How to create a more just future with your community (with Raj Jayadev)

How to Be a Better Human

TED

Emotional Awareness, Personal Growth, Chris Duffy, Education, Interviews, Self-help, Better Human, Self-improvement

4.1 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 28 June 2021

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

How would you describe your community? And what if the stories you tell have the power to save someone from injustice? With the popularity and support of movements like Black Lives Matter, it seems the world is reckoning with how we think about the systems and institutions that support mass incarceration. Today’s guest, Raj Jayadev, wants us to focus on “proximate, intimate change” in our local communities and courts. He is the co-founder and coordinator of Silicon Valley De-Bug, a community organizing, media and advocacy organization based in San Jose, California. For over a decade, De-Bug has employed a methodology they call “participatory defense”, an approach where families whose loved ones are facing the criminal court system can use their stories to transform the landscape of power in the courts. Raj and the De-Bug team have expanded their work into the National Participatory Defense Network, with hubs in more than 30 cities. His community organizing and writings have been featured in the New York Times, BBC, and TIME Magazine. In 2018, Raj was selected as a MacArthur Fellow. If you’d like to learn more about participatory defense or get involved, you can start at: https://www.participatorydefense.org/

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0:00.0	Ted Audio Collective.
0:02.0	Audio Collective.
0:04.0	You're listening to how to be a better human.
0:10.0	I'm your host Chris Duffy.
0:12.0	There seems to be a big shift underway in the United States
0:15.4	and actually around the world when it comes to understanding crime and punishment.
0:19.7	And as we rethink policing and prisons and prevention and all the interconnected systems around them,
0:26.3	it seems to me like more and more people are getting involved and invested in these issues,
0:29.8	which is great. But if you're like me, to be honest, you may have gone to some marches and called
0:36.8	some elected officials maybe, but then I still drive by courthouses or detention facilities without thinking much about them,
0:44.6	maybe without even noticing. And today's guest, Raj Jiodef, he called me out on that. He challenged me
0:50.8	to think much more deeply about what that means.
0:53.0	What does it mean to mindlessly walk by these institutions,
0:56.5	but to never actually go inside of them myself?
0:58.8	Raj was awarded a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship back in 2018. Those are the grants that they sometimes
1:04.9	called Genius Grants. So yeah, he's a smart guy. And he got that award for his work on
1:10.4	participatory defense, which is an idea that he's going to tell us all about.
1:14.0	But more than just demonstrating ways to get involved, Raj also helped me to understand
1:20.4	how a system that is built all around punishment, it impacts families and whole communities,
1:24.9	not just the individuals who are on trial.
1:27.6	Look, while so much needs to change within the court system in the US. Our conversation also reminded me that no
1:34.5	matter where you live in the world, whether you live inside of the United States or
	...

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