- Here we are, third session, eight North Carolinians, talking about tough topics, and sharing with each other in a way that maybe you haven't shared in the past, or maybe it's been a while.

And we're teaching each other all along the way.

Before you, you have a card, and it's the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of this country.

I'm going to read this and then ask you a question.

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

What one word means the most to you in this pledge, Jake?

- I'm gonna go with republic, because it's for everyone and it's us, our power.

We elect the officials to stand for what we stand for.

I mean, there's lots of good words in here.

Like obviously God is really important, but the God I worship and the God he worships, they might be one and the same, we don't know.

But like, I feel like that stands for the melting pot the United States has become from when we started, the official date, to now.

We accept everybody.

- It's interesting you talk about this being the melting pot.

So Ashley, I'm gonna turn to you, because all of us came here after your ancestors were here.

- Yeah.

- So what one word of this pledge means the most to you?

- You know, I think I felt like, I mean obviously to Jake's point, all the words are great.

For me it's that last part, around justice for all people.

Because I think that the way that the United States was, we'll say birthed, was through immigration.

So it's through immigrants, right?

That came here fleeing their country and homelands because of religious reasons, because of taxes, right?

So coming here, you know, obviously not good for the people who have been here, indigenous people, the land.

But I think that now we're, you know, in 2023, obviously, you know, indigenous people, I'll say lost that part, right?

But I think that our values of staying true and supporting the land have remained.

And that's where, you know, we serve in the military, we serve to protect our own people.

And that means that, you know, we serve in the military, and we do respect our veterans, that give that life, who are today warriors.

But I think that that part around justice for all means that truly does mean that for all people.

It's means that for the Ukrainian refugees that have come here, from the refugees from Mexico, from Columbia, from all the different countries, that everyone is welcome in this country and can find safe haven here, should be able to find that.

And the people that are here should feel welcomed and to be a part of this country.

- There's some people who would say, we don't have justice for all in this country, Pilar.

- Yeah, that's the word I was thinking about it, and because we- - Is justice the word, that you would pick?

- Yeah, justice for all.

Because unfortunately, I don't think this is happening right now, in many regards.

And talking specifically for the Latino community, this is not applying for a lot of things.

And we know the immigration system is broken.

It's not, as I hear all the time, "Why are these people not getting a visa and coming with documents?"

Because it's not as easy as we think or as we say it.

But also the immigration, not only for Latinos, before it was for other communities, has been managed and tweaked by the government of the United States.

And there is a book I recommend people to read, is "The Brownish of America", and it tells all of this, how at some point was like, "Oh, Mexicans come, because we need you to work here, yes, but then we don't want you here, and we know you are undocumented here, but we still keep you because we need you."

So it's like the double morale of it.

So I think, yes, it's not justice for all, it's how, it depends how we need it to be, so.

- We'll circle back to immigration in just a moment.

Lee, what are your thoughts on what word jumps off that card?

Or when you recite the pledge, what word resonates more with you than the others?

- I'm gonna go with liberty.

Obviously I am Black.

My people were brought here.

When the last census that we did for the United States, when they started adding, like freeform, like "Where's your family from, what is your ancestry?"

I don't know, I actually put, "Wherever I was stolen from."

I have no idea because, you know, there's no way for me to track it back that far.

You know, other people can say, "I'm Irish from wherever."

Other people can say, "I'm French," or whatever, I just know I'm Black, that's it, you know?

Not even what kind of Black person, just a Black American.

So I don't think we have liberty for all, much like Pilar was saying about justice for all, it doesn't exist.

I don't honestly think liberty for all exists.

And my other word that I was bouncing back and forth between was allegiance, but without one you can't have the other.

- So you and Jake both chose the word liberty.

Are you applying it the same way?

- I chose republic.

- Republic, my apology.

- No, you're good.

- My apology.

Well, I stand corrected and we'll leave this in.

It won't be edited out, okay?

Thank you, thank you for the correction.

- No disrespect.

[panelists laughing] - Piaz.

- Sir, I think the words are awesome.

The pledge itself is fantastic, but where is the action?

Like everybody else was saying, there's some deficiencies.

And when of course for the immigrants that came legally, if that's the word, we applied for it, we had a particular process to go through.

There were many questions that, "You're not supposed to do this, you're supposed to do that."

And when we come here, the immigrants come here, they stand by that truth, that we signed to be good and to avoid evil.

But sometimes when you come here, you find the other side already exists, the evil, for example, you know?

So many bad things happening, which you know, either be drugs or getting into illegal activities.

All of those were signed before we came here for the processing, but everything else exists here already.

So that's a little double standard, again, to see whether that's what.

But other than that, yeah, liberty and justice for all is, it's an amazing thing if it would happen to everybody.

- Nisha, - My favorite word is united.

I feel like we have shown that here in this table.

We have so many different walks of life and so many different perspectives, but I believe strongly that if I were in trouble and someone was putting a gun to my head, I think Catherine would try to save me.

And I strongly believe that that's how we support our military.

We go out and we're united.

I don't care about your politics, but you're fighting for me, you're fighting for her, you know?

And united is, sums up our country, 'cause the bottom line is the bottom line.

And at the end of the day, we're gonna stick together.

- Catherine, as she said that I heard you utter, "Of course I would."

- I'd try, I'd probably, I'd need Jake's help.

[panelists laughing] - So which word speaks more deeply to you?

- All, and it is a country founded on freedom for religious differences, for differences of opinion, for cultural differences, and this is a place where all should be welcome.

I mean, it's on the Statue of Liberty.

I was thinking about that when you picked the Statue of Liberty on our first day.

So this should be a welcome place for all.

- Anna?

- I feel like one nation is probably the strongest that I feel, because we are not one nation, but we should be striving for that through the unity, even though we do come from all walks of life, all different religions.

And if we can strive to be unified as one nation for a purpose, I feel like we would be even stronger than we are.

- Okay, a moment ago we talked about immigration.

That's something we haven't talked about in the previous sessions.

The words were, "The immigration system is broken."

And we have heard that as long as I can remember now, I don't remember a time when it wasn't broken.

If you were in charge, how would you fix it?

- You know what, what I will do is first look at the people who have been here for such a long time.

People who came to work here, have their families here, and have been producing and integrating with the community, and see how we can give them the path to citizenship, because they deserve it.

- Talking bout Dreamers or others?

Dreamers and?

- So I have an addition to Dreamers, because when we talk to Dreamers, we are talking about youth, yes?

- Yes.

- People who came before they were 16 years old here to this country.

But when you see their parents, or other adults who came to work here, they were Dreamers too.

So I struggle a little bit with that word, because I believe all of us, when we come here, we come because we have a dream that we want to make reality.

So, but I'm talking about everybody, because yes, the Dreamers are the future of course, but also we are talking people who came when they were young to work here, and now they are elders.

So, and with the Dreamers of course, you know, this is a country they know.

They came when they were little, they grew up here.

They know the language, the system.

And when people say, "Go back to your country," they are confused.

"This is my country."

They haven't even been back to their, when they were born.

So it's very confusing when people say that.

So I will do that.

And also I understand also that it needs to be controlled, yes?

When people are coming in.

And I give you another perspective, I was thinking about this, because in Colombia it's happening something similar, with Venezuelans coming to Colombia.

And it was interesting for me visiting probably two years ago and listening to my family members, my friends, talking about, "Those immigrants coming to take our jobs."

And, and I was like, "Oh, that's what people say about us in the United States."

So how we can really welcome people, but also talking about this liberty and justice for all, have a system to really support them coming here.

And I think that's key.

Now we see it with Venezuelans coming here, yes?

They come with asylum, they cross the border, they take all their documents, and they give them a piece of paper with their picture saying, "This is the name of this person," that this person is coming as asylum, and then this day they need to show up in court, and they cross the border.

They come, they come to our organization with nothing.

But they send them, at the point they are here legally, yes?

But then they don't have money, no jobs, no car, no housing, no cell phone, nothing.

They come, and so that's where I think we also need to see if we are letting people in, how are we really supporting and finding that support for them.

- Yeah I'm curious, when you see a governor, whether it's Governor DeSantis or Governor Abbott from Florida or Texas, place folks who have come across the border illegally onto buses, sending them to sanctuary cities to make a point, how does that fall on you?

- It's disgusting.

- Yeah, it's just weird.

I lived in Texas before I moved back here again, for like the 1800th time, 'cause I can't get away from North Carolina.

I keep trying to leave, but I keep coming back.

And last time I checked Texas history, it was the Mexicans' first.

So how are you gonna send these people that you say are, quote unquote, illegal?

Which like you said, no person is illegal, but I'm going to use the language that Greg Abbott would use in this case.

How are you gonna send these people who have more right to that land than anybody but the indigenous folks that were there before them?

How are you gonna tell them, "No, you don't belong here."

- But what about the point of sending them to Martha's Vineyard, or to New York City, which is now under incredible financial strain because of this, just to make a point?

- I think it's just irresponsible, and using people as a pawn, and not valuing individuals- - [Host] Should we just stop people from coming in?

- No, I think that we should fairly allow them to come in.

I mean, I don't hear as much about, like the Ukrainian refugees, or people from Canada, or from other countries coming into the United States as much as what I do hear about, you know, from Mexico, and those coming through.

So I think that immigration reform is important and needs to be done in a fair and equitable way, so that we're not targeting, you know, Mexican people or Hispanic people coming up, and really fleeing, because it's horrible.

Some of those conditions are deplorable.

Some of the stories, like in the book that you mentioned, are just terrible.

- You bring up a very interesting point.

When the Ukrainian war began, and the focal point of the world was on that country, and we understood people being forced to leave to go to Poland or the United States or wherever.

Yet when it comes to Honduran refugees being forced to leave their country because they're trying to save their lives, our lens shifts.

Why do you think that is, Anna?

- Well, you know, once again, you've got your media, who is pointing us towards the events of the world, and what are they focusing on?

And you know, how do you equate what's worthy to allow them to come in?

You know, war, killing or a different type of, you know- - Killing.

- Killing, that's not really war, but yet if they don't, their lives are, you know, their lives are just as valued as anybody else's.

I do feel like the system's very broken.

There should be a set steps, you know, one, two, three, four, you know, whatever those are.

Whether it be background checks, whether it be sponsorships, whether it be, you know, helping them get into a job program and saying, "Okay, you want to be a productive citizen.

Show me how you're going to add to our society."

- It's easier to accept oftentimes people who look like us than people who- - Are different.

- Look different, Piaz.

- So she did mention "Browning of America", I think that's the general underlying fear, that somehow, but it's only the color is changing, not the, the Constitution is not changing.

And the Constitution welcomes people.

And the more they learn, like yesterday I mentioned the anthropologists, they say, "Let's learn from the world, rather than teaching the world.

What is good for us is good for you.

So let us incorporate what is good from many of the countries."

But Ukraine is a very good example that they brought, even within Ukraine also, the people who looked brown, say there were Indian students, many of them, they were pushed aside, fleeing in the trains, and they put the Europeans in first.

And so there was a big hue and cry.

There were African students who were there, who were just there for study, and they were delayed the flights and everything else before the Europeans were allowed to flee.

So I think that underlying prejudice is what causes this fear, and then the color differentiation and so forth.

And so when these people are being sent there, it is the same country, it's just a different state.

Why do you want to punish another state within our country, within the larger spectrum of the state, just to put the responsibility on the other people?

Try to coordinate with them and find a solution.

I'm sure there are so many solutions possible.

- So I agree with everyone here, with all the, like different views of this.

I'm gonna say the unpopular opinion about this.

I have no issue with refugees, immigrants, but you have one state sitting there, you take all the, let's bring all the immigrants or illegals or undocumented, whatever word that whoever in life uses, and you bring them back to Texas.

So now you have one state suffering, with other states and other people that aren't seeing this, or turning a blind eye to it.

And Texas is saying, "Hey look, we have a major cartel problem, a major child trafficking, sex trafficking problem."

And they're like, "No, we don't."

Like, they're just sitting there with a blind eye.

They're not securing it, they're not making it safer.

Like, I'm not saying building a wall was the appropriate thing.

Maybe it is, maybe it's not.

I'm not that guy to make that decision.

But when you're sitting there saying, "We need help," and you're getting a blind eyed turned to it, it's like, "Okay, well you know what?

Here, this is what we're dealing with."

So to sit there and say all these other cities, of like, "They're overrun, they're financially strucken."

And now you take that and put it all in Texas, every city that they have shipped or transported or traveled to because of this?

Like, come on, like, let's be real about this.

Like, no one's listening to Texas, that's telling them what the problem is, and they're just leaving it alone.

I'm not saying that moving people is appropriate, but like politics, war, everything, there's always, somebody's a casualty to something in that, and it happened to be that.

But Texas is suffering so much, and having to cover all of this financially their selves, with no help.

When no one's listening to you, [panelists chattering] it's just like anything, it's just like the BLM protests.

It's just like any protest, until you get loud and do something, no one's gonna pay attention to it.

- I wanna make sure that three things are absolutely clear, 'cause I think what happens in speaking to internationals also about this, we're talking about three different things.

One, refugees, people that are in crisises in their own countries that come here for refuge, that we're allowing them to be here for a period of time, not indefinitely.

Then there are illegal immigrants that are coming here without any permission, understanding they're fleeing terrible circumstances to be here.

That's a totally different issue.

Then we're talking about legal immigration, which is how most of us are here, from some point in time in history.

Except for, we won't talk about you.

[laughing] - Ashley?

- Did not have a great year.

- Justice for all.

- Did not have a great year.

- [Lee] And I was brought, and I was brought.

- You were, I'm sorry- - You were possibly- - So there- - And I, quite frankly, I have no idea if my ancestors had proper papers or not.

I don't know.

- But having said that, you know like, I think that I had a personal experience at home, right?

I had a family that was in distress.

I was completely going through a very difficult time in my life and I thought, "Hey you know, I have my own two children."

And I thought, "Hey you know, they're going through a difficult time."

They had different standards for the way that they maintained their house.

And they were a sweet, loving, caring family, and I absolutely adored them.

But they came in and I used financial resources.

Everyone was fed, my children were being a little bit neglected, and some things broke.

And at some point I realized this was, you can't help somebody else if you can't help yourself first, right?

It's the oxygen mask on an airplane.

They say you need to get the oxygen mask on yourself before you help anybody else.

- It appears though, we have a lot of oxygen in this country, to help, so- - Do we?

Do we have homeless people on the streets right now?

Yes we do.

- Catherine, your ancestors of long ago were forced to flee, and not always accepted.

- Well, and- - And continuing, for generation after generation.

- Yeah, not accepted.

- Without acceptance.

- Yeah, yeah.

I mean, when I think of the immigration issue, I have to think of my ancestors.

I mean, my great-grandfather, one came from Russia to avoid being drafted into the czar's army, and to avoid the pogroms, which were targeted attacks on Jewish villages.

My other great-grandfather came from Germany, also at a similar time, so late 1800s, to escape persecution.

And I mean, I've had this debate with my own family about, we must welcome the immigrant.

I mean, it says it in the Bible, you know, love the stranger, welcome the stranger.

We have so much oxygen in this country.

We have so much space, we have so many resources.

And if that means that individually maybe I have to sacrifice a little bit, so that somebody else can partake, then that is inherent in the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag, that it is for all, and I am willing to do that.

But I recognize not everybody feels that way, and that is also one of the beautiful things about our country, but this is country that, once established as a country, on top of knowing that we stole the land from the indigenous people who were here, it has been founded on principles brought by immigrants.

And the xenophobia that existed in the late 1800s and early 1900s was focused on Eastern Europeans and Jews.

The xenophobia now is focused on anybody who's brown.

And this is also one of those past traumas we have to acknowledge, "Hey, we went through this in the past."

Or whether it was the xenophobia about the Irish or the Italians.

And you know, thankfully like, we've embraced those groups, and boy has it made our country richer.

So can we keep that in mind, and recognize once we embraced the immigrants of the past, we made our country richer, and approach immigration with that now.

This is a great opportunity for our country to really come at this problem with a creative approach.

This is what our legislators need to be doing.

We have the resources, we have the will.

American people are a good people, a giving people.

It doesn't help when we had a president in the White House who refers to Southern immigrants as criminals, as sex offenders, who says we want Northern Europeans, but we don't want those other people.

They can just build huts.

The messaging from our leadership is a huge driver here.

But I do think that we have a tremendous opportunity to create some really innovative and creative ways of addressing the human right of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

- As I look at the Pledge, and Jake, I thought about what you said a moment ago, with the river, and the pontoons, the flotation devices that Texas wanted to place there, to stem the flow of people coming through an easier part to cross.

And I think if everyone at this table looked at that video or looked at aerial video of people finding places to cross a border, the fact doesn't change of what you're looking at, but the interpretation of what you're seeing shifts.

It's either people trying to save their lives, or people breaking the law.

We look at- - Can I say something?

- Yes, please.

- I'm hearing what everybody's saying, and I see all the points that everyone's making.

But the one thing that no one, when you mention the xenophobia of the different groups that have come across, in coming into America over the years, for one, every single one of those groups was pitted against Black people, every single one.

Because as long as those groups can make themselves look good compared to us, eventually they would be accepted, and we were not.

And number two, no one has talked about the concept of being exceptional.

- Say more about that.

- When you say, "We don't want the criminals, we don't want, you know, the registered sex offenders, we don't want this, we don't want that," you have to be exceptional to be wanted in the United States, no matter who you are.

If I go out and do something, maybe stupid, maybe not, and I get, you know, end up in a police brutality situation, I should not have that happen because this shouldn't happen.

I shouldn't have to be exceptional for people to go, "Well, that shouldn't have happened to you."

Which it goes back to you mentioning, you know, people are being described as criminals and stuff.

That shouldn't be why we don't want them, because that's setting an us versus them situation.

"We only want the super good ones, we only want the people who are productive in society."

Well, if you come here with nothing, how are you gonna start up with anything?

You can't, and so that does set up the situation for you to become a criminal.

I mean, it is, like Pilar said, you have no documentation.

How are you gonna get a bank account?

How are you gonna get a job?

You need to have I-9 paperwork.

I mean meanwhile, I know so many people that definitely look more like y'all than me who have overstayed their student visas, aren't being productive members of society, and are American citizens, and are not being productive members of society.

So it's kind of not fair for people to say, "Well if they're gonna come here, they need to do it right, and they need to be productive," when so many people who are natural-born American citizens aren't doing these things.

- So- - Don't you think we should take care of our own problems then first, and get our own people mobilized, before we welcome in more people that can't be mobilized right away, 'cause they don't have the funding and don't have the, I mean you have to make educated decisions on what, like you're not gonna move into a house you can't afford.

- But do they have to be separate?

I mean listen, this is not in my wheelhouse, but the people that we elect to office and all of the brain trusts that they work with, couldn't they figure out a way to marshal the energy of an influx of people who want to be here, and in some way connect that to helping to address some of the underlying issues.

You know, if we could think more about how to make something happen as opposed to fighting against things, like we don't want these people to come, we don't want this person to have a voice.

You know, if we could think more as a country, and certainly if our legislators could think more about, how can we have a can-do attitude?

Boy, maybe there's a way where we could put all our powers together for good- - But we can, we can.

And that's why we have a process in place.

Like, does it financially make sense for this person to be here right now, or do you wait?

Like I mean, one of the things that I've learned the hard way is never to push in.

When you push in, you perturb the people that you're around.

You do the opposite of what you wanna do, and you end up getting shunned.

- Isn't it clear- - And that's what happened- - That that's what- - To me, in a church environment before- - [] That process is just not working.

- No, it's not working.

'cause people are pushing in.

- No, and one example of, that we can do it, is the farm workers, we bring every single year, and they've been coming here for decades and decades.

And they get this W-2 visa.

They stay here because we need them, and we are able to do it.

They come, they come in buses in North Carolina to VAS, it's the center, and they are distributed to the different farms and they work and they go places to places the whole year.

I've talked to them, and some of them have been coming for 28 years, and we have also newcomers and they come.

The circumstances and the way they live and are treated are not the best, because if you go there, the way they have to live in there is really poor.

But they are bringing them legally because we need them.

- Okay.

- So we can do it.

And again as I said at the beginning, is we manipulate this.

And even the system is, you know, when I was going to come to this country, my daughter was two years old, my oldest one was 15 and I had a visa.

My daughter, older daughter, had a visa because we have family members in the United States, and my 2-year-old didn't.

So in Bogota to get a visa, you have to pay money to buy a PIN.

You have fill out the paperwork, ask for an appointment.

They give you the appointment, months and months later.

You have to get there at 7:30 AM when they open, Bogota is cold.

So you have to wait, we waited with my daughter until 1:30.

They call us to the window, I pick up the phone and the guy on the other side said, "Good afternoon, denied."

And I was like, "We haven't even talked."

"Oh no, I know it's denied."

"You haven't even asked me for the papers.

I have everything here, so," "No, I said denied, next one."

And it's like, how do you feel?

And I live in Bogota.

People come from other cities, have to pay hotel, tickets, bus, whatever.

And I left and I said, "What else can I do?"

"Oh, come in a year and we'll see if we can give it to you."

And it's like, really?

- The people doing the seasonal farm work are brought in, because those are jobs Americans aren't gonna do in the first place.

Every time somebody goes, "They're coming here stealing our jobs," were you gonna clean toilets?

Were you gonna make beds?

Were you gonna, you know, pull tobacco?

None of you were gonna do these things for the money that they're going to pay you.

- People who are saying that are the ones talking about illegal immigrants, not legal immigrants.

- But they have the same jobs- - These are illegal immigrants.

- They need a working wage so they can pay, you know, they deserve to be able to support their family.

Nobody should pay get paid those wages for that job.

- It all comes back to fear, it circles, all of these things just seemed to cycle back to fear.

- And I think we left out a step, I wanted to address this.

Catherine, you said, you know, "Fear leads to hate."

We left out step, fear leads to contempt, contempt leads to hate.

Because you fear the unknown, and then you start to make up your own perception of the unknown, and then you hate the perception that you've made up about the thing that you fear.

- And you don't see the other as a person, I think that's the other piece is- - Can you go into that?

- What's changed my viewpoint on so many of these topics that we've discussed.

'Cause I felt a lot of the same ways that Nisha and Jake have espoused when I was younger.

And then it's meeting the people about whom we're talking, that has shifted, because I don't get to that contempt part, because I meet the people and I hear their stories, and I realize, boy, this is a lot more complicated than the way I was thinking.

That here's this person trying to just come here illegally, and get a leg up or get something.

It's like "Whoa no, it is so much more complicated than that."

- But back to everything, people are always like, "Oh, they're not being productive members of society.

They're not paying taxes, they're not doing this."

They are, they're paying sales tax.

They're paying sales tax on everything that they buy.

They are putting money back into the economy because they have to live in this economy.

- Jake, you said, "Amen," a moment ago when Lee mentioned that - Yeah, I mean, some of the farmers from around the area where I'm from, I've just been in passing conversations, and you ain't gonna get a bunch of high school boys now to go to work.

It's like, they said "Yeah back, you know, '70s, '80s," he said, "that's what they did for summer work.

Go to the river afterwards, and then go out that night or whatever."

He said, "Yeah, you ain't getting, it's like this new generation's not gonna go work in the fields.

Like, it's just not happening."

- So do you think in your lifetime you will see a solution to this problem?

- I think if both parties as political, when I say this, if they would stop trying to make each other look bad and start listening to each other.

That's like you get, they get in office, you say you got probably two years, and then they start politicking again.

And all it is is trying to shame the other one and looking like they're the big bad wolf, or a wolf in sheep's clothing, but they're not working together to come forth to this like, it's like we were saying, Texas moving people to different sanctuary cities.

Well one, they called their self a sanctuary city and they have open arms, but now that they're suffering like Texas is, they're not liking it.

But they never came to Texas to say, "Hey, how can we help?"

- Well if we would all be sanctuary cities, that would probably solve a lot of the problem.

- But if you look at the sanctuary cities in question, it's also gonna be a class issue, because they're not necessarily gonna want seasonal workers, undocumented people just dropped off in their town with no resources, no services.

We're right back to, "We already can't help who we have, and we did that."

Nevermind, like I already mentioned, Texas doesn't have any state income tax, they don't have any resources.

They already didn't have resources.

- But what I'm saying is, if we share- - Exactly.

- If we all share the responsibility for the people in our country, the people trying to come into our country, you know, what is it, a problem shared as a problem halved?

Not to refer to people as a problem.

But that is the mindset that I feel like we need to get to, is if we all pitched in, we could actually make these problems more addressable.

- And that's one of the reasons why I chose one nation.

If we are taking these problems as the states coming together, we could eventually solve it, if we didn't have two separate parties butting heads to make one look better than the other.

I mean the sad part is, is we're the ones that put them there.

They're the government that is supposed to be looking out for the betterment of us as a society.

And when it does come time to vote, you need to be looking at those platforms that they say they want to work on reform.

- There's not a single person sitting here can say the politician they voted for fully represents them.

- Exactly.

- You might be, you might have the bun to your sandwich, but you ain't got no filling in the center.

It's only representing a couple things that you- - You had to choose the best.

- Yeah, it's like, had to choose the most important thing to you.

And it's like, "Well here we are.

I guess this is what we're doing."

- Single issue voting?

Like that?

- Well like, but not single, but like the most important things to you, but they don't represent the other half of you.

Like they don't fully represent everybody.

And I don't know if you ever could, but- - Yeah, if you're looking at, what?

We have a state of 11 million people, right?

You have two members of the United States Senate.

They represent everyone in the state.

Not just my wishes or your wishes or your wishes, they have to strive, at least we hope they do, to represent to some degree, everyone.

I can't imagine having that job, to do that.

- I can't, I know.

- Because I don't thing you can please anyone, if you can't please everyone totally.

Have we truly reckoned with slavery in the United States?

I wanna bring that down tighter to say, have we truly reckoned with slavery and lynchings in the state of North Carolina?

- I'm gonna say absolutely not, absolutely not.

There are still sundown towns in this state.

There's still plenty of places that- - [Host] Everybody know what a sundown town is?

- Yeah.

- Mm-mm.

- If you are, you know, not white, and you are caught in that town once the sun goes down, you may not live to tell the story, that is a sundown town.

- There used to be billboards in part of the state, in some counties, saying in essence for some of you, "Don't be here after sundown."

- That is correct, and there's still plenty of them in this, not far away from here, honestly.

There are many places that I can't go.

There are many places that my combat vet status, it's not gonna save me, it's not gonna save me because when they say these things, now there's sometimes, I can get a password.

"Oh, well you're one of the good ones, we don't mean you," until certain things happen.

And I promise you when they say, "We don't mean you," they mean me, they just don't wanna say it to my face.

- Summer of 2020, not only the pandemic, summer of George Floyd, statues coming down.

Were the statues the issue?

- Mm-mm.

- It was everything behind it.

- Pam.

- It was everything that was, the undertone of what those statues were meaning to those people.

- Did it frustrate you?

- In a sense it did.

It frustrated me for the fact that there was people destroying property.

It wouldn't have even mattered if it was the statue.

It could have been a building, like up in Washington state you saw a bunch of protesting and- - Downtown Raleigh.

- Exactly.

And I don't know the full amount and percentages of what were the age groups that were doing this, but you know, why were they doing that action, and did somebody not teach them any better to respect property and value?

Value life, like the person that got shot because he was in a riot over that information of, "This is the verdict and you know, this is what happened."

And it upset me that- - Piaz, when you saw this happening three summers ago, did you understand why people were so upset with a figure that represented evil to them?

- What was said was, "Because of the history," but that person, or whoever that was, is done and gone.

And like she said, there's some representation, but the youth could not understand, "Why should we honor somebody who has done so much wrong to us?"

But I think just by removing that, have not taken any, you know, it was just a bandaid situation.

It did not remove from the minds, like we were saying.

I mean to this day we are still discussing, you know, sundown towns, meaning that has not gone from the hearts.

It may have been erased with a marker, but it's really there still in the people.

That's where we need to really attach the subject, that we need to remove it from the heart so that other people, whether you have a building in the name, or a statue, it doesn't matter.

But really people begin to understand that they're well understood.

I think the youth got much upset at that time.

- Well I was just gonna say, I think the way to work through, and no, I don't think that we have fully reckoned with slavery.

The way to do that though is through learning and study, and things like the 1619 Project that is painful, those truths are, we have to face them, so that we can learn from the mistakes of our past, and heal our collective hearts to move forward.

- And that also comes through education- - Absolutely.

- Of having the proper type of history, and to explain, you know, why was this monument or statue put up here?

"We understand you're angry, and you're assimilating this action with this type of name on a person or the statue."

- But that's- - But that's a just a statue.

- But also, we cannot whitewash our history in our schools.

And our children need to learn that, "Yes, we had a statue of this person, because they were revered in this way.

But here also, the negative things that they did, and this is why their image is upsetting, traumatic, angering, whatever emotion, to a certain population."

We cannot whitewash the truths, you know, the hue and cry about critical race theory.

And again, it's fear of sharing ideas, but we have to face those truths, and we have to start doing that in our schools, so that our children can learn to not repeat those mistakes of the past.

- Well, why is it so difficult to talk about slavery?

- 'Cause almost everybody in the room, especially if they are Southern, either has something, some tie to it, one way or the other.

You know, if they are not from here or not from, you know, down South, maybe they do, maybe they don't.

But it's very hard to talk about something when it directly or indirectly affected your ancestors and your family, no matter how it looks.

- People are saying, "Look, I had nothing to do with this.

I wasn't born then, my parents weren't involved with this.

Why do you put this off on me?"

- So I think I, one thing I wanna say is, I discount a lot of the stuff that happened in 2020, just because I think a lot of it was fueled by displaced emotions related to COVID.

So that's one thing, 'cause the shooting was a terrible thing, it just, I don't think it would've raised as much media attention as it did, because we were looking to form movements, and stuff like that at that time.

- Which shooting?

- The George Floyd- - That was the- - He wasn't shot.

- He himself- - It was the knee.

- Put the knee on the neck- - I'm sorry.

- The knee on the neck.

- Id love to come back to that at some point.

- But I feel like, I feel like with slavery, people are just tired of talking about it.

They are tired of making everything about race, just like they're tired about talking about human sexuality.

And you know, we used to be able to come to the table and just talk about what needs to be talked about on the, table you know?

- That's what needs to be talked about.

- Why?

- Because that's- - It's human issues.

- It's still happening.

- But Nisha- - I cannot believe this, the sundown town is terrible.

Like I had no idea, like that is obnoxious, and if certain races are unable to leave a town at a certain time- - No they can't go to it after a certain time.

- So here's why we have to talk about them- - That's wrong, so- - Because Nisha, how many of these things have we brought up and you didn't know what they were?

And that is why we have to talk about them.

- You know what, I grew up in a town where we all kinda got along.

We were assimilated with each other.

There were different races, we never talked about race.

It never came up in New Jersey, not in my town New Jersey.

And it was like, it wasn't even a big deal.

We could all come to the table, we all had a great education.

We talked about history and stuff like that, but we weren't Southerners.

And so when people I think sometimes come down South, they're like, "What is this obsession?"

And it's because it hasn't been buried yet here.

But up there we don't even, it's not even a thing.

I'm Indian, like, nobody even acknowledged I was Indian.

It didn't matter what my race was.

- My dad was a career military man.

He did 26 years in the Army, so I was an Army brat.

I grew up in military housing for the first 13 years of my life.

Maybe racism didn't exist because we, I can remember the first time I was called the N-word, and it was on post by somebody's parent, by a soldier.

And it's funny, because like I said, I grew up in military housing.

You played with the kids that were there, or you did not play.

If people found out that your family was racist, everybody would know within a quickness, and nobody played with you because of your family.

Now having said that, everybody, and I would almost say most people that are people of color can tell you the first time they heard a slur directed at them.

Most of my friends, especially, you know, I'm from here.

I grew up here for the last, you know, half of adolescence.

Most of my friends from here can tell you the exact first time a white person called them the N-word, and it was usually they did something that they didn't like.

And it's usually somebody that they respected until they said it.

So, that's why we have to talk about these things.

- Yeah, but I was called a monkey on Facebook.

My children and I were in a picture with a Black representative and someone said, "Effing monkeys," and I don't care.

Like it just, it doesn't matter, say what you want.

- But that's the thing- - I reported it to Facebook, because I wanted to make sure that my children and myself were safe, but- - But that's the thing, words have weight.

Words have weight and meaning.

- But why don't you care?

- Because I don't want it to, I don't want to be obsessed with racism.

I don't care if, something in that person's life caused them to be angry and bitter.

And you know what?

God bless them.

I pray for healing for them.

But I don't wanna discuss it, you know?

- When I hear you say, "I don't care," what that tells me is that you don't have enough of your own self value.

- No, I have- - Because nobody should call you that.

- I have self value.

I'm just not going to to take it so, I put up a little bit more thicker skin, 'cause I don't want to obsess about it and say, make a big storm and cry about somebody being racist to me on a Facebook post.

Oh my gosh, it's no, am I gonna go to work and still get paid tomorrow?

Yes- - But not saying something enables that person- - To do it again.

- To call Lee a monkey.

- Why don't we just let them be?

'Cause obviously something bothered them, something triggered them to do that.

- What if they were a boss?

- Thank you.

- Who has people, or a manager who could impact the promotion of someone, or someone maybe- - Then you go to HR.

- But my point is, you don't know that when you see the post.

And if they're not called out, if we don't take a stand, we don't know what influence that person may be having on other people who are totally innocent of anything, other than just being a human being- - May get elected in politics.

- And living their lives.

- I reported it, I reported it through the correct channels.

I'm not gonna make a stink about it, and cause everybody in my social media group to feel uncomfortable.

Like, I just don't wanna hear it anymore.

- It's a human conscious, it hurts.

So when it does, you got to do something.

I know I learned it very difficult, for to tell you the truth, when I came here, I had the same stereotype, that these guys are lazy goons.

And my argument was, if I could make it within less than 10 years, I'm stable, I have a family, I have everything.

Well, and then I met an activist and so I said, "Man, let me take you there."

So we went behind the hospital and it's New Jersey.

I won't name the hospital.

I said, "People sitting there in the middle of the afternoon with, you know, brown envelopes, sitting on there, and enjoying themselves.

Is this where the progress is?"

He said, "You don't know what you're talking about."

So he literally took me off at that time, even from the middle of the work, we went to the ghettos.

He said, "This is by design."

He said, "What these people are going through, you never went in there.

How would you know what is in there?

How is it that you know you cannot come out of that cage, even though there are no bars?"

The people living in those conditions because they've been placed in a way with certain circumstances created for them, that they're unable to come out.

- I've had to learn this through years of, just because you have other race-based friends, doesn't mean there's still not a problem.

It may not be a problem in your world, but somewhere like, it's still an issue.

You can't brush across it.

I think we probably stay on the subject too long, and it's almost to a nagging point, but it's like, it shouldn't be brushed to the side like it's nonchalant, like- - Well have you thought about, you know, in your example about your friends, and you guys not talking about it, that because they know where you're at with the, they your views right around slavery, and they know your views, that maybe that's why they don't talk to you about it, maybe it's because- - No, 'cause we're Northerners.

Like a lot of people, like growing up, I was talking about high school too- - I'm just saying, maybe it's you, that like, they understand you.

Like there's some people, for example in my circles, I know I probably won't talk to them about that, 'cause I don't feel comfortable, 'cause I know I'm gonna get hit back with maybe something that, so I'm just saying about having good authentic relationships.

Like do you think that's- - We never talked about slavery in the North.

Like, it just didn't come up.

- I'm just saying maybe it was, they did that with other people, not just with you.

- I never had an opinion about it.

- Okay.

- It was never a subject.

- Nisha, I was just curious.

- Well honestly, it's because it doesn't affect you directly.

It does not affect you.

I mean everybody, in my travels in the military, I can take the cornbread and banjos outta my accent when I need to.

I can almost have a Midwest, like for lack of a better term, newscaster accent when I need to, especially when I'm running my radios.

- Midwest newscaster.

- Now, if I go to say California, and like, and my mom calls and I'm in San Francisco, obviously, and I'm sure you've experienced this as well, the folks that are from here, as soon as you start talking to a family member, what happens?

That accent drops back in.

- Code switching.

- It comes in even worse than it would've without that influence.

And then people change their perception of you.

So then when I go up North, the first thing they ask, "Ooh, you're from North Carolina, aren't they all racist?"

I'm like, "For you to ask that is racist.

You guys just do it in a different way.

You guys redlined your towns.

You guys, you know, by redlining, that was your sundown town, it just was different."

The ghettos were more prevalent, however- - Structural racism.

- I had a team chief, dude was cool, but he was not cool.

He was definitely from New England and definitely had a rebel flag, redneck sticker on his truck, and I never could figure that out.

'cause he never lived in the South.

His family was not from the South, that's not his heritage.

But he definitely had this sticker.

And I was like, "I think I've earned that more than you have, but okay, whatever man."

So it's easy to say, "We don't talk about this," when it doesn't affect you.

It's easy to say, "We don't talk about this," when you don't really know anybody it affects.

And it's like you just sat here like, "I have black friends, I have white friends, I have Asian friends."

If I walked around like, "Hey, my straight friend," everybody'd be like, "Hey, what is wrong with you?"

- I hold in my hand a piece of history.

It's from Wake County.

- Okay.

- Big rock.

- 1918, which is just 105 years ago.

It's the same year my dad was born.

This soil came from beneath the tree where George Taylor was lynched.

Only 100 years ago, in the county that is the capital of North Carolina, there was a lynching.

There's no arrest, there's no Miranda rights, there's no grand jury, there's no judge, no trial by jury and sentencing.

A mob drags a man out of his house, stabs him over 125 times, and then lynches him.

I cite it, I keep this, because it reminds me of what appears to be, in listening to this table, a need that we have to talk about these things without getting angry at each other, without making somebody less than who they are, but to be aware that this is part of our history.

Is it the history of my generation?

No, but I'm just one generation removed from this.

- I mean, you could say that George Floyd's murder was not dissimilar.

- Yes, it it was not a rope used on George Floyd- - It wasn't a mob, but it was- - It was a small mob.

- People in uniform.

- Uniform.

- In power, with a knee to the neck that says, "I have control over you and I'm taking your life."

It's hard to talk about it.

So one of the things I hear coming up, that if you stayed here on campus the last two nights, you've walked into a room, I'm gonna remove this out of respect- - For the family.

- For the soil, and you've been, you've seen this.

- Yes sir.

- Mm-hmm.

- Is this our solution?

- Absolutely.

- It depends on if that's what you truly believe is the answer for this country, and the direction that we're going in.

And I'm gonna bring this up, because I don't know if anybody noticed it yesterday.

Nisha yesterday, the word that I noticed that you kept using was patriotism and patriotic.

I love my country, I love my country enough that I functionally signed a blank check to die for it, by signing up.

I almost died for this country in Iraq.

So no one has the right to tell me who is and who is not patriotic.

I feel like I've earned that right more than anybody else except for Ashley.

- Thank you.

- No, that is one of the biggest pet peeves I have in my whole life, with people who will tell me, "Oh these people don't do this, and these people don't do that."

You don't know what I've done, and that is definitely a read-the-room comment.

Normally I'm very snarky to people who do that.

And I'm a big fan of, "Hey, I'll drop you off at the recruiting station.

When you can do what I've done, come back and tell me about it and see how it changed your life, for the better or for the worse."

- Pilar, is this a solution?

- I think so, but but again, if it is intentional and it is again going to the words, yes, liberty and justice for all, and we really live it, not just saying it.

But definitely because I think for all of us, the majority is, it depends, God really guides us, in different ways, yes, for all of us.

Family has a very strong meaning for our culture, and I know for all of us has a, yes Nisha, when she talks about her kids and everything, you see her passion for that, and for all of us.

And definitely we love this country.

Yes, I'm an immigrant, but I love this country, because this is my country now.

I live in here, I work for my country.

I believe and feel every single word that is in this card.

But again, needs to be intentional and real, and again, for everybody.

And I know it's difficult going back to, I don't know what I don't know, but I need to know, if we really want to be one country united, because if I don't know, we won't, we won't be.

- I've heard it said that we are the still-to-be-United States of America.

What do you think of that statement?

- We are still very divided.

Some of it's intentional, some of it's not.

And when I refer to non, you know, being intentional, I feel like a lot of the politics has intentionally caused division.

What I hate to see is that you've got two different sides who want to win.

Why does it have to be one side versus the other all the time?

It needs to be for everybody, and- - But power doesn't work that way.

- It doesn't, it doesn't.

The one thing I do like about that is, it does have God first, it has family second, and then it has country third.

I don't think it has to be in particularly that order, but I feel like any religion that has a God, most of the religions that I've ever studied have always stressed improving yourself, by believing what your God is telling you.

And if you are working and striving to improve, hopefully you're gonna be like Jake on the side of the road, who stopped to help that person.

You're gonna see your countrymen as, you need to help them.

That's what the old Southerners used to be like.

You know, you've got your gentleman who would open the doors to help people.

You know, family teaching those morals, those ethics, that are instilling loyalty, patriotism, and love for one another, and respect.

Getting back to those basics.

In turn, I feel like we're gonna have a better community, a better neighborhood.

- You just brought up something.

When we arrived a couple of days ago, I held the door for you to, and helped you bring in a big piece luggage, right Nisha?

- Yes.

- In all fairness, there are people who don't want me to hold the door for them, because they feel like it's a hierarchy thing, and you don't need to do that, and are offended.

- And so, - So then you don't know what to do.

- Or I say- - "May I?"

- "Let me know why that doesn't work for you."

I've got to be open to being taught.

I think that's what we're doing here, of the openness of being taught.

Even if I don't understand why somebody doesn't want that done, I have to respect their space, their belief, and maybe they can teach me why you don't want that.

Jake, would you put this in this order?

- Absolutely, because I mean, I'm not gonna put country before family.

You gotta take care of your own first, before you can take care of anybody else, and God's always first.

Like, it's self-explanatory the way it's written.

- Anybody else wanna comment on this?

- I think it's in the right order, I think it's appropriate.

- You know David, when I saw that last night in the room, I really reflected, because it's so meaningful.

Well, here we've been talking about my God or his God, and the solution, at least the one who created us all, what did He say about the rights, and what rights has He given.

In Islam and the Quran it's very clear.

It says, "We have created you from a single pair, a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that you may recognize each other, and not to despise each other."

And in another place, it's the equality and the best among you, there has to be something, right?

There has to be a reward.

The best among you are those who are more righteous, more pious, more good towards others, that is the key.

And when I see this family, I just do not seclude everybody, and, "This is my family, my family comes first."

No, this is the human family.

Like you opened the door, you didn't know who she was, where she was coming from.

You may have some idea, but working in a hospital or in a public space, you open it.

That's why I came to the South, because I saw them very courteous, this is Southern hospitality, they call it.

And I said, "That's beautiful."

I mean that's really, because that's what my faith teaches.

And I was able to practice my faith here with everybody else, and that's what attracted me to North Carolina.

When we die, we do not take our passport with us.

We do not take our NC state license with us.

We are a human but, so that's where the family comes from.

That we are one family, created by the one God, and because He created us, He knows what is best for us, and that's why He said that they're all equal.

But your language is a blessing, your culture is a blessing.

It's not one or the other, but just to be superior to the other, they leaned on God, no, no, no.

God said like in other mythology, God said, "I am superior to you because you're created that way."

That's where people started supremacy, that, "I'm better than you, because God says so."

No, God said He created it equal.

He could not have not like what He created in this, and what He created in this, and what He created in a white man.

I mean, that's His creation.

Just like He created the environment, and all the beautiful flowers and the trees that you see.

So that's what I took from that pillow, and that was amazing.

- Can I comment on that?

- That was beautiful.

- Sure.

- Thank you.

- There's equality, and then one of the things that like, I think that applies, and I think we have a very hard time about in this country, is deference to people that are elected into a position.

And the Bible also says that we're supposed to respect our leaders 'cause they've been put into place for a reason.

And yes, he's allowed kings to fall away, like King Saul and that sorta thing so, but that was of his own doing.

But as a conservative Republican, I want to still be able to look at President Biden and say he's earned his role, from some people's perspective, and got the majority, you know, just like when President Trump was in office, he earned his role and got elected in by some sort of majority.

And I grew up with Trump, I grew up admiring Trump.

And so there's, you know, something, you know, I will look at him as somebody that, you know, I always will admire, and I may not look at a Democrat president in the same way, but I wanna be able to be deferential without the hatred, so we can have our elected officials come to the table and do their jobs.

- Learning comes easier for some people, right?

I couldn't learn the way you do or the way, yeah, there's no way.

I'm not built that way to, my brain doesn't work that way, to process nuclear science.

- No.

- Or AIDS research.

I mean, or to be able to run into a burning building.

- Yeah.

- It's gotta be dumb.

- You don't stop being, like curious about the other people, right?

I mean curiosity, I mean I've always been a curious person.

- Curiosity is personal.

- Exactly, and that- - And education can stifle fear, and those fears can turn into new legislation.

- Right.

- New law.

- And it can break down walls, whenever you become a curious person.

I wanna know more about East Indian culture.

I was excited to be able to meet with some of the indigenous people from India just last week.

You know, I've been to India, I've been to Poland, I've lived in, probably five years of my life has been outside the United States.

And in each country or each place I lived, always curious and want to understand more about Chinese culture, about Filipino culture, about Hispanic culture, you know, and in Germany I was living there, adopted by my Puerto Rican family.

But I mean in each place as being and building relationships with different cultures, religions, races, Muslim friends, you know, friends that, Buddhist, you know a very curious person.

I've been to a lot of different temples in China.

And I feel like that we're more the same than what we are different.

And whenever you are curious and wanting to learn, it does break down those walls and those stereotypes, that maybe you were either fed through, or maybe you developed on your own, you know?

And so I just encourage everyone to be curious, and want to learn, and just learn in your own way.

I built mine through relationships.

I didn't read books, right?

I think meeting people and talking to people from different cultures and backgrounds, is the best way to really understand, like me and Nisha's conversations.

The best way to really understand the people, listen to their voices, indigenous voices, Hispanic voices, Ukrainian voices.

You know, I think learning from the people is what we need to be doing.

- On that note, I wanna say thank you, very much so.

We have one more session, and thank you.