Social Justice - A Conversation

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Wesley Knight 0:06
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Charles Stanton 0:18
Good evening. This is Professor Charles Stanton. I'm a professor of Boyd School of Law,

Blanca Pena 0:23
and my name is Blanca Pena. I am a third year law student at the Boyd School of

Charles Stanton 0:26
Law, and this is Social Justice a conversation,

Blanca Pena 0:29
a conversation.

Charles Stanton 0:33
Well, good evening, everybody. Welcome again to to our program. We want to welcome all of you that listen to our program and welcome, of course, all people who have never listened before and you're joining in tonight. We have literally a enormous amount of stuff to talk about in in a relatively short time. But one of the things that I wanted to talk about with my partner Blanca here is just as we were saying before we went on the air, the seeming total lack of cooperation between our branches of government that seems to have worsened the situation that was already bad. So basically, as we talked to you this evening, we have a situation where, basically the question of whether people will get food stamp benefits, whether they will be able to get snap, whether they will be able to have some form of effective medical care, because there's there's, they plan to defund Medicaid, there's a funding of Obamacare, just, just, just for starters. And what's, what's very bizarre, though, is how the Congress is just inert. The House of Representatives goes on vacation for five or six weeks. I mean, it really, it really is almost like the government is shut down, not just, not just in a physical sense, but in a sense of any obligation to to us as the citizens of the country.

Blanca Pena 2:10
Yeah, and it's the people who pay the price. I think, you know, our so called representatives, I don't think they have too much to lose, right? I mean, they're still getting paid, and they're still, like, I don't think their life is as affected as the millions of people who are losing probably, like, what keeps them alive and well? And I'm so disappointed to just see the narrative around it all right? Like, there's already all of this divide, right? But you bring in the ignorance you bring in, you know, I already saw a bunch of tweets about like from people in the government, saying, like, the government is not meant to feed you or, you know now all of these millions of Americans on SNAP benefits can finally get a job. Well, it's like, you know, 16 to 17 million of those beneficiaries are children and another what good 15 million people do have jobs. They just don't make enough to eat. And I would make the argument that the government is supposed to feed its people. I think that's why it was established. It wasn't to wage war on people. I think if anything, it was to make sure that we have a thriving and growing society. And it makes me sick to know that these people, actually, you know, are comfortable with funding wars and funding tax cuts and funding ballrooms, but they can't even fund a program to keep the people fed. Yeah, it's disappointing. Yeah.

Charles Stanton 3:36
Well, I think, I think it's certainly, I think it's always been that way. I think this is just the opportunity that came came around to allow it to be pretty much legitimatized. I always think. I always have thought, since I was a young, a young man, that there was a terrible prejudice against the poor. Yeah, that being poor was some kind of a crime. And I think you can, you can actually draw a corollary between the way the poor are being treated in this case, and the way the homeless are treated basically, yeah, that it's that. It's that some kind of crime. I don't understand, though. I don't understand how, when all these things are going on, how you know the President is traveling to all these different countries, when our country, and when I say our country, I mean the country of all of us that live here is basically shut down. The airline industry is basically operating at like maybe 30 or 40% of what it's supposed to be operating because we don't have, first of all, we didn't have the air traffic control as we needed before that. But now. We have the air traffic controllers who were either fired or they were furloughed. They're not getting paid. And then, of course, while all these things are going on, you know, as far as you know, you know the furloughs and the layoffs and the not feeding of people, even for the people who have enough money to say, get food, the prices have gone through the roof. Yeah, and the the what I'm thinking about now is, what was that, that great promise that was made, you know, before the election, we're going to kill inflation. We're going to stop it, we're going to we're going to squeeze the life out of it, and prices will go down. Prices not only have not gone down, prices have gone through the roof. Yeah, and I think, you know, a lot of this, a lot of this has to do with tariffs, but I think a lot of it has to do with corporate greed. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that the corporations and the donors and the money class, they know basically that they can pretty much do whatever they wanted to raise prices as much as they want to, and nothing's going to be done about it. And

Blanca Pena 6:11
they're right about that, and they're right about that. Unfortunately, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, the systems are definitely failing, not even just with you know, you mentioned the airlines and airports. I before we went on air, I told you about my friend who was supposed to fly up to Oakland, and then she got a four to five hour delay, which is just ridiculous if you put into context, like sometimes people are in a rush to get places, and they might miss things, and again, the people are paying the price. And it's really disappointing to see, it's interesting when you brought up the homelessness conversation, because on my walk here from the law school, I was, I was just walking around, and I noticed all of the benches that have the anti homelessness architecture, you know how they have the dividers on the benches and stuff, and even on the brick ledges, like outside of the bookstore, they're, They're kind of like unleveled, like one is higher, one's lower, one's higher, one's lower. And I was just walking here, and I was thinking, like, Wow, all of the effort that it took to make it so no one can lay here or so no one can sit here for a long period of time. Isn't that sad, isn't it? I again, it's just so disgusting. How, like you mentioned, poor people are treated here. I started seeing also online, with all of this conversation with federal benefits about how there were these lobsters on Amazon that were snap eligible, right? They were like, $10 and people started saying, Well, you know, these lobsters shouldn't be snap eligible. Why do these people think that they can pay for lobsters? Right? But then a few weeks ago, I remember seeing people say, like, people shouldn't be using their benefits for soda or for cookies or drinks. It's like, well, where what is it then? Like, what is the right answer? Can poor people just not go to the store and buy whatever it is that they want or need. Like, let them budget for themselves. Let them make their own decisions. Because they're poor, they can't eat so like, eat chips and soda because they're poor, they also can't splurge one day on $10 lobsters. I and it just it's a shame that, instead of criticizing the billionaires, the highly unethical billionaires like it, yeah, the the kind of person you need to be to hoard all of that wealth like there is a good number of people who can collectively change the entire world for the better, the fact that they do not care enough to sacrifice, point, 1% of their wealth, right, which they're gonna gain right back in like, a day or two. You know, it's not like they're really gonna lose out on anything, like the fact that they don't care enough to be like, You know what? Let's pool some funds together. Let's fix some problems. Let's fund housing. Let's fund clean water. Let's help fix the climate. And they don't do that like I think that's almost like a purposeful decision that they make every single day to not do something with the resources that they have. I think it's highly disappointing and unfair that there are people who don't even know where their next meal is going to come from. Meanwhile, there are quite a few people out there who have spare jets and vacation homes and they have money to spare for generations. I think it's just sick, yeah,

Charles Stanton 9:30
well, I'll tell you when you watch when you watch TV. There's a program called the Gilded Age, which has become very popular because I think people see the relevance to today. You have the book that Andrew Ross Sorkin has just come out with, 1929 which describes what happened with the financial collapse. But what you're talking about, and you mentioned this in our last program, has to. Do with basically a lack of humanity, that everything is focused in on the individual and how much the individual can can procure, and the fact that you have all these people who are suffering from these circumstances that you're not part of any of that we live in a society today, unfortunately, where our society is very detached. Instead of having a society where, you know, you had teamwork and community and all the rest of that stuff, it's about it's about me. See, as long as I get what I want to get, whatever I want to get, whenever I want to get it, that's all it counts. And all these things that are going on in the country that are destabilizing. You know, the fact that people can't eat. The fact that people, people's health care is being taken away from it is really eating away at the fiber and the construct of our country. And there's like, this complete like disavowal that these people are our brothers and sisters who are living here now, you said it, well, when you said that, well, you know, with all the money that they have, just taking the interest of the money that they had, could help people, and they wouldn't feel it at all. But I think, I think the society has turned very insular in a lot of ways, and I think a lot of that has to do, I know this is going to upset a lot of people. I think it has to do a lot with social media. It has to do with the Internet. It has to do with this me ism, yeah, where people are in their own silo, and as long as it doesn't personally affect them, they don't care. Yeah, they there's just, like an oblivious quality. I mean, we you look at like, if you had an involved society, let's just say, and you know, people always talk about politics. These are not matters of politics. You can be a progressive. You could be liberal. I don't care about any of that, I want to know what the bottom line is. What are you going to do to help things? We have a government of three branches. We, as the people of our country, regardless of our political views, elected people to represent us. That's the way it is. But when people can go off for more than a month with all these, you know, crises going on, and we're left without any representation. I mean, it was interesting, and they were talking about, you know, the case down in Texas, where, Arizona, excuse me, in Arizona, where this woman, who succeeded her father, won the race for the House of Representatives. So that's one, that's one case that she still hasn't been sworn in. But it's the other 534, people, yeah, and the other 100 people that are in the Congress. Well, what are they doing? Yeah, you know, I don't understand. I just don't get it same. I just don't get it. I

Blanca Pena 13:27
think the individualism in this country is a very fatal flaw. I didn't realize how bad it was until, I think I started gaining consciousness. But I remember growing up and, you know my parents before they moved here, they grew up in Mexico, right until they were in their like, 1819, 20 ish around age. And they would tell me things like, the United States is so odd. I'm like, why? And they're like, because back in Mexico, you know, you know all your neighbors. You know everyone in your community. You go to events, you you hang out with people over the weekends, you go to church with them, you, you, you're in this communal space, and you're all there for each other, right? It's like, if something goes wrong, everyone's there to help, or people find out about it, and world and word spreads and things like that. And she's like, here in America, like, at least from our experience, we don't really talk to our neighbors. We just go home and, you know, do what we got to do. We kind of just focus on ourselves. If we see someone on the side of the street with their tire blown out, we just drive right by them. We, you know, we kind of, we're just so focused on ourselves. It was so bad, and to the point where this was a very long time ago, but in our apartment complex, one of our neighbors had died, and he was in his apartment by himself, deceased, and no one knew about it, because no one, no one talks to each other, no one asks people about each other. And so if we stop seeing someone for a while, we don't even question it, right? We don't. Don't because we don't care. It just goes back to the caring thing, right? It's like, if people cared about society, if people cared about humanity, they would not be so selfish. But nowadays, people are so individualistic. And I it's like, it's hard to laugh sometimes because, or Yeah, it's hard to not laugh sometimes because, you know, you have people who say, Well, we're not entitled to billionaires money, right? Like, that's their money that you should we should let them keep it because they quote, unquote, earned it. And it's like, I wonder if these people know that they are closer to being homeless than they will ever be closer to being stinking rich, right? Like a lots of people are one or two missed paychecks away from losing their homes, from losing everything, and we're acting as if helping each other out is such a bad thing. Why is it such a bad thing? It's not, I and like this is not crazy to say at all, but if people just helped each other more, we would be in a much better position, yeah, but we're not, and I think that that's what this country was built on. I mean, we had a bunch of white guys who came from across the pond saying, oh, you know, the divine God from above me told me that this land belongs to me and everyone else here that was here before me. They're a bunch of savages, and they don't know what to do with this land. It's all mine, so move out of the way, or I will kill you kind of thing, yeah? And that mentality is what started this country, and unfortunately, it's just gotten worse. Yeah?

Charles Stanton 16:28
Well, you can, you can see it. You can see it in so many things today. I mean, it's not just, it's not just one thing. There's something. There's something wrong, though, when you as an individual, are okay with seeing people who have no food or can't get medical care. You know, everybody has their own life, I understand that we all have our problems and our tasks and our, you know, all kinds of stuff. But you see somebody who's not having something to eat, or they're they're homeless, or whatever it is, something should activate in you? Yeah, I had the experience. This was a very interesting experience. This was a few months ago. I had come to, I was, it was the chevron station on Sahara and Maryland Parkway, and they had this woman. And the woman, she had a child, and she was, she was asking for money. And, you know, I don't know what her background. I don't know anything about her. I was, like, kind of flabbergasted. I was standing there, how the people reacted to her, like, it was like, almost, like, like, the abusive, almost, yeah. And the woman came to me, and she says, Do you have a few dollars, or whatever it was, yeah? And I said, Yeah, I have a few dollars. I said, Do you need food? You hungry? So I said, you know, there's a McDonald's over there. She had that kid with her, yeah? And I said, there's a McDonald's over to go over there and, you know, get something to eat. And then I left. I don't know, I don't know what she did with the money, right? But I knew that I was, I was, I was trying to do something, yeah, and what she did with it that was up to her, exactly. But like, the, just like, there's like a, there's like an antagonism, toward people who have less than we do, instead of us being thankful for what we have and appreciating what we have and then saying to ourselves, you know, I'm really lucky that I have these things, maybe I could help somebody. You know, it's just like, you know, like in education to use an example like, and I'm always saying this to the students. I said, it's a blessing to be here. You have this great opportunity. But I said the most important thing is that use that, use that opportunity wisely and move outside of yourself and do things when you leave here, that you can help people, yeah? And give and give back and be able to do stuff and and that's what we need to instill in our country, yeah? But the problem that you have, of course, Blanca, is the example that's being set by the people who are supposed to be running things who like they don't care at all. No, that's the

Blanca Pena 19:50
craziness, because they're taken care of. They're taken care of, yeah, yeah, yeah. They have no reason to do much. But I totally agree with you. I think there is. Such a negative connotation towards people who are less privileged, and it's really sad to see there's and I think that stems from the victim blaming of it all. You know, it's so easy for someone to look at someone that's out on the streets or, you know, can't feed themselves, and say, well, that's their fault. Why don't they go and get a job? Why? Like, why they're probably on drugs like that. That's probably their fault and they justify not helping them out. Yeah, and I, no matter how it is that someone got to that situation, whether it was their fault or not, we should still help each other out, right? Like there is this crisis, and it's only going to continue to get worse, because, as I mentioned, it's with all of these federal benefits being stripped away from people you, you now have this narrative going around of like, Oh, see now finally, these people can can go and get a job and feed themselves, because the government shouldn't do that for you, and it's that's not, that's not the point, though, you know, a lot of these people do have jobs, or they're not old enough to have jobs, and it's okay to help each other out. I am glad, like I am more than happy for my tax dollars to go towards feeding people and getting them medical care. I don't want my tax dollars going to, you know, we talked about this a little bit last week, about Donald Trump asking for what, over $200,000

Charles Stanton 21:29
No, he was asking for two 30

Blanca Pena 21:31
million, million, see, that's even, that's so insane, millions of dollars. Why? Why should our money go to that like that? That that is something that I will be critical towards, but money going to free lunches at schools. Yes, please. Like, let's, let's keep it going. You know, it makes me happy to be able to do that. It's, It's so disappointing. And even in my time at the public defenders over the summer, the number of people that were arrested incarcerated simply for being homeless. I mean, come on, we're we're already using the money to put them in jail. So how about we just direct our energies towards building housing for them and giving them more resources and not making shelters. So, you know, unattainable or strict? You know what I'm saying? It's sad,

Charles Stanton 22:21
yeah. Well, you know what it is, what is? What it is is that there's, there's all these things that could be done, okay? And one of the things that's the mythology is, well, these people could be working in these jobs, unless people are asleep, and many of them are, do people understand, over the last nine months, how many jobs have been eliminated in this country? Right? I'm still waiting for the actual true unemployment reports, because the government basically has been decimated. There's at least 20 agencies where they have lost anywhere from a third to a half of their people, yeah, and, you know? And of course, they would say, Well, you know, it's a bureaucracy, and they got rid of people, but aviation, the FAA, etc, etc, that's not really a bureaucracy. That's a transportation methodology that we've always sold to people as being safe. Now you're getting rid of all these people who are in the controller's position, furloughing all these people, not paying people. And this is an accident waiting to happen. And the and I say it's an accident waiting to happen, because, you know, they'll close some of the airports. What is going to happen? What is going to happen someday when they're short of controllers, and you've got, you've got a, you've got a 747, or 767, and they can't land, right? And there's no airport around there where they gonna put that plane down, yeah? And they don't, they don't seem to have any cognizance or recognition of this stuff. It's amazing,

Blanca Pena 24:12
yeah? And that's not even the worst of it. Like, what happens when people start starving and then they can't go to the hospital because they don't have any coverage? And, you know, it's, it's just like the problems go on and on. There was money for Israel, though, there was money for for universal health care in Israel. Like, it just, it's, it's sad. And also, another thing that I kind of want to throw into the mix the the amount of racism that I have seen over the New York City like Mayor race, that's been insane,

Charles Stanton 24:47
but I don't think, as a person who grew up in the city, yeah, I think, I think the racism that they're touting out is something even they don't. Believe in I don't think they really believe this man is a racist at all. I believe that they're using the racism because they want to make sure that this man doesn't get elected. Right? This man is not opposed because he's Palestinian, or or, or even, or even that he he's not 100% supporting of Israel. I don't think that has anything to do with it. I think what it has to do with it is he's going to have a new paradigm in the city. Yeah. And the paradigm is that for the first time, maybe in many, many, many decades, the tax system is going to be altered, and all these people who are living at the top of the food chain, they're going to have to start paying their fair share of taxes. That's why they're putting all this money into defeating him. Yeah? That's why, if you look at Andrew Cuomo, who was, you know, basically removed from the governorship, they're pouring resources into him because it's, it's, it's anybody but him, yeah, and that's what it is. They don't want this guy to be because he wants some kind of fairness and some kind of equity.

Blanca Pena 26:05
God forbid. God forbid. God forbid. Yeah, no, yeah. I remember Andrew Cuomo. I do not like that guy, but he he was saying, I think this was either during a debate or during an interview, but he said, you know, what if there's another crisis in New York? What if there's another 911 and it's so telling, the fact that he used that example specifically, right? Basically saying, oh, Mamdani, can't help us if, you know, we have a conflict with the Middle East, it's so telling. I don't, I don't know if they truly believe it, like as you're talking, I'm actually wondering to myself, are they, do they actually believe it, or is it just a strategy? A part of me thinks maybe they do believe it deep down, and they feel empowered to allow themselves to say it out loud. But I don't know. I don't really know.

Charles Stanton 26:55
Well, I'll say this from having worked in politics, which is, which is gonna sound kind of shocking. Go ahead. I don't think they believe in anything. No, true at all. It's all about the dollar bill. Yeah, it's all about the bottom line. It's all about the people who, the people who donated money to the President's campaign. It was all about, it was all about the dollar bill. Yeah, you know, you could say it was about racing, yeah, maybe a little bit, but it's the bottom line. Who's going to give us the tax cut, who's not going to regulate us, who's going to let us do whatever we want to do, who's going to keep us at the top of the food chain? That's all it is. Yeah, that's all it is.

Blanca Pena 27:39
The good thing is we, we have the numbers, and I'm hoping that people wake up in time. I you know, the 2024, election already happened, and we saw what happened, right? But that doesn't mean we just stop, right? I think we can still use the power that we have in our numbers to vote to organize, because it's not, it's not about when it's going to happen to us. It's when are we going to allow it to happen to us, I think, and I don't think we should, you know, I agree. So for all of those of you, for all of you listening, I hope you can, you know, reflect on what we said. Maybe think about resisting a little bit more, you know, joining the cause. Thank you all so much. Have a great night.

Charles Stanton 28:28
Yes, thank you and good night. Thank you for listening. You.

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