in the first seventy five years of the country you were incorporated to do one task like build a bridge or a road or a canal and when that was over your corporation would back into public hands nowadays you can make however money however much money your able to make and back in the first seventy five years in this country you could make a certain amount and your corporation became public because it belonged to the people because the people helped to fund it so all these laws it went on and on shareholders had to be local they had to live with the consequences of their decisions there were no mergers books had to be opened so people could read what the corporation was up to and maybe most importantly for our purposes to night until eight hundred fifty on the books of many states it was a felony for corporations to contribute a single penny in elections a felony a pretty serious crime people who had lived through the revolution saw so clearly how and how quickly economic and political elite interests combine that they said we're not going to let that happen on our watch we're going to make it a felony for economic elites to give their money to political elites because that means tyranny for regular people so that's pretty powerful we talk about how power is constructed this is how people regular people constructed their power to serve them instead of money interests so how does that make people feel in this crowd hearing that story thought jealous i heard so it's  good ok we don't have to do it exactly the same maybe we would do it differently but the point is that there was a time in our country's history where people exercised real structural sovereignty over what their economy looks like and also what their political system looked like and we can do that again it's not impossible there's a joke that corporate historian janeane morris tells that says don't know if the mine in your backyard is bad for you hire an expert to prove that it isn't so right now we live in the regulatory state where we think we have to be an expert to know if a copper mine for example is bad for our health we don't need to be an expert we have our experiences we know that the smog we're breeding is bad for a lawn we know that the dead fish in the water are trying to say something to us right we know our own experience and we should be able to legislate from a basic sense of reality not from a marble hall or because we read every single right book right and that was what people said back then were experts of our own experience we should have a say in our democracy and in our economy and we say that we're in charge the democratic answer who's in charge we are and so that was pretty powerful so what happened that's what we're that's the story we're going to tell to each other for the rest of the night and what happened is power always wants more power corporations didn't like having power over having people have power over them so they got together and they said oh i know and so claustrophobic in this democracy well so we do and they went to the legislators and they said hey why us in those restrictions and the legislator said yeah there's still a good old boys club going on but you don't pay for my elections so why should i listen to you in a shoot them out of the building so corporations thought what can we do to get more power to lessen these restrictions and to control the economy in the in the political system and while they were thinking about it something that was very good for corporations happened a little something called the civil war can someone tell me why war is good for  corporations munitions ok yes replacing materials labor goods so during the civil war a few corporations got incredibly powerful what were you thinking one of those people was abraham lincoln and he wrote a letter to his friend and he said i'll convert it into teen talk he basically said you know how worried i was about the fate of the union well that's nothing compared to how worried i am now about the power of giant corporations and their ability to basically terrace under this democracy that's abraham lincoln he let it happen on his watch he had no reason to call himself out like that and he had every good reason in the world to be worried because these corporations use the power that they've gone where to go back to the legislatures and say hey how about lessening those restrictions but still the legislators were pretty slow they weren't really doing what the corporations wanted so the corporations said ok we have to take this more seriously we have to go to the next level we need to go to the least accountable least democratic and frankly most boring no offense to the lawyers out there branch of government in the federal t it's going to be a lot easier to convince nine unelected judges that we are people than it is to convince millions of americans that we are so we're going to take our issue to the courts and they said what are we going to argue in the courts and then they remembered remember how great it is to be a legal person in a democracy because legal people get right so if we with all of our power and our my and our control that we are to have are also people we could use our rights as a trump card over regular living breathing people whenever they got too powerful for us to control in other ways that sounds awesome and so that is exactly what they did they went to the supreme court and they argued that they were people and we're going to tell that story together  right now and figure out what happened so what i have here is a timeline corporate rights the rights the corporations got to the supreme court through the law and i need about fifteen volunteers to take one of these cards there's a date on it to look at the date and then to get in order according to the date with the most distant date back here and the most recent date on this side and then you're going to read these out loud for people so we can learn from each other about how corporations got the rights only human being should have and what rights they got so who can volunteer for me santa clara county versus southern pacific railroad eighteen eighty six without any formal argument the court declares a corporation a person with the same rights as human beings they grant them the fourteenth amendment right to equal protection that was supposed to protect the recently emancipated black folks justices have since struck down hundreds of local state and federal laws and acted to protect people from corporation harm because of these discriminate because these discriminate against corporations that they misinterpreted what was basically the outcome of the so war to give the people who are slaves the same status as everybody else that we're voting and they gave  really important the supreme court the corporations use a specific amendment to argue that they were people under the law did you hear which one it was fourteenth the fourteenth protects people from discrimination and it was the result of years of struggle on the part of long group that didn't count during the writing of the constitution african americans who had been enslaved who had formed a social movement with their white allies to drive themselves into the constitution they got into the constitution they forced an amendment through and corporations used that amendment how cynical can you get that amendment to say oh no this amendment wasn't supposed to apply to these vulnerable formerly disenfranchised people it's best to apply to us and the other thing that's interesting is that it was never argued to people here that it was never argued in front of a court corporations came up you know or corporate executives came to the court and they said they use these really boring cases if you ever want to sleep at night redo these cases and they said ok so don't tax these fences do tax expenses also on a person under the law and they've done this a few times without any success and eighty six they were about to make the same argument and one judge on the court said today i don't want to hear about whether corporations are people or not indeed we are all of the opinion that they are i don't know who he thought everyone was he wasn't talking about the masses of american people who had no idea that this was going on or the congress where this should have been decided he said and i heard it back here a court reporter wrote it down the court reporter was a railroad man himself wrote it down into the head notes of the case it was never formally argued and bam that is how corporations became people under the law it was never decided by the actual court it should have been in the supreme court in the first place and corporations pounced on that answer using that as president to say that they had fourteenth amendment rights against discrimination but what does that mean first of all boo hiss right what does not mean because it's a wanky phrase right histories in the wanky phrases one thing that it means is if a cool corporation for example wanted to move into your town have you ever wondered why you can go to endless meetings about how high the smoke stacks could be or how much they can poison you maybe poison you a little bit less but you can't just say what is your basic right in a democracy to say which is no i don't want to call corporation in my town why should i have to the one reason for that is if you said that the coal corporation could come back and sue the city and say that you were discriminating against it the same way that you would be discriminating if you said oh i don't want to gay person living in my condo in my housing association so they use discrimination that supposed to protect regular people to protect themselves at the expense of regular people so we can't say simple things like yes and no because that violates the rights of the corporation all right so next hill versus hankel one hundred six corporations get fourth amendment search and seizure protections corporations use this right to demand that regulators get warrants before they can inspect businesses for violations or labor environmental l s yeah i don't know how else to put it very good protection against search and seizure so it's a expansion of that personhood concept because that's the concept that applies to individuals  ok so we're just doing musical chairs here so corporations got for the moment rights against search and seizure what does that mean one thing it means is fourteenth amendment means we can't pass robust laws that say yes or no but the laws we are allowed to pass these alphabet soup of regulatory kind of regulations when we go to enforce them we set an inspector in to say how are you treating your workers or are you dumping toxic sludge in the river the corporate executive can say oh no i the corporation is a person you can't come in here and inspect it to see whether or not i'm following the law because that's a violation of my fourth amendment search and seizure protections so we can't even in force the laws that we do pass so that's pretty critical yours nineteen nineteen when the case is doj versus ford motor company michigan supreme court rules that a corporation exists to maximize the profits of its shareholders regardless of the impacts on the planet the economy or health and safety this ruling met its perpetual growth and practically guarantees human and environmental abuses the michigan supreme court affirms what everybody here already knows that corporations don't exist to help the common good corporations just for one purpose and that's to make money so thank you for reading so that is a critical moment i often thing instead of having a laugh track we should have a track for it when we hear there's a scream track like oh no because what what's your name jonathan just read is that it's not the corporations just make money or even that they try really hard to make a profit at our expense it is that they are legally required to maximize profit for shareholders so what happens if you have to maximize profits can you pay your workers well no that gets in the way of profits can you protect the environment no it gets in the way of profits so we have essentially created a frankenstein that serves the interests of a few and has turned against all of the rest of us right and it's really terrifying because it takes it from the personal to the structural because you know the dalai lama himself could be in charge of wal mart and he can do anything differently than the current c e o is doing right because he is required to make a profit so this is basically the law about the corporate form profit at any cost pennsylvania coal company vs man mohan one thousand nine hundred two corporations get fifth amendment protections against the government taking their property without compensation they use this right to argue that any law that impacts their ability to make maximum profit is a taking and they can sue to recoup all the profits that they were making and would have made if the law hadn't passed so this says that now you know i if i'm a corporation and i think an environmental law or a public safety law is going to impact my ability to make money i'm going to see you and get that sucker off the books and even more not just sue a you but sue you for all the money that i was making and all the money i would have made that is a lot of zeros at the end of that number right it's incredible they've essentially said that the law takes their property and violates their fifth amendment rights so that they can get back all the money that they would have made if the law had not been passed so that's huge right because what kind of laws can you pass in your community if you think that the corporation is just going to turn around and see you for everything you've got it's a total chilling effect on the mark recy and a sixty million dangerous and also a psychological effects law influences culture and culture influences law so when these laws passed they not only give power to corporations they also limit what we as as political as americans think that we have a right to they limit the scope of what conversations we can have so we have all the wrong conversations and sort of a big conversations that we need to have to protect the planet and each other louis k legate company versus leave one hundred thirty three the people of florida passed a law that levied a higher taxes on chain stores the local businesses the supreme court overturned because it discriminated against chain stores and violated mega corporations fourteenth amendment rights to equal protection because everyone gets equal protection because  corporations are people it just goes back to the same that old some of us are more equal than others the fourteenth amendment back there right your good buddy back there he helped you get the fourteenth amendment if you're a corporate executive we know you're not and now you use it to say oh you want to grow a local economy because that is more beneficial for mom and pop businesses and for people who live in the community too bad if i allays ford it violates mega corporations fourteenth amendment rights but let's reverse that a little bit and say how many taxes are these mega corporations pain these days some of them zero dollars zero dollars how many taxes are you paying what subsidies exactly so they don't mind so much when the hypocrisy goes the other way a very important point all right up to nine hundred seventy six buckley versus vallejo the supreme court rules that corporations have first amendment rights to freedom of speech since corporations didn't have mouths to speak with the court rules that they speak by spending money in elections this open the door to a glut of corporate spending in the political process it's pretty clear i'm surprised it was in my lifetime actually in one nine hundred seventy six you can spend money money he will speech it's not one person one vote it's one dollar one vote one good point bicentennial so what we have down there with alan is the start of a terrible metaphor and we have a metaphor getting more and more tortured and then it gets to what's your name court ok and we have this idea a corporation is a person and a person of the corporation comes and says i have all the bill of rights protections and i want the first amendment right to freedom of speech may be the most sacrosanct and important right that you could have in a functioning democracy they want that because they have power money control the government control the media lobbyists cultural crad and now they say if we can speak on top of all that well we can just waste the competition and so they said we speak and the court said we would love to agree with you but we have one problem which is even we can't figure out a way that we can give you mouths you don't have mouths you're not a person and the corporate lawyers have other that's what we're here for we speak by spending money money is our mouth so right here we have the end of democracy i'm not being facetious what we have definitional really is a change from one person one vote to one dollar one vote what is that called  ocracy fascism there are lots of words for that ok so it completely perverts the idea that you and i have a say because if money is speech then what is poverty silence right ok so that's a huge problem so we have the beginnings of i mean we have had plutocracy in different ways in our history but we have the institutional legal beginnings of plutocracy right here by corporations spending money in elections first national bank of boston versus one nine hundred seventy seven corporations use their first amendment rights to overturn state restrictions on corporate spending on political referenda now corporations like wal mart can exploit naturally outspend organizers on citizens initiatives that are designed to let every day people make democratic decisions about their community  any protection even in the courts because you can't afford to keep going back to court like the corporations yes so i have heard a lot about five twenty two write the ballot initiative about g so you guys are organizing as as everyday people to say we don't want poisons in our food they should be labeled at very very least and the corporations can say oh you want to ballot initiative that's cute a ballot initiative meaning everybody should be able to weigh in  initiatives brought to us by the populist movement as a form of direct democracy they say ok well good luck with that ballot initiative when i can dump hundreds of thousands of dollars into feeding millions and millions of dollars from people in washington  is the money right now is the money from people in washington eleven million ok five corporations eleven million dollars they don't live here they don't have to do it the consequences so that's what that law would say go for it that's right and that does not mean you're going to do it that way because the interesting thing is that when even when the koch brothers dump millions of dollars into elections hundreds of millions of dollars into election they still lose which to me means that people even when they're brainwashed and inundated with corporate ads still want things like healthy food and a livable planet and things like that imagine if there was a dot corporate inundation of cash in elections what kinds of things w we talk about vote for then so people still want what you're fighting for even when they're trying to manipulate you the other way nine hundred eighty six pacific gas and electric company versus public utilities commission although many has a monopoly on utilities in california they refused to allow an advocacy group to use extra space on their billing envelope to encourage energy conservation the court sided with p g and e upholding the corporation's right not to speak and protecting what they called the corporation's freedom of mind arrived so p g and e has a monopoly in california on electricity and so they're essentially a government entity but they're making a lot of money and this conservation group says hey we think it's pretty risky that you're a corporation who's wanting to make money off of electricity usage and we want to encourage people to conserve so we should be able to put something in the envelope that says hey turn off your lights sometimes pretty small demand p g d says no no in addition to having the right to speak  right not to speak and you putting that conservation advice in the newsletter that goes out to everybody in the state that violates my freedom of mind freedom of mind let's just let that soak in while we go to the  but wait there's more hundred ninety six international dairy foods association versus am story supreme court overturns or vermont law requiring the labeling of all products containing bovine gro hormone citing the corporation's right not to speak if it would damage their regiment reputation or profit and this extends the protection extends to statements of fact as well as statements of opinion really while so don't matter what they say truth lie doesn't  protected and so you know it's and we came in here and said hey guys i poisoned all the desserts just wanted you to know that sorry if you already ate any and we said wait a minute that's terrible why don't you tell us earlier they said oh i have a right not to speak we would tell that person who actually the meeting of the sociopath anonymous is down the hall so well be ensconced this in our law and say the corporations can do this to all of us we don't even have the right to know what to avoid because they have a right not to speak fact or opinion all right now twenty ten citizens united versus federal election commission the supreme court reaffirms that a corporation is a person  states that any restrictions on corporate money and elections violates the corporation's first amendment right to free speech this ruling overturned most provisions of mccain feingold legislation that restricted corporate money in federal elections and reversed one hundred year precedent of congressional authority to regulate federal elections opens the floodgates to unlimited corporate spending in elections six billion dollars is spent in the twenty twelve election all right anybody catch that so who here came in familiar with citizens united who here thought that it was the first time that the supreme court gave corporations human rights a lot of people do but what happened before that so this the you know coup de graaf for the supreme court the last and most recent in a series of corporate coups over our democracy so six billion dollars that's a lot of jelly beans in a jar i don't need six billion dollars to convince you to vote for clean air and a livable planet and well paying jobs and justice i need six billion dollars if i want to convince you to vote exactly the opposite of the interests of all of your constituents six billion dollars so let's keep that in notice of the right to unionize bars twenty thirteen federal appeals court struck down the national labor relations board rule requiring corporations post a poster with information informing workers of the right to form or join a union to strike to bargain collectively and to organize to improve working conditions the court decided that the rule violated the free speech right of the corporation not to speak and that it punish a corporation for expressing its views reaffirm corporate rights at the expense of union rights and the strangely enough this is this is not the first time the this is just the latest in a long series of corporations having a right not to speak when it would profit them not to speak that's right so in that we have an example of when you go to work and you walk into your workplace and shut the door you have fewer democratic rights than many people in what you would probably consider dictatorial regimes in other countries and yes the corporations rights are supreme so unions as one of the big forces for equality and justice in our country are basically flattened and workers don't even get informed of their from individuals the case threatens to knock down one of the final barriers to legalized bribery allowing wealthy candidates to give over three million dollars to one candidate the court will decide the case this fall so that's part of the to be continued story and that doesn't have to explicitly do with corporate personhood it's about the bigger story we're talking about tonight which is concentrated wealth and politics and the effect of inequality in the political system so just out of curiosity if you want to divulge who here has three million dollars to give to one candidate in the next election if you do talk to me you can donate to move to a man instead three million dollars you know the koch brothers spent over three hundred million dollars if one dollar equals one vote that's these corporations or these wealthy individuals voting millions of times what would you argue for if you had the capacity to talk to your congressperson millions of need to amend the constitution to say that corporations are not people and money is not speech and things of the volunteer reader you what so why do we need to amend the constitution yeah right ok and so just so folks know there are baskets going around and you can donate we come to communities for free but it's also not free to come to communities so if you have the ability to donate please put some money in the basket we really appreciate if you don't we're glad that you're yes so she asked is there a book that tells the story a really good book is gains of america by a man named ted nice and i can write that down for you after but we're going to gangs of america g a n g s of america by te so we are getting close towards the end of the evening but i want to i want to do a couple of more things quickly before we end and so we've answered our first question why is move to amend amending the constitution to say corporations are not people and money is not speech we have a series of court cases that gave corporations first amendment fourth amendment fifth amendment fourteenth amendment rights the only human being should have and that said that they spent money as a form of speaking we have to go over the supreme court's head and say the supreme court never should have decided these questions they were wrong on the law and we the people have to reclaim our power over our government so that we can start to make the laws create the cultures and the structures that actually protect life liberty and the pursuit of happiness for flesh and blood beings rather than for corporations that exist to make a profit right but we also have a broader goal of building a democracy movement across issues that normally divide us so that often divide us so we're going to do a sped up version of two final timelines and we'll end it about nine o five that explore why move to amend is building a movement and why we're building a movement across these dividing lines and so what happened to all these people back in the constitutional era that didn't count the first time they didn't sit around right what did they do they formed movement so we're going to learn a little bit about movements and this time we're not going to stop between every card we're just going to read them through and we'll make a couple comments and then we'll read the final timeline so i need about fifteen more volunteers to read through get an order these cards so come on so that was we just finished a pretty depressing part of the evening and this is the part where we feel hopefully inspired again because people don't take injustice sitting down they do something about it so time we're going to read and we're not going to stop in between we're just going to let ourselves feel the power of the words that the people are reading so this is what people did how people used law and culture to ok so you're going to pay a bill a bill of rights seventy ninety one outraged revolutionaries reject the constitution as an elite property document and refuse to ratify it unless it contains basic political protections against the tyranny of the state their struggle is successful and they drive through ten amendments to the constitution that protect people's rights to freedom of speech assembly religion and the press as well as others thirteenth amendment eight hundred sixty five slavery is abolished in the us and any place subject to its jurisdiction civil rights act eight hundred sixty six extended the rights of a man to painted on the african americans by stating that any person born in the united states regardless of race is a u s citizen fourteenth amendment eight hundred sixty eight african americans are declared citizens entitled to equal protection of the law was essentially banning discrimination fifteenth amendment eight hundred seventy african american males earn the right to vote the year that the supreme court first gave corporation rights this is while the rest of the country was up to campaign for the eight hour workday nights of labor membership one million with sixty thousand black and even more women members farmers alliance reaches one hundred thousand members populists draw up founding document to demand debtors rights and the food and fight  railroad lobby eugene debs bills the brotherhood of locomotive firemen das kapital by karl marx published in england and english books police brutalized labor activists in the haymarket massacre hundred thirteen seventeenth amendment u s senate is now elected by the people instead of appointed by state governments nineteenth amendment nineteen twenty women finally  jumping up to nine hundred fifty four brown versus board of education of to be the supreme court recognized that separate was not equal and ruled the public schools cannot be racially segregated the twenty fourth amendment one thousand nine hundred sixty four abolished poll taxes which were used to keep blacks and others from voting in some states hundred sixty established federal inspection of local voter registration polls nine hundred sixty four percent prohibits discrimination based on race color religion sex or national origin by federal and state governments nine hundred sixty eight prohibits discrimination and seo rondell on financing of housing based on race creed or national origin hundred seventy one twenty six amended amendment changed changed from twenty one to eighteen years of age to recognize that if eighteen year olds could be drafted into military service they should be allowed to hundred seventy three the supreme court rules that state statutes against abortion are vague and infringe on a woman's night and fourteenth amendment rights to privacy abortion is legalized in the first trimester of pregnancy that you reading so thing here thank you so how do you all feel after hearing that better so since we have a limited time i'm just going to ask a couple of questions did people in power decide one day that african americans should be a man's or painted from slavery women should have the right to vote and not be considered property and that people of all colors should be protected from discrimination wherever they were what happened does law happen in a vacuum well as happening check out hundred eighty six pretty exciting year to be alive pretty depressing year to be alive if your corporation intel you get the rights of personhood it was not an accident that corporations went to the courts to get personhood the same year that people were all different kinds of structural revolutionary movements around the country they protected their rights in law because that was their trump card over movements created by people like you and me so are a bunch of people in suits going to decide in a corporate occupied congress that corporations should no longer have the rights of human beings what is it going to take us how many of us all of us lots of us and a huge robust movement that are making our demands from our stomachs and our hearts and our brains all the same time saying who we are and what we want from the beginning one more question are these movements done are women equal or black people equal to solve everything of course not right so a law is only as good as the people who are enforcing it and i'm not talking about police officers i'm talking about you and me a law is only as powerful as the movement behind it people in power will always try to gut manipulate or distort laws for their benefit so we have to have a powerful movement to protect the laws that we do pass it's also called a movement because it doesn't end it's a struggle it's a movement we keep moving and so move to men we want to add ourselves on to this beautiful history of people who said no to injustice and yes to equality one final question about movements was the goal of the women's suffrage movement the right to vote was that of an goal what the right to vote fix hundreds of years of being treated as property and being under massag cultures and societies so what was the goal of the women's movement changing consciousness changing culture what else a quality of voice justice ok same with abolitionist movement was the goal i just feel i'm a nation of slavery for some people it was and as it went on they said that's not enough and they morphed into the civil rights movement and all these other movements for black power people of color power and the goal is once again justice and equality right so is the goal of the move to a man movement just to amend the constitution what is our goal justice our as a way to talk about equality and justice with millions of people across the country so we're going to do one final short timeline or it's not sure but we'll do it quickly before we go which is why do we need to build a democracy movement across race class and gender why can't we just go to our friends of the country club i don't have any but if you do why can't we go to to them to say hey can you get this passed why do we need to actually form a movement that addresses and heals the wounds and the consequences of a corporate culture that has created an exacerbated race in other words how have elise used the law and the culture to construct differences between us to make it harder for us to work together so we're going to do one last time line and then we 're going to close so i'm going to need about fifteen more people to come read it's ok if you've already read before and i'm going to say that this is a timeline about the way that people elites used law and culture to create identities and to ensconce their power over others this is a hard time line and i want to say that if you're reading or if you're in the audience and you need to leave you can and i also want to recognize that for many people in the world we carry this history on our skin and in our bodies and in our it's very real so to read it with respect to the respect that it deserves so we'll just read it without commenting and then we'll wrap never give me a microphone is it on an act for preventing negro insurrection act ten sixteen eighty two plus blacks are banned from carrying weapons of any kind and if they presume to physically resist any christian they are punished with thirty lashes on his bare back well laid on blacks could also be legally murdered if they are found lurking in obscure places avoiding labor refers only to non blacks or white persons slaves can be accidentally killed by their masters without penalty and are slaves for life along with all their children in contrast servants are granted new protections and privileges including the right to take their masters to court the right to marry another european immigrant and the guarantee of a severance pay and a plot of land when freed from service black white marriage is banned and interracial sex is fine thirty indian removal act indigenous peoples are forced from their homelands east of the mississippi river over ten years approximately one hundred thousand native children and adults marched thousands of miles west into unknown desert territory fifteen thousand people died along the way the cherokee nation versus the state of georgia eighteen thirty one the cherokee delegation sues the state of georgia first ripping their people of land rights but the court rules they are a domestic dependent nation unable to claim status in court validating cherokee removal and state seizure dred scott vs sanford eight hundred fifty seven a slave sues his owner for freedom in a state where slavery is banned the u s supreme court rules that negroes are not u s citizens under any circumstances and have no rights which any white man is bound to respect free blacks are taxed like whites but receive not of the rights and protections of citizenship the homestead act of eight hundred sixty two fifty million acres of formerly indigenous land in the west seized by u s invasion in violation of treaties is distributed by the government at low cost to white settlers only an additional one hundred million acres of land are given for free to railroad developers hundred seventy four women argued that the fourteenth amendment equal protection clause ensure the right to vote the supreme court rejected their claims stating the fourteenth amendment only applied to black males then gave corporations fourteenth amendment rights just twelve years later hundred twenty four johnson redirect creates immigration quotas system based on national origin favoring nordics from northern and western europe over the inferior races of asia and southern and eastern europe national housing act one nine hundred thirty four following the great depression a federal housing authority is created to provide loans for homeownership but the f h a standards discriminate against non whites and deter investment in nonwhite communities known as redlining this practice boosts the economic value of white neighborhoods relative to nonwhite neighborhood social security acts nine hundred thirty five this act provides insurance for the mostly white workforce workforce of certain industries excluding domestic and that are cultural workers who are mostly non japanese american internment one hundred forty two forces all japanese american and japanese residents living on the west coast of the us into unsanitary fenced concentration camps called war relocation camps over one hundred eleven thousand people are interned sixty two percent of them american and lack of education prevents black veterans from receiving these benefits while white the veterans benefit disproportionately war on drugs nine hundred seventy one president richard nixon declares a war on drugs disproportionately violently targets economically impoverished communities of color for the next forty years leading to mass incarceration for drug related offenses white populations are relatively unaffected d stop and frisk two thousand and eleven in two thousand and eleven new york city's discriminatory stop and frisk program continues to escalate with over six hundred and eighty thousand public police stops made on the street and eighty four percent of those stops being blacks or latinos justified as a gun control measure less than point two percent of stops turn up guns eighty eight percent of stops result in no charges at all so why why do we need to build a multi racial movement across class and across gender lines for justice so what because none of us are immune and because many of us have been disproportionately harmed and wounded by the system for hundreds of years so for me to question is what is it going to be there is never a time in our country's history that was that was democratic for the majority of people there's nothing no age of original innocence to go back to there was always the struggle between the people with money and power and the people who wore the harms of the money and power on their bodies and their lives and who formed movements to say that they had dignity and the state had to recognize it and so for us the question is the same what is it going to be monied interests control our lives in the form of powerful corporations that have taken over our government we where those wounds on our bodies and people of color communities and poor communities and women and disenfranchised people where those wounds disproportionately if we are going to win the amendment we have to have all of these people if we are going to win justice we have to listen to these people and to listen to each other tell the stories of how corporations and money and power has harmed us over time and we have to build a movement that is so powerful and so filled with those stories that we can't be stopped and that's why i'm part of move to amend because the constitutional part of a broader question about what it would look like for ninety five percent of the people who didn't count the first time to have a real an actual say and something that was actually a democracy and i think that one of the most important cards on that time line is a slave in servant code card where they created a term for white people and the term or the servant for white people and slave for black people they did that to divide us so that we would spend the people with a little bit more power would spend all of our time fighting the people with a little bit less so that we'd never look at the top of the pyramid and see who was controlling it all so it's time for us to come together and look at the top of the pyramid name that problem name as unjust and do something about it so i hope that you join with move to amend and i hope you join with the bomb and to actually start feeling your own power again and to be serious about that power and what it means and to believe that you can form power collectively to eliminate and to undo even the grossest injustices remembering that the women's suffrage movement went into a male exclusive congress saying that they were people human beings that had to be recognized by a law and they fought and they fought and they fought and i'm here today as a beneficiary of that fight the fact that i can do certain things and say certain things and think certain things as a result of their struggle and so i hope timeline always makes me very emotional and this idea makes me emotional and so we know that we live in a world that is completely dominated by corporations and corporate interests and we are going into a corporate occupied congress and we are saying we demand in a moment we are not asking we're demanding we're demanding justice and we're going to do it together and please join the movement and please add your experience and your story and your power and your voice to the movement and please join one and in their effort to collect over three hundred thousand signatures to get on the ballot it is possible and it is scary at first to to talk somebody about how you feel but once you start doing it my experiences that it's incredibly liberating because people don't want to feel empowered people in power don't want to feel our power because it's pretty intoxicating and you and you want to keep talking and you want to keep organizing and you want to keep