poor in Santa Monica with my
S5: parents and my little brother. My mom died when I
S5: was about nine years old. They owned a small little
S5: business on Lincoln Boulevard in Santa Monica. They repaired and
S5: sold used appliances when she died because we didn't have
S5: health insurance while she was sick. My dad just had
S5: to turn over all of our resources for her health care.
S5: So there was nothing left to keep the business going
S5: when she died. Of course, if we had had health insurance,
S3: then she would
S5: have had proper care and I think gotten the medical
S5: treatment she needed much sooner and much more effectively. Even
S5: if she had passed away, we would have at least
S5: been able to keep the business going. And so that
S5: plummeted us into poverty. My dad did the best he
S5: could and I am forever grateful for how he just
S5: put his arms around me and my little brother.
S3: And I took one step at a time,
S5: kind of us against the world.
S3: He ended up dying when I was about 19.
S5: We had no other family and no resources. In fact,
S5: right after he died, our landlord told us that we
S5: had to move out right away. I didn't know at
S5: the time about rent control. I didn't know that I
S5: had rights. I just knew that we had to move
S5: out immediately and we did. But it meant that we
S5: had to leave everything
S3: behind and
S5: we'd always struggled in poverty. Life was hard. Certainly losing
S5: our parents made it harder. My brother became a crypt
S3: and ended up
S5: going to jail when he was
S3: 17.
S5: He was the only white krippen watts, as far as
S5: we know, which is a mostly black gang in various
S5: places throughout the country, but highly concentrated in Watts and
S5: South L.A. I remember vividly going to the court house,
S5: sitting in front of the judge and pleading with him
S5: to try my brother as the child he was. He
S5: was 17 years old. He had had a rough, rough
S5: life and he deserved to be tried as the child
S5: he was. And unfortunately, the judge decided to try him
S5: as an adult. And, of course, the penalties were far
S5: worse and continue to follow him now. Twenty five years later,
S5: the combination of all of those experiences have lit a
S5: fire in me to fight back against injustice wherever I
S5: find it, and to fight for a world where we
S5: don't abandon our kids, we don't abandon families, we provide
S5: the resources people need, and most importantly, that that people
S5: have the power to fight for themselves.
S2: So at that point, after your brother was incarcerated, you
S2: were pretty much alone. How did you handle that?
S5: I was incredibly lucky. I was in college at the time.
S5: I went to college in Ohio and I was able
S5: to go back to my dorm and my professors and
S5: my friends took really good care of me. They gave
S5: me housesitting jobs. During the breaks, so that I mean,
S5: I would have had nowhere to live. And just like
S5: my college community supported me, the Crips did the same
S5: thing for my brother. They took him in. They gave
S5: me a place to live. They gave him clothes. They
S5: made sure he could earn a living, and they gave
S5: him lots of love and community. So they had me
S5: take care of their pets, their homes, their kids. And
S5: they made sure I had a place to live. They
S5: made sure I had could earn a living. I made
S5: sure I was surrounded by love and community. Of course,
S5: I worked as well and was able to finish college
S5: and graduate and become an organizer. And the rest is history.
S4: I was going to say, you make a good point.
S4: Gangs are often a source of community and support for
S4: young men who don't have other options. Absolutely. Who don't
S4: have other support systems.
S2: Shane, you've come a long way since that time you
S2: leapfrogged over those struggles and take us on a little
S2: journey all the way to your first day as vice
S2: president of the L.A. Board of Police Commissioners.
S5: Yes, it has been quite a journey.
S2: I mean, where the police, your friends, when you were growing,
S2: you know,
S5: growing up, I was really terrified of the police. We
S5: had a number of situations
S3: where we did not
S5: think the police were there to protect us.
S3: We believed that
S5: and were terrified that they were going to take us
S5: away from our dad and
S3: we were going to be separated. You know, like most
S5: low
S3: income people, my dad
S5: lost his driver's license at one point. And so he
S5: had to drive us around without a license. And he
S5: just became obsessed with the fear that we were going
S5: to get pulled over, we were going to get taken away.
S5: And then, of course, my brother had a lot of
S5: encounters with the police that were pretty brutal and unfair
S5: before he went to jail and during and after. And
S5: so I had this sort of visceral, I think, fear,
S5: but also anger towards the police that. You know, as
S5: I got further away from those experiences and as I
S5: moved through my career doing the work I do, I
S5: you know, that began to evolve. And I got to
S5: do work, for example, for the city council president, Eric Garcetti,
S5: now our mayor, where I worked closely with the LAPD
S5: and others to deal with crime and graffiti in our neighborhoods.
S5: And so my perspective evolved as I had opportunities to
S5: collaborate with the police. But once I went to work
S5: for Liberty Hill Foundation and became really seeped in movements
S5: around racial justice and economic justice, and seeing my brother
S5: continue to move through the criminal justice system I still
S5: carried with me deeply felt concern for the way that
S5: police interact with black men in particular, and with low
S5: income people and people of color in general, and learned
S5: a lot about the injustices that folks face. My career
S5: was really about fighting for social justice, fighting for racial justice,
S5: and not just my career. I mean it with my
S5: heart always carrying my brother with me, who's still my
S5: best
S3: friend and always
S5: wanting to create
S3: a world that doesn't produce
S5: the conditions that my brother had to live with.
S2: So here you have all of these things weighing on you,
S2: your childhood, the whole process of watching your brother go
S2: through it and your mom and your your dad. And
S2: here you are on your first day with the police commission.
S2: You were walking into the LAPD. What did you expect
S2: to see? And and what did you learn during your
S2: tenure there?
S5: I joined the police commission because I wanted to do
S5: something about overpolicing in low income communities of color, police
S5: violence and the over use of police for people experiencing homelessness,
S5: people with mental health issues, low income people, people of color.
S3: And I went to
S5: the police commission with very ambitious goals. When I got
S5: there my first day, I vividly remember it was in
S5: the midst of the first Black Lives Matter movement four
S5: and a half years ago. And at the end of
S5: the meeting, the activists wanted the police commissioners to stay
S5: behind and talk to them directly. You know, because once
S5: we're on the dais and we're in a police commission meeting,
S5: we're very limited in terms of the way that we
S5: can interact with the public. And so they really wanted
S5: to have a dialogue with us. And most of the
S5: commissioners left the room, but one woman stayed behind who
S5: knew them well. And I decided to stay with her
S5: both because I deeply cared about the Black Lives Matter movement.
S5: It was one of the things that inspired me to
S5: think there was a chance, a real lasting change. And
S5: so I wanted to stay back, too. And we stayed
S5: for a few minutes. We interacted with them and we left.
S5: And this I mean, there was a newspaper article printed
S5: that day about the fact that I and the other
S5: commissioners stayed behind to talk to these protesters. And the
S5: police union began calling for my resignation because they already
S5: believed that I was antipolice because of the work that
S5: I do. And then when they saw me in this
S5: perceived act of solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement,
S5: they became convinced that I was against them and could
S5: not be fair to them, as
S2: opposed to feel like this was a remarkable moment that
S2: actually had some light at the end of the tunnel.
S2: They actually felt that they needed to stop that early on.
S5: And it was very shocking for me. I mean, it
S5: was a it was very public. I mean, there's a
S5: newspaper article now the the police union's newspaper is writing
S5: articles about me and asking for my resignation. I mean,
S5: it was a very painful and just critical reaction to me.
S5: And like you said, simply, you know, doing what I
S5: thought was my role in terms of listening to community
S5: members and engaging with them directly. And and, you know,
S5: it's true that I care deeply about the movement for
S5: Black Lives and cared deeply about people who had experienced
S5: the worst of Los Angeles policing. And what I had
S5: to do is figure out how, you know, if I
S5: have these ambitions, I'm not going to get them done
S5: by being a Lone Ranger.
S3: Right. I had to find
S5: common ground with other commissioners, with the leadership of the police,
S5: build
S2: some bridges.
S5: Yeah, right. Trying to build bridges with the rank and
S5: file and with others. I couldn't have the police union
S5: constantly targeting me because then I would lose credibility and
S5: I would lose power and I wouldn't be able to
S5: make a way forward. And so I did have to
S5: find ways to build those bridges.
S2: Can you give us some specifics how you worked through it?
S5: I eventually sat down with the board of the police
S5: union and tried to get to know them a little
S5: bit and and wanted them to get to know me
S5: a little bit, to see that I really was here
S5: to make a difference. And I did want to build
S5: bridges and I was a real person, not some type
S5: of dehumanized target, and that it was in their interest
S5: to work with me. I'm on the commission. You can
S5: demonize me or you can try to work with me.
S5: And I think that help on both sides to really
S5: humanize both of us and to give us some openings,
S5: to have more communication. And I just did a lot
S5: of listening. I did a lot of right alongside with
S5: the police and just listen to them talk for hours
S5: about the communities they worked in, their backgrounds, their ideas
S5: about what was going on with the larger. Meant what's
S5: going on in their day to day work, spent a
S5: lot of time with the leadership of the
S3: police, understanding
S5: where they wanted to go, what was holding them back.
S5: How are they perceiving what was happening? And similarly, letting
S5: them get to know me and to build
S3: trust because we didn't always
S5: agree. In fact, we often disagreed. But we can do
S5: that in a way that strives to find common ground
S5: and that treats each other with mutual respect. And I
S5: think we eventually got there.
S3: And as a result,
S5: we're able to do great things. We're able to declare
S5: that police would only take enforcement action with people experiencing
S5: homelessness as a last resort. We saw arrests and citations
S5: of people experiencing homelessness go way down. We implemented a
S5: department wide implicit bias training so that every single person
S5: in the LAPD got implicit bias training. We we did
S5: a lot of things and deeply engaged the immigrant community
S5: at the height of the Trump era, fear and attacks
S5: on immigrants to make sure they knew that the LAPD
S5: had their backs. They weren't going to be turning anyone
S5: into ice. So we did a lot together, I think,
S5: to respond to some of the greatest concerns that we
S5: were hearing in the community because we found that common ground.
S4: What were some of the things that
S3: you learned, having gotten to know
S4: the police and more about what they do? What were
S4: some of the things that you learned that surprised you
S5: from the police officers? I learned that most of the
S5: time when they pull a car over or respond to
S5: a call, knock on a door, they're expecting the worst. They.
S5: Most of the time, the tactics they use are. Expecting
S5: the possibility that somebody could pull a gun out on them,
S5: and so I came to understand that that's their experience,
S5: you know, trying to set aside my judgment of why
S5: would they feel that way when that is so incredibly
S5: rare and knowing that the chances that implicit bias was
S5: informing who they were afraid of and who they weren't,
S5: just setting that aside and trying to deeply understand their
S5: own experience. The reality was that they were trained to
S5: prepare and that they imagined the worst. And then I
S5: could begin to see how that influences interactions right right away.
S5: You've got this this police officer who is prepared for
S5: this to go very badly. And so, of course, that's
S5: going to have an impact on folks in the community.
S5: And so I could better understand where they were coming
S5: from and how things might escalate when we're watching kind
S5: of as a third party. It's just how did this
S5: go from, you know, a knock on the door to
S5: a use of force? So that helped me to understand
S5: what was going on in their minds sometimes.
S3: We're going to take a quick break.
S2: And when we come back, we're going to talk about
S2: some of your surprising and well thought out visions for
S2: LAPD future.
S1: On medicine, we're still practicing join Dr. Stephen Tayback and
S1: Bill Kurtis for real conversations with the medical professionals who
S1: have their finger on the pulse of health care in
S1: the modern world available on all your favorite podcasting platforms
S1: produced by Kerkow media.
S2: You were describing to me the other day about how
S2: you can appreciate how police put their jobs on the
S2: line and their lives on the line, and they're attacked
S2: all the time. And right now they're really attacks emotionally,
S2: politically and otherwise. But you said we're inheriting hundreds of
S2: years of pain and rage at the results of oppression.
S2: Talk about the other side for a minute so that
S2: we understand where some of the clash comes in, where
S2: some of the challenge comes in that you've been trying
S2: to bridge.
S5: Twenty twenty was a reckoning for so many of us.
S5: It was a racial justice reckoning. It was a reckoning
S5: with police culture and police violence and so many other things.
S5: And from what I heard from police officers, it could
S5: feel at times like the whole world had turned against them.
S5: And it felt very personal. You know, as a police officer,
S5: they may not be it's not my name in the headlines,
S5: but it feels like they're criticizing me. It feels like
S5: they think that I'm a bad person. And a lot
S5: of police officers felt that way. And and frankly, I
S5: think a lot of white people felt that way because
S5: there was so much talk about white supremacy and racism
S5: and structural racism and anti black racism especially. I think
S5: what we have to realize is that we are inheriting
S5: hundreds of years of pain and rage and the results
S5: of
S3: oppression, that it's coming out
S5: now and we are absorbing that. And so while an
S5: individual officer may never have used his gun or may
S5: never have done anything hurtful in his job, that the
S5: reality is we all have to try not to take
S5: it so personally and try to figure out how to
S5: improve ourselves as white people in a racist society, to
S5: improve our police officers, individual work and the structure and
S5: context and culture of their work.
S3: I think it can be overwhelming.
S5: And I heard from some police officers that it felt
S5: quite overwhelming and they felt under attack. And I understand that.
S5: And I and I understand the frustration that they felt.
S5: And I can see how that can translate to anger
S5: at protesters or anger at people who are raising these issues.
S5: But the reality is that these issues need to be raised.
S5: We need to deal with them. I could do something
S5: today that results in strong criticism of me that somebody
S5: 30 years ago could have done and they didn't get
S5: criticized for it at all. And I can resent the
S5: world because why am I getting in trouble for this
S5: thing that was perfectly acceptable before? But that's the opportunity
S5: I have, is to get that feedback and use it
S5: as a way to grow and a way to change
S5: my behavior so that we can make a better world.
S5: And I think trying not to take it quite so
S5: personally and turning it into resentment and dehumanizing other people
S5: is the challenge and finding that humanity in each other,
S5: finding that common ground so we can make a way
S5: forward together.
S3: I agree with you, Shane. I think we've
S4: got to find a way and we can and we
S4: should to absolutely condemn bad acts, bad policies, bad police
S4: departments without condemning every last police first responder out there.
S4: I know it's been hard on them. And when you
S4: look at the Capitol Hill police who try to defend
S4: the capital, when you look at the policemen in Boulder, Colorado,
S4: who Rushden, father of seven, who got killed, I think
S4: that's just a reminder that there are good cops out there.
S4: There are part of our first responders and they're the
S4: only first responders that almost get no appreciation. So I
S4: think we have to find a balance, because if you're
S4: going to ask the police to change, you can't constantly
S4: be attacked. And you have to say, OK, this we condemn,
S4: but we understand your problem and let's listen to each other.
S5: I think one of the most important things police departments
S5: can do and one of the greatest results of the
S5: protests in the streets of twenty twenty would be a
S5: robust investment and alternative responses to crisis situations or nonviolent
S5: non-criminal situations, meaning alternatives to police responses. So there are,
S5: you know, mental health teams, outreach teams who know how
S5: to connect people experiencing homelessness with housing and other ways
S5: of responding to non-criminal, nonviolent situations
S3: that keep police
S5: out of it ideally, and respond in such a way
S5: that can actually help the situation, not just sort of
S5: quell it, but actually if someone's having a mental health
S5: episode on a street. Let's get that person off the street.
S5: Let's get that person the care that they need. Not
S5: only does it require that alternative response in the first
S5: responder role, but it requires a robust investment in the
S5: whole system so that it's not just sending the mental
S5: health experts out to deal with the person who's in
S5: the middle of the street. But it's making sure you
S5: have a robust infrastructure of community based mental health service
S5: providers that that person can connect to that are going
S5: to keep in touch with that person when they wander
S5: off or of experience barriers to take care. So, for example,
S5: there's programs that were implemented in the LAPD called the
S5: Community Safety Partnership, which is essentially law enforcement as a
S5: last resort in communities experiencing high levels of gang related crime,
S5: especially gang homicide. And so what they do is it's
S5: not a perfect program, but what they do is they
S5: partner with community leaders and community organizations to do prevention,
S5: intervention and just kind of community building so that the
S5: police are not creating an enforcement response to things they
S5: normally would like, gang activity or certain types of conflicts
S5: in the community. And by keeping the police response out
S5: and keeping it as a last resort and instead creating
S5: these community based interventions, they've been able to significantly reduce
S5: gang homicides in these particular neighborhoods. So I figure we
S5: can use these alternatives to policing that can reduce gang homicides.
S5: Surely we can invest in more of that, less policing
S5: and more community based responses to crime. But that's sort
S5: of the most furthest along on a spectrum. Certainly, we
S5: can send a mental health worker to respond to somebody
S5: who's having mental illness or housing outreach worker to respond
S5: to somebody who's experiencing homelessness or a social service worker
S5: to a kid who did some low level petty theft,
S5: stole some shoes. You want to put that kid in
S5: jail and probably they're going to be in and out
S5: of jail for the rest of their lives. Or do
S5: we want to figure out how to give that kid
S5: a second chance, give them the resources they need to
S5: hold them accountable if they did some kind of harm?
S2: Where do you put the concept of law
S3: enforcement and appropriate
S2: punishment is deterrence? How do you deal with that part
S2: of the attitude that we
S3: have toward criminal behavior?
S5: A lot of what I did on the police commission
S5: was bring attention to unintended consequences and impact
S3: so we can
S5: talk about a lot of other parts of the puzzle.
S5: But if we're ignoring the impact of that interaction or
S5: the impact of that policy, then we are not doing
S5: our job. So the reality is that the way police
S5: currently respond to these situations contributes to an environment where
S5: people are afraid of a police. Many people, especially black men,
S5: they don't believe that police are there to protect them.
S5: And those situations can escalate to use as a force
S5: and have resulted in mass criminalization and mass incarceration of
S5: people of color.
S2: Is that a perception or is that an overall reality?
S5: That's a reality.
S2: It is a reality.
S4: I was going to say even I know that's a reality.
S4: I mean, historically, going back to slavery and then after slavery,
S4: the police have been not there to protect black people.
S4: They've been there to oppress black people far too often.
S4: That's not always but far too often.
S5: Last big thing I did before I left the police commission.
S5: That was really the goal that I had all along.
S5: And it took four years to get it done, but
S5: was to deal with this thing called pretext stops. So
S5: we've heard of driving while black. We've heard of these
S5: incidents where the police will pull someone over for a
S5: paper license plate or a tinted window or a broken taillight.
S5: And the situation escalates to potentially to use of force.
S5: But even when it doesn't and it's rare that it does,
S5: it creates this fear, this climate of fear we hear
S5: all the time black people have the talk with their kids.
S5: If you ever get pulled over by a cop, you know,
S5: it's a lot of fear and it creates an abusive situation.
S5: So that's called a pretext. Stop. That's I'm stopping you
S5: because of your taillight, because I think you might have
S5: a gun or I think you might be doing a
S5: parole violation or I think you might be dealing drugs
S5: or something. So I'm going to stop you on this
S5: pretext of a traffic violation. And what we know is
S5: that most of the people who are stopped in PreCheck
S5: stops are disproportionate amount of black men. So when I
S5: went into it, I thought I assumed that the police
S5: department was going to make the argument that these pretext
S5: OP serve a purpose. They help us keep crime down
S5: or deal with spikes of crime. And so it is
S5: a deterrent and it is a way to actually get
S5: people who are committing crimes off the street. So I
S5: assume that would be the argument. What I knew, though,
S5: is that it was contributing to, you know, perpetuating racism
S5: and fear and delegitimizing the police and causing distrust of government.
S5: And once someone gets arrested, all we know, all the
S5: consequences that come as a result of that. And so
S5: I commissioned a study to look at all of that.
S5: And so the police commission had the inspector general do
S5: this really in-depth study of these pretext stops. And it
S5: turns out that they actually were not resulting in citations
S5: and arrests. The reality is police officers were pulling all
S5: these people over and not finding guns or narcotics. And
S5: it was just these two off and very negative interactions
S5: that perpetuated fear and racism. But we're not resulting in
S5: catching a crime. So once we figured that out, we
S5: could see, OK, it's not serving the purpose that people
S5: said it was.
S2: Did they adopt your strategy?
S5: Yeah. All the recommendations in the report by the inspector
S5: general were adopted and the department committed to significantly reducing
S5: PreCheck stops and to
S3: making racial equity
S5: a metric like whatever stops do happen. We don't want
S5: to see this disproportionality.
S3: It all comes down
S5: to implementation and continuing to hold ourselves and the police
S5: accountable to making sure that the ultimate result is achieved.
S5: But at least we knocked. Down the idea that the
S5: stop served a greater purpose and begin to unravel them
S5: so that we don't see this kind of harm being
S5: done in our streets every day.
S2: We'll be back in a flash to talk about Shane's
S2: current position as president, CEO of the Liberty Hill Foundation,
S2: along with her mountain of causes that require her attention.
S1: A moment of your time, a new podcast from Kerkow Media,
S1: currently 21 years old and today, like magic, extended from
S1: her fingertips down to the blood to take care of
S1: yourself
S5: because the world needs you and you must
S1: meet every do gooder that asked about me was ready
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S1: Slash a moment of your time.
S2: What is Liberty Hill Foundation?
S5: Liberty Hill Foundation is Eliz home for progressive philanthropy. We
S5: are a social justice foundation. We raise money and we
S5: give it away to community organizations and leaders in communities
S5: that have faced systemic oppression and provide the support that
S5: they need to organize their communities, to build power for
S5: their communities and to win policies and lasting change in
S5: their communities.
S3: So everything from racial justice,
S5: economic justice, affordable housing, environmental justice, LGBTQ rights, workers rights
S5: and really any issue in low income communities, communities of
S5: color where folks are facing oppression. And they we know
S5: that those folks who are closest to the pain need
S5: to be closest to the power and are the ones
S5: with the solution and who need to lead the way
S5: because they have the most to gain and the most
S5: to lose. And so we do everything we can to
S5: provide resources so they can wage this David and Goliath battles.
S5: And when
S3: interesting that you can understand
S2: the progression from the police commission to Liberty Hill, but
S2: maybe you can tell us about the process, what got
S2: you there. Tell us the story about getting to Liberty Hill.
S5: Well, when I was a young community organizer about twenty
S5: five years ago, I applied for a grant from Liberty
S5: Hill Foundation for my work and was declined. And as
S5: much as I disagreed with that decision, I became enamored
S5: with Liberty Hill because of the process that they use.
S5: They have this community funding board of people who are organizers,
S5: who are on the front lines, who are experts in
S5: the work. And I just envisioned these these giants of
S5: social justice sitting around a table talking about politics and
S5: social change in Los Angeles and figuring out how to
S5: get more resources into the field.
S3: And it just sounded awesome.
S5: And it was founded by four people who in the
S5: mid 70s, who inherited a tremendous amount of wealth, including
S5: Sarah Pillsbury of the
S3: Pillsbury family and who really
S5: were inspired by the movements of the time and felt
S5: that they hadn't earned this money, they were inheriting it,
S5: and they decided to pool their resources and turn their
S5: resources over to communities in Los Angeles who are at
S5: the front lines of these battles. And they said, you
S5: know what the problems are. You know what the solutions are.
S5: You know what's best. Here's our resources. You decide what
S5: to do with them. And that was revolutionary then. And
S5: it's revolutionary now, still at the cutting edge of philanthropy
S5: and of foundations in this country that we really believe
S5: that the people who are doing the work, the people
S5: who are most impacted, are the ones that have the
S5: solutions and the ones who need to lead the way.
S5: And so just like we did five years ago, we
S5: do today. We raise our money and we give it
S5: away to community organizers and grassroots leaders.
S2: So they just came and found you and recruited you,
S2: or did you seek them out, had that happen?
S5: Well, I joined the community funding board at the time.
S5: It was the LGBTQ community funding board and thought I
S5: it was like winning an Oscar. Absolutely thrilled and humbled
S5: and was a volunteer on that board for two years
S5: and then got recruited into a management position at the
S5: foundation and then eventually became the CEO.
S2: That's a pretty impressive rise. What kind of staff do
S2: you have there? And is it all funded from these
S2: four people? Plus an outreach? How does that work?
S5: We have about thirty four staff members in twenty twenty.
S5: We gave away about fifteen million dollars, which was about
S5: triple what we had given away a couple of years before.
S5: So we're growing considerably as people in Los Angeles are
S5: awakening to the injustices all around us and we want
S5: to do something about it.
S2: Do you have fundraising events? How do you how do
S2: you raise the funds to support these thirty two people?
S3: Yes, you raise all of our money. We have to
S3: raise
S5: every dollar we spend and we raise it from individuals.
S5: We raise it from other foundations who we partner with.
S5: Just in the last couple of years, we've begun partnering
S5: with government to get resources into under-resourced communities.
S3: For the first
S5: time, we've begun to have corporate support and we've formed
S5: partnerships with the Dodgers, the Rams, the Chargers.
S2: Well, I imagine that sports fans in L.A. will be
S2: happy to hear that they step up to support their community.
S3: So one of the lines I
S2: noticed on your website is change, not charity. What did
S2: you mean by that?
S5: Libreville really is my dream job. And it is everything.
S5: It is all of my values and my experience. So,
S5: you know, growing up poor and seeing my dad and
S5: my brother, who were so brilliant and so full of
S5: love and warmth and wisdom and knowing in my gut
S5: that they, you know, just because they didn't have resources
S5: just because we were poor doesn't mean that they didn't
S5: know what was going on, didn't understand the problems and
S5: have solutions. And so I think what to me, what
S5: change not charity means is that that traditional forms of
S5: charity tend to reinforce these power dynamics and. Reinforce the
S5: idea that certain people need help and others give it
S5: to them. It reinforces the underlying conditions that produce the
S5: need for charity in the first place. And so the
S5: motto Change, Not Charity, says that we really want to
S5: go upstream. We want to get to the root causes
S5: of these
S3: problems and solve these problems
S5: in a structural way. So rather than sort of feeding
S5: each individual or housing each individual, we're going to figure
S5: out what are the Land-Use policies that we need to
S5: create more housing or what are the ways to invest
S5: in school so that kids can get a good education
S5: and have a chance at a job that pays the bills.
S2: What are some of the ways that you deployed that
S2: 15 million dollars last year?
S5: Well, we quickly, in response to covid, set up a
S5: rapid response fund for community organizing for covid-19, and then
S5: we set up a rapid response fund for racial justice.
S5: So that brought in additional resources that we quickly got
S5: out to grassroots organizations that
S3: were not only organizing
S5: to end youth incarceration or to win new tenant protections,
S5: but they were also figuring out how to get groceries
S5: to their members and how to connect their members in
S5: low income communities and communities of color to information about covid,
S5: either because these community members didn't have access to these
S5: resources or didn't trust
S3: government information
S5: systems. But our grassroots community organizations were able to reach
S5: people that others couldn't.
S3: So we were
S5: quickly able
S3: to pivot to
S5: that and to find groups to respond to the racial
S5: justice uprising and and channel that energy into demands for
S3: policy change.
S2: So with Liberty Hill, do you have a success metric,
S2: kind of a measuring stick for what you want to accomplish,
S2: or is there just an overwhelming mountain of issues that
S2: you want to touch on? How are you organizing your
S2: attack right now?
S5: We have several metrics. One is what we call ending
S5: youth incarceration as we know it. So that includes reducing
S5: youth arrests by 50 percent, reducing the number of youth
S5: jails by half, and reducing the number of kids in
S5: jail by half as a first benchmark. We aim to
S5: go much further than that. And we've accomplished most of
S5: that in the last three years with our community partners
S5: and government partners and foundation partners.
S2: Are you setting up alternative treatments and alternative ways of
S2: handling someone who has committed an offense that would otherwise
S2: land them in jail?
S5: Yeah, so we've gotten the Board of Supervisors to support
S5: moving youth out of the probation department, which is what
S5: incarcerates youth and move them into a Department of Youth
S5: Development that is going to be fully funded to provide
S5: the types of prevention, support and resources that kids need
S5: to avoid the criminal justice system altogether. It's much less
S5: expensive and much more effective than arrest and jail. That's
S5: one of our metrics. Our other metric is to pass
S5: laws in the city and county to eliminate neighborhood oil drilling.
S5: And the third is to win stronger tenant protections, specifically
S5: rent control in several cities. And then and we won
S5: a type of rent control in the county, winning the
S5: right to counsel so the tenants have an attorney to
S5: represent them when they're faced with eviction.
S2: We've had an interesting career. You've gone through a number
S2: of interesting cycles. Very impressive. Do you feel like you've
S2: been a success?
S5: I feel amazed by the progress that's been made and
S5: deeply pained by the injustices and inequities in Los Angeles
S5: and grateful and proud that I've been able to, thanks
S5: to a lot of good luck and a lot of
S5: privilege and a lot of hard work, make my way
S5: out of poverty and then get to focus on making
S5: the world a better place for my kids and everyone else.
S2: Shane Murphy Goldsmith, thank you for joining us today. We
S2: really do appreciate it. And we wish you a lot
S2: of luck in climbing the mountains that you have before you.
S2: And we hope that there are ways of accelerating some
S2: of your progress. We need people like you with the
S2: foot in all camps who have empathy and understanding for
S2: all different parties. And we appreciate you being here.
S5: Thank you so much. Great talking
S2: to you. How do people follow you?
S5: You can visit Liberty Hill Dog to learn more about
S5: Liberty Hill and how you can get involved.
S2: Jane, thanks for joining us.
S5: Thank you, Jane and Bill.
S4: It was my pleasure. And Shane, thank you so much.
S2: Don't forget to hit the follow button so you don't
S2: have to hunt around to find meet me in the
S2: middle next week. And thank you to our producer, Joey Cylvia.
S2: Music for Meet Me in the Middle is composed and
S2: performed by Celeste and Eric Dick. And the executive producer
S2: for this episode is Stuart Halpern. We'll see you next week, everybody.
UU: It will be.
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