| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
| I'm as interested as you are. | ||
| I don't have the answers, but I think it's one that the question has been begged and it needs to be addressed. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So thank you. | |
| Thank you. | ||
| Earlier today, U.S. Trade Representative Jameson Greer testified before the Senate Finance Committee about President Trump's trade policies and the intended effect of newly imposed tariffs on nearly all foreign imports. | ||
| Watch his testimony tonight at 9 o'clock Eastern on C-SPAN. | ||
| It's also available on C-SPAN Now, our free mobile video app, or online at c-SPAN.org. | ||
| Nearly 3,500 students across 42 states and DC participated in this year's C-SPAN Student Cam documentary competition. | ||
| This year, we asked students to create short videos with messages to the president exploring issues important to them or their communities. | ||
| All this month, we're featuring our top 21 winning entries. | ||
| One of this year's second prize high school East winners is a 12th grader from Richland Northeast High School in Columbia, South Carolina, where C-SPAN is available through Spectrum. | ||
| Their winning documentary is titled Carolina Connections, Understanding Others. | ||
| And if we can find a way to see ourselves and each other, we can and will build a more tolerant and more inclusive country. | ||
| In my community, we have experienced an erosion in our community connectedness, where neighbors often don't know each other. | ||
| As our communities have become disconnected, these fractures have been complicated by a tense political climate and racial and economic divides. | ||
| We are seeing this impact in our schools and neighborhoods and in our interactions with others. | ||
| Yeah, most times when we disagree with somebody, we just write them off entirely. | ||
| We don't want to talk to them. | ||
| We don't want to hear what they have to say. | ||
| And you get nothing done when that happens. | ||
| This can lead to a distrust and a lack of empathy from not knowing other people and not understanding their stories, which makes it hard to come together and solve problems. | ||
| When both individuals and groups of people feel disconnected from other community members, division occurs. | ||
| This can lead to tragic results. | ||
| In 2015, a 21-year-old self-proclaimed white supremacist killed nine black church members at Mother Emmanuel Church while at a Bible study. | ||
| One of those members was Reverend Sharonda Coleman-Singleton. | ||
| Now, her son Chris works in communities to try to prevent another tragedy by helping community members understand each other and listen to their stories. | ||
| You know, the next time you think to yourself, hey, I don't even understand why they vote that way, why they think that way, I want you to put yourself in their shoes. | ||
| And I love using gun violence for my example because I lost my mom due to gun violence, and so therefore I don't like guns. | ||
| And so I have friends who grew up hunting and at the shooting range and all that stuff, and so they do like guns. | ||
| And we both hate when terrible things happen in our world, but there's understanding because we both realize all we think differently. | ||
| My husband Greg was a police officer in the Forest Acres area in Columbia, South Carolina. | ||
| And on September 30th of 2015, he was shot and killed in the line of duty. | ||
| And when that happened, I was very called to find a way to bring people together, police and communities. | ||
| This led to Ali Array founding Serve and Connect. | ||
| We don't believe in us versus them, police versus community. | ||
| We believe that when we work together, we can create a better future for us all. | ||
| The greater need for reform is relational reformation, causing law enforcement and communities to see the humanity in one another and work around their commonalities and not be so divided by their differences. | ||
| Community members and organizations recognize this disconnect and are working to make a difference. | ||
| First thing you have to do is make sure that your agency reflects the diversity of the community. | ||
| And then you go to them and you build that bridge. | ||
| Don't wait them to come to you because they probably won't. | ||
| But if you go to them and you build that bridge and you build that foundation, then when a critical incident happens, you already have that in place. | ||
| One solution isn't going to fit every community, which is why it's important to give a voice to local organizations that work to solve specific issues in their community. | ||
| It's, you know, coming in and telling a community what you're going to do versus deciding what you're going to do together are two very different things. | ||
| One organization doing this work is Gangs in Peace, a violence prevention organization that was founded by former gang members with the goal of reducing youth violence. | ||
| I consider myself as one of the bigger problems when it came to gang banger, so I just wanted to be the biggest solution. | ||
| Sims bridged the gap and looked for ways to help heal old wounds and divisions. | ||
| Ended up reaching out to other gang members from what people would call rival rival sets. | ||
| And mine, I reached out to them, pretty much let them know, you know, we've been doing this for over decades. | ||
| You know, it's time for us to make a change. | ||
| That is something very unique to sit at the table when they take all the flags, the black, the red, and the blue, and they tie them together in unity. | ||
| You don't see that anywhere else. | ||
| Resources and funding need to be given to local organizations. | ||
| These groups are the ones that are in affected areas every day and working to make a difference. | ||
| The biggest step that the government can take is relinquishing some power and letting smaller nonprofits or grassroots be funded to do the work in every city that they're part of. | ||
| Connecting organizations is critical. | ||
| So often our elected officials know so many different people, whether it be businesses, nonprofits, or influential individuals. | ||
| They also can help with writing letters of support for grant applications or sharing our message on different platforms that they have access to. | ||
| Just like community members have ways to connect with each other, politicians must be engaged with the communities that they represent. | ||
| The way we can help communities on the federal, state, and local level is to understand and know our communities, stay involved, have an open-door policy. | ||
| It is important that the president promotes understanding and takes time to listen to others and hear their stories. | ||
| Community members have a voice and it is important that they are given a platform to speak to organizations and address the issues that are most important to them. | ||
| We don't have the answer by ourselves. |