Yeah, we're back, we're live to 10 o'clock block here on a given Monday, I'm Jay Fidel. This is sync tech and more specifically, this is community matters. And even more specifically than that, we're having a visit with Keith. I'm a mayor candidate for mayor this morning. Welcome to the show, Keith. Nice to have you here. Good morning, Jay and Stephanie. Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. Yeah, that's Stephanie Dalton. She joins me as co-host this morning. So Keith, let's talk about you. Let's talk about why in the world you would run for mayor. You know, it's not a happy time, nor is it a happy job. Why would you do that? Well, I'm running for mayor because we need change. We need new leadership. We need a fresh perspective. We need to restore trust in government. I'm running because I care about our communities and I want to create a better future for all of us, including our younger generations. I'm a first time candidate as you may know, but I have a lot of executive leadership experience in the public sector, private sector, and the nonprofit sector. I was born and raised on Oahu and have lived here for most of my life. And when I was about 10 years old, my parents got divorced and I was shuttled from family member to family member. And in high school, I was honoured or adopted, as they say, by my best friend's family. And the reason I'm mentioning all of this is because that was a very pivotal moment in my life. They were not my blood relatives, but they took me in. In fact, Jamie, you may have heard of him, Attorney Bert Kobayashi from the Kobayashi Sugita Go-da law firm. His son Bruce and my and I were best friends. Our parents, our fathers went to Hastings College of Law. And as you know, Jay, in the 60s, there was no Richardson School of Law here. So a lot of the Hawaii folks who wanted to go to law school went to Hastings in San Francisco. So that's where my father and Bert met. And so I was taken in by Bert and his wife, lovely wife at the Harriet Kobayashi and their four children. And so what I learned from them was love, compassion, respect, service over self and giving back to the community, giving back to others and giving people a second chance. And I feel, I learned a lot from that. I learned the power of giving back and the power of appreciation. And so that's a big reason why I'm running for mayor. Another big reason is I'm known by a lot of people for my tenure, well, I'm an attorney by trade as well as you may know, and some of your audience may not know. I was a litigation attorney. I served as an attorney, litigation attorney, primarily business and construction for about seven years. And then I was tapped to head the Hawaii High School Athletic Association. That's the organization that runs high school sports across the state of Hawaii. I oversaw the athletic programs of 95 high schools, public and private, statewide and 33,000 student athletes. And in that job, I had the opportunity to travel across the state, visit every community in the state, especially on Oahu, many times over and I got to meet a lot of people in those communities, especially working class families. And that was another pivotal moment in my life because I had a pretty good life as a young attorney, decent, good income, living a very comfortable existence, but I was kind of stuck in my downtown Honolulu bubble and the high school sports job expanded my horizon. Then what really surprised me, if not shocked me was how many working class people across the state across Oahu were struggling just to make ends meet. And fast forward 20-something years later, they're still struggling and with COVID-19, they're struggling even more. And it was through those relationships and friendships I developed with these families that made me wanna help them even more. I felt good about public service. It's become a passion of mine. It's a core of my life and important part of my life. And so this is an extension of giving back to the communities and continuing my public service on a city-wide scale. You said government and I understand you were on the staff of Senator Brian Schatzra. Can you talk about that? Okay, so I was his finance chair. I wasn't officially on the staff, but in terms of government experience, and I'm glad you brought that up. So I worked at the University of Hawaii in an administrative level. When I was running high school sports, I had to interface with the federal, state, and city government quite a bit, including a lot of the unions. And then I served in government-type boards and other organizations, whether it's the Aloha Stadium Authority, which I'm currently a member or the Hawaii State Board of Education. So as a mayor, I think that's important to have that kind of experience that you understand government. To be sure, I've been in the private sector. I've been an executive in the private sector. I've worked with private business. That's important as well, but unless and until you've worked with government and unions among other government-related entities, it's different, it's a challenge. And I have the background and experience to work with all sectors of the community. And that will serve me well as mayor. Well, let me dwell on that for a minute. There was an article in Civil Beat a few days ago about the funding you've received from, I guess it's a union pack. And I wanna say about $100,000. That's a lot of bread. And the question is raised as to whether those unions will have influence, perhaps too much influence with you for their contribution. Can you tell me what that relationship is and why they would not be turning your key, so to speak, if you're in office? Well, I've been lucky. I've had financial support from all cross-sectors of the community, the business community, the unions, as you pointed out, but a lot of individuals as well. So I feel my campaign, I like to say it's a community-based campaign. And when you go back to unions, they represent many working-class families. So like my whole career, it's been based on collaboration, commitment, getting people from diverse groups to work together. And I plan to continue that as mayor. Oh yeah, I watched your ad and I wanna pursue one thing about your ads. And there have been several in your, you're really all over the media. What about rail? You mentioned COVID. You mentioned the fact that, a lot of people are having a lot of trouble and that includes the economy in general. Economy of the state is in the tank. It's not gonna change in the near term, maybe the intermediate term. And as mayor, you're gonna be saddled with huge fiscal issues. So I'm wondering, what are you gonna do about rail? That's multi-billion dollars. And it could be a big burden on any mayor and on this city. How are you gonna deal with that? Well, we all know rails been quite a mess up to this point from the pre-planning stages through the construction stages. And we need to make sure moving forward that the same problems that saddled rail don't happen again, whether it's mismanagement or lack of oversight as mayor, I'll make sure that the city government and the mayor's office and myself be much, much more on top of it. The challenge with rail is, yes, it's expensive. It's been way more expensive than we thought at this point, but we're fairly close to completion already. It's an important part of a multimodal transportation network that any diverse, large city needs. We can't just be reliant on cars. We need to give people options. We have too many cars on the road. So we need to complete it as best we can to Alamoana. We also can't afford to possibly have to give back $800 million in federal subsidies that we've already been provided. So those are a lot of reasons why we wanna continue the rail project. The other important part, and you mentioned COVID and the difficulty that it's caused our economy, rail is an important stimulus in terms of transit-oriented development. Jay and Stephanie, you probably had the opportunity to visit other cities with successful transportation systems, rail systems, whether it's Singapore, Vancouver, Japan and elsewhere, transit-oriented development is an important part of the economy initially, but also in terms of helping build cities within cities where you create walkable destinations, you create more housing, you address the lack of affordable housing that we have here on Oahu. So yes, rail is expensive, it's been frustrating, but we need to be creative and see what we can do to continue it. In terms of paying for it, which I think you want me to get to, we need to look at possible federal stimulus money. I know there's talk about infrastructure funding for projects like rail from the federal government to keep our economy going, and hopefully we will get that kind of funding and we'll also just have to be creative and be real strict about how we watch the finances of the city. Part of that creativity, part of getting funding from the federal government is the relationship of the city with the federal government. And I'm very concerned that our president, I don't want to make any comments about him right here right now, but our president sees Hawaii and the city as a Democrat city in a Democrat state, and he doesn't necessarily sympathize with us or want to do us any favors. So let me ask you sort of the interlinear, what are your feelings about the federal government these days and what are your feelings about the relationship of the state and the Trump administration? I have many more questions about that, but in general, what do you feel about that? Well, it's unfortunate that the federal government has not been the leader that it should be in many situations and that's forced mayors of many major cities to take a greater leadership role because of the lack of proper federal oversight of the country in general and of their cities. So it's even more important who we select as the Honolulu Mayor because that person will, well, like you, we shouldn't talk too much about the current president, but we may have a new president come January. So... Knock wood, knock wood, yeah. Yeah, so I mean, frankly, I would want to live and say, hopefully we have a new president, but until then, it's important for mayors to take an even greater leadership role because as you pointed out, we are not getting that leadership from our president and the federal government as it is right now. Stephanie, you have questions, this is your time. Yes, yes, yes, I thank you, Keith, for sharing. I'm a tennis coach from Bradford High School, a long time ago, so I've had a little taste of your world and how wonderful those organizations are. So I'm glad to know also about your other background and I think the audience is interested too because that's not completely available in every single article that pops up there. So thank you for that. I'm really interested in your comments about RAIL and the ways that you're talking about working better with the federal government. I've noticed that in your presentations, you're talking about working in areas that are somewhat the state's domain, so to speak, I mean mental health and something like substance abuse and that sort of thing, who knows why these things are in which pot, but the point of it is, and I think I see comments that are responsive to that, that you're willing to work across the border, so to speak, okay? And that would also include the federal situation, especially when it comes to RAIL, which ties in with how to manage those costs, which you've made a strong point about needing to do and how those contracts and all their modifications and all their cost overruns have to be really looked at and monitored. Is that how you're thinking about it? Could you tell us a little bit more about how you see yourself and that kind of a change role of looking through these other windows and trying to work through them for the best that we can have in the future in Honolulu? Because it's gonna be pretty bleak, otherwise if the mayor can't do that. Right, so with respect to your comments about RAIL, one of, some of the biggest problems about the RAIL project was it was rushed at the beginning. The contracts weren't properly vetted and there was a haste to build RAIL as soon as possible for, some will say political reasons or otherwise and we have to make sure that doesn't happen. We need to be careful, we need to review the contracts and not allow for these massive change orders that have been a regular occurrence throughout the history of RAIL up to this point. So that's one thing that would be a huge difference from the past is not rush things and be very careful about the diligence that's used in terms of reviewing real contracts moving forward. In terms of your point about, what's the city's role versus the state? Yes, you're right that the mental health and substance abuse issues are more state issues but the way I look at it is, Hawaii is still a fairly small state compared to other states around the country. And when we have the benefit of everyone kind of knowing each other, that's good and bad I suppose. And so we have no excuse that in terms of working together on all levels, federal, state and city. Again, it's still small townish, although we are a city of about a million people. There's very few places in the country where you can pick up the phone and reach the mayor or the governor pretty easily. And so one of my skill sets or strengths is to get people from different cross, from different sectors to work together and I'm gonna utilize that as mayor. And because we're a smaller state, it's incumbent more than ever that would be efficient and that we don't work on separate parallel tracks, federal doing one thing, state doing another, city doing another. I think it's really important that we pool our resources and be efficient. The other point I'll make about substance abuse and mental health issues is, yes, I mentioned earlier they're state issues but to me, it's such a big problem. Let's stop, we in the past, government tends to point fingers and say, well, it's not my issue with yours or no, it's, you know, they point the finger back at me. Let's stop finger pointing and just come up with solutions already. And the issues are too big to waste time about who should be taking care of the problem. Let's just all work together and get stuff done. That's why people are tired of politics and politicians and- One of the wild cards here, and you've both touched on it, is the confidence of the people in government, you know, and what's happening in Washington and the country, you know, has demonstrated that people are not confident in government. And I would say that our polls, our think tech polls also suggest that people are not confident in government. And, you know, the mayor's office, the city has been the subject of so much corruption investigation over the past few years and prosecutions and what have you. The prosecutor's office and chief of police, all that. And I think any mayor has the burden somehow of, you know, making it clear to the public that that mayor is not going to tolerate any corruption.  And some of your, you know, co-contenders, you know, have been involved in situations where that issue has been raised. And regrettably, what is it? Your cousin Roy is now in the press about, it's a cousin, I don't know, involved in some kind of a federal thing investigation. So Keith, you know, actually have an advantage of coming at it from a non-governmental point of view. But I wonder if you can speak about the need to keep it clean and the need to avoid even the most remote appearance of corruption. Right, I mean, that's without trust in government, you have nothing. So that's one of my priorities is to restore trust in government. When it comes to my cousin Roy, you know, he is working in the current administration, but he's made it clear that, you know, he's gonna retire at the end of his term and he has no interest in continuing to serve. Should I be elected? And, you know, I had no interest in retaining him. So, you know, that's the first thing I wanted to point out. And in terms of my reputation, I view it as something that's very sacred to me and that trust and integrity are two of the hallmarks that I try to live by. And if you ask people whether I was an attorney or running high school sports or in the private sector that I always have led and will continue to lead with trust and integrity. Right now, there seems to be some kind of communication gap between government and the public. Like you pointed out, Jay, whether it's the federal, state or city level. And throughout my career, I always thought it was important to communicate and always inform the public about what's going on. You can never really over communicate. Even now with COVID-19, you know, sometimes myself as a citizen, I'm not entirely sure what the restrictions are or, you know, what's gonna be open, what's not. And that kind of uncertainty and mistrust, you know, harms government ability to work as efficiently as possible. You know, that actually takes us to the thing about the economy. Although, you know, I remember the first time I heard that the city had an office of economic and economic encouragement of some kind and probably still does have that office. That's really not within police, fire, water, all those infrastructure kind of missions that cities have. But that being the case, it nevertheless falls on the city to try to rebuild the economy. And I'd like to know, you know, your view of that because we agree that the economy is in the tank, it's gonna stay in the tank for a while. COVID is not gonna be solved right away. We know that people are walking the streets with no money and they may be more and more unhappy and that will create contention on the streets and who knows in terms of, you know, crime and what have you. So how can you as the mayor fix the economy, fix the fact that people aren't getting enough? Congress for my money is not doing its job. Congress is gonna leave us in the lurch. It has left us in the lurch. What can the city and county of Honolulu do to keep things in balance, to keep people, you know, eating, to keep people reasonably, your sign fell down? Yeah. It's okay. We saw it, we definitely saw it. You know, what can we do? What can you do? This is a hard one. Yeah. Well, the city has a very important role in revitalizing the economy because the city and county of Honolulu is the biggest county and Oahu represents approximately 70 to 75% of the population in the state. So it's important that the city, as we talked about earlier, works with the state and federal governments to do what we can to get the economy going. The city can help by, for example, making sure the construction industry keeps on moving forward. Tourism is gonna take a while to bounce back. And so whether it's rail or the need to build a lot more affordable housing, the city plays a major role in that regard. The other important role the city plays right now in this day and age of COVID-19 is to do what it can to curb the spread of COVID-19 because until we do that, we can't fully reopen the economy. And it seems like in the last week or two, we're going backwards and we're in danger of another stay-at-home order like we had in mid-March. And when you talk about going backwards and having our economy fall even greater into greater depths, that would be devastating if we have to impose another stay-at-home order. And so far be it for me to be an armchair quarterback. I'm not the mayor yet, but what government can do collectively is to emphasize to people the importance of social distancing, wearing masks and avoiding large gatherings because until we curb the spread of COVID, we're gonna be in an economic funk. But the other areas the mayor can help is by diversifying the economy. And we've talked about this for decades, Jay, probably from when you first moved here that we need, we're over-relying on tourism and we need to diversify the economy. Well, if there's a time- How can you do that, Keith? It's not easy. How can you do that? It's not easy, but we have to start. And three areas I feel we as a state and as a city need to look at are agriculture, aquaculture and renewable energy. Those are three areas that are natural strengths of ours in an island state that we haven't looked at. And now to be sure it's not gonna replace tourism and I'm not saying we eliminate tourism but we were over-reliant on tourism. And yes, Jay, it's gonna take a while. We're not gonna build farms and aquaculture farms and renewable energy, industry jobs overnight but we need to start and we can't keep making excuses. So we need to get that going. The city can also help in terms of workforce development. The city has a workforce development office. Let's start retraining because realistically a lot of the people who work in tourism they're not gonna get their jobs back right away or they may not get their jobs back. We're not gonna have 10 million tourists come to Hawaii like we did pre-COVID, we don't want to. And so people who are waiting to get called back to their jobs at the hotels, for example, that call may not come for a while. Hale Kulani, for example, as you folks may know has already announced, they're not gonna reopen till summer of a year from now. So if you're working at the Hale Kulani you can't just say, well, I'll wait until next year and I'll get my job back. You need income for the next year. They need to start thinking about, well, maybe I shouldn't work in the tourism industry. And so this isn't a solution for everybody but right now the city has 1,700 vacant positions. So that's not insignificant. Let's pivot people out of tourism and other places where the restaurant industry, for example where a lot of people are out of work or the retail and get them working in the city in these vacant positions. Yes, and your idea about retraining, that's really good. If you retrain a workforce then you will attract capital. I mean, who's to say which one you start with but if you have a trained workforce it really begs for capital investment and therefore new businesses. You know, I want to establish a new show called Hawaii Loves Business. I think we have to incentivize new businesses as much as we possibly possibly can and make every business entrepreneur a huge 10 foot hero. That's what I think. Anyway, so Stephanie, there's not a lot of time left. I hope that you're going to ask Keith about homelessness. Well, I was going to ask him about what seems to have some traction in the comments is that he's offered an office of community engagement. And I thought that that kind of ties into opening up the windows across government to community. And so I was going to just give you a chance to talk to us more about that and how that integrates with some of these other issues like homelessness certainly too. Well, I'm glad you asked that. But real quick, Jay, let's talk another time about entrepreneurship. One of the areas I want to invest in is to create a small business innovation fund run by the city to kickstart programs. I mean, let's just not count on the private sector to do it. Why can't the city do that? You know, and be a partner with small businesses and help them get kickstarted off the ground. I mean, I don't know why more governments don't do that and be a partner with small businesses and entrepreneurs. The Office of Community Engagement, that's another important part of my platform and my policies and my first 100 days as mayor. I said it before, communication is lacking between government and the general public. That Office of Community Engagement's job will be to go out to the communities and talk to them well before a wind farm is proposed in Kahuku or a baseball field in Waimanalo is in Sherwood Forest is proposed and or a playground in Alamoana Park. For whatever reason, the public feels that even though some of these projects have been approved as there was more of a going through the motions or they weren't fully informed about it. You know, people are busy. They don't have time to look at the neighborhood board agenda every week to see what's on the docket. We need to be more proactive as government and engage and remember why we're here. Government is to work with the people and for the people and but yet sometimes the perception or oftentimes nowadays is government is an adversary and that needs to change. Government should be a partner with the community and work for the community. So that Office of Community Engagement will go a long way in improving relations between the city and the public. I wanna add on that note. Let's embrace technology.  Zoom has exploded because of COVID. Why can't we shouldn't force everyday citizens to have to leave their job early, find traffic, find parking, sit in the gallery at a city council hearing and wait for hours on end to testify and then they may not be able to testify because they're number 110 on the list and then they have to go and pick up their kid after school and they can't testify. Why can't we testify via Zoom or on our phones through FaceTime or other means? Let's use that. Let's use straw polls in Waimanalo about Sherwood Forest and people can just opine online about a proposed project. Now that poll shouldn't be binding but it gives you a general idea of what the community feels about certain issues. We need to embrace technology at the city much, much, much more. We need to create more apps for the city when it's paying your real property tax or renewing your driver's license or whatever other interface you have between government and the public. I really, really wanna utilize technology more as mayor. That's great, great to hear. So Stephanie, you wanted to ask Keith about homelessness. I know you did. I know I did, but I also wanted to ask and I heard and that was kind of alluded to with the mental health substance abuse issues that need to be across these corridors of power. But the other question, if we have any time left at all or maybe afterwards, but if not, as I've talked with Colin Moore and some of these other commentators and policy people at the university, we have this golden goose, right? Called Waikiki. And I just, I don't hear much about how to engage, talk about community engagement. How about that business engagement? What are they doing to come back at the city to be a full-fledged member that doesn't just consume here and learn and earn but also puts back into the city? Have you had any thoughts about that? Because they're mostly multinationals and it's not like Joe Jones is down there running his own hotel for Honolulu. It's multinationals. So can you comment briefly on that? Yes, I think it's important for the mayor to engage with these multinational or international conglomerates that there needs to be a healthy balance that they can't just try to maximize profit at the expense of the local workers and the local residents that they need to give back to the community. And as we all know from decades past, we didn't have as severe an issue where there was a disconnect between us and these mainland based hotel chains. We had the benefit of the Albreger resorts, and then the Kelly family who were very good about balancing the need for profit and taking care of the workers and being sensitive to the needs of the local community. Even the Aston chain to an extent was like that, where there are at least local ties. So I agree with you, Stephanie. It's more important than ever to make clear to these owners that, hey, yes, you're entitled to try to make a profit, but you need to also have a balance and make sure that the needs of the local community is considered as well. Well, it's a source for the rare box that are gonna come into your life if you're the mayor, because what are we down, Jay, with the budget in City County? I mean, it's billions. So there's gonna be very little revenue. And we can only pay so much in property taxes. Come on, remember that. You said you would watch out for that. Yeah, and you know, the city is not getting the TAT right now. The ledge is keeping it. So you're gonna, as mayor, you're gonna have to deal with that. It's a lot of money there. So remember the golden goose. I think that we should be getting some more relationship with them in terms of revenue for the city. Is it time for homelessness now? Sure. Basically, yeah, we're looking forward to hearing some breakthrough stuff here. Well, as I mentioned, it's clearly one of the major issues. It's mentioned by a lot of people. And homelessness is especially important to me because of the tie.  And many people on the streets suffer from mental illness and or substance abuse issues as well. So in terms of homelessness, well, first and foremost, we need to build more affordable housing.  They're not as prominent, but they're there. They're living in their cars. They're living in tents on the beaches. They're living in the mountains, literally. And so I've crafted a housing for all plan that seeks to address the 22,000 shortage of units here on Oahu. And the focus is on building housing for Oahu residents and not out of state residents, curbing the activities that raise the cost of housing, including illegal vacation rentals. There's still about 8,000 illegal vacation rentals out there that should be utilized for local residents whether to rent or to purchase. And third, the city can encourage more development of housing in the urban core by creating more infrastructure like sewer and water and accelerating the approval of building permits. That's a sore spot with developers and home builders. And we need to just process the permits faster. It shouldn't take two years or more in some instances to get approval for a project in place. The city can also emphasize or build more affordable rentals. A lot of people who are on the precipice of being homeless, their years or decades away from even thinking about buying a home, they just need a roof under their heads. So let's provide more affordable rentals and that's where the city can help as well. So housing is a big component of addressing the houses this issue, but of course more mental health and substance abuse treatment facilities as well. Because I know firsthand from my mom and others that it's clearly lacking and we can do much, much more to address those people who have those issues. Stephanie, we're out of time. Why don't you take a moment and thank Keith for coming around. Love to thank you, Keith. Appreciate you're taking the time at this crucial juncture in the campaign. I'm sure these are busy, busy days running up to the primary. And I think you've got other things you could be attending to. Now you can go do it in about three minutes.  Tell them why they should vote for you. Tell them what you offer. Well, first I wanna thank you again for this opportunity. It's important and I don't really have better things to do. I mean, this is just as important as any other campaign activity to talk to both of you and your audience and talk about myself and the message and why I wanna be mayor. And this is an important election. It's a pivotal time in our city's history, especially with this pandemic and the voters have a choice. They have a choice between the status quo or they have a choice to bring meaningful change to Honolulu Halle. I represent that change. I will represent the people and not special interests. And I will do whatever I can to improve the quality of life here on Oahu for everyone, including our younger generations. I have a college sophomore age son. My wife and I do and I worry about his future. I wanna build a better future for him and his friends and the generations after him so that they can enjoy the Honolulu that the three of us enjoyed for the past several decades. So that's why I'm running for mayor. The voters have a choice and it's important that they get their vote out. It's all mail-in ballot and time is running out to fill out your ballot and turn it in. So if you haven't already, please go out and vote and make your voice heard. Thank you. Thank you. Keith, I'm a mayor. Thank you so much. And Stephanie Toulton, thank you so much. I love how you guys. All right, thank you. See you. Bye.


This theorem, the Kurofischer theorem is very powerful and so we will actually discuss many results that come out as a consequence of this theorem. The first is a result which relates the eigenvalues of A plus B with those of A or B. This is a theorem due to somebody called Weil. So it's called Weil's theorem. So let A be C to the n cross n be Hermitian symmetric matrices. Then as usual, we'll arrange the eigenvalues in increasing order. So I'm introducing notation here. So lambda i of A is the ith largest eigenvalue of A. So lambda 1 of A is the smallest eigenvalue, lambda 2 of A is the second, is the next bigger eigenvalue and so on. And lambda i of A plus B is the ith eigenvalue of A plus B when the eigenvalues are arranged in increasing order. Then for each K equal to 1, 2 up to n, we have lambda K of A plus lambda 1 of B is less than or equal to lambda K of their sum and which is in turn less than or equal to lambda K of A plus lambda n of B. Now when you look at this result, I think at least some of you will see that the result is obvious. The kth eigenvalue of A plus B is going to be at least lambda K of A plus lambda 1 of B and at most lambda K of A plus lambda n of B. So for example, if B was the identity matrix, then what you see from this result is that the eigenvalues of A plus the identity matrix are actually you know this already that all the eigenvalues of A will get shifted up by 1 and therefore this result is also saying that lambda K of A plus the identity matrix is at least equal to lambda K of A plus 1 and at most equal to lambda K of A plus 1. In other words, lambda K of A plus B is equal to lambda K of A plus 1. So let us see, let us just write out how this thing is proved. Sir, A and V are can be interchanged here. Yes, of course. So there is nothing special about B here. B is not in any way different from A and B are both emission symmetric matrices. So in fact, before I proceed, I will write that also. So you can also say K of B plus lambda 1 of A is less than or equal to lambda K of A plus B lambda K of B plus lambda 1 of A lambda n of A. Okay, so basically if you want to obtain bounds for lambda K of A plus B, you can choose the min of these two quantities lambda K of A plus lambda 1 of B lambda K of B plus lambda 1 of A. And sorry, you can choose the max of these two that will still be a lower bound on lambda K of A plus B. And you can choose the min of these two. And that will also be an upper bound on lambda K of A plus B. So proof. So we know that for any zero not equal to x in c to the n by the Rayleigh-Ritz theorem, lambda 1 of B is less than or equal to x emission Bx over x emission x is less than or equal to lambda n of B. So as a consequence for any K 1, 2 up to n, if I look at lambda K of A plus B by my Kurov-Fischer theorem, this is equal to the min over W1 through Wn minus K. So I am using the min max formulation. So you should pay attention to this because you will see that for some results, we will use this min max formulation and for some other results will start from the max min formulation. Okay, and it's actually a very interesting exercise to see if you can prove the same result by starting from the say from the max min formulation instead of the min max formulation. Okay, in some cases it'll turn out that the proof kind of works out the same way. But in some other cases, it'll turn out that the proof going one way is much easier than the proof going the other way. So max over x not equal to 0, x perpendicular to all these vectors of x emission times A plus B times x over x emission x. So this is just Kurov-Fischer theorem just written out for this case. And this itself I can write as x emission Ax plus x emission Bx over x emission x. So I can just instead of writing a whole step, I'll just say that this is equal to x emission Ax over x emission x plus x emission Bx over x emission x. Now, this x emission Bx over x emission x is at least equal to this. So if I replace the x emission Bx by lambda 1 of B, I'm only decreasing the value of whatever this thing is. So this is greater than or equal to, in fact, I'll write that here itself so that it's clear. This is always for any x not equal to 0, this is greater than or equal to x emission Ax over x emission x plus lambda 1 of B. And so that means that this lambda K of A plus B is greater than or equal to, because I've replaced this by its lower bound, min over W1 through Wn minus K, max x not equal to 0, x perpendicular to W1 through Wn minus K, x emission Ax over x emission x plus lambda 1 of B. And this part now doesn't depend on x anymore, but this part by Kurov-Fischer theorem, this is directly lambda K of A. And so this is exactly equal to lambda K of A plus lambda 1 of B. And in a similar way, instead of replacing this by lambda 1, I could replace it by lambda n. And then I get an upper bound. And then I substitute lambda n here. And this is still equal to lambda K of A. So I get the upper bound at lambda K of A plus B is equal to the min over something of the max over something, it's all these things that I'm not writing again and again x emission Ax over x emission x plus x emission Bx over x emission x. And this is less than or equal to this min over all these things of the max over all these things x emission Ax over x emission x plus lambda n of B. And this is just lambda K. That proves the result. Okay, so some small thing that you can think about is when would equality be obtained in the bounds of the Weyl theorem? X permission Bx by X permission X equal to lambda n B and lambda 1 B. So X is a variable of optimization here. Okay, so all lambdas are equal. Now you should think about it. So for example, suppose B was equal to some alpha times. Okay, I'll write it as Ui, Ui Hermitian. Okay, where Ui is an eigenvector of A. Okay, so suppose it was like this. Then, yeah, so by choosing B of this form and alpha being some positive number, you can actually attain these bounds. I don't want to give you the whole answer here, but do think about it. But this is the form of the B that will attain these bounds.


In my PhD I'm making tiny lasers, lasers that are smaller than the wavelength of light and these lasers will be used in applications such as telecommunications so we'll be able to make computers that are smaller and faster and more energy efficient. Lasers will enable us to do this using light which is the fastest known thing on the planet. Facilities at ANU are a state of the art. They are leading in these field of nanotechnology and so we're a better place than just to be at ANU. I'd love to do more research. I'd love to go and work in areas at the frontiers of the cutting edge and contribute to the welfare of society.


A couple of weeks ago on the program, we talked about how Democratic Congresswoman Rashida Tlai was being attacked by her own Democratic Party colleagues for daring to say, one, that Israel is an apartheid state and two, that if you are progressive, it is not acceptable for you to support or condone this system of apartheid and abuse. Now, there were a lot of individuals who weighed in. One of them was CNN's Jake Tapper, who also condemned what she had to say. And a lot of people on the left talked about this. David Dole talked about this. And also Katie Halper talked about this as well. And for those of you who don't know, Katie Halper has been a co-host on The Hills Rising. And I want to share the segment that she created in response to this entire story. This is just a snippet, but it's a really important part of what she had to say. Democratic Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib of Michigan facing criticism today from what several of her Jewish colleagues have deemed anti-semitic comments. Here's what Tlaib, the first Palestinian American woman to serve in Congress, said at a virtual event yesterday. I want you all to know that among progressives, it has become clear that you cannot claim to hold progressive values, yet back Israel's apartheid government. And we will continue to push back and not accept this idea that you are progressive, progressive except for full esteem any longer. The CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan Greenblatt, slammed the comments saying that Israel does not have an apartheid government and said that she should not be imposing a, quote, litmus test in a tweet saying, quote, Tlaib tells American Jews that they need to pass an anti-Zionist litmus test to participate in progressive space. Some of Tlaib's Jewish colleagues in Congress agreed. Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz called her comments, quote, outrageous and, quote, nothing short of anti-semitic. Debbie Wasserman Schultz is right. It is outrageous. It's outrageous that Rashida Tlaib is getting attacked. Tlaib is merely stating that Israel is an apartheid state and that people who claim to have progressive values cannot support an apartheid state. No matter how loose a definition of progressive we use, it certainly excludes supporting a racist apartheid system. What's outrageous is attacking Tlaib for pointing out that progressive except for Palestine is an intrinsically contradictory position. What's also outrageous is that the Anti-Defamation League's Jonathan Greenblatt would claim that Israel is not an apartheid government. What's outrageous is that Jake Tapper would accept Greenblatt's judgment as the truth and not propaganda that needed to be pushed back against. I understand that Greenblatt and perhaps Tapper feel like Israel is not an apartheid state, but unfortunately for them apartheid isn't about your feelings. It's about facts. In 1973, the UN defined the crime of apartheid as any inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them. In 1998, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court defined a apartheid as inhumane acts of a character that are committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime. These inhuman acts include, among others, inflection upon the members of a racial group or groups of serious bodily or mental harm by the infringement of their freedom or dignity or by subjecting them to torture or to cruel and human or degrading treatment or punishment, by arbitrary arrest and illegal imprisonment of the members of a racial group or groups, any legislative measures and other measures calculated to prevent a racial group or groups from participation in the political, social, economic and cultural life of the country and the deliberate creation of conditions preventing the full development of such a group or groups, in particular by denying to members of a racial group or groups basic human rights and freedoms, including the right to leave and to return to their country, the right to a nationality, the right to freedom of movement and residence, the right to freedom of opinion and expression, and the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association. I'd encourage Jake Tapper to look this up sometime. Now she goes on to bring in specific examples as to why this is a system of apartheid and abuse. She brings in facts. However, at the Hill, they didn't like that. And what happened was they decided to not only censor the segment, not run it after she filmed it with them, but they fired her because of this. They fired her. Now, first of all, I've just got to point out the obligatory, where's all of the free speech warriors? We hear a lot of right wingers talk about how the left doesn't value free speech, but here you see a leftist that was censored. And I don't hear Dave Rubin speaking out. I don't hear Charlie Kirk speaking out. It's interesting how they have nothing to say when you actually see a media organization censor somebody for saying what they don't want her to say. It's ridiculous. And she wrote via Twitter, it shouldn't matter that I'm Jewish, but I am. At least I'm just called a self-loathing Jew, which is slightly less damaging than being called an anti-Semite.  And because of this powerful smear, many people are getting censored. Kitty Halper is just a bigger example. But remember, Mark Lamon Hill was also fired from CNN for daring to criticize Israel. There are a number of people who are being asked to sign loyalty pledges to Israel if they want government contracts, or there are other individuals like Abby Martin who are being punished if they refuse to sign loyalty pledges to Israel, these anti-BDS pledges. And this is just another example of the media trying to use that smear tactic to silence dissenting voices. Now, Ryan Grimm had some additional context because he also is a co-host at the Hill, and he explains how bizarre this really was. In an article for The Intercept he wrote, each show includes two radars, one from a left perspective and one from a right perspective, and as a former co-host of the show, I've recorded more than 150 of them. There is no approval process. A co-host files a script, which is loaded into a teleprompter. The monologue is then recorded with a back-and-forth discussion and debate with the other co-host following it. The segment is then uploaded to a variety of platforms along with the rest of the show. But Halper, who spoke publicly about the censorship Thursday evening on her live said that Monday's process was different. After the taping of the segment, producers asked co-host Robbie Sove to do what's known as a pickup, a fairly standard editorial addition to a segment. In this case, Sove was asked to repeat something that had already been included, namely the perspective of the Anti-Defamation League CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, that stood in opposition to Tlaib. Later, Halper was told the segment was being reviewed and held up. Later in the week, she was told it wouldn't run, when she asked if she could discuss the subject in her next appearance on HillTV, she was told her invitation had been rescinded, according to an email from an executive with the Next Star Media Group, which owns HillTV along with scores of local news channels, and the cable news channel News Nation, which recently hired former CNN presenter Chris Cuomo. The decision of whether to post the segment was kicked from rising producers to the Hill's editor-in-chief Bob Cusack in a call with Halper on Wednesday. He framed Halper's segment as similar to an op-ed submission, telling her that the Hill accepts some submissions and rejects other submissions, and that this right extends to HillTV journalism as well, except she was later fired.  Listen, the Hill is trash. This is not a network that the left should be supporting. This is corporate media, and I say this is someone who was actually a guest on the Hill Rising back when Crystal Ball was still co-hosting this with Saw Granjetti. She invited me on the program. I was on the show, and it was lovely. They often give their hosts a lot of editorial discretion. But when they cross certain limits, we're learning what they're willing to do, not just censor them, but fire them as well. Now, I'm going to link you to Katie Halper's full segment down below because I think that what she says here is really important, and most importantly, it's factual. What she's saying is factual. But we're in this state where the tide is starting to turn with regard to Israeli apartheid, and more and more people are speaking up for the first time ever. Members of Congress are condemning Israel for the apartheid government that it is. And because of that, well, people who defend Israel, no matter what, and condone apartheid, they're terrified. So they're working overtime to try to censor voices who speak out on behalf of Palestine. And because of this, I only expect the censorship to get worse. But either way, this is not okay. And, you know, if you care about free speech, you should stand in solidarity with Katie Halper here, because this is not acceptable. Everything that she said was not a conjecture. It was not based on her opinion. It was based on facts. So even if she was editorializing, she was presenting people with objective information and details about the human rights abuses from the Israeli government. If you can criticize a government without being anti-Semitic, then you can't criticize any government.  You can't criticize African governments for human rights abuses without being racist. You can't criticize the American government without being an American hater. This is not a standard that I want to set.


So as I mentioned, we're very happy to have four great thinkers really think through and help us think about the legacy of eyes in the prize and I'll start with John else as I mentioned John is the author of true South He was a series producer and cinematographer on eyes in the prize one He's also an accomplished filmmaker and a former director of the Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley. Welcome John else To his left is Sabah Fulayan She is an activist in a filmmaker her Featured debut film who streets which chronicles the activation of communities in Ferguson after the Ferguson uprising Just made its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival last month. So welcome Sabah Although at the end Sam Pollard Sam is a director producer and an editor He was the director of two episodes in eyes in the prize two Including one that we'll see this afternoon And this is actually gonna be the episode that concludes our showcase and it's the episode title ain't gonna shuffle no more and it's It chronicles the emergence of Muhammad Ali alongside the student movement at Howard University and the gathering of the National Black Political Convention in Gary, Indiana and Sam has a long history. We could talk about him for a long time But he is the director of many films including slavery by another name and August Wilson The ground on which I stand and he's also well known for his collaborations with Spike Lee. Please welcome Sam Pollard And we're very happy to have moderating this conversation Nicole Hannah Jones Nicole is an investigative reporter with the New York Times and has written extensively on race and civil rights So please I'm gonna turn this over to Nicole. Thank you Thank you all for coming out. I'm just gonna get right into it I Think clearly the films in the eyes on the price area tell us about where we came from But I think as we know now from your filmmaking us about but also from the last election that these films Aren't just telling us from whence we came but where we still are and I think One that's that's the magic of the way that you all did the film But also speaks to clearly how little progress or how progress has to constantly we have to fight to maintain that product So I think First question. I'm curious though. I actually want to talk before we get into politics a bit about filmmaking I'm very interested in how did each of you Understand that you could be filmmakers and then how did you actually become filmmakers? Whoever wants to take that first Well You know, I mean I I came of age in the 1960s and you get a lot of slack if you came of age in the 1960s I actually came out of activism came out actually out of the classic civil rights movement and I got interested in still photography during the During the war in Vietnam. I tried to be a still I tried to be a news photographer I tried to be a still photographer Covering a lot of that domestic violence around the war and I didn't have the stomach for it I just I couldn't handle it. I couldn't Place myself between the police and the demonstrators and keep my wits about me. So in desperation I took a job Processing educational films in a film lab And it was an amazing education because I was young I kind of didn't know what I wanted to do and all of a sudden it was my job to watch the same Educational film over a hundred or two hundred times and that was an enforced Education that was it was worth its weight in gold one thing led to another I ended up going to a film school I started out actually heading toward feature filmmaking toward narrative filmmaking and After my second or third low-budget B grade C grade D grade You know low-budget feature I just to say you got to be crazy to spend your life doing this where you're just doing take after take after take of the same Stupid line of dialogue And why not do nonfiction and once once I got involved With documentary there was no turning back and I've been doing it for I don't know 40 years Nothing like nonfiction I So the camera I came into it in a different way was the early 70s, and I was studying at Baruch College I was Looking to our business career, and I was not happy and I got into a film and television workshop at the public television station WNET It was a one-year program They taught you how to shoot and how to edit and how to write scripts and I gravitated to the editing So at the end of the year, I got a job as an apprentice editor on a low-budget feature film titled ganja and hess directed by Bill Gunn and the editor of that film took a liking to me and I Became his assistant for the next three years and he From that feature film he was editing documentaries Which I didn't really know much about because I love feature films narrow the films and like John I thought I wanted to edit feature films But he sort of got me into documentaries and I fell in love with nonfiction films and love the idea that you made the Films to documentaries in the editing room and that was the beginning and like John I've been in it a long time But how did you go from someone interested in business to actually thinking I want to take a class on film Or I want to learn how to do film I was reluctant at first because I loved movies even before you know I was one of those people who used to go home and they used to be a magazine John remembers TV guy And I would go to the TV guy when I was 1415 and I would mark off all the movies I wanted to see and I was just when they came on I would watch them So I love movies But when this teacher of mine at Baruch College told me about this film and television workshop and that you could get a job in the Film and television business. I said my reaction was I like it, but I don't care about you make these things You know, so I was reluctant, but Soon as I that first thing we shot And then the first night I was in the editing room working on a movie over Rewinds it was like magic for me And I was like I was I was in the zone and I wanted to do it From that point on Okay, and how about you? I know what the TV guy is No, first of all, I'm just really really honored to be sitting here with both of you who loves just so much respect and admiration for your work And you know just yeah, that's awesome. I was Two years ago three years ago, I guess I was kind of in a soul-searching process I had just taken the MCAT and I was on the path to medical school and I was Having that kind of internal sense of dread about what I was about to step into and I just couldn't you know I just couldn't find that that spark my older brother is also He's now a doctor and he was doing the same path But just having all this fulfillment and I wasn't getting that so I started to explore different avenues Thinking that you know, I would have this this as a backup plan and see if I could find something and I started to Become vocal and social media honestly and people were responding to it responding to me messaging me privately Coming up to me in person and resonating with the things that I was writing so When Mike Brown was killed August 9th 2014 in Ferguson I just felt like I had to go and be there and somehow be with the people who were there because I Didn't see or know anybody else who was really you know getting physically involved and trying to intervene and what was going on So I went there and I was like, you know, how can I make myself useful? So my background was medicine and by this time I had or you know pre-med and by this time I had some experience with nonprofits and kind of the social work field So that was what I knew. So I said, I think there's a public health risk Associated with people and police facing off like this every day. There's a PTSD that can that can come out of that and so I wanted to kind of Find the grounds to do some deeper research and try to problem solve around that So I get there and I have my little, you know questionnaire and it's like have you been feeling irritable depressed? How is your sleep and I'm looking around me and it's just total chaos everywhere and I'm like well This is not gonna work so I Was with my friend from college and he was a still photographer He just started working in cinematography. It's a field producer with bravol and at first He started taking photos and I started writing and that had been kind of like my secret passion But I just something that I did for myself and the first article that I wrote was something terrible like five things You need to know about Ferguson or something and I just you know, yeah And so I just couldn't it wasn't enough it wasn't containing what I was seeing in front of me And so we kind of naturally started rolling and I started asking questions and after the first interview We did which is actually the opening scene of the film We went back to the house We're staying in and we just were up until like five o'clock in the morning Just alive with energy about what this story was gonna be and all the things we were gonna do and we Didn't know it was a feature film Then we're like we can have a whole channel and it'll be a series and we'll be the news and we'll but you know Just kind of that's that spark that click happened really organically and ever since then You know, this has been the only thing that it takes so much to make these films and do this work And you touch on it in your book It's so it's you know, there's a lot of ups and downs, but I still every day I feel like I have the same energy I can you know, keep going keep going so that's how I kind of Knew that this was gonna be for me I mean that is like mind-boggling to me that you could like be on your way to medical school go to Ferguson and then say I Think I'm gonna make a film and then make a film like how How does that actually like how does that happen? How does it go from you know? A lot of people have thoughts about it would be cool to do this or maybe I should but you've actually done that How how does that happen? I Mean it's all of those cliche things. It's speaking it into existence. It's believing in it It's it's you know a community of people believing in it though Not just me believing in it But this whole documentary community the Ford Foundation and all of the MacArthur Tribeca Sundance a whole list of foundation I mean our thank-you pages You know three minutes long And so it just was people felt the energy of what we were trying to do I think and we were really really committed to trying to Be of service to the people there who were trying to get justice and to the larger population who needed to understand this On a deeper level and we just wanted to kind of remove some of the Sensationalism from it and get to the humanity of what was going on And I think that because people believed in that you know There was so much support momentum around it that for me and my co-director Damon We just kind of had to like surrender to this process and just come and give our best to it and kind of Let it happen. I mean, you know, it was really really hard work But I definitely can't take all the credit because it took a lot of people and a lot of faith for it to come out so I was maybe 10 or 11 when I was on the prize here the first part of it and I always loved history and I I remember Sitting there and just being astounded by all this history that I didn't know Because one by ten you aren't taught a lot You know Dr. King is and then the way you're taught it is Dr. King has his dream and the dream comes true and we're kind of done with that But clearly I was I mean I was living in the segregated community I was being bused to white school So I knew that that wasn't the end and and it was remarkably affirming to see this history being told not in a Little snippet, but really in-depth and I wonder how did you guys specifically come to make This how did you come to make eyes on the prize? How did that happen? Well, I Mean it all it's all about Henry Hampton who died way too young almost 20 years ago Henry Hampton was a young African-american medical student actually interestingly enough From St. Louis. He grew up in segregated St. Louis And in 1955 he was profoundly Influenced and affected by the death of Emmett Till And the photo in Jet magazine That was the same year that he was stricken with polio actually and for the first time in his life really began to I think understand What that disability was so he sort of tucked away in the back of his mind this idea of some day Doing something about civil rights He he had a long and really interesting early career Including working for the Unitarian Church and when he was working for the church He got sent to Selma, Alabama and was in one of the marches and Selma not the big bloody Sunday March But the next one the so-called turnaround March, which was this really complicated Tactically weird March where they did the right thing for the wrong reasons or the wrong thing for the right reasons and retreated Anyhow, he was walking back across the Pettus Bridge Away from the troopers and he looked around and saw all these news cameras And he thought some day someone's gonna make a great story out of this And sure enough he tried about ten years later. He tried to do a big epic a 26 part epic actually about Civil rights for commercial television for ABC. Did you say 26 parts? I mean, it's 26. Wow. Yeah, 26 parts Well, he was naive That first attempt was a complete train wreck. It was a humiliating failure Partly because Henry would be the first to admit he didn't know what he was doing And also at that time this was 1978. No one had figured out How to do these big complex historical series You know it was way before Ken Burns. It was way before these PBS. It was the Easter Channel didn't exist You know the American experience didn't exist. So no one really knew how to do it. Any long story short He was determined not to give up and about four years later He he relaunched the project in the public sphere, you know with help I have to say from the Ford Foundation was their first early big funder to come in MacArthur all the our friends It had I have to shout out today it had funding from the National Endowment for the humanities significant funding and He hired me and Sam and a whole bunch of folks Who had some experience and we set off and you know over the next two years? We made first eyes one which was the six films from sort of the classic black and white In all senses of black and white Civil rights movement and then went on to do eyes to which was another what eight shows. Yeah, right And here we are I can't believe we're 30 years later We're sitting here in Brooklyn in a screening room looking at these things with a young filmmaker who's who's carrying on the work I mean, it's sort of it's astonishingly wonderful for me, frankly Do you want to add anything to that? Well, I was fortunate enough to come in on eyes to I had been editing for about 12 years And I was working on a show and I had an assistant Meredith Woods Who had worked on eyes and she suggests she had said to me that Henry was looking for a producer For eyes, too, they had lost a producer and I she gave me the number. I called up Henry I went up to Boston had an interview with Henry and signed on to be one of the producers one of the salt and pepper teams I What I mean by that is that every team of we all did two shows these salt and pepper teams There was one white producer one black producer And it was Henry's mindset to sort of create that tension which definitely did happen That actually is a great segue because my next question is exactly that and I'd like all three of you to answer I mean these films whose streets eyes on the prize are dealing with the black fight For full humanity and full citizenship in this country And I wonder how important is the race of the director and the producer when you're making a film about this this Particularly about the black struggle struggle for a full citizenship. I Would like you all answer I'll I'll dive right in there were there were very strong arguments within eyes on the prize that it would make an incredible Statement if it was an all-black production team Judy Richardson really fought for that and Henry felt Henry Hampton Felt that you know if you're gonna make these films that are about White people and black people in America that to reach a white and black audience And he was really determined that he was gonna reach a mainstream middle American Audience in Iowa. I'm sorry for those who don't know with Henry Hampton white or black.  Okay. Yeah. Yeah, every Hampton when he had been an activist he had been And so he as Sam explained he felt that it was really important If you're gonna gonna work these things out in society and you're gonna work them out In films you have to work them out in the editing room also these he said we have secrets from one another We have secrets across race. We have secrets across Generations we have secrets across genders and it became known around black side as the abrasion of good minds and and he wanted he wanted people to to fight it out in the editing room, you know, sometimes it works sometimes it didn't I Think in the end it probably made eyes on the prize more accessible to a broad audience frankly His eyes in the prize as strong as it might have been had it been an all-black production team, maybe not Maybe not I would jump in and say I think you know it was Henry's vision And I even though Judy was really strong about all black teams Henry's vision was to have this kind of tension and it wouldn't be the eyes on the prize It is without that, you know, it was hard, you know, because there would be times when you know The of the co-producing teams we would have different opinions and it would get really get tough One of the things though that if you remember John one of the things that was important that we always had a discussion that when we went out to interview people Who would interview who if it was a white person should I interview that person should Sheila Bernard It was my co-producer interview that person. We always had that constant dialogue, you know And at that time if it was the white person Sheila would do it if it was a black person I would do it now quite honestly I've been to be lots of white people now from the south since then so I don't really have a problem with it But back then we had that sort of tension the constant tension and John's right. There were some teams that didn't survive That didn't survive the salt and pepper thing Yeah, I mean, I don't know if y'all want to tell any particular story. I know a little interested in the tension But I think that would be right I mean if you're looking about what it is that you were trying to do and Understanding that black and white folks live a fundamentally different lived experience in this country. There would have to be tension Even though the film was about Distinctly, I mean it was also about white America like being anti-democratic, right? And it's both of those things But is there anything that that sticks out in your your head a particular tension or a particular struggle over a particular Issue or framing in any of these? Well, it's interesting. Well two things first of all I have to say We did some interviews with an all-white crew and some interviews with an all-black crew very very seldom But occasionally we would have that discussion back in Boston and decide to have a crew that was all one race Well, it's interesting Orlando Bagwell and I Orlando's a black producer Who did two of the episodes and I was one Orlando and I were rooming together in Boston and we were both raising young sons at the time Our sons were I think about both about ten at the time and it was the thing I remember actually had did not have to do with the film but it had to do with Orlando and I talking about raising our sons and The talk that he would have with his son the talk that I would probably not have with my son There was a different talk that I would have with my son And so though that those were probably discussions that I think we might not have had had it not been that The building was this It was like this multicultural Multi-ethnic Boiling Calderon in multiculturalism. Yeah. Yeah, so I'm I mean definitely at least to me when I watched your film. I knew that this was a film made by a black person So what do you think is the role or importance of the race of the producer or the director when it comes to these films? I Think that it's really important that this film Needed to be authored and owned by black people and I think that for my co-director and I It was really important to both of us that a woman helm this film And I think that there's a certain Sensitivity that you bring as a map marginalized person because in order to survive You have to understand the distance between yourself and the other Whereas if you are not, you know marginalized in a particular way You don't necessarily have to pay attention at certain things because it doesn't you know bear on your security in different ways So I think it was important for that direction to be there and that ownership to be there But at the same time, you know my edit my editor is a wonderful white guy And he you know brought a whole lot of insight to the film and the issues that we were grappling with and he brought He brought you know a level of distance that was really really necessary because when you live through this and You know like John and like Henry. I was an activist. I came to it trying to be a part of it So I was standing shoulder-to-shoulder people with people And sometimes you don't you don't have that perspective. You just don't there were points in the process where we had to bring In a totally outside voice who was white who could just look at our footage and find Pieces of information because we literally could not tell what contextual facts were relevant because we knew this story so well So I think ultimately we are more we are better together We are better when we're working together in diverse groups and bringing our different talents and and you know strengths to the table But I think it's also really really important to acknowledge that you know and not just in storytelling But in a lot of realms it is time for black leadership It's time for the leadership of women is time for the leadership people of color because we're if we don't get that We're missing a perspective We're never gonna have the full picture without you know having that leadership and the ability when the buck stops You know somebody who is deeply vested and somebody who understands from the perspective of a black person can make that call I think that was really really important in our film. I wanted to ask you When when you guys made eyes on the prize there was some distance But you're making this film While it is happening while the movement is ongoing and what are the particular challenges to to try and to create a Film that is documenting a movement that is still happening Yeah, almost all of it was a particular challenge It you know we started out wanting to You know make We thinking we were gonna make something longer You know we did we had no idea how we were going to fully contain this story And it's actually funny because Sam a different point points in the process has kind of given us feedback on our works in progress I remember we first got ready to send you some footage. We're like, yes, so we have an assembly. It's 14 hours long And Sam emails me back and he goes what are you making a three-part series get back to me when you have an assembly and You know, but it was great motivation for us to kind of understand that we were neat We were gonna need to make some difficult choices and fast if we were gonna be able to do this You know, that's towards the end of the process, but as we were filming I think because of things like eyes on the prize We kind of had this innate awareness that the things that were happening around us had a historical value in and of themselves and so It kind of gave us permission to just explore and I think you know again Thanking the the documentary film community and the funders who supported us going out there You know, we would come back with tidbits of footage and we're like listen like there is a story here And we're working through it, you know, and they kept sending us back and we were collecting food So ultimately we had, you know, three to four hundred hours worth of footage and there are there's material that you know I think has an archival value to it and we kind of knew that as we're collecting it So, you know, like Sam said documentaries are made in the edit. So we got finally finished shooting I think the things that we knew were that this was gonna be a personal story first and foremost and that That you know the protests of the things that people already knew at least knew a little bit about Ferguson That had to be the backdrop to the story about what it's like to be a human being in the situation. We knew that We knew that it was going to be an ensemble cast We weren't trying to create any monolithic heroes and I think you know I think that's one of the great things again about eyes and the prize and the fact that you took so much time and space to tell The story is that you you get the sense that this takes a community and a village of people from all different kind of walks of lives and areas and I personally was really adamant that I wanted it to be no longer than 90 minutes now It's about an hour and 45 minutes But you know I felt like for this in this particular moment and the way that we were trying to tell the story what was going on that it Had to be Concise somehow that we had to sum it up We were never going to be able to explore all the facts of the case We've never going to be able to get into the details of Mike Brown's death if we wanted to execute this really emotional intimate story So, you know just I have to thank my editor Christopher McNally I mean just a really really brilliant and dedicated human being Navigated through you know, we researched So much archival we did really late in the process and over 25 archival sources ended up being used So he's pulling clips from Instagram clips from buying little 10-second videos and you know His ability to really create a sense of space out of these really disparate sources and kind of get to the heart of The emotion in these public moments I think you know, I'm really grateful that he came to the table with that skill set and and you know It was a really Generational process I want to comment on this. This is an extraordinary film by the way I saw it at the premiere at Sundance whose streets are streets It's just it's an amazingly profoundly moving movie And it's easy to miss that one of the giant differences Between this and eyes and the prize in the is that all the footage we had to work with with eyes and the prize was shot by White male camera guys from the networks working for networks in Los Angeles and New York I Mean there was no Individual person in Selma, Alabama from the community had a camera shooting. There were nobody was shooting home movies And one of the things that's so Energizing and moving about this film is that it's it's so clearly from inside the community and that's Partly because times have changed. It's partly because everyone has cell phones now But it's it's a totally different cinematic experience because It's it's it's it is filmed by the people about whom the film is being made. It's a totally different. Yeah absolutely Which is another great segue to my next question, which is your film is clearly it has a sense of intimacy to it There's no narrator And I feel like with eyes on the prize episode there's much more of a kind of a distance and I wonder if you guys could talk about the decisions in How you chose how you were going to tell these stories? What were some of the the decisions you made about the actual filmmaking you made a decision? You wouldn't have a narrator You wouldn't have a script that sort of thing and that's a huge part of eyes on the prize is is this voice on high That is taking you on this journey and as you said John your film is very much Intimate and I wouldn't say yours isn't intimate, but it's it's clearly a different aesthetic So if you guys could talk about those decisions and why you think they were effective for the particular films that you made In the case of eyes One of the things that was paramount in terms of us all starting this process was Henry was in John and Judith Vecchione The one word that we kept hearing all the time was you have to the sentence was you have to tell us a story What's the story and I was a story unfold and This is where after all my years of editing this is where I first heard someone say the three-part structure You know you have to you have to adhere to the three-part structure and that was always a challenge You know I have to set up the inciting incident and the conclusion The other thing that was important to the Henry basically said in John and Judith said to us that It's gotta be from the people who were there when you look for your interviews. They have to tell us a story You know and so that was another challenge and then the other to the third challenge was to be able to say Which really was very important from a journalistic perspective. You had to be accurate You had to make sure all your facts checked out You couldn't just say something because you felt you felt it you had to after we got to our cuts our final cuts We were going to a room with John and Judith Vecchione and the other advisors and Henry and our producing team And we would go through every sentence of narration every interview And that we would have to have a Bible to fact check everything we said if it wasn't fact check It wasn't going to get in the show, you know and the importance of Julian to this to the series In my opinion was to be able to He I don't think him is the voice of God I think of him as someone who had been a part of the movement who said I'm gonna help Set the stage and sit let you this story unfold, you know That's what his responsibility was but it was our responsibility to write that stuff and rewrite it and rewrite and rewrite it So it felt right. It was always about that's why I really understood journalistic integrity and from making eyes on the prize Well, we were I think I think I'm speaking for Sam and myself and a whole bunch of others I think Given our own Ways of doing things all of us would have made much more bold films for eyes on the prize I mean, it's very very spare. It's it's narration interviews with people who were there archive footage and songs from the time That's it. Okay. It's very very spare. I mean, we would have gone crazy We would have done a million we may have made it more like whose streets right if we could have but This was 1985 and there were there was there had never been a series about civil rights So we were starting from scratch and we were aiming very very high for the breadth of our audience Henry was really determined that 50 million Americans would see this which in fact happened and they'd be white and they'd be black and the people who Most of many of them most of them probably never heard of Emmett Hill So there was all this historical baggage this background It's like doing the first film about Elvis Presley or the first film about you know You name it you got to get all this baggage out of the way and and I hope Paved the way so you don't have to do all that when you do those films now So that partly accounts for why it's you know, it's kind of clunky now It looks like old-fashioned it is old-fashioned filmmaking But that and John is absolutely right because I had come out of making documentaries that were no narration that were Really direct cinema You know where we would shape it with just the footage that was shot and the people that we had interviewed And there was nobody there was no no Julian Bond. So my first I Completely in sync with John to me. I could we making these kind of films for this is like old-fashioned stuff But this was Henry's he wanted to make sure he got an audience to pay attention You know and for me as a first-time producer it was a big challenge to go here to these rules You know, I was chopping at the bit all the time Yeah, I would just echo that I mean I think films like I was in the prize and I think specifically eyes on the prize You know laid a foundation for us and the question that we had to grapple with was okay You know, this is the same story. This is a story where you know how it ends before it even starts And so how do you? Kind of make something new what has not been done So I think because Henry approached it the way he did because you all took those steps And because you all had that kind of rigor with the facts It opened up a space for us to do something emotional for us to add another element I think that the process of kind of humanizing black people and humanizing our experience in this country has been Our projects since we were brought to this country And so I think you you should look at these films as an evolution of that attempt to engage with white America to engage with the popular imagination and to you know, kind of fully lay claim to our humanity in all the different ways I think that you know, we think of This movement as a as a human rights movement We think of it as an advancement of civil rights to say that no now It's actually time for full recognition of our humanity and all the ways that that means So yeah, just and you know again have to thank you all for the work that you did and for really setting the stage and and teaching and giving us a kind of arena To plan and learn from and bounce off and think okay. Do we want to do it like this? Do we not want to do it like this, you know having that foundation there was really important Well, you know that now we learn from you, right? It's true I mean, I think that tension is always so interesting because And as a writer who also writes about I call my beat the segregation beat I write about our racial inequality particularly With black children is you are trying to craft something that you hope will prod people to do the right thing But you're also trying to be true to that story and for me and I imagine for you the outrage that you feel about this injustice That you're chronicling so I wonder Subah and John you both came out of activism and Do all of you believe that all documentaries are political is the first part of the question are all documentaries political And what is the role of documentary in social change? Yeah, I think I think that all art is political I think if you're making a documentary that's not political then you're just taking the political stance of neutrality But I think you know, it's still political whether you like it or not. I'm gonna steal that one Yeah, I mean everything is political, I don't think there's anything we do in our waking lives That's not political. We may not we may not identify it as such now Are all documentaries films of advocacy? That's a different question And I don't think that every documentary has to be a film of advocacy In fact, I've been I've been troubled in the last ten years when we started to have all these metrics for From funders about you know when you do a documentary Can you point to how many clicks are on the website to support that NGO? I think that that limits what we do I think there are some documentaries that are not there Should be plenty of documentaries that are not overt advocacy I'll I have to follow up also with what Sam said that it was a black side that I learned that You have to be factual. I mean you have to if the Henry used to say if the film's gonna get attacked Let's have it attacked for the right reasons not because you stole a close-up from some meeting and put it in a meeting A hundred miles away on a different day. Let's just don't do that And I've carried that with me and that's sometimes hard because it sometimes Results and what do they call it testimony against interest, you know Sometimes it makes your guys your eyes don't look so great, but you know so be it I am on the same page as a lot all artists political as far as I'm concerned I mean as soon as you shape something soon as you say something you're making a political stance The thing is if you are aware of it, you know as a as a as a young editor when I first started in the business I Said to Anybody who could hear me when I was 23 24. I said I don't want to make any political films I don't want to make any films associated with black people. I want to make films just about people You know, well that was a political stance and then I was very fortunate about five years later to meet a filmmaker a name St. Clair born wonderful documentary And Saint made me understand that all art is political and from that point on that was that's my mantra And I would just add for the second part of your question You know, what is the importance of documentary? I think spaces like this really demonstrate that and I think one of the things that we thought about as we are creating Who streets is we did one at the actual core release I really wanted for this film to be exposed on the level of mainstream media communication because that is how Kind of the alternative story was you know Alternative facts were presented and it seemed like to set the record straight that it needed to go to that level And I also just think you know with film I think a lot of the magic of it comes when you get to enjoy it in a room with a bunch of other people and you Can feel the palpable energy and you laugh together and you cry together and you you know gasp and all of that I think documentary You know, I think that again the work that you all have done the groundwork you have laid with this medium Or it's particularly with eyes on the prize and you know civil rights films that were extremely rigorous and breaking down and laying out You know, it's all there. I think it gives filmmakers now License to really create documentaries that are experiences that can open people's eyes and you know I think of it as one of the few ways that we actually have to kind of combat segregation because segregation never really really stopped and I think these are some of the few moments when we actually Come face-to-face with one another So I think that's that for me would be the importance of documentary to activism great, so I think we have a few minutes for Question and answers so there's a microphone on both sides of the room if anyone has any questions. They'd like to ask Hey, Barbara Hey, Nicole. Hi Thanks for this has been really interesting and I just want to actually make two observations for comment by anybody who might wish to One is that I I've seen this I saw eyes on the prize originally and it's nice to see it again But one of the things that I was really struck by and I think it follows up on Something you guys were talking about with respect to all the different ways that people now have cameras and they document things in real time but Given where we are right now where we're just that has had tremendous power in our culture I was stunned to realize that When those camera people were there I want to say camera men because they probably work men from the big networks with those network logos on their cameras Law enforcement is it's not that they're not aware. They're there. They're all over the place We can see them and seem to not understand that What they were doing The power of the visual that was being captured as they were doing it. I was just very struck by how I Don't know if I don't I want to say oblivious they were to it But they couldn't have been oblivious to the cameras, but they were absolutely oblivious to what the impact of that Could potentially be so that was just one observation. I wanted to make and then the second thing I wanted to say is um, I Really appreciate this series because in the fall of 1964 I was starting kindergarten at a school that no longer exists It was kind of an alternative school called the Walden school on West 88th Street And I think it was the first day of kindergarten the whole school. We had an assembly and we learned about the killings in Mississippi in 1964 because Andy Goodman had graduated from Walden and The community was a very the Walden community was a very tight community And so I think this is what we did on the first day of I was five years old And I remember this distinctly and then we all went outside and all of us kids Helped to plant what is still there. It is still there on 88th and Central Park West a tree called the Andrew Goodman tree And it's got a little plaque and if you walk by 88th Street, and you just turn the corner You'll see it and it wasn't until So I always knew this story about Andy Goodman, but it wasn't until I really I saw this series that I really had a much bigger understanding of like freedom summer and And What this little story that had a big impact on me as a little kid like what the bigger thing was So I know neither of those were questions, but I just wanted to pass those two things along There any other questions from the audience if not I have Do you want to go to the microphone? I have a question for Sam Would you mind talking a little bit more about the process of Henry Hampton because he at the root of all this You say tell the story and I remember that he Always pushed people push you and other producers push the envelope you if you come up with a concept He had an instinct. It was not the most as I remember articulate person in the room But he has an instinct to turn down All the solutions you came up with and you will you it was a quasi almost right in the end and The language that looks old-fashioned. I think it's not it's lesser a white language than the PBS language That was prevalent like middle of the road You had to be middle of the road show both sides Which is all the time. Yeah, I gotta say to you that You're right. We were presenting with different approaches and concepts and he would shoot them down and she learned I would and the other produces Jackie and Louie, you know We would get frustrated and the first thing we would do in all lines. We go call John Who said John we need help? We did it all the time because we were always like Dizzy because we said where are we going because we would pitch and pitch and pitch and Henry would just like She this down and I say John we need help For those of you who are filmmakers next time you're in a production meeting you just can't figure out what what's going on Remember this that I would vary I lived in California. I was commuting from California And I would very often get phone calls from a producer who had just been in a meeting with Henry Hampton I was 3,000 miles away and the producer would say what did Henry mean in that meeting and I would say I have no idea, you know, I wasn't there and then Five minutes later. I'd get on the call from another producer who'd been in the same meeting and say what did Henry mean? So it was my job to try to then I have to call Henry figure out what he meant and I called the producers back So I was kind of the translator, you know, but these You know You know, he had a vision, you know, I always say this I always say this I'm very honest Henry to me wasn't a filmmaker he was a visionary and He was a visionary that sometimes didn't quite know how to articulate the vision to us But if you stayed at the table long enough and you went to the vacuum and John You would it would come around because I have to say that as a first-time producer Coming from it as an editor. I thought I knew everything. I thought I knew better than any producer You know, but I learned the valuable lesson that Just because I was editing all this footage didn't mean I knew how to be a producer And that's one of the most invaluable things I learned from that eyes on the prize experience how to be a producer Okay That we seeing some of eyes on the prize right now is so important because None of us have talked about the elephant in the room, but what just happened with that election seeing Where we came from in that detail, especially about the hatreds and the racism and the sexism of our country It's important because I was blindsided. I'm not gonna pretend I was by what happened, but in Context, you know, when you start seeing it, you realize no this this unfortunately it is who we are and We're trying to be better and sometimes it goes back and forth and I think we're in the back But it at least gives a context. It's so important to be able to understand what happened so what's what's so interesting about that and and You're making your film under President Obama, right? And I think what was important to remember is yes an election It was a manifestation of clearly the tensions and the bigotry that already existed And so yeah, I guess as a wrap-up question I would be interested to know what what does that felt like because I feel I get that a lot with my work, too Where people are like, oh my god, what's gonna happen under Trump? And I'm like I've been writing about really bad stuff for eight years of the Obama administration and clearly it can get worse but It's almost like we we want to be let off the hook by saying that the election of Trump was not who we are And so we have to ignore What was happening when you were making a film just a couple years ago? right You know having the first black president. I remember when Obama was elected and I had Just I missed the cutoff to vote in his first election by a couple of months But you know there was just this overwhelming feeling I was back home in LA at the time and everybody had just come out onto the Streets and we're honking and crying and just you know, they felt like we had won this amazing victory We have finally had a black person, you know in the White House not the help and You know and so I take that victory because that is amazing and to have him and to have Michelle I think really it's about Michelle. Let's be honest You know but to have those figures it means something to us, you know And it is an honor to have that office and to to run this country But at the same time, you know across the board a lot of the things that happened under his Administration were the worst of the things that have been happening under president after president as far as you know The drone policies overseas as far as You know what was happening in Ferguson in st. Louis and the lack of intervention there and so I have always been Critical and I think it is important to constantly be critical of whoever is in office, you know We should respect and honor you are leaders But at the same time it doesn't serve anyone to not be critical of them Just because maybe we like them or they make us feel good that they're that they're there and so Yeah, I think it's really really important to look at the situation We find ourselves in now as a culmination of all of these different, you know Politics and things that have been happening. I don't see it as us going backwards I see it as more of an eruption of a building energy You know and it gets really complicated where all those things come from but I think that overall I would say this isn't I Don't know they're like we were saying, you know back in the room They're do there does feel like there are things happening that are unprecedented But there are also things happening that have been happening that we're just starting to look at Did you want to add something Sam? Yeah to me what's happening? It's historical precedent about precedent about what America is.  Wow great things bang Reconstructions over Jim Crow. This is just a cycle. This is America, you know And the challenge for us is documentary filmmakers or to do films to be involved in documentaries that challenge this Constantly challenge this, you know because this to me is America I mean the power of these to these films together eyes on the prize and who streets as you see how Cicular at all is you see the you see the police standing off against peaceful protesters in Selma and Birmingham And then you see that happening again in Ferguson, and I think that is where I mean civil rights movements I always understand it is the ability for film to bear witness and to expose what in a segregated society White Americans don't have to see what you were seeing right in all of these places Without film beaming this into people's homes or bring it into theaters has allowed many Americans to ignore the reality on the ground I think you guys have all done that so powerfully Is it time to wrap up? Okay, so I think what time are they screening? Who streets is next? Okay, I thought they were filming Sorry in theaters this summer. It's gonna be distributed by Magnolia pictures Actually, if you go to see I am not your Negro next weekend starting next weekend. You can catch a little teaser of who streets and We'll be at different festivals. I think we'll be back here back in Brooklyn at BAM in a couple of months So and I'm just gonna say I just had a show come on Monday. I'm PBS called the talk You can stream it at PBS.org I don't know anything to you can buy it out the lobby Yes, I'll sign it So thank you all for it's been an honor to be on the stage with all three of you And the work that you guys are doing and have done so powerful. So if we could show our appreciation. Thank you