Joo-Hyun Kang

Lewis: [00:00:03] So, we’ll begin.
 
Kang: Cool.
 
Lewis: [00:00:05] I’m Lynn Lewis, with the Picture the Homeless Oral History Project interviewing Joo-Hyun Kang from Communities united for Police Reform, and it is January 4, 2019.
 
Kang: Two-thousand nineteen!
 
Lewis: [00:00:20] Yeah. Joo-Hyun, I wanted to ask you first if you could tell me a little bit about yourself, where you’re from, some things about your childhood maybe, that you’d like to share.
 
Kang: [00:00:33] Sure, I was born in Korea. I came to the States when I was very, very young. I grew up in Yonkers and White Plains and then went off to college in Rhode Island, came back to New York and lived mostly in Brooklyn—with maybe one stint in Manhattan. This is where memory fades, for all the years since then.
 
Lewis: [00:01:00] All right, thank you. And when did you enter community organizing or political work? How old were you, and what were some of the things that were happening at the time?
 
Kang: [00:01:16] I probably think about it in two or three different stages. One stage was my father was very politically active in the kind of newer Korean immigrant community. So, I would go to things with him when we were younger. But for me—independent of my family—was probably more in kind of late high school and while I was in college and around that time. There was a lot of things happening, including U.S. foreign intervention all over the place. That hasn’t changed, and that was before then, of course, too. And then I think another stage was probably when I was—after college in terms of—you know, I always say, tell this story differently every time. I haven’t gotten a wrap on this.
 
Kang: [00:02:08] Later, after that, I feel like more in terms of really looking at different kinds of organizing. When I was in high school I was influenced mostly by—high school, and then into my late teens, early twenties—I was influenced by Marxists and Anarchists, which people say is contradictory, but I don’t actually think it’s that contradictory. You pull the best from each tradition, and you kind of look at what your conditions are now and try to apply it. And now I forgot the question, [laughs] which is what my past few weeks have been like.
 
Lewis: You’re kind of entering into political life, community organizing, things that were happening at the time that impacted you?
 
Kang: [00:02:50] Yeah, things that happened at the time were probably—the pivotal things included apartheid in South Africa, Rodney King being beaten and that being publicized, the boycotts against Korean grocers in New York for racism, sexual violence. I think those are probably some of the main ones.
Lewis: That we’re still dealing with.
 
Kang: [00:03:21] None of them have changed that much, yeah.
 
Lewis: Who would you say were some of the folks, I know you mentioned your dad, but that influenced you in your early political development?
 
Kang: [00:03:37] A lot of different people. More so I feel like I was influenced, maybe in, later—but folks like Richie Pérez for sure, who mentored a lot of people, obviously, and was an influence on a lot of people. Folks like Barbara Smith, who I met in my, probably early twenties, who was running Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press at the time, which was the only independent women of color press in the country. And then some of my peers, folks like—you know Antonia from California, who—
 
Lewis: Oh, yeah.  
 
Kang: [00:04:21] And Don, who’s name I’m forgetting, Don Murphy. You know Don Murphy?
 
Lewis: I don’t think so.
 
Kang: [00:04:25] I feel like you would have known him at some point—he used to be CPUSA way back but then ran some other stuff in New York. I feel like those are some of the folks, and then people who I never met directly who obviously influence—or not obviously—who influence my thinking, including people like Audre Lorde. Then later on folks like Sylvia Rivera who I did work with—yeah, I feel like I’ve been blessed by a lot of folks influencing me.
 
Lewis: Do you have a Richie story that you’d like to share? I feel like it’s—
 
Kang: [Laughs] I got shitloads of Richie stories, but I don’t even know where to start.
 
Lewis: I feel like I had come across a really old article about CAAAV and Richie and some work and your name in there, is that—
 
Kang: Oh, that’s interesting.
 
Lewis: —is that a mis-memory or did that happen?

Kang: [00:05:22] It might not be. I mean, when I first started working with Richie I was actually at the Audre Lorde Project, although that was—meaning, like, when I first started working with him directly, so that was probably around ninety-six, although I met him before then when I was doing some stuff with CAAAV, probably in ninety-four, ninety-five, so maybe that’s what it was. And one of the first interactions I remember with him was really his… Strategic thinking around—you remember in, I think it was ninety-five, the Bridges and Tunnels action because Picture the Homeless members were part of that and really doing a whole city-wide shutdown that focused on the Giuliani draconian budget, the budget cuts, whether it was on CUNY, or whether it was around HIV and AIDS and health, housing, police brutality, other issues.
Kang: [00:06:25] So that was one of the places where I feel like Richie helped to teach a lot of folk and train a lot of folk, in terms of thinking big around tactics that could be used—and also understanding the importance of coalition and principled coalition struggle, to really try to pull off not only something big, but really to try to train a whole new crew of people in direct action tactics. But I worked more closely—that’s more me, like, knowing of Richie. I worked more closely with him from ninety-six to maybe—until he passed, probably, in the early 2000s. Most of the time when I was at the Audre Lorde Project, then it was the National Congress for Puerto Rican Rights at that point. And one of the things I remember about him—and actually, Megan was one of the JC [Justice Committee] congress leaders at the time. You remember Megan?

Lewis: I don’t think so.
 
Kang: [00:07:26] She’s in California now, Megan Ortiz, but one of the police brutality incidents we were dealing with at the Audre Lorde Project was this trans woman Julia Lamott, who—Mom had been worried about her, so would call 911 for, you know, medical assistance. It’s, again, the same story that we hear all the time over and over again now. Cops show up, and by then Julia was fine and walking around, and they passed Julia in the hallway and were flirting with her, and then when they realized that Julia was actually who the call had come in for, because the mom had identified Julia as her son instead of her daughter because of her own transphobia, they wild-ed out. They just bugged out. They beat Julia, the mother, a neighbor, the dog. I think Julia’s brother was there at the time.
 
Kang [00:08:24] And at the time we had been—we had reached out to—at Audre Lorde Project we reached out to folks at the Anti-Violence Project, in addition to some of our partners in the Coalition Against Police Brutality. Richie and Megan were really fast about saying, we’ll support whatever you need in this, and were clear about the fact that this wasn’t just a case of racism and police brutality. It was combined with transphobia. It was combined with—just how police and the government treats poor people. This was in the projects in the Bronx, and part of what we realized just a few weeks or a few days into this in terms of supporting Julia’s family, because they all had charges against them. I mean, of course, because the cops made up a bunch of fucking charges after they beat them up and arrested them, was that the Anti-Violence Project only wanted to talk about what they saw as the gay piece of this, which is and was unfortunate, so we stopped working with them on it.
 
Kang: [09:32] And the Congress was really our partner in really trying to make sure the charges got dropped and support Julia and Julia’s family around stuff. And Richie I feel like, was in a place of—I mean, I think one of the things that was always so impactful about Richie is that he trained so many of us—not by saying he was training us but by practicing, and by admitting when he had limitations. And I feel like he grew a lot in terms of his own understanding of LGBT issues during that period. But he was always really open about how to be supportive in terms of trying to move issues strategically and tactically, and in this particular case was really generous about the fact that, however you all want to do this and how Julia’s family wants to do this, the Congress will support, and Megan was the same way around that case.
 
Lewis: [00:10:36] It sounds like you also were not only a learner in that moment but also a teacher and were practicing this way to look at issues in intersectional ways, before that word really became part of our mainstream discourse. And I wanted to ask you, along those lines, just because it’s really historically important that, here you are, the ED—I guess is your title—of Communities united for Police Reform, which also uses that same kind of lens to really fight to end police brutality. And so along those lines, Sylvia Rivera, of course, embodies a lot of that, the poverty, the homelessness, being of color and queer... So, do you have a Sylvia Rivera story that you would love to share?
 
Kang: [00:11:38] [Laughs] I have tons of Sylvia stories. What’s one? I think one of my Sylvia stories that I recall right now is, not so long before she passed actually… The—what was it called at that point? Empire State Pride Agenda, which used to exist and closed down a few years ago, which was the main kind of political arm for the institutionalized LGBT movement in New York State. Matt Forman was, I think, the ED at the time, and there was a whole fight around Sexual Orientation Nondiscrimination Act in New York State. And Sylvia was very clear about the fact that trans people needed to be included in that. It couldn’t just be sexual orientation. It had to be gender identity and expression.
 
Kang: [00:12:34] And she organized a protest outside the ESPA offices… And I think one of the—I mean, it wasn’t the most successful protest she’d ever done. She’s done, you know, she’d done a lot of probably bigger protests, but I feel like it was a position that wasn’t popular at that time, in terms of understanding that trans people, and trans women of color like her had really led this movement, and how dare people say that we were going to do LG—lesbian and gay rights first, and then we’ll get to trans folks later. Feel like that’s one story, and you know, of course—I mean, people have, I think, written about the fact that on her deathbed in the hospital Forman supposedly visited her or something or had talked to her while she was close to dying and still didn’t actually get it at the time. I think he’s since then talked about regretting that, but I think that’s one story. Another story is—wow, there’s a lot of Sylvia stories. This is more emotional than I thought... Another story is really like—her—you knew Bob Kohler, right?
 
Lewis: Mm-hmm.
 
Kang: [00:13:57] [Laughs] Bob always talked about himself as Sylvia’s gay dad, which made him a lot of our grandpa. And you know, I loved Bob. He was cranky as fuck and also so joyful and so generous, and cranky, but I think one of the things—I probably got to know Sylvia first and then got to know Bob, but one of the things with Sylvia I felt like that was really impactful is just her sense of openness and hope, and what you said at the beginning. She was interested in fighting for justice and liberation for all people, didn’t really matter what issue it was, and I know folks try to pigeonhole her in terms of trans rights these days, but she really was about anything that had to do with people who were poor or people of color and really understood in a deep way what state violence looks like, in people’s daily lives, but also the fact that we needed to organize.
 
Kang: [00:15:12] Yeah, there’s a lot of Sylvia stories. I have stories about her yelling at people, [laughs] but mostly her just being herself and all… And sometimes being vulnerable and… And sometimes just being really—she was very confident and also really humble. And I think that she’s one of the people who I remember as always being willing to learn new things and try new things and doing it all with passion, as if this was the last chance we had, which is important to keep in mind.
 
Lewis: You know, we’ve never talked about Sylvia Rivera, so I’m also learning a lot from you and feeling really moved by these stories and—
 
Kang: You’re going to make me cry. I can’t even believe how—I wasn’t thinking about this! [Laughs]
 
Lewis: [00:16:11] What’s your takeaway, or takeaways, about her practice that help inform your practice now?
 
Kang: [00:16:21] You know, I think there’s two sides to that. One is what her practice was, and the other side is what I observed in terms of what she wanted to broaden her practice as. So, like, in terms of what her practice was, I feel like the passion she brought to everything, and the importance of and necessity and urgency of now, is something that I feel like—you know, it’s not only her, for sure, but I feel like that’s one of the main qualities I remember about her, and the importance of action. It wasn’t always going to be successful action, but action. Do something at least. It’s not so different, although it’s expressed differently from Richie being like, you know, whoever’s got the plan, that’s the plan. It doesn’t have to be the perfect plan, but someone’s got to come up with a plan, and when there’s a plan, you do the plan.
 
Kang: [00:17:17] But, so I think some of it’s that. I also think some of with Sylvia is just, she was very, very loving—and obnoxious [laughs] and, if I can say it in a—I’m saying obnoxious in a kind of—in a loving way in the same way that I would say that Bob was cranky as hell. And I think those are good qualities. I feel like people see those things as bad, but it’s part of what we need for change. It’s not about being polite all the time. It’s about demanding things that we know our people need—and fighting for those.
 
Kang: [00:18:03] [Smiles] One of the things I remember about Sylvia is that—you know I had this whole thing when I started on staff at CPR, the people who had known me for years call me JK, and some of them still do. What I asked them to do when I first started at CPR was to not call me JK in any kind of settings, because I wanted—because everybody who called me JK pretty much either knew how to say my name or had tried before. But I was going to be working with all these new people, and I felt like it was a disservice to let people just name—create nicknames for people, without trying to say their name. And you’ve known me long enough to know I don’t care if people fuck up my name, but the one person in my life who I first let call me JK without really, really continuing to struggle to say my name [laughs] was Sylvia, because I just couldn’t hear it anymore. It was like the… [Laughs] It was just way too grating, which is not a normal response for me. But she—I guess I share that story in part to just say that she was very special, yeah.
 
Lewis: You had mentioned working at Audre Lorde Project and CAAAV, what are some of the organizations that you’ve worked in, and what was your role?
 
Kang: [00:19:29] I didn’t work at CAAAV. I did stuff with CAAAV, like, on and off over the past period of time. So, I wouldn’t… I don’t want to overstate my role with CAAAV. I feel like they’re a really important organization whose history stands on its own. Audre Lorde Project, I was on staff from probably ninety-six to maybe some time in the early 2000s. And ALP for a long time was definitely my political home. I learned so much there. And I had the benefit of such a broad community, and a deep community of people who wanted to create something at a time that we felt like it hadn’t been created yet, at least not in New York. And actually, that was probably right after—do you remember the whole Children of the Rainbow fights, [smiles] of course, in the nineties with Board of Ed. and stuff? 
 
Kang: [00:20:29] You know, in a lot of ways I trace ALP’s history to that because of the failures of that fight, in terms of getting a multicultural curriculum into—an adequate multicultural curriculum into New York City schools, because it was around that time… I guess it was probably early nineties or some odd—that the right wing was really using this frame of special rights for gay people as a way to diminish the idea of trying to get equal rights, or any rights. And in the New York City public school system, I feel like what was happening at the time with the curriculum fight was that there were white gay organizations who were—and white gay spokespeople and lesbian spokespeople who didn’t have kids in the public schools, who were speaking out saying that the curricula should include lesbian and gay families, because they weren’t actually talking about an LGBT family. They were specifically talking about lesbian and gay families.
 
And then folks of color were being pitted against them. And so, the homophobia within communities of color, and then the racism of white communities, I feel like, created… Was one of the impetus for ALP to get founded—to have some kind of a political voice that could speak authentically from a perspective of queers of color. But now I forgot the entire question. [Laughs] Sorry. That’s going to happen a lot, Lynn, sorry. It’s that kind of week.
 
Lewis: No, it’s good. You know, two brains are better than one. [Laughter] But you’re just describing the roles that you had in the different organizations leading up to Communities United for Police Reform.
 
Kang: [00:22:20] Yeah, most of my political work then, from then through the early 2000s, was mostly through Audre Lorde Project. After that, between then and CPR was some work with groups like Nodutdol, which is a Korean organization, some work with CAAAV at the time, after I left ALP. It was probably where I did most of my activism. I did support of other groups, but that’s just support work, so…
 
Lewis: So, bringing us to Communities United for Police Reform, I remember you were going to be an acupuncturist healer? [Laughter] And so that’s also a part of who you are.
 
Kang: [00:23:12] Yeah, so I was in acupuncture school and probably maybe started my herbal program, when I started to do work with some of the groups that became CPR, to try to plan this thing. And didn’t expect or want to do full time work in a non-profit again. I was fully expecting to become an acupuncturist. So, in 2012 when I ended up getting hired for this position, I was still doing acupuncture. I was still doing—did I finish my acupuncture program then? Maybe, or maybe I finished in 2012. I finished around then, but I was still then definitely in herbal school. And I actually was practicing acupuncture one day a week treating patients until 2015, at which point, and I don’t know if you remember, when I first came on staff for the first period of time I was only four days a week because I was trying to maintain like finishing my herbal degree and doing acupuncture and stuff. And then when that finished, which might have been around 2012 or so.
 
Kang: [00:24:32] I stayed doing acupuncture on Saturdays, every Saturday until sometime in 2015 when I realized that I really needed a two-day weekend or at least the option of a two-day weekend whenever I could get it. And that was right after, you know, mid-2014 through 2015 was so much of the period where there was real national consciousness raising around the killings of Black folks and other people by police because of Eric Garner, John Crawford, Mike Brown, et cetera, et cetera. And then, yeah, in 2015 I realized, this is not a healthy or sustainable way to live, as much as I love doing acupuncture, and I felt like I needed to make a choice at that point. I thought it was going to be temporary, but I’ve not gone back to a regular acupuncture practice since then.
 
But it’s, you know, it’s interesting, I think, because I feel like what I love about acupuncture is similar to what I love about organizing. It’s—with acupuncture you’re helping—I think, you’re helping folks be able to marshal their own resources to be in a healthier place for themselves and be more well, which is not so different from organizing. And both of them are puzzles, and I like puzzles.
 
Lewis: [00:25:02] Far out. So, let’s talk about this—before CPR became CPR, and like everything, evolved from earlier struggles—and so could you talk about the period? I guess, it would include the Daniels case, and there were formations in New York City, anti-police brutality kind of coalitions that Picture the Homeless was actually outside of, but also kind of in parallel with, because that was also the catalyst for the founding of PTH. So, what were some of the things that were happening in the nineties that evolved into Communities united for Police Reform?
 
Kang: [00:26:49] Yeah, I mean, I think that I definitely trace CPR’s origins story to the mid-nineties period, when… And by mid-nineties, I mean like ninety-four on, I think—but especially during the period when Giuliani was mayor. God, it’s so wild to think that he’s still—anyway—
 
Lewis: Trump’s lawyer.
 
Kang: [00:27:13] [Laughter] I know! It really is. We’re in a dystopian future already… But so, during the Giuliani era was also when broken windows was really becoming a thing in New York, as you know, and as Picture the Homeless members know.
 
Kang: [00:27:32] And it was also a time when so many, especially young men of color were being killed by the NYPD, with no accountability. So, whether that was—we were just talking about Nicholas Heyward, Jr. earlier—or Anthony Baez or Anthony Rosario or Hilton Vega or Yong Xin Huang or any of the families from that period who lost loved ones… That was some of the context.
 
Kang: [28:01] And then in 1996—there were definitely different forces doing work, the anti-police brutality work including the National Congress for Puerto Rican Rights before ninety-six for sure, but in ninety-six, I feel like one of the moments I would mark is when the—what was then called the Coalition Against Police Brutality formed, which included National Congress, which now is the Justice Committee, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Audre Lorde Project, CAAAV organizing Asian communities, and at various times different youth organizations. So, there was CUNY youth organizations later on. They were a Youth Force which no longer exists in New York City or Sista II Sista, which also no longer exists in New York City.
 
Kang: [00:28:48] But part of what, I think, characterized that formation, at least, was that there was an emphasis on really supporting and promoting the leadership of younger people—which ranged from folks in their teens to twenties—and it represented as a formation different communities of color in terms of trying to build out some common analysis. And I think—you know, people talk sometimes about the difference between a strategic alliance and a tactical alliance, and I feel like that’s one of the examples that I’ve lived through that I would call a strategic alliance, where groups were really trying to not just win something in the short term but build together a broader analysis and practice of action that could be game changing and could help move more of our communities towards more freedom.
 
Kang: [00:29:55] So, that was the main formation that I was primarily involved in, at the time. Of course, there were other organizations that were doing anti-police brutality work, whether it was October 22 [Coalition] or other groups around, especially some of the different points, different student organizations, or some of the churches, or what have you. Then, if you move from the mid-nineties to late-nineties, is when Abner Louima was raped and tortured, Amadou Diallo was killed in a hail of forty-one bullets. So, the Daniels lawsuit that you mentioned was after Diallo was murdered, and it was really a brainchild of Richie, actually, where he was like, “We need to be doing not just street actions”, which we were all good at by then, “but really think about how to use different tactics together.”
 
Kang: [00:30:49] So, he approached Center for Constitutional Rights, and Ron Daniels was there at the time, and said, “Look, this is racial profiling. This is about the stop and frisks that happened all the time and how young people of color are being stopped all the time, and the Street Crimes Unit is responsible for so many of these stops.” And the Street Crimes Unit at that point was definitely kind of like a rogue unit within the NYPD. So, Daniels ended up moving forward, with Richie as well as members of Malcolm X Grassroots Movement as original plaintiffs and was the precursor to what ended up being the Floyd litigation, which was the big stop and frisk litigation that declared the NYPD’s stop and frisk program unconstitutional in 2013. So, that was probably the late nineties.
 
Kang: [00:31:55] So Floyd, when it got settled in the early 2000s—at that point got settled, and the NYPD did almost nothing that it was said it was supposed to do through the settlement, which is what made the Floyd lawsuit possible years later. But I think it’s always important to remember that that Floyd litigation didn’t originate with lawyers. It originated with people saying, “This is what’s happening in our communities, and Diallo is one example of that. It’s an extreme example, but if we don’t deal with the daily human rights abuses that people face we can’t stop these extrajudicial killings and murders from happening.”
 
Kang: [00:32:38] And then, of course, 9/11 happened in 2001, which was also—it happened at the time right after, I don’t know if you remember, but the UN World Conference Against Racism had happened right before then, and we had sent—we being the Coalition Against Police Brutality through a formation at that point that we were calling Third World Within. It sent a delegation of folks to the conference in Durban. They had literally just come back and done their debrief, and then 9/11 happened, and what became clear after that was that the—state was very clear about opportunistically using that as a moment to really roll back what people would call civil liberties or civil rights, and I don’t know if you remember the media interviews at the time being like, “Take my civil liberties. I just want to be safe.”
 
Lewis: Yeah.
 
Kang: [00:33:39] That sort of stuff, and then I feel like especially for New York, since we were here, and that’s where it happened, there was so much rapid expansion of and acceptance of militarized policing. And we got numb to it. Whether it was, you know, Penn Station or in neighborhoods having cops walk around with long-range rifles, was taken as a regular occurrence, and too many people in New York felt like it was necessary. And around the same time, that’s what I forgot, is that before Durban and after 9/11, that whole period is also when there was all these anti-globalization protests happening against the IMF, against the World Trade Organization. I feel like that’s probably the period where the CAPI [The Centre for Asian and Pacific Islanders] Organization started to do a lot more self-study before Durban around how to understand policing in the U.S. with the imperialism, but also really state violence in other countries and what some of those links were.
 
Kang [00:35:51] But it was also a period of severe political repression, that was starting to come down not only in New York but around the country, and a lot of police surveillance that you’ll remember from any of the activists who were involved in any of the anti-globalization protests. There were different anti-war formations after 9/11 that were surveilled. A number of the groups within CAPI were being surveilled... And yeah, it was really hard to rebuild anti-police brutality work in part because of some of the dismantlement of the movement that the state did during that time, until after Sean Bell was murdered in a hail of fifty shots in 2006. And so… I think CPR coming up in, like, the original planning meetings in late 2010 and 2011 that eventually became CPR in 2012, traces some of the history back to that period, but also the reality that there was almost no coordination between these various sectors, whether it was legal organizations who after Sean Bell came up with their own legislative package, or grassroots organizations who were also trying to move things or policy shops and that sort of thing.
 
Kang: [00:36:26] So, the idea of CPR and what became CPR, was really an experiment. I mean, I don’t know how you felt at the time, but I feel like at the end of 2011, early 2012 when CPR first launched, I think a lot of us didn’t expect it to last more than a year. I wouldn’t have put money on it lasting more than a year. But I felt like, and I think a lot of people felt like, it was an experiment worth trying. A lot of these groups that didn’t have historical trust for each other—
not only across sector but within sector—but could we try to do something bigger than ourselves that could be transformative? And can we figure out the operations of it so that groups could actually work together in a way that made our power more than about one single group or any single group.
 
I think that’s some of the trajectory I would trace.
 
Lewis: [00:37:25] One of the things that I learned from you, was being very explicit about the difference between a legal strategy and a political strategy, and how they—if we do a good job— should be complimentary, and one amplify the other. And so, when Picture the Homeless was invited to be part of that 2011, I guess, visioning session, and we’d been trying to talk to legal service organizations for years about homeless folks being profiled, but there’s no evidence except the vast numbers of homeless people that have, you know, lived experience.
 
Kang: [Laughter] That’s right, except for the actual evidence.
 
Lewis: [00:38:15] And so we were always told, “Well, you know, that’s terrible, but there’s nothing we can do”, and so, from like a legal perspective. And unlike stop and frisk, you know, where at least race of the person stopped and frisked was documented. So, for us, what became CPR was the first time that we were part of a coalition that not only was using legal—but political strategy. And that being part of a coalition helped really amplify the position of each member of the coalition. And I remember sitting… There was a session where we were putting post-it’s on the wall to prioritize issues, and there were people in the room that Picture the Homeless had intersected with for years—like MXGM, and Candis Tolliver had come to Picture the Homeless to do a pitch for Picture the Homeless members to support legislation to document custodial arrests. And our members were like, “We don’t need to do that. We already know it.”
 
Kang: That’s right.
 
Lewis: Don’t waste our time! And so, it was a different experience for us, and I wanted to ask you to share your first memory of Picture the Homeless. I don’t know if it was then or earlier, but if you have—I don’t know if it’s your first memory, but something that could—
 
Kang: [00:39:43] Yeah, I don’t know what my first memory was. It was definitely before then, but I feel like, one of the things, one of the earlier memories I have around that time—
definitely not the first memory—one of the early memories I have around that time was probably you and Jean [Rice] and other folks talking about the history of Picture the Homeless and the fact that Picture the Homeless, in a lot of ways, was founded because of police violence actually, that was regular. And I had known of Picture the Homeless, but I don’t think I knew that history, which I felt like was really important to uplift.
 
Kang: [00:40:23] But another… This is not an early memory, but one of the memories I have is—because you were one of the co-chairs of the Policy Working Group for CPR from our very beginning. And I feel like one of the things that was… That helped what is CPR work was your willingness to really struggle with people in an authentic way. And I don’t think it was an easy group to struggle with, not because people are necessarily deficient and bad, but just because most of us are not practiced at struggling and disagreeing in a principled way with an aim towards not being right, but with an aim towards figuring something out.
 
And then, you know, I was talking to Loyda [Colon] about this too. I feel like you’re one of the people who really practice hope and practice a way of thinking about things as in, we can do it. Let’s come up with a plan, but we can do it. And I feel like that’s been—I feel like that’s one of the gifts you, Lynn, actually brought and Picture the Homeless brought.
 
Kang: [00:41:41] Another memory, which is not at the very beginning, I can’t, for some reason I can’t come up with the early memories, is when the Community Safety Act got passed. And the—what was it, like two o’clock in the morning or some shit? And Picture the Homeless members who were there, who were clear, they’re like, “We did this.” Which I was so thankful for because I feel like that was true, and it’s too often when legislative victories happen that grassroots organizations or directly impacted people don’t own that victory. And Picture the Homeless had not only fought for, but really led that fight, so I feel like the way in which Picture the Homeless trains members, develops leadership, ensures the members are always out front, is something that a lot of organizations can learn from.
 
Kang: [00:42:39] I also remember early, probably in 2012, there was probably some press thing where I was like, “Do you want to speak?” To you, and you were like, “Oh, I don’t speak for Picture the Homeless, but I’ll find a member who can, and Sam will prep them, and et cetera, et cetera.” And that’s a practice that I feel like we’ve tried to help promote amongst groups, but it was always really helpful that you practiced that already—in terms of really uplifting—but also just facilitating and making sure that the, that leadership was coming from people who were most directly impacted in that moment.
 
Lewis: [00:43:20] We have, from the interviews, there’s such a beautiful description from Picture the Homeless leaders about why that’s important—politically—and why it was important to them, personally. And so, I think that one of the challenges for us—CPR was the first time that we were part of anything where staff would attend meetings without leaders. Even when we would be on conference calls previous to CPR—it would be a table, you know, full of people on the call, and the other groups on the call was mainly the staff organizer, which sometimes created, you know, less than smooth [laughs] conversations but was really important to our approach. And so, one of the things that I wanted to ask is, if you could share things that you learned from Picture the Homeless leaders, being present in meetings or discussions?
 
Kang: [00:44:36] I mean, I feel like, you know, Jean is one example of someone who I felt like has schooled a lot of us on the Constitution, multiple times. So, there’s definitely legal lessons that I feel like Jean has taught me and many other people. But I also think another lesson, you know, Marcus [Moore] is another one who, I feel like, the fact that—I guess what I want to do is separate out like them as individuals versus Picture the Homeless’s practice and methodology of training people and supporting their leadership in different spaces. Because they were never… One of the things that struck me about Picture the Homeless, which I think is a discipline, because it doesn’t exist with all organizations, grassroots or otherwise, is that PTH members in meetings tried to be clear about when they were speaking for Picture the Homeless versus when they had an idea themselves. And that’s a practice of accountability that I just don’t think is as common as we would like it to be. We want it to be more common, but, you know, it’s just not that common.
 
Kang: [00:45:49] But it’s also part of what makes Picture the Homeless’s practice around movement-building so important. Because it’s never really—Picture the Homeless doesn’t speak for just one or two people. It speaks for members. The conditions that members face change at different times, so what might have been true a year ago is not true or might be different, two years after that depending on what the actual conditions are. And I think that there’s a—I feel like we experience, and I experience, a rigor that Picture the Homeless members brought to meetings or actions or things that I was out with them, that is not always present. It’s a gift. It’s not always present with a lot of organizations. It’s a gift that doesn’t just arise organically in some romanticized ways. It’s cultivated. It’s developed. It’s supported.
 
Kang: [00:46:45] And a sense of real solidarity. I feel like one of the things about Picture the Homeless members, whether it was in lobby visits or doing security at actions, or wherever else was, that their—my observation, experience, has always been the Picture the Homeless members practice solidarity in a very deep and meaningful way, that wasn’t just, “Well, if you do this for me, I’ll do this for you.” It’s that, this is right, we can do it, and we can help—which is really about movement building. It’s not about tactical wins, and it’s about long-term relationship building, and I think that, you know, in some ways the… I feel like Picture the Homeless members have always, at least my experience has been that Picture the Homeless members are always down to help support various causes and it’s not transactional, it’s not an expectation of, “We’re doing this because you did that, or we’re only doing this if you do that.” It’s really in the spirit of, we need justice for all our people, and this is one of the ways that we’re going to help fight for that. So, Picture the Homeless members throw down on it, which is not—is just not as common as, you know, we wish it was.
 
Lewis: [00:48:12] One of the reasons, I think, why that is so true, is that folks who are homeless are defined by other people often as being homeless, and, you know, by media stereotypes—and even in the movement there’s just a lot of stigma and internalized oppression. And so, I think that for leaders of Picture the Homeless, for members to be included in coalition spaces are intersectional and that multiple communities are there, homeless folks identify as members of more than the homeless community. And so, to be there, I think, for Picture the Homeless members is very important because they’re there as poor people. They’re there as people of color. They’re there as, you know, all the different identities that they embody.
 
Kang: As immigrants, as young people, yeah.
 
Lewis: [00:49:17] And so, I think that’s very important, right. It’s an important lesson. It was an important lesson for me, and so one of the things that I wanted to ask is, along those lines, the Community Safety Act that you mentioned, the profiling bill, the inclusion of homeless or housing status, which would include homelessness, was the first in the whole country. And that was not easy. Could you talk about that process within CPR, and then politically what that process was like to get that passed?
 
Kang: [00:49:58] Yeah, I think within CPR, I think it’s one of our early tests of whether or not—if I look back and reflect on it—of whether or not we were in a position and willing to struggle to not leave anyone behind. I feel like the various protected categories that were in the original anti-profiling bill, some of them we didn’t include for reasons like—language, didn’t end up getting it included for strategic reasons because there was litigation and folks felt like it would undermine the litigation, because language was supposed to already be assumed, whatever. There were various reasons for different things. Around people who were homeless and what became broader housing status, I feel like most, and maybe—who knows how my memory is—but most of the policy working group, once we framed it as, “We need to make sure to keep including this.” Folks were fine. That doesn’t mean that everybody was, but I feel like the test was whether or not we could hold everybody to that. I also think part of it was also… I mean, Lynn, you and Picture the Homeless put a lot of trust in… Other CPR members to carry that when certain elected officials—was it Quinn? I don’t even remember.
 
Lewis: It was Christine Quinn.
 
Kang: And her staff, was it Rob Newman? I don’t know if it was.
 
Lewis: Rob New… Because we had targeted, we had targeted them.
 
Kang: [00:51:38] We should name the names. I just want to name the right names. I can’t remember who didn’t want Picture the Homeless in the room for certain meetings. And it’s not like you put your faith or trust in people like, “Here, we trust and have faith in you.” But it was a test for the rest of us of whether or not we were going to carry that. And I’m glad it worked out the way it did. I don’t think it was a foregone conclusion. And, you know, I think some of it also was about educating some of us and our partner’s, including elected partners like Jumaane Williams and Brad Lander who were the council members carrying the bills, that this was a non-negotiable for us, and if we were going to move it forward, it had to be moved forward with it. But it meant being pretty diligent around making sure that it remained in, creating the legal arguments so that that couldn’t become the political excuse for cutting it. But I think that once… Yeah, that’s what I recall about it.
 
Kang: [00:52:54] But I do remember having this conversation with you and saying, “We’re being told we’re not going to be able to do this meeting. How do you feel about that? We cannot do the meeting.” And I was going to be willing to back whichever way you wanted to go on that, but it was a hard decision. I don’t know that most people, including myself, would have been okay with the process that ended up happening. And the interesting thing, not interesting, but in reflection, I don’t think this was an articulated thought in my head at the time, but I don’t know that any other group would have trusted that.
 
Trust is a funny word. I’m not saying you guys trusted it. I don’t think you did, like trust it. I think you trusted that some individuals would help carry the message and stay there, and that if that failed that we’d be held accountable, and we should have been, if that failed.
 
Lewis: We definitely trusted you, and I definitely trusted you, and I think that—
you know, there were endless meetings with CPR and phone calls, but they produced, they moved things forward. And so, I think the process of doing that created trust.
 
Lewis: [00:54:20] The other—on the other end, you may not even know this story. When there was testimony given to the city council and Jean Rice was one of the testifiers. He—in Picture the Homeless, the plan that members came up with was that he would walk into the council chambers with fist raised, because we had a parallel fight going on with our housing campaign. He would go in with his fist raised, like John Carlos at the Olympics.
 
Then I was in a bunch of the CPR meetings that Jean wasn’t in, and I told him, “No, no, we’re actually getting what we want, in terms of this hearing, so we’re not protesting in this hearing.” And that was a big point of contention, because we had been dragged out of the same council chambers by the police not too much earlier, right? And so, people were concerned we were selling out. And it was—
 
Kang: Yeah, I don’t know if I knew the story. It’s great.
 
Lewis: —it was a learning moment for us as a group, to trust that this was a different fight, that there’s different ways to fight, and that we’re accountable to our coalition partners.
 
Kang: [00:55:50] That’s interesting because when you mentioned that it reminds me of some meeting, it was some strategy meeting that we did probably before the CSA went up for a vote, where Jean was at, where we were going through kind of one of those lists that we have, which council members were sponsors, which weren’t, who did we have to target around different things. And I remember this meeting, because I think that Jean was asking and suggesting that we do X, Y, and Z in relationship to, I don’t remember who it was, if it was an individual council member or if it was Speaker Quinn or whoever. And after a bunch of discussion, I also remember him being like, “Okay, I get it. This is the strategy for this, and if that doesn’t work, then we do this.
 
And it seemed like he agreed with it. But I think one of the things that it highlights for me now, on reflection, is the importance of really being explicit about whatever the current strategic thinking is on something so that, not so that people can understand it and agree with it but so that people can contest it, or agree with it, or both, but that it’s part of the way, if we want to build a broad-based movement, that kind of strategic thinking can’t be in the heads of just a few people. It’s got to be commonly debated and discussed and wrestled with.
 
Lewis: [00:57:21] Yeah, and then we can apply the analysis to other situations, and it becomes learning. The meeting with Christine Quinn that we were told we couldn’t attend—I was shocked by Javier Valdés from Make the Road saying, “You all have earned it. You should be there.” And Make the Road is so much of a larger organization than Picture the Homeless and different in many ways, and so that shocked, kind of shocked me. But Kate Rubin volunteered to carry our message, and part of the relationship building among CPR members speaking from the Picture the Homeless perspective was also around the question of resourcing. So, every other coalition that we, and myself, just as a person, have been involved with—groups compete for funding. And the case for CPR is very different—how that was structured. And Kate and Yul-San [Liem] from Justice Committee had invited us in. Could you talk a little bit about the structure of that and how that really reflected the political relationships?
 
Kang: [00:58:49] Yeah, I mean, I think I would go backwards to Coalition Against Police Brutality, [CAP-B] because I feel like in a lot of ways the experience with CAP-B helped to inform that. It wasn’t the only thing that informed it, but there is one piece that I felt like really informed it, which was that when the Coalition Against Police Brutality was active from mid-nineties through the early 2000s, different groups had different financial resources at different points. And you know, we were always a small core of maybe five, at most six groups, at any given time. That was kind of the core of Coalition Against Police Brutality. And the reality was that for most of that period, CAAAV was the organization with the most resources. At some point Audre Lorde Project ended up probably coming close to CAAAV’s resources. Youth Force also had resources, but they were not there the entire time.
 
One of the things that we tried to do during that period in CAP-B was recognize that if we didn’t figure out ways to increase the capacity of all of our organizations we couldn’t do our work.  So… I remember I wrote proposals. I think CAAAV also did at different points for CAP-B, but we would designate the money to one of the groups that weren’t fully staffed, or not fully staffed, or staffed at all. So, for a few times, some of that money would go to the Congress to be able to hire somebody, even if it was part time, to do Congress work, but, you know, we would say that it was to coordinate the work of CAP-B, which some of it was to coordinate the work of CAP-B. It wasn’t lying, but it also meant that the rest of us took on some political responsibility to help with the coordination so that the Congress staffer, or Malcolm X Grassroots Movement also at a different point when, I think we were having a front organization, People’s Justice, the precursor to what’s now People’s Justice, whatever… I feel like we used some of those opportunities to try to resource groups that didn’t have staffing—or at least increase financial resources for some of those groups, because we weren’t able to do our work otherwise. And I think for me personally and some of the other founding folks within CPR, that was probably a helpful thing to have lived through to understand that we could apply it in a bigger way.
 
Kang: [01:01:36] But in terms of the resourcing within CPR in the earlier years, when we got some moneys, not directly to CPR but where some funders were willing to do some investments in CPR as a campaign, I feel like that was an important political struggle to go through, to get agreement, especially within the steering committee, but also amongst other voting members, that we would be stronger if we were able to resource and prioritize grassroots organizations. I don’t think everybody agreed with that at the time, but they agreed to it, which is two different things, [smiles] but I think that some of the folks who may not have personally agreed with it—at the time—I’m not going to say all of them, but I think some of them, looking back, would say that that was the right move.
 
Kang: [01:02:36] And it helped them understand movement building in a different way. I mean, if you look at the Community Safety Act fight, it’s like you said, there were different tactics being used to leverage each other. So, whether it was the Floyd Litigation happening, and having a trial in the spring of 2013 and the Community Safety Act legislative fight coming to a head in the summer of 2013… But the lead up to that mobilization included folks doing community meetings, doing membership meetings, training people in what these laws would do, making sure that people felt like these laws would be relevant to folks’ lives, but also cop watch teams doing CSA education when they were on cop watch patrols if they weren’t watching cops or, you know, Marcus going to shelters and doing Know Your Rights trainings but also training folks and educating them about the Know Your Rights—sorry, the Community Safety Act and countless other folks in the Picture the Homeless doing similarly.
 
Kang: [01:03:49] So, I think the big question is… You know, coalitions—I feel like a lot of times people think that what a coalition means is that everybody has to put in, quote-unquote, the same amount, whether it’s money or staff resources. I feel like there was some point in [20]12 or [20]13 that I think you came to me, Lynn, and you were like, “I don’t think Picture the Homeless should be the co-chair of Policy Working Group. We’re not putting in as much as NYCLU [New York Civil Liberties Union].” And I was like, “Fuck that shit! Like, if you look at the resources comparison of what Picture the Homeless’s resources, financial resources are and NYCLU’s, you’re not only equally—but you’re like overmatching what your resources are in comparison to putting into this fight. But also, we need your political leadership. So, I think the challenge with a lot of coalitions is that there is some—it’s like a capitalist assumption, right? That you’ve got to put in equally. It’s a pull-your—whatever the bootstraps thing.
 
Lewis: And buying influence, kind of, in a way.
 
Kang: [01:04:48] Exactly. Whereas the reality is that if we have a real analysis of what the conditions are, and inequalities in conditions for organizations, just like there are for our communities, then we need to adjust for that in terms of how we do philanthropic advocacy to help make sure that additional funding can go to groups, but it also comes back to what our theory of change is. For folks who believe that organizing has got to be front and center, then we’ve got to do financial investment in organizing. And that’s not what legal and policy groups do, for the most part.
 
Lewis: [01:05:28] Around that time that I felt like I was in some ways burdening other CPR folks because I didn’t have a smart phone, and you—
 
Kang: Oh, I don’t even remember you not having a smart phone.
 
Lewis: —you would—I know, right? It’s so long ago that [laughs] … But you would go out of your way to text me or call me to make sure that I saw an email, in case I wasn’t, like, on the weekend in case I wasn’t on my email, and I think that the practice and the structure of CPR but also the political… The practice, which was a reflection of political orientation, was about including and shifting power to the smaller groups. That was really beneficial.
 
Lewis: [01:06:15] The other bill, right, along with the Community Safety, within the Community Safety Act, was the Inspector General—the bill to establish that office. And there was a meeting that we attended with some other CPR members and two leaders of Picture the Homeless—Doc, James Doctor, and Floyd Parks. I don’t know if you remember that meeting.
 
Kang: Maybe if you tell me more about it.
 
Lewis: They were the—I think they were the only members of groups there. There were folks from Legal Aid and different groups, and you really prioritized them having a chance to speak. And so, for you, I wanted to ask, and you already shared some of this already, but are there things—can you name things that you learned, specifically that were happening to homeless folks at the hands of the NYPD?
 
Kang: [01:07:20] Yeah, a bunch. Although now I feel like it’s—you know, it’s the funny thing when you learn stuff. Once you’ve learned it, hopefully if you really learn it, you feel like you had to have known it, which is not true. But I feel like, yeah, there’s a lot of things. Let’s see if I can be articulate about any of them.
 
Remember in 2014, the MTA [Metropolitan Transportation Authority] declared that they were going to sweep homeless people of the A, C, E trains, and Picture the Homeless really led a fight at that point to make sure that didn’t happen. And I think one of the things that I learned during that fight—was probably from members and Sam [J. Miller] in terms of how to—it was really you all did political education, for the rest of us. It was easy to get groups to support that fight and to try to get cop watchers and other people to show up that night when we went to the train when they said they were going to sweep everybody off and stay there.
 
Lewis: At 3:00 A.M.
 
Kang: Was it? [laughs]

Lewis: Yeah.
 
Kang: It was definitely in the morning. I don’t remember when, but it was definitely in the morning. But I think some of it was a good learning for me around how to publicly frame the issues around it. And I think Sam was really patient and helpful about being clear with us and our comms team at the time that people who are homeless don’t want to be on the fucking trains all night either! And to reframe what this was, and that they had paid their fare, so why shouldn’t they be able to be on the fucking trains? So, I feel like it was a different way to think—and to think about the issues, but also to really respect the agency of people and not just think about it as an issue, I guess. I mean, there’s countless other examples that I’m just not going to be able to articulate right now. I’ll try to think about it as we keep talking.  
 
Lewis: You know that hash tag, I paid my fare? I don’t remember who came up with that, but I loved it because it was like, “Look. If you’re on the train, and you’re not doing anything wrong… “
 
Kang: That’s right.
 
Lewis: —and that was [William] Bratton’s first major action.
 
Kang: That’s what he credits all his fucked up broken window shit to.
 
Lewis: Yeah.
 
Kang: Even a few days ago I hear.
 
Lewis: [01:10:02] You mentioned the word discipline earlier, and I think we learned a lot of discipline from CPR and particularly on the question of the fight to end custodial arrests, because that was really the reason why we joined. We thought, “Okay, here’s some folks that are prioritizing this and can really help amplify what power that we had. But it was the work, and during the work planning, you know, it wasn’t the first priority. How was it for you, being in coalition with other groups who maybe had, like in our case, much less experience with the legislative process? How was it for you teaching and leading and trying to establish cohesion and then the discipline to hold that?
 
Kang: Right, I think for me, some of it was, I was learning at the same time. I mean, I’d probably done some stuff around policy and legislative work before, but that was the first time that I was really responsible for helping to really coordinate a legislative campaign. So, some of it, I think, wasn’t—I don’t think I viewed necessarily, folks as having less knowledge than me as much as, we were all learning this shit. We’re going to make some fucking mistakes. Hopefully we name those mistakes, so we don’t remake them.
 
Kang: [01:11:40] But I think some of it was also… For me it goes back to just organizing in coalition in terms of the fact that every group brings its own unique set of gifts—that are not static, right? Like, if there’s transitions in an organization or if conditions change for the organization’s base, the gifts that they bring, the challenges that they bring change over time. But at least recognizing… I feel like most of our organizations, it wasn’t just Picture the Homeless, most of our organizations did not have experience leading legislative campaigns. The vast majority of organizations, it wasn’t just grassroots groups, legal policy, et cetera. So, I think a lot of us were learning at the same time. So, the more, I feel like, the way we try to do stuff is to, as we’re learning we need to say what we think is happening, name the conditions, and name what our strategy is so that people can—so that folks can debate it—as to whether or not it’s right, wrong, and maybe we make the wrong decision.
 
Sometimes we make the right one, or sometimes it’s not right or wrong, but it’s a decision that gets made. We follow through on it, and then ideally we have an opportunity to debrief whether or not that theory was right. So yeah, I feel like my orientation towards that question is a little bit different because I don’t think I thought about Picture the Homeless, for example, as having less legislative experience than me. I think it was more that the vast majority of our groups had not themselves won legislation before, so we all needed to learn this shit together. And ideally, we need to make as many of the learnings as transparent as possible, so we were doing it.
 
Lewis: [01:13:32] Probably, the… When you feel like you don’t know something, you often feel like you are maybe the only the one, and you’re certainly aware of your own—hopefully—shortcomings. What about the custodial arrests? Shifting to the state legislative fight, are there issues, or stories that you remember about Picture the Homeless’s involvement in the fight to end custodial arrests for quality-of-life violations?
 
Kang: I don’t know about stories. I think I more remember that it was one of the issues that you and others in Picture the Homeless really raised as a priority. That a lot of folks—and that, you know, like a lot of policing issues, there wasn’t a lot of data on it—so that some of the work we had to do was to at least collect data in a way that it could be publicly reported out… And to have some folks within the coalition do the legal research to have us understand what the options were, so that people could make decisions about the options.
 
I feel like I’m less able to talk to some of that, because I feel like I wasn’t really the primary staff on that a lot of the time. It shifted with different people. But the key things I kind of—that I feel like have been important or that I remember is… One, that the issue of folks getting arrested for shit that are not crimes, quote-unquote, by the criminal legal system, was an issue that most people hadn’t really thought about before. And two, that that legislation is in some ways really challenging because, not only because of lack of some data that we have to try to get, but also because the options through legislation don’t necessarily fully solve the problem.
 
Kang: [01:15:52] And that’s true of any legislation. But, in this case, I feel like in some ways it’s more true because there’s the possibility of up-charging. There's—you know, there’s other tactics that the police can use even once the legislation gets passed, that they can use the next day. So, I think some of it is also really reaffirming the need to continue organizing and community education and thinking about what the organizing possibilities are to end or reduce a problem with one tool being legislation, but legislation only being a tool in that.
 
Lewis: [01:16:32] We learned a lot, because like, the example of up-charging, for one. For Picture the Homeless members it was important to go directly to diminish the power of the police being able to arrest them. Unlike the profiling bill, which, if you’re rights are violated, then you have to bring a suit, this folks were excited about because it was going to say—
 
Kang: Take a tool away, yeah.
 
Lewis: —no, police officer, you cannot arrest me for this anymore. And then, like with every victory, there’s new problems. [Laughter] And we learned what some of those new problems might be.
 
Lewis: [01:17:18] I wanted to just ask a couple more questions, but one in terms of the structure of CPR and the steering committee. Are there… I imagine—I hope, that people are listening to this that are involved in Coalition work, and if you could maybe talk about some of the strategies that you would use to help balance the power dynamics between different groups. As you said, we were on the original steering committee, and certainly the smaller grassroots groups had different kinds of resources. And so, what were some of the strategies that were used to balance that out?
 
Kang: I think one thing was to try to make sure that we could collectivize information as much as possible amongst leadership. So, it wasn’t just one group who knew that X, Y, and Z was happening. I think a second piece was a structural piece, which is that it was incredibly important for Picture the Homeless to be one of the leaders of the Policy Working Group, and absent that, I don’t know that we would have been able to do what we did. That it’s not tokenizing a group to be in a leadership position, it’s making sure that leadership positions have folks who are directly impacted, represent directly impacted organizations to really be able to think about how, especially on legislative issues, how different legislation will really impact a cross section of organizations.
 
Kang: [01:19:06] I think another piece is really, you know, I joke about this, but I don’t really joke about this—which is that early on we adopted an internal rule, like, no shit talking. If folks want to have… We’ve all been through it. I feel like there’s three things that ruin coalitions all the time. One is competition for funding. Another’s competition for media, and the third is shit talking where nobody’s actually talking to each other, [laughs] and it’s just around. So, I feel like that was also important because it meant that organizations developed or redeveloped a practice of actually talking to each other when they had concerns with each other or had… Weren’t trusting each other around things.
 
Kang: [01:20:01] Because doing that, I feel like, allowed for the space to be able to struggle in a principled way around actual differences that were differences of opinion, that we could figure out what those difference of opinion were, what they were based on in a more authentic and honest way and try to figure out a solution that made sense. So not figure out the most… You know, like, I hate this thing where people talk about consensus being like the lowest common denominator that everybody agrees to? We don’t want to strive for lowest common denominator. We want to strive for the best that we can do, and we want people to have a common analysis about why that is and what that is.
 
Kang: [01:20:46] So, I think some of it’s that. I think some of it’s what you said earlier in terms of recognizing—like, having a clear analysis of what kind of resources and cultures different organizations had. And culture and resources are different. You know, it’s like, there’s arguably legal organizations have more financial resources, but they have very, very different cultures from grassroots organizations. Which I think sometimes is a liability in this. So, recognizing the different cultures and resources of organizations, recognizing individuals who are representing those organizations as individuals and what might be going on for them at a given particular time. And not blaming people that stuff is going on in their lives, but recognizing that that’s true and figuring out, how do we make sure that that organization still has a voice. Especially if that organization represents directly impacted people. So yeah, I feel like those are some of the things.
 
Lewis: [01:21:46] You touched on some of this already within answers to other questions, but is there a favorite Picture the Homeless story you’d like to share or something that you think is kind of—when you think of Picture the Homeless, a story that you might think of?
 
Kang: I mean, one of them is definitely after the Community Safety Act vote when Picture the Homeless members were like, “We won this.” I feel like that was important for everyone to understand. And… I mean, you know, Jean talking about the Constitution is always a favorite story, but that’s like all the time. [Smiles] Yeah, I don’t know if I have others right now, but there’s a lot of really good Picture the Homeless moments.
 
Kang: [01:22:51] Ditch Day, is another. I feel like especially the early ditch days.
 
Lewis: What are they, and why are they important for people that don’t know?
 
Kang: [01:23:04] [Laughter] Ditch Day is something we don’t publicize beyond CPR, but I mean, I guess it’s not a secret for this—is that, you know, one or two days over the summer since our founding we have, I think, done basically beach days, where we say that whoever can come to the beach, and it’s during the week, skip work. Come to the beach and just build with each other. And, you know, certainly in the early years there were definitely CPR members who told their bosses that they were having meetings with me. [Laughs] Yeah, this might be part of the part that we think about editing later, but I feel like especially the early ditch days, Picture the Homeless rolled really, really deep, and it’s some of the best memories I have of Picture the Homeless members within CPR, I think, because folks were just enjoying each other and building together. I mean, Jean still teases me about one of the ditch days where I like twisted my ankle. He’s like, “How can you fall on the sand like that?”
 
Kang: [01:24:19] I feel like that… And that actually reminds me that all of the—any of the celebrations we’ve done, or victory parties… I feel like one of the things I appreciate most about Picture the Homeless members is that they have understood the importance of celebration and taking stock, and appreciating—each other, themselves. And that’s part of the kind of culture of joy we need to cultivate, because this is all hard work. It’s traumatic work, and it goes back to what you said earlier. If we don’t build out these relationships—I mean, building out deep relationships is part of what most of us work for, with trust.
 
And that’s probably one of the lessons from the Coalition Against Police Brutality days. It’s like, many of the reps from Coalition Against Police Brutality or their organizations who were amongst the founding members of what became CPR, I feel like to this day folks—there’s a level of trust because people did work together. It’s not a level of trust because they were in meetings together. It’s because people did work together. They cried together. They celebrated together—and learned together, and that those relationships in a lot of ways help to—they’re some of the, like, invisible glue that helps CPR actually keep moving.
 
Lewis: Yup. I don’t have any more questions, and I’m mindful of our time and appreciate you very much for this—
 
Kang: Appreciate you too!
 
Lewis: —and being able to have worked with you. So, do you have any close out thoughts?
 
Kang: [01:26:17] I don’t know. You almost made me cry talking about Sylvia.
 
Lewis: Sorry, not sorry.
 
Kang: Exactly. Did Sylvia ever know Picture the Homeless before she passed?
 
Lewis: I doubt it.
 
Kang: [01:26:27] But I feel like Picture the Homeless is exactly the kind of group she would have wanted to know, and support… Yeah. There’s one thing that Sylvia reminds me of, which is that one of the testaments to, I think, Picture the Homeless members humility, was around—I don’t know if it was like after the Eric Garner march in Staten Island, or something else. There was something between some of the LGBT organizations, queer and trans organizations and Picture the Homeless, where there was some perception from a few of the queer organizations that Picture the Homeless members had been homophobic at some action.
 
And I feel like the deep thing to me was that you and whoever else was in conversation with that afterwards was like, “Okay, we’ll figure it out.” Whereas some of the organizations I love the most, some of the LGBT organizations, were so righteous or self-righteous about their experience or perception of homophobia, that it took some struggle with them to have them also be introspective about how they were dismissive or disrespectful in a relationship to people who are homeless. Yeah.
 
Lewis: [01:28:05] Yeah. I have absolutely no doubt that members and staff… I mean, we all carry around, you know, we all internalize ways to look down on other people that aren’t just like us.
 
Kang: Which is true of any of us.
 
Lewis: So, we all carry that around, and one of the things we used to say was, we’re all really good at recognizing how we’re oppressed and really not good at recognizing how we oppress other people, and how do we do that? How do we figure that out? And how do we continue to work together so we can help each other?
 
Kang: [01:28:43] I feel like the difference though, is that my experience with Picture the Homeless members has always been that when something gets brought to their attention in that area, folks are like, immediately reflective, and not defensive. And that’s a real unique trait, and that’s something that’s developed. I’m not talking about one individual Picture the Homeless member. I feel like it’s… And it’s something that a lot of other groups and folks are not as good at, in terms of being immediately defensive but saying, “Fuck, what did I do? How did that happen? How did that harm somebody? And even if I didn’t mean it that way, I shouldn’t do it again, and I should know what I did.”
 
Lewis: Yeah. Well, thank you, Joo-Hyun, so much for this.
 
Kang: Thanks, Lynn.
 
Lewis: All right.            
   
[END OF INTERVIEW]