Well, good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to this, the fifth issue briefing of the annual meeting of the new champions 2015, delighted to have you here and also delighted to welcome our audience watching this live on weforum.org, a fascinating session, I'm very glad you've all managed to make it to this one. This particular session is about neuro technologies and if you forgive me for a second I'm just going to find my right briefing paper. So, thank you very much indeed. We're going to start with a couple of introductory words by a panelist. You know the format of these sessions is that we try to keep those things as interactive as possible. We've already collected some questions from our online audience. You're more than welcome to ask questions. In fact, we encourage and would like very much for you to join in the conversation. We have our own translation devices so you can ask questions into Chinese if that's your preference. My colleagues on the panel today are Merrily Duriswami, Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Duke Institute for Brain Sciences in the USA. He's also a member of the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on Brain Research. A colleague from Duke, Nita Farahani, is a professor of law and philosophy. So coming at it, I think it's fair to say from a slightly different angle. Merrily, I'm going to ask you to set the scene with the simple question, when are we going to be able to read people's minds? We already are reading people's minds and we've been reading people's minds for a long time because we initially read it by looking at people's behavior. With EEG, we were able to tell how aroused a person was, how drowsier a person was, and now with newer functional MRI technologies, we're beginning to actually look at the content in people's minds as well as early stages of predicting their intentions. How's this going forward Merrily? Let's stick on that path for a while. The technology is moving forward and the research is moving forward. Which directions are you seeing it being taken in? There's two directions, I think. One is medical applications and the other is of course consumer applications. Now the most obvious medical application is when people cannot talk or cannot say how they're feeling or what they want. For example, people who are minimally conscious are in vegetative states because of a head injury, a stroke, they're paralyzed, they're not able to speak and they're not able to express themselves. There are already studies now that have used functional MRI imaging to try to communicate with the patient to try to establish whether the patient is conscious and aware and to try to see if the patient is in pain or not. So that is one obvious medical technology and as it evolves, I can see this getting to other applications such as in people with autism, people with mental retardation, people with dementia, et cetera. Now at the consumer end, obviously neither can talk more about it or perhaps you want to talk about it. At the consumer end, there are two applications that I see that are again obvious. One is in marketing and marketing can be good if companies use mind reading to deliver better products and services for us. An example of that might be already with our search engines on Facebook or Google when we search something we get recommendations, whether it is for a product or something to buy or a movie or some other recommendation. The second is to read your mind against your wishes and when you read your mind against your wishes, it might be either for forensic reasons, it might be for security reasons or it might be even someone trying to potentially hack your mind. And again, this is not all entirely possible now but the technology could be headed in that direction. Thank you, Mary Lee. Like so many of the breakthrough technologies or fast evolving technologies that we cover this meeting and that we take a fascinated interest in at the forum, challenges and opportunities in equal measure. So I need to perhaps a good time to ask you whether we should be worried. Are we getting the balance right? Is it possible that the disadvantages of being able to read people's minds for the applications Mary Lee's has given us that outweigh the advantages? Well, I'm going to back up for a minute and say, I don't think we can really read people's minds in the way that people think and they worry about. So in answer to the question of should we be worried yet, if what you're worried about is a person being able to read your thoughts, we're not there yet. Or to be able to hack into your brain to listen in and hear what you're thinking or see what you're seeing, we can't quite do that yet. But I'll give you a couple of examples of how we're close to that kind of technology and where we've drawn the boundaries of it right now. So one of those is a researcher in the United States by the name of Jack Gallant at UC Berkeley has done some work that has really been very groundbreaking.  So if I tell you to think about what you had for breakfast, you would imagine it and you would imagine it in pictures rather than in words. And what he's done is be able to use technology, fMRI, Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Technology, to essentially decode those images from your brain. So when you have something that you think of, a picture that you imagine, he can have a computer predict what that picture is that you're seeing. And then you can have a visual real movie time playing image that shows the kind of thing you're thinking about. That's about as close as we can get right now to mind reading and for many people that's terrifying. But we can't do that without your cooperation. You have to be explicitly thinking about something, looking at something and voluntarily in a Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Machine. If somebody puts you in one of those machines against your will, you could just think about a pink elephant or anything else. And if you think about that other thing, then the image that you don't want seen by the person who has you in the machine is something you wouldn't be able to see. So we can't really do anything like that against your will right now. But that being said, we don't really have any rules or regulations against reading your mind.  And there is no regulation that any government I'm aware of has put into place which would safeguard your thoughts, your images, your emotional state that could be picked up on. And many commercial companies are already investing a lot of money into figuring out whether or not they could pick that information up. So insurance companies would love it if drivers could share what's happening in their brain so they could tell if they're drowsy or awake. And if they're drowsy, then they could send them an alert or send your insurance company an alert so that they would know you drive while drowsy and are in an accident risk that should be charged more money. And Jaguar is one of the first companies who has decided to put into the headrests of the driver's seat technology that picks up the EEG, the electrical signals coming off of your brain, to tell what your emotional or physical state is at the time you're driving. So I think the potential for misuse is there and we're not there yet so we still have an opportunity to do something about it before it's used in ways that we wouldn't like. Fascinating. Really, really genuinely fascinating. So we're covering the medical and the more benign elements of this technology of mind reading. And maybe benign is a word you could apply for insurance companies trying to make driving more safe as well. But obviously there are privacy issues there at all. A good point now to open up the floor to any questions if anybody has any. No? Okay, well let's just do that a bit more. I mean it seems like maybe it's time again to revisit the whole concept of privacy. Data, social networking has made us rethink what privacy is about. And it sounds like we now have to go back to the drawing board and think about it again because there's no safe space anymore although the soon won't be. There may not be. So people talk about what does a world look like of total transparency.  They don't imagine the very thoughts that they're thinking being something that other people could see or have access to. We imagine that there is this last safe space that as we sit and contemplate ourselves or our world or have dissident thoughts about our governments or about our companies or anyone else, that those are thoughts that we can have without being in any danger. And if we get to the place where that is no longer the case, that's a pretty scary world indeed. And it isn't just scary for the political dissident, it's scary for the creative person as well. If I have an outlandish idea that might transform the world in a really great way, I might be scared to really think that thought almost out loud because once I think that thought and reveal that I am a divergent thinker, not somebody who is consistent with the norm, all of a sudden I might be somebody who is ostracised from the world, ostracised from the community. So I think there's a real risk in that world of total transparency about ending up with a lot more commonplace ideas and mainstream thinking just to avoid any sort of danger. Yeah, please, Murdi. Yeah, and I think there's also an age-related difference in opinion possibly in this. There's the sort of the digital natives, the people who were born with their cell phones, if you will, right from the age of one or two who are not that worried about sharing their data even though they should be. So, for example, they may buy a consumer device that has EEG and collects their EEG data without fully realizing the consequences. A lot of college students might use such a device, whereas the older generation I think is much more aware of privacy issues. So, in a medical setting, if we got an EEG, we would store those records very strictly because there are strict governmental rules in most countries about how medical data should be collected and secured. In the US, for example, we have very strict rules about how you can even communicate or exchange medical data. But once there is a consumer device such as an EEG-powered car, can we trust Jaguar or their great companies? In fact, Samsung, Hyundai was the first attention-powered car, even though they have not mass-produced it. Will these companies adhere to the same rules that hospitals do in terms of storing EEG data? And I think that's the worry because people have already hacked into a car and made a car come to a complete halt on a highway in the United States.  But in the future, they may be able to change your EEG settings. Who knows what they can do? Absolutely fascinating. Just to go back onto the answer, I'm kind of mind blown away myself. The whole EEG thing and the creativity and the narrowing and creating more greater conformity. Is there any kind of evidence already about this and the collection of EEG can have a negative effect on the creativity of people? Well not yet, but there's no sense in which this data is ubiquitously used. So, the kind of first place that this sort of tracking becomes normalized is fitness trackers. A lot of people wear different fitness trackers, Fitbit, Jawbone, you name it. They're wearing little armbands or they're wearing little devices that track their activity levels, track their sleep patterns. And they share that information with applications on their telephones, on their iPhones, on their mobile devices, which then shares that information with the company who's actually collecting the information. In fact, there was a company called Jawbone, and Jawbone has fitness trackers, where what they did was show just exactly what these companies are doing, which is collecting the information. There was a major earthquake that happened in the Napa Valley region in California and Jawbone wanted to know how many people woke up and moved around as a result of the earthquake. So that they could try to show how distant from the site of the earthquake the effects were felt. And so they looked at all of the Jawbone users and they saw based on both their GPS location that had been shared with the Jawbone device in the application and the user's activity how far out kind of in concentric circles from the site itself that people were affected. And that's a pretty benign use of it, but it shows the companies that we share information with are actually using it to learn a lot of information that is unrelated to the purpose for which we shared it. So people start with these fitness trackers and now these EEG devices are consumer based devices as well. And the companies who are selling them are making them more fashionable, more compact, so that people will start to wear them at all times. And it would give us a lot more information than the fitness trackers were. It would tell you not only your fitness level, but how alert are you, how drowsy are you, how hungry are you, are you likely to have an epileptic attack, are you likely to go into insulin shock, are you happy, did you find that funny, did you think that movie was scary. All of these types of things we could start to read from these EEG devices and to the extent that we're sharing that information with companies who are aggregating it and then selling it to other companies, that starts to become a much more transparent society. Does that lead to greater conformity? Maybe. Or maybe it gets lost in the noise. Maybe everybody feels like, well everyone thinks crazy thoughts or creative thoughts or dissident thoughts and so we stop worrying so much. I suspect that it depends in part on where you live and if you live in a society that you have fears about what happens if you think non-conformist thoughts you're going to be more likely to conform than if you live in a society where you fear, where that fear is more muted or less likely to lead to problems for you. Before we go further on this, let's go swing back to the positive side of this research and Mary, tell us more about the work you're doing on the medical side. You mentioned helping patients in vegetative states, but what other kind of applications in medicine and health can you see? Mapping the mind has many levels. At the simplest level would be early detection of disease. If you can map the mind, you can maybe detect early signs of Alzheimer's disease 15, 20 years before the patient actually develops it, maybe enroll the person in a prevention trial and test drugs. There are already brain scans available that can map certain circuits in the brain called a default network that appears to be abnormal in Alzheimer's patients many years before the full disease begins and can predict with a reasonable degree of accuracy. So that's a very simple low level of mind reading for pathology detection. The next level is fairly crude levels of activation in different brain regions. So I mentioned in coma patients, if you want to know if they're truly coma, you can ask them to imagine that they are playing tennis. If you see the motor cortex light up, then you know they're not truly comatose, they're just not able to express themselves. So that's called locked in. The third level is when neurosurgeons are attempting to operate on the brain for tumors. They want to know what parts of the brain are functional and what parts of the brain are tumorous so that they can very precisely cut out the tumor locations without damaging normal tissue. So they do functional MRI scans and they may ask the patient to imagine giving a talk or ask the patient to imagine playing tennis so they know exactly what parts of the brain around the tumor they can resect safely and what part they cannot. So that's called functional MRI guided tumor resection. And there are EEG-based applications. For example, Nita mentioned emotion recognition. There are many conditions, Asperger's, some forms of autism. There are other kinds of diseases where people are not able to interact socially. They lack social cognition. So perhaps an EEG-based device, if they can wear something that gives them cues about the appropriate emotion in the other person that they're interacting with that might improve their social interactions. There is an opposite syndrome called Williams syndrome where people are too socially interactive and they are too aware of the emotions of other people. So maybe there is a way to help them dampen their own emotions by getting feedback. So there are many, many applications that I can think of across the range. Terminal dementia patients cannot communicate when they're in a nursing home. Could an EEG headset help the caregiver better understand whether they're in pain, whether they're happy, whether they want some specific food types because we can actually now show specific pictures and see what parts of the brain light up in terms of their reward areas. So maybe the Alzheimer patient wants a dim sum or wants a pizza and if they cannot communicate maybe we can use this as a way to order some very specific food to their taste. I'm just giving random examples. Good examples. I know you're all hungry. He's getting laid. How about a question? A lady in the front and a lady at the back. You were talking this morning on the robot session about consciousness. I wonder if there's anything to do with that. Could you also just remind us your name and where you're from? Thank you, Olivia. I'm from China Business News. I'm wondering what is the linkage between the data and digitisation and with the neuroscience. Is there a venue that these two things can be connected and also are related to the AI? I mean, what is the linkage between AI and neuroscience maybe 10 years later now today? Was the first one data visualisation or big data? Digitisation, big data, right. So I think that's part of the kind of interesting thing about this. Already big data has so much information about us and big data as if it is a thing. Corporations, individuals, Google, all of these different companies are collecting huge amounts of information about us. It's very predictive. It starts to get a lot better the more you share. Is this just additive or is it something truly novel and different? All of that big data is really just trying to get at what some of this might get more directly at. Which is what are you thinking, what do you prefer and how do we get access to those preferences to try to sell you things or better predict your behaviour. The thing is there are many preferences and desires and behaviours that we aren't even aware of ourselves. So if you were to ask me all of my preferences I would do a worse job at simply telling you than you being able to observe my behaviours and predict them based on my actual behaviour. So I think there is something additive about this which is having big data and also having access to preferences, desires, visual images in the brain to have a much more complete picture of who you are in order to be able to predict what is going to happen with you in the future. That has great promise and also great peril because once I have a much more complete picture of you your freedom to make choices and to do things or at odds with that might be very limited.  So, yeah. To what extent the brain can be modified. I'm not sure if you have seen the front page of the economists. Just a USB can be plugged into one head just to modify your brain. Is it true or in the future is it something that we can achieve some day? So there are two questions.  Of course the more we learn about the brain the better we can design artificially intelligent computer programs, machines. For a machine to be brain-like we need to understand the brain at a very deep cellular level. The brain has more than something like 100 billion plus neurons trillions of connections. We really need to understand how they all work well together.  Once they give us a good picture of the brain then we can really develop smart computer algorithms and smart machines. It's called cortical computing like the neocortex where the computer can not just sort of do what it's programmed to do but it can learn to think on its own and program itself to changing situations.  It adapts itself and it's predictive. So computers are not currently that predictive and they can't program themselves. So for example there's a company in California that has developed a neural cortical algorithm that can solve CAPTCHAs. CAPTCHAs are these puzzles that you have to solve before you enter certain sites. It asks you to type. There's a Chinese group that has developed a neural algorithm that can beat many humans on an IQ test. So we're getting smarter. I don't remember exactly. It's a university group and I can share with you. I wrote a blog for the web a couple of weeks ago so that link is there on that blog and we can share it with you after.  Again, Nita can touch on this. We cannot plug a USB port right now. There are many brain computer interfaces being developed. They are somewhat primitive right now to either control a robotic arm or do crude movements. A very sophisticated brain computer interface has been developed where a person who is completely amputated has an artificial limb but the artificial limb is connected to the brain where the person is actually able to fly a fighter plane using that with very fine control. But we still can only get motor control. We don't yet have sensory input in these arms so we have not developed a brain computer interface that can give us feedback from the outside through the senses. We need both bi-directional input so that's what scientists are working on to develop right now. Nita, anything to add to that question? Well, I know that there are other questions and so I will add on to other questions. Lady at the back there. Can we have a microphone over? Thank you. Hi, my name is Nina Ruten. I'm from the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. A bit of a follow-up on these questions. I was just wondering how far are we actually away from these technologies to accurately read people's minds and to also be able to interpret the data because surely there must be a difference in cultural backgrounds and how we address what we think about certain aspects. How far are we actually away from that and also to have the capacity to analyse all this data? So it depends on what we mean by reading the minds. So if what we mean by reading the mind is being able to tell when you're paying attention or when you're drowsy or not, which are physical states of being but they are your mind in some ways, we're there already. We can do that already. We can't do it without your consent or without your permission so that's an implicit question that oftentimes is embedded in the question of when can we read your mind? I think far more complex like that, which is the kind of inner dialogue, the inner conversations that we have to ourselves when we think things, when we see something new, when we look at something or imagine something, how far are we from that? That we're a lot farther away from. So we have a few proof of concept studies that have been able to map crudly and not perfectly and with a lot of different repetitions images that you imagine or words that you hear but they are pictures that you're seeing in real time, not the imagination or a story that's being read to you. Still those studies have been replicated to be done on imagination as well. I say imagine a picture of an object so imagine that picture and we can decode it. All of that requires your active participation. It requires very sophisticated machinery, fmri machinery. It can't be done with things like EEG. It can't be done remotely. It can't be done without a lot of time, hours upon hours of a person laying still in a functional magnetic imaging scanner. There is a proof of concept that we can do some crude versions of reading images from your brain but nothing close to the kind of science fiction that people fear for reading your mind. Lady here, time for one more question. Thank you. My question is because this technology is very powerful so if most people didn't want to accept this technology, is it possible that scientists stop to research it? Does the research of this technology need to get most people's agreement? Thank you. So in order for us to really learn a lot, we need a lot more research done and part of that is a lot more agreement by people to be research subjects and imagine all of us agreed to wear EEG headbands, picking up the electrical activities in our brain. The result would be we would have a tremendous amount of information. We're trying to do that in a different realm with DNA. The more people who would be willing to contribute their DNA for research, the more likely we'll have real breakthroughs in DNA because we'll have so much more data that we can analyze. So we need a lot more research to make progress but there is a fear and a fair fear that people would have which is until there are protections in place for people sharing information, they may be reluctant to share that information because it could be used against them. And so what we need I think first is to create a safe environment for people to be able to share their information. Then we need a lot more people to be willing to participate in research to enable true scientific discoveries to be made and advances to be made much more rapidly. I agree with that. All of you have heard of crowdfunding for projects. I think what we need here is a crowdsourced global neural lab where maybe 50 million people from 180 countries all agree. They give consent and then there are protections put in place for their data privacy but then they all agree to contribute their data and we create the world's biggest neuro dictionary and that dictionary will then not only teach us a lot about the brain but then we can use that knowledge to develop better technologies. And to the question in the back it would also enable us to see there are a lot of differences semantically in how people from different language and different backgrounds process and store information and we would start to be able to really compare data and be able to see those differences if people are prompted to look at the same picture or think about the same thing we would see those cultural differences and how that results in differences in the brain. So with Functional MRI we can already map a lot of circuits in the brain and that map of a person's brain at rest is now being called as a connectogram and what we are finding is that an individual person's connectogram is fairly consistent within that person over time whereas there are big differences in connectograms across individuals and across cultures so we need to understand that that's why we need a dictionary if you will the first Oxford English dictionary required 10,000 volunteers who contributed 500,000 words so I think this is a good analogy and we are at that stage now where we are beginning to compile the brain's dictionary if you will. I can read Murini's mind and he's ready for dim sum but I'm going to just ask one more question if you may, both of you just in very brief terms just to give us what you think will be the next milestone breakthrough landmark in this very fast evolving space. Whoever goes first, I don't mind. Murini? Well in terms of brain reading I would love to see a portable functional MRI something that doesn't require a big expensive machine $3 million doesn't require heavy magnets and so people are using other kinds of light waves such as infrared to try to read the brain's activity and there are already companies developing a small portable machine that has the same high resolution. Nita? I think the next big revolution what I hope is that all of the major brain initiatives that are happening worldwide will result in a truly mapped neural pathway in the brain because in order to really understand what's happening there we need to understand all the connections between the different neurons in the brain and what we have a basic understanding as Murali has alluded to and consistency in an individual's brain we don't have a good sense yet or complete mapping yet of what the brain looks like and so with that mapping the whole world becomes possible with respect to neural technologies. Great, thank you. You've been great. Thank you Murali Nita, thank you all for great questions and for joining us at this late hour. Much appreciated. Thank you also for joining us online. This issue briefing is now closed. Thank you very much.


Welcome to Utrecht, the Netherlands, home to the world's largest bicycle parking garage, as well as the world's busiest bike path. And today we're going to go explore the city by bike on foot, its bridges, canals, and its bike paths. At the end of this adventure we are going to give the city a human mobility score. Here you can see Utrecht Central Station behind me, the Netherlands busiest train station, and what a magnificent structure it is. From this train station and one of its 21 tracks you can catch a train to anywhere in the Netherlands. If you want to get across the train tracks but you don't want to go through the main terminal building, you have some options. One of these options is to come across this bridge, which has a nice bike path built into it. Unfortunately there was not enough room to install ramps on either side of the bridge, so you do have to walk up your bike, get back on the bike, ride across this mount, and get back down again. This right here is by some measures the busiest bike path in the Netherlands and perhaps the entire world. And this is the main route towards the Central train station, shared with two bus lanes in the middle. When it gets really busy you can see a whole line up of cyclists waiting to get across this intersection. And for that matter a whole line up of buses as well. So here's the directions to the nearest bike parking. St. John's Plain is the biggest parking garage that we'll visit. Yarbrus is on the back of a station and then we have a much smaller one. To get to the world's largest bike parking garage you might need the world's largest bike path. And this is easily like 8 meters across. With the train station behind me this is the entrance to the world's largest bicycle parking garage. And I'm going to show you how wide this path into the bike parking garage actually is. So I'm going to do this by laying across here. And you can see I am about 1 meter 76 and that is about 5'10 for my American friends. And I am barely across one lane of this bike lane. So it is incredibly wide. I'm guessing maybe 5-6 meters which allows a lot of volume to get in and out during rush hour. And now that I've given you perspective of just exactly how wide this bike path is let's go take a tour of this bike parking facility. As we go in here you'll notice that there are ramps all around this garage.  You can just ride on through until you find your aisle. It'll even tell you how many spaces are free. Then proceed to put your bike in. The gray marks the pedestrian walkways and the red marks the bike path. So as you cross the red area just watch out and don't get run over. The OV Feets or the public transport bikes are available for rental in the bottom level of this garage. So if you have a Dutch public transport card you can access those bikes. Next we're going to bike over to the Daphne Shippersburg a bicycle bridge built specifically for cycling and walking. Along the way we'll see some bicycle streets that specifically designed for bicycle priority and some amazing canal lift bridges that have been designed way back when. This is just the beautiful bicycle street by the canal. Look at the buildings like the architecture and look at the nature that's around here. With the bicycle street you can fit so many people on the same width of lane. We are like 10 minutes outside the city by bike and just look at how peaceful it is here. This video is brought to you by the EIT Urban Mobility Academy and if you love learning about urbanism check out their new courses at urbanmobilitycourses.eu. Link in the description below. Behind us is the Daphne Shippersburg named after a famous track and field Dutch athlete and this bridge goes over a primary school and winds across the canal. They had to make that little loop detour to make sure that the grade was easily climbed if you only have a single gear on a Dutch grandma bike and from the central station this bridge did manage to cut cyclist commutes by about one kilometer. And of course now the fun part is going down this bridge you do have to hit the brakes quite a bit coming down just to make sure you don't run into anyone but it's actually a real fun ride look at this. It's gentle enough for coming up and down and the curves are like really quite pleasant. Behind me here is the Caterine Single in the heart of Utrecht and up until a few years ago this was a six lane highway and it has been recently restored to its former function as a canal way through the center of the city. This is just one of the many amazing transformations that Utrecht has undergone in recent years. It's an absolute pleasure to be walking along the canals of Utrecht. It's slightly different than those found in Amsterdam because they're higher up which allows these canals to be used for things on the lower level. They have a really cool system going on here where boats can deliver to the lower level. They have their storage rooms down here when they need to use the products and they just bring them up to the upper deck of a canal and that's where you have most of your shopfronts. Now most of the lower level is better used for dining and yes emergency vehicles do get through here. People tend to move out of the way so it's not a big problem. I hope you enjoyed that tour of Utrecht and everyone's and now we're going to give the city a human mobility score. For transit we're going to have to give it a five out of five because it is the largest train station in the Netherlands plus there's very good local transit access including a tram direct to the university that was just built a couple of years ago. On the front of cycling five out of five just for the sheer busyness and the width of the bike paths in the city. For walking I'm going to give it a five out of five again here because in the front of the station there is direct access to some very nice walking paths canal and a very modern shopping mall. On bike share I'm going to have to give this a three out of five. Despite a very excellent public transit bike share system the OVE Feets it's difficult to find any other types of bike share. There's donkey public here now but there's a lack of scooter and electric mobility options. In total that gives Utrecht and everyone's a human mobility score of 18 out of 20 which is very impressive. So I hope you enjoyed that tour of Utrecht and everyone's and I will see you at the next city.


Looking in from afar, it could easily be mistaken for a family reunion, but it wasn't. In Letcher County Friday evening, the National Socialist Movement and the Traditionalist Worker Party, both white supremacist groups, gathered for a banquet, a prelude to Saturday's planned rally in Pikeville. It was a friendly low-key gathering early on with dinner and fellowship. EKB News, along with a handful of national and international media, was invited to Friday's gathering under several conditions, including not divulging the exact location of the event. The event saw a large turnout, and those present, by a large margin, out-of-state visitors from all over the country and Canada, were not shy about their beliefs.  This is what's called cultural Marxism. It's basically an attack on Western civilization via pop culture and media and the established sources on those kinds of things. We believe nationalism as a concept works for every group of people. We are not a hate group in any way.  It's just that we have a sense of identity with our own race, which all people have the right to have. I would advocate for any other racial group, and I would be allies with any other racial group that insisted on having a nationalist worldview over the globalism and the forced multiculturalism that we live with today. You know, I'd prefer if going down the road, demographic road we're going down, we're going to be a minority someday. So it's better sooner rather than later that we start advocating for our own interests. From the inside looking out, it was hard to escape the message of the TWP and the National Socialist Movement. Some ask not to be photographed, but no one hid from the group's beliefs. We don't hate ourselves, you know, we want to have rights just like everyone else to advocate for our own interests. Any other group can advocate for their people. Like if this was a Black Pride event, none of those people would have any problem with it. They would have no problem whatsoever with us being out here raising money for the people. If this was, say, a Black Lives Matter rally in Detroit, and they were trying to help the poor there, the media would definitely have a different approach to it. One man from North Dakota said he hopes to take notes about community organizing from the events Friday and Saturday. I came down to support NSM because it seems like they're the only people telling the truth about a lot of the issues that are out there. And I figured this is a good way to learn community organizing skills that I can bring back to North Dakota. And as the rally loomed over Pikeville, all, including those at Friday's event, hoped for the best. From Letcher County, Chris Anderson, EKB News.


Monday, May 8th. Thank you, Pamela. This meeting is being recorded. I'm calling to order the African Heritage Reparation Assembly meeting Monday, May 8th at 2.05 p.m. With the extension of Chapter 20 of the Acts of 2021, this meeting will be conducted via remote means. Members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so via Zoom or by telephone. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means. And I did say this before we started recording that Dr. Rhodes and Ms. Bridges are both unable to join us today, and Alexis will be joining us late. So just a quick sound check to make sure everybody can hear and be heard, and I will start with you, Dr. Shabazz. Yes, I can hear. I can hear you. Great. And Halla? Yes, can you hear me? Yes, really good. Thank you. Ivan, maybe stepped away unless that's a... No, I'm still here. Oh, okay. I wasn't sure if that was, if you had stepped away from your background or if there you go. Okay. Sorry. No, no, that's great. And Pamela, can you hear us? I can hear you, and I did notice a minute ago that two of your participants had their hand raised, but I don't, and I'm, they're not individuals that I'm familiar with, and they may have lowered them by now. Let's see. They're lowered. Yeah, so, okay. Matea's there if you want to, Matea's there if you want to bring her in as a panelist now. Yeah, I'm actually going to hold off. I'm going to call a period of public comment and then just go over some quick things in terms of a listening session we have coming up, and then I'm going to bring Matea over so we can begin our discussion on the final report. But I... Go ahead, Dr. Shabazz. Sorry. We're saying, so yeah, so there's one hand up. Yeah, so I'm going to open up our first period of public comment, and I'll just quickly read the statement during the public comment period. The chair will recognize members of the public. When called on, please identify yourself by stating your name, pronouns and residential address. Residents are welcome to express their views for up to three minutes at the discretion of the chair based upon the number of people who wish to speak. The HRA will not engage in a dialogue or comment on a matter, but we will be listening very closely. And sometimes we can answer questions if we do have the answers to questions. So if you would like to make a public comment now, please go ahead and raise your hand. We will have a second period of public comment a little later in the meeting. And Pamela, are you moving folks? Okay, great. Welcome, John. Can you hear us? John, would you like to make a public comment? Okay, it sounds like we might be having trouble. Oh, here you go. Here you come. John, would you like to make a public comment? Okay, it looks like John was disconnected. So we will keep an eye out for John and bring them back if we see them in the attendees again. So we can bring over Lauren and then we'll keep our eye out. Welcome, Lauren. Yes, hi. Good morning or afternoon. Can you hear me? Yes, very well. Thank you for having the public comment. My name is Lauren Mills and I was recently at a community meeting that asked for pronouns and I was just thinking maybe it may for some people feel uncomfortable to share their pronouns. So I would prefer not to, even though I haven't passed and I just wanted to share that for others who may prefer not to. But that was not part of my public comment, but I wanted to share that. And thank you for making the opportunity for us to share our feelings because a lot of times I think there are other residents who, if they were to have the ability to make public comment, they may not be comfortable, but I thank you for having the space that is comfortable to share our opinions. So my public comment today is on a few things. I feel from the last meeting that I wanted to share the thought that I personally do not agree that town reparations efforts should focus on federal attempts for reparations and that the AHRA's recommendations within individual municipalities should focus on local community driven solutions instead. Also reparations should address violence in our society and impacts on mental health and youth such as grief and healing. Not knowing how to grieve could be part of the reason why communities of color have a disparity in violence and a disparity in grief because grief is a social disparity in communities of color. So communities of color may not know how to grieve are not able to grieve and are covering up grief with unhealthy ways and that could show up in many ways in our community. I'd like us also to, as a community, think about how we are defining ourselves and are we actually defining ourselves? Again, the term black, it is synonymous with something negative many times in society, in the largest society and does it encompass more than just in tone? Is it the same as using the term African American for black Americans? Where and why does the media use the word black instead of African American and how can we not reinforce the negative perception when conducting research and outreaching to communities of color? I also wanted to state that we are more than a political identity like researching what the definitions of certain labels means. Being black could be a political identity and we are more than a political identity. We are more than the oppressive situations that we may find ourselves in. As the musical artist in the IR says, I am not my hair, I am not my skin, I am not anyone else's expectations, but the soul that lies within and Erica Badoo says that in her bag lady song that love can make a lot of things better. And sorry, I'm trying to read my own notes here. Also, the black population amherst can reject or accept any recommendations from the HRA just as the town council may and it is important of having a way to honor and recognize black African American contributions in art, culture, and academics in our community in the HRA meetings. And I hope that this is something that the HRA and any coalition committee that follows it will take up. And lastly, I always, you know, go for more than what I was going to do, but I would like to just say and give things for the artists who have paid the way and have shared their thoughts with their music and one being Little Richard who is no longer with us, but his music lives on and also I'm sorry, Bell Hooks, who was a writer and I would like to leave with the quote from Bell Hooks, as she said that I see it, the civil rights, she sees it as a great movement for social justice that was rooted in love and that politicized the motion of love and that real love will change you. So I just wanted to share those thoughts and thank you very much for public comment. Thank you, Lauren. Thank you very much. Is there anyone else? I'm sorry, I meant to move Lauren and I moved Michelle by mistake one second. Okay. All right, we should be back. Michelle, I'm so sorry, I was trying to move Lauren. No worries, I was able to hear that all go down so don't know that's fine. All right, so if there is anyone else in the attendees who would like to make public comment at this time, please go ahead and raise your hand. And otherwise, we will move on and we will have a second public comment period later. All right, so I'm not seeing any. So I'm just going to give a couple quick updates and then we're going to bring Matia into the room so that we can have a discussion about our final report. The first update I wanted to share is our survey closed today. And we did have a discussion with the Donahue Institute about keeping the survey open, you know, to collect responses, meanwhile having them begin to do their analysis, but there were lots of reasons why that wasn't the best way to approach approach it. So we did close the survey and there's a statement at the if you come to the survey now you'll see a statement that says the survey has now been closed. However, if you would like to provide feedback to the HRA here's how you can do it. And here is further information about the HRA. So just some final numbers. We have as of this morning when it closed a total of 614 survey responses. And we have of that 614, 95 respondents identified as Black and 428 do not. So they, the process now is that the Donahue Institute is going to create tables for each of the responses and then provide those for each of the questions excuse me, and then provide those to us prior to our meeting next week at two o'clock so that we'll have visuals and be able to look at the survey responses. We also will have seen the narrative responses in a PDF document. And I've started to look at some of those, but I received them last week. So there's going to be an updated PDF with all of the narrative responses. And then the Donahue Institute will be looking for some information from us and feedback on Monday based on what they provide to us in terms of how we would like the final product to look in their analysis. So are there any questions or comments about the survey or the anything regarding the survey at this time? You mentioned there were good reasons to close. Could you share with us one? Yeah, sure. If I can remember Dr. Schvast. Yeah. No, I think that the primary concern that Kerry had is if we left it open and somebody responded to it, they would be under the belief that their response was going to be incorporated into the analysis. However, the analysis must begin now if we are to have our final report due at the end of June. So we did consider the possibility of leaving it open only for narrative responses. We explored some different possibilities and then we landed on to ensure that anyone who wants to provide feedback would have their feedback heard and somehow included. It would be best just to let them know that the survey itself is closed, but they could reach out to us. However, Dr. Schvast, and maybe this is for a different, this is for a different meeting, but we did start to explore the possibility of that survey being an ongoing survey that the town of Amherst could have available for residents as this process continues. And how might we do that in a way that is so that it's a living mechanism for collecting feedback as the process continues? Does that get at your question, Dr. Schvast? Okay. Yes, thank you. All right. Any other questions about the survey? Okay. I will share feedback. Kerry and other members of the Dunnehu Institute were very pleased with the number of responses, particularly considering that we didn't do a mass mailing and it was really our own efforts at reaching different people in the community and sort of approaching it in a multi-layered, multifaceted way and they were very happy with the response rate. However, I think that we of course wanted to hear, we still want to hear from as many folks as possible, so we will continue to consult as we can throughout this next couple of months. Okay. The only other update before we bring Matia in to talk about our final report and I'm noting that Yvonne has to leave at 2.45 and that means that if Alexis does not arrive in that time, we will lose our quorum. So the listening session for the survival center, I met with the survival center last week and the listening session is tentatively scheduled at from 12.30 to 2.30 on May 18th. It's a Thursday and as many of us who can be there as would be great, we don't all have to be there. What they've suggested is that from 12 to 12.30 we have a table in the dining room where we can provide information to folks who may just casually want to engage with us and then in their room that's sort of more private at 12.30 once folks have had a chance to get their meals, they can join us in that room if they would like to participate in the listening session. And we have some marketing materials, they're going to put them on all of their napkin stations and they're going to get them out to the community there at the Amherst Survival Center to try to raise awareness and get as many folks as possible to join us. Does anyone have questions about that? Okay. If there are, I have been trying to reach Mary Custard. I sent an email and I followed up with a voicemail, I believe Jennifer Moisten also followed up with a voicemail. Mary is the dean of students at the high school and trying to reach her to see if it's possible to engage the high school students in a listening session. If anybody is in contact with Mary or knows somebody who has a connection with Mary and would be comfortable or available to reach out to follow up with her, that would be fantastic. I think that's the one group we really, the youth in the high school that I personally would like to make sure that we consult with before our work is completed. Okay. So I'm going to, Hamely, if you could bring Matia in, that would be fantastic. Welcome Matia. Hello. Thank you for having me. Absolutely. Thank you for being here. Can you hear us okay? I can. For some reason, I'm not seeing myself. I must have, are you hearing me and seeing me? I hear you and see you. Yes. Everyone else here. Yeah. All right. Welcome. Thank you Matia. So in case you weren't here when we talked about Matia joining us in a previous meeting, Matia was integral in helping the reparations for Amherst group with the two research reports that we worked on and is a writer by profession and she can say a little bit more about her wonderful self in a second. But the other piece to know is that Matia's heart and soul is very, very much in this with us. And so I couldn't think of a more perfect person to help us with this, particularly the editorial pieces of getting our report together. So I thought we could just quickly begin. Actually, you know what? Let's do it the reverse. Matia, you were going to kind of pose some questions to the group and then if we would like to review our charge, once again, we can do that if it's helpful. But for the sake of time, thank you. Great. Thank you, Michelle. I am very much honored to be brought in the room today and to assist in the final report. The questions that I wanted to pose and then hear from as many assembly members as possible today and perhaps over a couple meetings is really the very open-ended question of from preamble to recommendations, what do you want the report to say? And I will, in my work as a writer and in technical writing, often use and will in this case plan to use the transcript of all of your words to begin to put the that work into prose and then we will come up with a collaborative back and forth as I work in all feedback until there's a sense that it's where all assembly members want it to be. So I will step back and again that question is from preamble to recommendations, what do assembly members want the report to say? Thank you, Matia. And I'll just quickly, I'm going to just quick, I can't, Pamela, if you're able to allow me to share screen, that would be great. I just want us to quickly consider our charge. There we go. Okay, so here's our charge here and so at minimum the report needs to include a plan for developing ongoing funding streams to repair past harms, an allocation plan including eligibility criteria, additional means of repair for anti-black structural and communal racism, and this is in coordination with various groups and we've tried to be in touch with these groups throughout our process. This is the minimum, however, I imagine that our report will include much more than this and you know I think it's not a secret that the world is watching us in some ways in terms of our reporting and so this is for our local community absolutely and also you know sort of setting up a model in some sense for other communities who might be while unique also pursuing this work. So I'm going to open up the floor. Yes, Yvonne, please. I just have a quick question about like are we, what, when is the end of our term for the committee and are included in the report? Do we suggest continuing the committee? I think that happened last time as well, correct? Yeah, so our, this particular body, our charge is up at the end of June so ideally our report will be ready to present at the probably earliest July council meeting and whether this body recommends a successor committee or another committee is still yet to be determined but that certainly could be a recommendation in the report. All right, so Alexis, welcome. Can you hear us? Hi, yes. Can you hear me? Yes. Thanks for being here and we are meeting Alexis with Metia Cramer who's going to work with us on our final report. I'm not sure if you heard the question that Metia posed but we're looking for assembly members to provide feedback to Metia with respect to what you would like to ensure is in the final report. So the floor is open for any other comments that you might want to provide to Metia. I will say, oh yes, Yvonne. All right, so Metia, you actually are the writer and so you said that you were taking some of the information that we give you including maybe minutes of our meetings. Is that what you're... Okay, great. And then synthesizing that into a report. Do you think that they'll be specific? Should we be trying to work up an outline for you or will you do that? I am glad to do that. What I imagine is that it's easiest for assembly members to dictate, so to share live what you want to be written and then that that could be the easiest workflow. I'm glad to receive an outline if that feels best, if that feels like the best way to proceed from the group and if not, I will exactly synthesize as the perfect word. Take the minutes, the retreat audio, what you folks, all assembly members over today and when Dr. Rhodes and others have a chance, Ms. Bridger, have a chance to be on as well. We'll use those transcripts too and then any and all other supporting materials including of course the survey results and so forth to synthesize into a report and yeah. Michelle, do we have a time frame? Our report is due at the end of June, so we're going to have a very condensed writing period. Essentially the survey results are going to come to us and then to Metia. Metia has already started to transcribe the listening sessions, the retreat. We did make a request to have other meetings transcribed as well and then of course I think one of the things that Metia and I have spoken about is we want people to read this report and we want it to be vibrant and alive and so what that may mean is a shorter report with a lot of appendix. Is it appendix? So what I, my thinking and I'm going to go to Dr. Shabazz because I know he has thoughts on it as well. I was thinking that if he and I could, based on the charge, begin to draft an outline with respect to like the bones, the bones of the report and then bring those to you all to sort of see how we want to fill in. Let's go to Dr. Shabazz and see what what thoughts I have for you, Dr. Shabazz. All right, so thank you. I am like you were raising a moment ago looking at our charge for guidance and when I do that, I basically see three major areas. One concerns the section of our charge that says a plan for developing and ongoing funding streams to repair past harms committed by the town against black people. So I think there that's one area this report needs to speak to is our plan for ongoing funding. You know, part of that is something we initiated early on and was approved or at least the general direction of it was approved and that is developing a fund up to two million based upon money that are available from the previous year's budget once it's certified as free cash and that from that amount of certified free cash, as you all recall, we are getting a percentage more or less modeled on the amount of cannabis tax revenue that was collected in that same year. So we would certainly in this funding section report on that piece, but then I think there is more to be added in that section in the way of other funding streams. And of course, these are things and all of the things I'm going to mention as I go through one, two and three are things that will have to deliberate before Mattia could write up anything in that area. We need to deliberate and make certain decisions that I mean we need to begin doing this soon in our forthcoming meetings, putting forward a motion in advance, giving people some time to research and think about the motion and then coming to the meeting prepared to vote the motion, amend the motion and then vote it or vote it as is, up or down. And so for example, and I lean on our chair for guidance particularly, but you know how to begin to fashion a motion that talks about other funding streams that we have at least talked about if we want to further talk about identifying them that's where we need to go but for example, Community Preservation Act funds could conceivably cover things that have come up in the course of our listening and the course of our work over these past many months that rather than trying to pull it out of the two million dollar fund that we've that we're developing or rather than try to ask for it as some separate appropriation, if it follows under the general criterion of those four areas that the Community Preservation Act supports, open space, recreation, historic preservation and whatever that fourth one is, I'm blanking right now, but recommendations that concern Black residents of Amherst that could fall into those four areas, I think it was co-housing is the fourth one, then we ought to list that as a recommended funding stream that somehow the council and the CPA maybe deliberate on how it will respond or prioritize recommendations that may come in the area or projects and proposals that may come in the area that would relate to Black reparations. And again, there are other funding streams we might also think about besides the two we've mentioned the the free cash amount being tucked away modeled on cannabis revenue as well as the CPA funds that may follow, but we ought to have a discussion about that funds in the area of housing funds in the area that are already, already in other funding streams, if you will, that we might argue or we might present an idea that some of those funds ought to be reserved or prioritize to reparative justice actions. Finally, the other two matters, we talk about eligibility criteria. Now, we've talked about this a lot, we need to again move toward voting up or down where we stand. The little document that I have presented again acknowledges a lineage test as a as one domain of eligibility, but it is not the exclusive domain of an eligibility criterion. I that document argues that there are to be, we ought to think expansively. And while some projects may be targeted to and prioritize those that meet the lineage, as well as racial identity, as well as residency standard, there may be other areas of harm other areas experienced in the community, where the people are Black, they're African American, but they don't meet a lineage test. So we need to come back to that, we need to revisit that, and we need to vote up or down again before anybody can can write up in this area. We've got to make a decision on it. And thirdly, and finally, the charge raises that additional means of repair for anti Black structural and communal racism, including public events, activities, prioritize truth telling and reconciliation. So again, this dovetails with what the report will show, the survey will show, and the analysis of the survey will show regarding the area where we provided respondents to the survey. I don't remember five, six, seven different truth and reconciliation areas that based upon what we're hearing, what the feedback is of the nearly 100 persons identifying as African American Black or of African descent, that group, we need to look at those responses, we need to look at any narrative information around those responses, we need to look at the non African Americans, the non Black descendants of enslaved people as to what they raise as well. And then think about all of our listing sessions. And then, you know, again, start to develop a proposal that outlines that suggests what our actual recommendations are around the truth and reconciliation processes that we believe ought to occur as part of Repair of Justice. And then there is related to that third area, you know, the other groups, the interfaith community, the business sector, the other departments of town government, you know, Pamela Nolan Young and the DEI office and Jennifer, you know, soliciting their ideas, their input on initiatives and priorities that they see specifically relevant to Black folks, to African American residents of this town, that we can support within their work or call for support within the initiatives they're already taking. And again, fashion a motion on that, approve that. Otherwise, then we're not, I don't think we're able, we're going to be able to fulfill our charge if we don't reserve some time over these next few few weeks and meetings to actually talk about motions in each of these areas of funding, of eligibility, and of the ongoing truth and reconciliation and relationship to other departments and activities in town. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Shabazz. Let me just highlight a couple things that you said. So I have started to work on, similar to what you've described, a series of deliberation meetings to a schedule, essentially, to put out to the group. And I think you're absolutely right. It's time that we have that dedicated time to deliberating on these matters with actionable motions in place that we can move forward. In the meantime, I think Metia can start to frame the report with the, by documenting sort of the work as it has arrived to this point, including what our charges and what sorts of things we have done, such as the passage of the $2 million commitment, the consultation process, sort of, and again, these might be as part of appendix, they may not be the bulk of the report, but they are things that Metia, as we're working through deliberations, you could begin to work on so that we're not sort of at the last minute trying to do everything. I also wanted to clarify with you. I have to leave. Yeah. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Bye-bye. Do you have, I believe, Metia, that I sent you Dr. Shabazz's position paper that he was referring to? Do you have that? I don't have that, although you have mentioned it to me, so I was aware that the process to understand eligibility, that that has begun, assembly members had a chance to digest what Dr. Shabazz put together, and I understand that that, so that that is underway, but I have not seen that document myself. Okay. Great. Unless Dr. Shabazz has some updates to that, I'm going to go ahead and send it to you, and so you can, and that's something we're going to be discussing in the very near future. The other thing to Dr. Shabazz's first point, I think something we want to consider is cannabis tax revenue is looking like it's going to be declining. It is already declining, and that may be the trend. So we may want to consider expanding upon that piece to include a recommendation that takes that into consideration so that we're not getting into a situation where we're only putting in $100,000 or 100, we may want to figure out a way to work with our finance committee and our council to ensure that at least the amount that we've historically been putting over is maintaining itself. So those were just some thoughts that I had right now based on what Dr. Shabazz has offered. So are there any other comments or questions, and just I think, Matea, as far as I understand it, is this is a priority for her, and she is, I think even in between meetings, if there are comments or suggestions or questions, am I speaking okay to say, Matea, you're available? Absolutely, and I think perhaps sharing my contact information with all assembly members, glad to receive, and actually Dr. Shabazz, in the last meeting you mentioned, making sure that we all had eyes on other cities' reports, for instance, so California's report, Providence's report. If there are other pieces of guidance like that that assembly members want to share to make sure, you know, I went back and reviewed the community safety working groups' final reports, for instance, because some of their recommendations remain relevant, of course, and unrealized. So if there's guidance like that that assembly members would like to share, that's very much welcome, as well as any other kinds of guidance or things that folks might want to send along. Perfect. Thank you so much, Matea. All right. So let me just check here. Okay. We do have four folks in the attendees, so I am going to call another period of public comment. I am going to, in the next day or so, follow through to send you all a schedule for upcoming deliberation meetings. They'll be entirely centered on deliberating the various matters that Dr. Shabazz just spoke to us about from our charge. And I will also work on putting together some motion language that we can use to move those forward. And I believe that Ms. Bridges and Dr. Rhodes will be available. I did want to check in with Alexis. Alexis, if you'd prefer to check in offline, we can certainly do that, but I did want to check in with you knowing what's happening in your life and seeing if you had anything that you wanted to share with us in terms of where you might be in the next several weeks. Yeah. Let me, yeah, let's connect offline. That sounds great. Okay. I will touch base with you. All right. Let me just see here. Oh, and just another quick update. I did submit with the help of Pamela and Jennifer, a revised Amherst Cultural Council grant application form. And I believe they're meeting this week. So we should probably hear something back from them. Depending, we put forward two options. One was to use the $500 to have our meetings transcribed as part of early documentation of our work for a bigger documentary. And then the other was to meet with the folks that Pamela had referred to us who do storytelling and documenting through storytelling. So we'll see what they come back with. So if there's nothing else, I'm going to go to our second period of public comment, and I see that we have Dmitri Shavas. And so if we could bring D in, that would be great. And if anyone else would like to make public comment, please go ahead and raise your hand. Hi, Dee. Hi. Just briefly, again, thank you for all the work you all are doing. I wanted to make sure another group was included. And maybe this has been stated at other meetings, but I'm not sure the Black Business Association. It sounds like you're holding forums in constituent communities that should be heard. I love that the youth are being included because after all, this is what they will inherit. And we know that certain harms have been committed against our youth in this community. And so I'm glad you all are including that to hopefully offer some ways in which we could nurture and support our youth in better ways. So the Black Business Association that is headed by Ms. Pat Ononubaku and Dr. Milcar Shavas and others, I think it would be important and necessary to hold a forum with that group as well. So I just want to put that request out there. And hopefully that will happen and be included also in the larger report with Matia. Excellent, Dee. That is a fantastic recommendation. And I will reach out to Ms. Pat and Dr. Shavas and we'll get that organized. I wish we could amend our charge to include the Black Business Association in that grouping of other organizations. And perhaps we can, but either way we will consult with the Black Business Association and they will be included in our final report. Certainly, because part of the charter has to do with economic as well as other disparities. So this is certainly under the purview of AHRA. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right. Are there any other attendees who would like to make public comment? I see Dr. Shavas. I couldn't find you. Okay, Dr. Shavas, yes. Yeah, so I just wanted to ask in terms of the planning, or if we felt we've already communicated somewhere along the way, but our charge does explicitly call out certain communities. And as I said, we've had meetings. We've certainly engaged in collaborative activities. For example, with the faith-based community, I think of the Majuba and other things. I know that, but is there something more, and then there's the survey, but is there something more specific we feel we ought to do vis-a-vis some of the constituencies that were actually called out in our charge? And also in particular with the DEI office, which didn't exist at the time of our, that this charge was formulated. But there's something more formal we ought to do to like hear from or invite input from the bid, the Chamber of Commerce, the DEI office, in terms of what they might particularly see as overlapping areas or areas that our municipal plan might incorporate or should incorporate. I think that's an excellent question. Hala, I see, are you speaking to us or to some, I just wanted to make sure I'm not? Okay. Yes, I think that's a really great question. And I think that it would be important for us to reach out to the bid and the Chamber to, we haven't really had any particular consultations with them regarding our work up to this point. So I think that's a very important, as well as meeting with Pamela and Jennifer, I think, to your point, Dr. Chivas, and particularly also for Matia. Matia, in the, during the retreat, I think it was Pamela spoke about incorporating some of the work that is ongoing in the DEI department and incorporating that into the pros of our report. Did I get that right, Pamela, when we talked about that at the retreat? To be quite honest, I can't remember what I said from the retreat, but I do think that there's work that's ongoing in the DEI office that would be informative for the report that you're writing. So, yeah. Setting up a meeting to talk with us, Jennifer and I, about the work that we've done, especially around, I don't have the charge in front of me, I don't remember the words, but around the connection piece of the community. I think there's a lot of work that we've done there, or that Jennifer has done to make connections. So I, and there's no, I can set up a meeting, is this correct with you and Jennifer without there being the open meeting because you're- Correct, we're staff, yeah, yeah. Wonderful. Okay, so I will connect with you directly about that. Okay, great. Yes, that would be wonderful. And also what we could do is send you the DEI department and the town manager have put somewhat of a report together. It was in response to a motion at town council, but it will also be helpful for you to see some of the progress that's been done that really hasn't necessarily been in the awareness of the public. So that might be helpful. If you think so, Pamela, that report might be helpful for Matilda with that. Okay, so let's see. Any other questions or comments? I see Alexis just dropped off, which means we have lost our quorum. So if not, then we will plan to meet next week as usual. And I will be sending out a schedule that is a proposed schedule for you to respond to shortly. And we'll go from, we'll take, take, oh, I see D. D, is your hand still up from last time or is this come on in? And I think this might be put it down if it was from last time, but if, okay, or D's coming over. All right. Yeah, I'm so sorry. I'm listening. And, you know, I don't want it to become too inflated, of course. I know Matia has her work cut out for her. But as was mentioned by Matia, the unrealized work of the CSWG and the current work of the CSSJC and the Human Rights Commission. So even though these groups aren't 100% African American, they represent the BIPOC community and speak to many of the issues that are currently, you know, being challenged in this community around race and, you know, equity. So I don't know at what point those things are included either historically, but the CSSJC certainly has part of the voice of DEI, but we also have our own voice as a committee. And so I would hope that this is included within the report on some level. So that's it and I'm signing off. Thank you. Thank you, Dee. All right. Yes, okay. I'm just making sure I don't have any other notes here. Okay, any other comments or questions before we start? Just information, Lily. Hala, do you want to mention when the next Black Assembly of Amherst mass meeting is set for? One second. Yes, the next band meeting will be May 20th at 1.30, Saturday. Thank you. So that might be something to put up on our engagement, engage Amherst's page, might be something to, you know, help with whatever our updated kind of email list coming off of the survey, coming off of, you know, preparing for the survey just to kind of blast that word out there again for point of information. This is a particular convening of people who identify as African American, who identify as descendants of the enslaved people of the United States that has been meeting, you know, even before AHRA. So it would be good, any help in getting that word out. We'd appreciate it. Yeah, I'll make sure to get that out to all my channels, Dr. Shabazz. And I do wonder just putting a pin in that in terms of our final report and what Metia may want to, what we may want to include in terms of BAM's role, again, being that this is a report where we want to capture everything that has been occurring in the community regarding this work. So that might be a conversation for you and Metia or Hala and Metia to be able to have to talk about that. All right. If there aren't any other comments or questions, I am going to thank Metia for joining us. And thank you all for being here. And we will see you next week and have a great week. Bye-bye. I'm adjourning at 3.04 p.m. Thank you, Pamela.


My name is Juan Miguel Vallejo and I'm from Canowick, Washington. So one day I was at a park and I saw a group of guys playing soccer and I love soccer. So I asked them to play and of course they said yes and afterwards they invited me, Martin invited me to his home where they have a home group and so I came to church after Martin invited me and I had a great experience. I really liked the atmosphere. It felt really warm to be open and see others have an open relationship with God. It really motivated me to pursue a stronger relationship with God. I decided to give my life to Christ after I was going through some tough times and my life was just going downhill. I was getting in trouble, I was into drugs and it was just a bad time. I really needed someone for guidance, someone to lean on and for me God has always been there. I just never really reached out and committed myself to having that relationship with Him. And today I am being baptized to show my commitment to Jesus. Juan, do you believe in Jesus Christ as God's Son and your personal Lord and Savior? Yes, sir. Do you promise to follow Him with good and clear conscience for the rest of your life? Yes. Based on your faith, confession and your commitment will baptize you in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. Jesus, you have said to me...


Call all hands speak to quarters right into it, please Captain Bush point of some targets CS foresters indomitable man of the sea a ratio hornblower Captain Bush presented him some hands and I vented my youth temper on him So you bring me these Captain Bush what good at charts in three different languages now look here French charts While in German and other Swedish How can we possibly decide where or how to strike against Bonaparte when even the charts don't agree with one another? The best we've got aboard the nuns that's not even their soundings of this one's in Swedish feet and The French use their new metric system and right for those confounded Germans owner Lord knows what they use I know it's very annoying of course. We could have your crop soga trend lead to them for us Saga How is he now? He's not a deal of blood.  He came within a hair's bed to succeed Yes, I've cocked pistol in his hand hiding behind a pillar in the Zah palace. Well, what could I do but slash his wrist? I should never have let him accompany us to the palace the man's a fin it was Russia that dispoiled his country. I Should have realized it was dangerous. It's over and done with sir Thanks to you the Russians are now ready to defy Bonaparte this way and Possibly they've taken up no arms against him yet as you will notice and Meanwhile, we are idle and surely Surely there's some place in the Baltic we can strike a blow against Bonaparte an example there Well, the fishes have sir. Why not as you see it's a long narrow lagoon between Elbing and Koenigsberg in East Prussia Now Boni has a tremendous force in East Prussia and how else can he supply them except by water the fishes How funds from the Polish River straight eastward 50 miles long a dozen miles wide communications and supply bush it'll be a shrewd blow. Yes, sir, but Well, sir, I'm not with it bush. Well, beg your pardon, sir. It's impossible Impossible the half is separated from the Baltic sea by that long sand spit There's but one entrance from the Baltic. No need to tell me what I already know one entrance Yes, and that one directly under the guns of the French Oh, I suppose you consider it impossible for this squadron to attack French shipping in the house I Isn't it to see sir, but they don't if you'll oblige me set course for the fishes half captain bush It's much too good a target to be impossible. Yes, sir Come come bush. There's more ways than one to skin a cat and we will have so I can't play these charts or that was a good suggestion of yours Saga lay in sick day they would want from loss of blood He presented another problem one that made me angry and faintly sympathetic both at once Well, so good better.  I am not English. I am a fit you fled from Finland You took service in the British Navy. I would do it all over again. Our enemy is blown apart not Russia I repeat I would do it all over again. I am homeless What is my country now a slave? Helpless under the heel of Russia one day I'm the richest man in Finland and the next the poorest man in England as with one question here So go whether you can legally face court marshal here at sea or whether he was present back to England for it In my case. I am as good as dead Yes Push my trouble you for those charts, huh? I want these charts checked with particular attention to the freshest house So audacious that's impregnable to attack from the board would be good enough to leave the ad decisions to me mr. Sorghum Where's the ship's doctor your wound must trouble you very much perhaps he can ease the pain. Oh, no, no, it is nothing According to the Swedish map the freshest half is three or four fathoms deep at most and here is Fort Pilar or above the end Several nights later. I found myself tossing up and down in the star of a cutter With less time and victory of our fluke notice I was being rolled in to inspect the single entrance to the fish's house under the guns of Fort Pilar Well, they're easy War night dark night, mr. The French is nowhere about that. No, no, we came up after dark and I hope to The entrance will be blocked with floating logs chained together. Mr. Vickery keep a sharp eye out for them Hi, sir the number of course, they'll be patrolling the parade white water, sir I thought it's a blockade That's all you just onto it rest or is Down first if you please mr. Vickery Helmetsman bring her about Good I will hold my case with the victory You're not getting both of logs. Why not where's the washing off over Good to make a one take my case Worth than I expected bush could be none such ram through that blockade I'm locked the size of tree trunks and all connected by heavy cable impossible bush. Hmm racial Way out, haven't you I'd be obliged if you'd make signal to the squadron captain bush all commanding officers To report to my cabin this afternoon at six bells you've solved the problem, sir It's going to be difficult, but with luck. We might just just pull it off. It's an incredible plan Sir, there's no one to think of this except you folks will go in past the blockade tonight There's open water at the fan speed side make a record, mr. Montgomery The none such launch and cutter the cutters from Lotus and Raven I Four ponder in the eye of the launch three pundas in the cutters food water Ammunition combustible for setting captured vessels on fire. I am now After who shall command the rating party Yes, let's go if it to be by order of seniority I am the senior officer You are Mr. Goh, but the first task will be to penetrate the lagoon and since mr. Vickery went in with me to inspect it He's certain to know more about the situation. It will be mr. Vickery Sorry, mr.  Oh Well, no walk and before without hurting someone's feelings That might fall the squadron stood in toward the man. There's no move There's every chance. They'll slip through the blockade unobserved. Yes, push Let's pray the rest of it will be as easy. I am praying I risked the lives of 150 men sent them into the jaws of a trap If I'm wrong about how to fetch them out again safely it's found to work, sir It's risky, but it'll work. I'm certain before now I have serious Dark cutters. No gumboats putting out from the fourth kilo to stand the guard over the entrance Must have given them a turn to open their eyes and see British ships standing off just beyond cannon reins They may already have known about us. They may have captured the raiding party and all our plans are for naught Yes, lieutenant mountain come aboard of his bomb kits push. I have eyes No, I wish mine was as good as our look out Lieutenant mountain reporting, sir. Morning man. We were your bomb kits ready for your part in this venture. Yes, sir You understand what must be done my bomb catch will proceed out of sight of the French is and go wide of that long Sand spit that separates the fishes house from the sea proper Then I'm to turn in on the seaward side of it at a point 12 miles to westward. Yes, sir There will be there that precisely 2 a.m. for bells Water is shallow there may be Look, Mr. Mind. I think I should go with you. Yes. I enjoyed my last outing on a bomb catch and I find this Supported something all in our face. What do you see if you please there's a bit of smoke in sight now? It's well up in the bay. Oh, my head. What is more smoke sir two ships on fire? Sir, I can see our catfish victory. He's got out of precious hot. Well captain bush so far so good Others look outside could see pillars of smoke were rising in the fishes house Marking the destruction brought by victory and his cutters For the middle of the afternoon before it came time to go aboard the bomb catch with my and I ordered a diversionary attack I wanted the defenders to think twice before they put all their efforts against victory We're dropping down within range of foot pillow now, sir.  We should do the same as we kept in come back Oh Mr. Mound yes, I've been waiting all day. Yes, I'm so alive. We'll put off for the bomb catch. Now. I'll please Yes, I'm so wounded, but not badly. We destroyed and burned a number of curfew They're cursed at the barges put thousands of shipping all together. What are those fires?  We had to abandon the mama fire side of the spit of sand.  What do you mean? We may not get away It's got three when we came up on the other side of the sand spit be flushed to patrol three men We took care of two of them with one not away. I know he's probably spread the alarm I see I knew there must be some good reason why you've burned the boats That's it sir of an alarm already spread the fire could warn the most hard man. Yes, sir It's imperative that the men be passed on board as quickly as possible in a matter of minutes The enemy will go down on us like hornets possibly a full company and have them watch the undertow If they must get rid of cutlery's and anything else that might weigh them down have them do so all must be taken aboard I'll not have one man lost It was well organized the blaze from the burning cutters began to die down But still it looked the tumbling surface of orange and scarlet Mounted gone back on board the catch to supervise matters the thing went well The men clambered aboard or were dragged help us Keltner and finally the beach was clear except for Vickery and me Just in time On those torches over there in the direction of the boat. I doubt it's their fireplies. Mr. Vickery into a serve if you please After you sir. Thank you Vickery, but the senior officer is always allowed to last to leave a post of danger. Hi, sir Oh, it was the most welcome relief when the catch loomed up ahead and strong arms dragged me aboard with no more Ceremonial than if I were a waterlogged castaway instead of a Lord Commodore Up you come Now there you are Are you all right, sir? Of course I'm all right. Oh, that's the Commodore for you And why shouldn't he be him that base is told for the most every month. Silence up So we're faster ground. What's that in the sand sir? You've taken aboard a hundred and fifty men the catch must have gone down a full foot Good Lord, mountain bird, his men will be honest and imagine minutes will be sitting down. If you please Mr. Vickery Mound have you tried to catch us up with the anchor to anchor sir There are the strong and we've bent to the windless till the cable sings, but we're still far Sir if possible then we'll go over the side and hang on to ropes It would lighten ship that one or more of the missus grip and ground no victory I said I wouldn't lose a man, and I won't at least not that way It came to me then one possible way to shake ourselves loose from the deadly grip of the sand that held us present Yet I I hesitated for a moment hoping that Mount himself would see the solution not have it come for me And even while I hesitated he found it Sir, we can rock the boat. A hundred and fifty men. We can have a run from port to Carverton back again Exactly right by all means All hands to Carverton The bow with small arms to answer their fire Yes, sir The keeper pinch is busy while we rock the ship Mender's way of affection burst over me as I regarded him and left him at Mount I wanted to tell them that Had they been my own sons I could want no too better one bring myself to express the thought I should call the particular attention of the Admiralty to the conduct of both you officers. I consider it excellent I shall of course require reports from you immediately and writing Yes captain Bush must be worried make the proper signal as to please mr. Mond Commodore on board all is well