in 1994 The Violent Crime Control and
Law Enforcement Act passed you probably
know it as the crime bill there was a
terrible law it ushered in an era of
mass incarceration that allowed
mandatory minimums three strikes laws
the expansion of the death penalty it
was terrible but it passed with
bipartisan support GOP House Speaker
Newt Gingrich architect of the
Republican revolution led the way signed
into law by Democratic President Bill
Clinton also in 1994 I was a senior in
high school when this bill got passed
and you were likely to find me on the
streets protesting any number of causes
including the crime bill so that's what
makes this picture all the more
surprising new was not on the top of my
favorite person in this country list but
this picture was taken in 2015 this was
the start of a movement that would pass
a bill called the first step act the New
York Times called it the most
significant reform in criminal justice
in a generation this you know 1994 nisha
on the streets activists might be
disappointed in this photo some of you
might be too but standing here today I'm
not this is what I'm here to talk to you
about today this is radical common
ground and I'm not talking about the
kind of common ground where you know we
can talk about how much we love
springtime our puppies are super cute
and it's not you know compromise common
ground this is common ground that's hard
it hurts it's a type of common ground
where you will be ridiculed and judged
it's the type of common ground that can
secure human freedom it can save lives
and it's the type of common ground I was
born to find it's in my DNA my dad was
born during the partition in India after
the Indian independence movement the
country was really divided between
people who wanted to keep the country
together and those who wanted different
independent nations and when the British
left they just decided to draw a line
the partition and make a new country
this started the largest mass migration
forced mass migration in human history
15 million people trapped on the wrong
side of these new borders 2 million
people dead during the partition and my
dad was the youngest baby and a Hindu
family on the wrong side of the border
and like families all around the border
on both sides they went into hiding and
I was told when I was little about the
story of my family and hiding and in one
day when armed men came into the house
that they were hiding in searching for
families my dad started crying and my
grandma started shaking him and my
grandfather in that moment he made the
choice that he'd sacrifice his son in
order to save the family but luckily in
that moment he stopped crying my grandma
she shook him and he stopped crying and
I'm here today because he stopped crying
but I'm also here today because of that
Muslim family that took us in they also
were held at gunpoint in an armed man
asked if they were hiding anyone and
they swore on the Koran that nobody was
in that house they chose in that moment
when the entire country
you were everybody in the region you
could hate people who had different
politics than you different religion you
could kill people that was what was
happening but they swore on their holy
book they chose the shared humanity over
politics of that day and weaselly we
lived and we survived and I start with
this story because often people tell me
that my mission for common ground is the
weak position but I ask how is about
Muslims family's actions weak because of
them my dad did grow up healthy in India
and he immigrated to this country and I
was born here in the late 70s and like
most first-generation kids I was born to
build bridges I was a bridge between the
old country in the new and just growing
up that's what I did I was a brown girl
in the black and white South in Atlanta
Georgia I was like on one hand
perfect Indian daughter straight A's
captain of the debate team but on the
other hand it was also this radical
feminist punk rock activist sneaking out
of the house for concerts and you know
getting arrested like all the time for
causes I was a mix of a lot of things
but they all live harmoniously in me
building bridges is just natural and I
think all of us represent mix of a bunch
of things I think we have that ability
to find the common ground but that's not
how I was living my life at all I moved
to the Bay Area in 2001 and this was
kind of a turning point for me it was
the start of the second Iraq war and I
was organizing with a bunch of activists
of course and we were thinking that
probably we needed to expand our circle
a little bit that we weren't gonna
successfully stop the war if you know
just amongst us so we decided we build
bridges expand our circle and so the
great anarchist versus communist soccer
tournament of 2001 was born that's it
that's how large my circle was allowed
to expand building bridges with Liberal
Democrats oh no way that was a bridge
too far
local electeds that was a bridge too far
and that was in 2001 I think you'll
agree with me now in 2020 it's gotten
even worse that division that tribalism
we won't sit down at dinner with people
who voted differently than us
we like see a mean tweet from our best
friend a tweet that like doesn't fit
with our worldview and all this and
they're canceled the purity politics of
the moment gone I sometimes wake up I
don't know what we're gonna do and
people will ask me how do we do that but
I know about common ground I feel like
we can build those bridges but it's not
easy I am I have a concept that I go
back to and it's a concept that should
be familiar to everybody since the
beginning of human history this idea of
the Commons this shared place in the
center of town Town Square the quad but
it's the place where you come together
your community and you can listen to
people on soap boxes with different
ideas
and you could be very different but you
come together because you know together
we're stronger than being apart and
today when I think of the comments I
think I extend it to kind of the
resources we all share collectively
owned like the air we breathe
I think of schools parks I think of the
intelligence we share we can share in
libraries or the Internet
and I think the Internet's important in
this digital age that shared humanity
that access to be together in the
Commons is at our fingertips but we're
not using that that way we're not coming
together to choose that path towards the
Commons and to be with each other you
also have to choose love that's a hard
thing but I know you can't go to the
town square filled with hate for the
town you can't lead a people you don't
love you can't lead a country you don't
love and uh I don't think you can change
the world and say I'm only going to
change it for the people just like me my
own circle of friends not for the people
I hate not for them it doesn't work it's
a terrible strategy it doesn't work but
that's what we keep doing I see it every
single day these silos are just getting
stronger and you know your corner of
Internet of the internet like Instagram
or Twitter we're just in an echo chamber
talking to each other so I can be really
comfortable in my Berkley democratic
socialist commons and talked to all of
you and my dad can be in his
bootstrapping immigrant Republican
Commons and I can watch MSNBC and he can
watch Fox News and we will not know the
same things we won't have the same I
mean we won't live in the same world we
may never know each other or be with
each other again and I don't want to
keep going down that path and I know we
can get back to a better path I know we
can find our way to the Commons and I
know that because I had a first like
front row first-hand look at the ability
to do it and do it on a large scale and
so I want to get you back to the first
step backed in the criminal justice
reform I interviewed for a job of Van
Jones about seven years ago
and he's been a mentor and my boss and
he's actually an inspiration behind a
lot of this in the speech and he told me
that we were gonna pass bipartisan
criminal justice reform and I laughed
because I thought that was an oxymoron I
was in the streets go figure
it's the Republican National Convention
in 2000 in Philadelphia and we were
protesting the criminal justice system
and there were no Republicans on the
streets with me at that protest
I remembered the crime bill I lived
through the tough on crime era I didn't
see it but he saw it he walked me
through it he saw me and people like him
on the Left who has always been an issue
of dignity and justice that this system
has been racist since the start and
discriminating against poor people in
people of color and it's issue of
justice and dignity so there we were but
he also saw something different from our
colleagues on the right the fiscal
conservatives they had an economic
incentive to do it they saw a system
that cost the taxpayers a whole lot of
money and was getting terrible results
and it wasn't making the communities any
safer the libertarian right who believed
in less government sought an expansion
of government control an expansion of
the police state mass incarceration is
like antithetical to who they are in the
religious right second chances
Redemption these are values that they
hold dear in the criminal justice system
I can't see those anywhere and so there
was common ground to be had and that's
what we set out to do and under the
leadership of the formerly incarcerated
folks who've been leading this forever
we built this bipartisan coalition to
pass criminal justice reform 87 senators
voted in favor of the first-step Act and
yeah
president Trump signed it and because we
were able to do that because we were
able to kind of look at that shared
humanity get over our distaste for
working across the aisle 20,000 people
have been impacted in just the last year
7,000 home who would not have been home
17,000 years of human freedom restored
just in the last year
in Republicans and Democrats in this
election cycle almost all of them
running are running on platforms of
criminal justice reform they are trying
to bring this bigger stronger bolder and
more reforms everywhere they are that
wasn't possible during the
tough-on-crime era but I also look at
this these are the people coming home in
my office we get a video like this
almost every day thousands of people
coming home and when people tell me that
common ground is the weak position or
that my love for the people or my belief
in our shared humanity is naive or that
if I work with folks across the aisle
that I'm somehow getting taken advantage
of I just look at this I look at the
people I say say that to this the folks
coming home say that to those 2.2
million people that are still behind
bars and so now our challenge is to make
this possible across a whole bunch of
other issues to you human rights
immigration I mean all sorts of things
health care mental health I think
there's common ground to be had but it's
not easy if you want change in a large
scale you need large movements and that
means our circles have to be bigger and
it's not easy being a lefty working
across the aisle I certainly get my fair
share of hate mail but I think that
that's exactly the radical approach we
need right now and so this is Jenny Kim
she is someone who is dead serious about
second chance hiring she wants to make
sure that formerly incarcerated folks
have a pathway to jobs and that
businesses make it an amazing place for
folks to work
she's also the deputy general counsel at
Koch Industries k och Koch she's an
amazing organizer and I'm proud to work
with her on this issue and an issue I
care deeply about probably a lot of you
do too climate which seems divisive
seems like there's no common ground to
be had there I think there is Trump's
own Department of Defense this year
released a report saying that all future
wars were going to be wars about
resources wars about climate and so yeah
I want to find partnership with the
military and I used to be the national
director national organizer for the war
resisters league the oldest pacifist
organization in the country
but if there's common ground to be had
there yeah I'll partner with them it's
not easy the approach means we need to
find love we need to get back to that
shared humanity in that Commons but I
know this love it doesn't get us through
Thanksgiving dinner it's the kind of
love that secures freedom changes the
world but to do that I have to step into
my courage and I want all of you to step
into your courage
just like that Muslim family stepped
into their courage from my Hindu family
all those years ago I think we can do it
but it's it's a little bit uncomfortable
if you are who I know you to be you know
someone who cares about change and
progress and wants to see something
change in the world it's you probably
want to know how but you're also a
little bit uncomfortable about me
standing up here and celebrating these
pictures with Newt and coke talking
about partnerships with the military I
want you to feel those feelings I feel
them too I don't enter into these
partnerships like lightly at all my
entire trajectory of who I am has made
me think that it's not even possible but
I know it is that feeling that
discomfort that's preceded every major
breakthrough in human history ever
that's that feeling that comes before
moonshot and so I want to make you even
a little more uncomfortable I want you
to think about an issue that you care
deeply about something that you want to
see changed on a national or global
scale think big what would resolution
look like on a large scale what would it
look like to solve that problem and can
you get there with just your circle of
friends I know you can't the anarchist
communist soccer tournament isn't gonna
help bring about that um change so I
want to think about how can we expand
that circle a little more where is there
common ground to be find found can you
think of any unlikely allies strange
partners further than that who's in your
way
who's stopping you from finding that
common ground and is there room for them
in that circle I think there is I think
we have to be able to find it at the
scale and it means that we're gonna have
to step into that courage and include
people hold our visions so strong know
that justice and freedom is so important
that we're able to include more people
love the people who might not love us
back and so I want to ask you who's your
Newt
who's your coke who's the military in
your story and I want you to find choose
that common ground thank you
you