Reimagining Safety: Policing, Racism, & #MeToo with Matthew Solomon

Interview with Matthew Soloman audio
===

[00:00:00] 

Welcome to Unsolicited Perspectives
---

Bruce Anthony: First of all, welcome. This is Unsolicited Perspective. I'm Bruce Anthony, your host here to lead the conversation in important events and topics that are shaping today's society. Join the conversation and follow us wherever you get your audio podcasts. Subscribe to our YouTube channel for our video podcasts.

Bruce Anthony: Rate, review, like, comment, share, share with your friends, share with your family, hell, even share with your enemies. 

Introducing Matthew Solomon
---

Bruce Anthony: On today's episode, I'll be interviewing Matthew Solomon. He's an award winning filmmaker, bestselling author, integrated leadership consultant, transformative social change expert. We're going to be talking about his life, his movie, his books, his work.

Bruce Anthony: That's enough of the intro. Let's get to the interview.[00:01:00] 

Bruce Anthony: Like I said, at the top, I'm here with Matthew Solomon, award winning filmmaker for the film re imagining safety. Best selling author for man school relating with women in the me too era, Matthew, thank you so much for joining with me today. I'm happy to finally get you on the show. 

Matthew Solomon: Yeah. Yeah. It's good to be here, Bruce.

Matthew Solomon: I'm looking forward to talking with you and getting into it. So, yeah, thanks. 

Bruce Anthony: Okay. 

Matthew's Early Life and Influences
---

Bruce Anthony: So let's start at the top. Where did it all begin? Can you tell me a little bit about yourself, a little bit about your upbringing and how you got into the field that you're in now? 

Matthew Solomon: Yeah. I mean, what, you know, when you, you ask, like, how did it all begin?

Matthew Solomon: It literally began like at the beginning. So second grade little Matthew Solomon, look, I grew up in Los Angeles. I grew up in the West Hollywood part of Los Angeles. I always, my schools. That I went to were always very integrated, very diverse. So my friends were everybody. I was usually like the only black, I'm sorry, I was usually the [00:02:00] only white.

Matthew Solomon: That's interesting. I was usually the only white person in my group, or there were very few of us in our friend group. Um, and so at an early age, I was aware that my black friends in particular were treated differently. Not just by police, but like, you know, when we go to the mall or things like that. So I had this awareness of.

Matthew Solomon: Like social disparities and disproportionate experiences and things like that. 

College Years and Social Awareness
---

Matthew Solomon: And then going through high school. And then when I went to college the first time I was going to USC, uh, as a music student and. I, I was really interested and fascinated with sociology and anthropology. So in addition to my music classes, my general eds were sociology and anthropology, and so learning about systems and societies and things like that.

Matthew Solomon: And so we were literally learning about systemic racism at the same time as the Rodney King meeting. You know, and that was everywhere. And it was the first time that it was like, Oh, [00:03:00] this is what's happening. You know? And it still seemed like an isolated event, but my friends were like, no, this is like what it's like, you know?

Matthew Solomon: And then those officers were acquitted, which was shocking to a lot of us. And then the LA riots came after that. 

Career Path and Conflict Resolution
---

Matthew Solomon: And so I always kind of had that social justice kind of awareness, even though I went into, I was a professional musician, I started filmmaking, writing and directing scripted films, and then I was also very interested in personal development.

Matthew Solomon: And so I was always taking seminars on relationships and communication and business and things like that. Cause I wanted to be a better person, a better partner, more successful. Um, but along the way I learned conflict resolution and the skills that go along with that. And I've always been very interested in communication and relationships and how we relate to each other and how, and you know, we're not taught how to do this unless we seek it out.

Matthew Solomon: And [00:04:00] so I started doing conflict resolution work before the pandemic. And I was traveling. And doing services, providing, facilitating, but also teaching and things like that. And then when the pandemic started and we couldn't go anywhere, I decided to go back to school. And so I went into a master's in public administration program.

Matthew Solomon: And this was first year of COVID. It was after George Floyd was murdered. It was all, you know, the black lives matter protests. And the political pushback against that. And so I was applying the public administration coursework around sustainability and community engagement and transformative leadership and things like that to the issues with policing and incarceration and got really interested in, well, what are the alternatives then?

The Making of Reimagining Safety
---

Matthew Solomon: And so the last part is when it came time to do my final thesis, one of my academic advisors was like, we know you know how to write a paper, but we know you're a filmmaker, why don't you do a [00:05:00] documentary or something? As a creative project and I laughed because I'm like, I'm a filmmaker. That's not like easy, right?

Matthew Solomon: Doing a documentary. That's a lot of work, but she said, do it anyway. And so I accepted the dare and started interviewing people. I filmed it on my iPhone. The interviews are on my iPhone. I edited it on my laptop. And it became a thing that, that in the last year, after submitting it for my course, I started doing community screenings.

Matthew Solomon: And so we've done today, 57 community screenings across the United States. Over 70 organizations have co hosted and supported the screenings. And we've received endorsements from the Black Panther Party in Washington state. And. Mono Amiga in Texas and APTP in San Francisco, and, you know, a bunch of folks in New Jersey who have been in movement work forever.

Matthew Solomon: So it's been really amazing. And then the, the film was just released on streaming services also. So [00:06:00] Amazon to be YouTube and Google play. And so, you know, the school project, and I thought I was done with the entertainment business, but right. Like now I'm back in it in a way that really suits me. And the film has been amazing and it's being used as an educational tool, which is what I really wanted in the first place.

Bruce Anthony: I want to get into re imagining safety in a minute, but I want to go back to something that you said that you're taking all these courses and you're learning about policy and public work as the Rodney King verdict is, is going on. Thank you. And you said that you were surprised, but you have, like you said, you grew up in rather black community and you were the lone, basically the lone white person.

Bruce Anthony: And a lot of black friend groups were they surprised because I know me being a black man, I was like, Oh, they're going to get off. Cause they always get off. And it always surprises me when white people look at the [00:07:00] situation and they say, well, no, I'm They're going to go to jail. It's on videotape and it's like, yeah, okay, we'll see.

Bruce Anthony: So what were the conversations that you were having at that time? Cause I feel like I don't, that probably wasn't the catalyst, but maybe a really big spark to a lot of the work that you're doing now. 

Matthew Solomon: Yeah, no, they were not surprised. You know, they weren't surprised at all. You know, in 2016, when Trump was elected, my black friends, like there's a whole SNL skit about it.

Matthew Solomon: My black friends were like, yeah, no, you know, the, the uprisings protest after George Floyd was murdered. You know, a lot of my friends, black friends who were in movement work were like, okay, we'll, we'll see where everybody's at in a year. So, so yeah, and that's been as a white person, who's like always trying to unpack and re re discover and, you know, [00:08:00] deal with the hypocrisy and I'm, I'm Jewish also.

Matthew Solomon: So there's a whole other level of, especially with, with the horror and genocide that's happening in, in Gaza. Right now and coming to terms with, oh, all that stuff that I was taught was not true or, or it was, you know, at least heavily skewed, or there are a lot of holes in those arguments that as a child, you just tend to accept, especially being like, so here's the thing, like, you know, my, as a white person.

Matthew Solomon: I could accept those as truth that we're being taught to me, you know, we're post racial America, you know, slavery ended like civil rights, everything's great, right? We're all equal and I can accept that. We got 

bruce-anthony--he-him-_1_06-04-2024_153210: a 

Matthew Solomon: black president. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's easy for me and other white folks to accept that because we don't deal generally with anything different, you know, whereas like my black friends were like, We would, you know, they would go to school and actually Cerise [00:09:00] Castle, who she, she did a whole story on the LASD Sheriff's department gangs, you know, deputy gangs.

Matthew Solomon: And she talks about how, like she, she's black from I think East LA or Echo Park. And she would go to school and the cop would show up and be officer friendly. But she was like, yeah, but my friends are all getting harassed by the cops daily. So, so yeah, there was a conversation online the other day where somebody was like, well, how do you not recognize that stuff when you're growing up?

Matthew Solomon: And somebody was like, look, if you don't, if there's no evidence and we're not seeking out evidence generally, like you're just not going to know unless you start to see it and the bail gets lifted. And then it's like, oh, Uh, now I can't unsee this. 

Bruce Anthony: I think most people can't identify to anything that they haven't experienced themselves, right?

Bruce Anthony: So, so empathy I'm learning as I've gotten older is not something that everybody [00:10:00] naturally possesses. Some people have it from birth. Some people it's a learned experience. And they only develop it after something similar happens to them where they say, Oh, this is what it's like for you guys. And this is not just for black people and white people.

Bruce Anthony: It's for men and women. And we're going to get into the me too stuff later, because I think a lot of people have some eyeopening experiences as far as that's concerned, but let's get to your film re imagining safety. 

Reimagining Safety: Key Points
---

Bruce Anthony: So can you tell my audience, you already told them where they can get it. And that's going to be in the links are going to be in the description section of both the audio and video platform.

Bruce Anthony: So click on them. But can you tell us a little bit about the film and what are some of the key points in the film? Yeah. 

Matthew Solomon: Yeah. So again, this started as an academic project. And so it was really important for me to have reputable citable sources, not just activists. There are activists in the film, but I wanted a variety of perspectives because it's important to.

Matthew Solomon: I [00:11:00] think it, it helps, you know, you're talking about empathy and people's lived experiences. And so when the film talks about the harms caused by policing and incarceration, the origins of that and why it persists. And so it can be challenging for people, unless they're hearing from mental health professionals, also a former police officer, also.

Matthew Solomon: A politician who ran on abolishing the police. Like that was her platform. She ran for LA mayor of Los Angeles on that platform and tied for third, which was amazing. You ran for a Bob, not defunding, abolishing, abolishing. Yeah. Okay. All right. Yep. And we'll get into this too, but defund is, is a. Completely different thing in the house.

Matthew Solomon: No, well, it's a, it's a pathway or it can be a pathway. So in the, in the, and that was one of the things that came out, I'm jumping around. Well, one of the, one of my takeaways that I didn't know going in is folks that talk about abolishing the [00:12:00] police defunding is, is a pathway to that. It doesn't have to go there, but it really is about when, when we address the core issues.

Matthew Solomon: Behind public safety when we address the core issues behind why people commit crimes, you know, generally speaking. When we address the core issues, crime comes down. So when people have resources, housing, food, clothes, jobs, employment, training, things like that, healthcare, when they have that crime is mostly driven from desperation from poverty and or mental health and like all of it ties in.

Matthew Solomon: So when people have their needs met. They're not going to go steal or, or break into places. The violent crime comes down because there's no, nothing driving it. Right. And so one of the things that abolitionists like Maryam Kaba talks about is. We spend so much money [00:13:00] on police, like in LA, just with LAPD and the sheriff's department, it's like seven plus billion dollars a year.

Matthew Solomon: And it, you know, keeps going up and that doesn't include all the smaller municipalities, New York and my PD, I think is like 11 billion or something a year. So it's an enormous amount of money going into militarizing police. And mobilization of violence and coercion and, and all of that, when, if we took, and Miriam Kaba talks about it, we took half of that and put it into, Like the social services that people need and, and all the resources that people need, crime naturally comes down.

Matthew Solomon: So then we don't need all these police, you know? So, so it's a process of, of making the punishment system, police and prisons obsolete so that people are actually taken care of and it's a holistic approach. So that's, that's, those were key takeaways. The other thing is. [00:14:00] If, when we care about each other, when we care about people, we do things differently when people are dehumanized, othered, but it's easy to discard them as, Oh, well, that, that guy's homeless.

Matthew Solomon: What do you expect? Or those folks in the black community, like when, you know, when people talk about black on black crime, which is a racist trope anyway, like it, it others, folks, it dehumanizes folks. It makes them less worthy of being safe. And then, and so the, those systems perpetuate rather than, you know, if we look at our, our safest communities are the ones with the most resources and that's shown across the board.

Bruce Anthony: I hear everything that you're saying. And I absolutely agree. 

Understanding Systemic Racism
---

Bruce Anthony: My, not even the issue of what you said, but I have to look at how can we stop othering? Everybody, and that's literally what this country has been built on. So I think the, the, the core fundamental [00:15:00] problem is that. This country has been built on dividing and separating and putting people into categories.

Bruce Anthony: I don't know when this started, but I have my best friend is Sicilian. And I ask her all the time. I was like, what do you consider yourself white or Sicilian? Like, what's the first thing that comes to your mind? She says Sicilian or Italian. It's the first thing that comes to her mind. And I say, well, I mean, Yeah, but you're also white because you don't really have a choice in America.

Bruce Anthony: When you fill out a little form, it says white when Italians came over here, they weren't given the white privilege in the beginning. They were treated as others. So like people of color will never, they can be adjacent to white privilege. Depending on circumstances, but they can never gain that type of privilege.

Bruce Anthony: So people of color will always kind of be othered in this country. So how can you, [00:16:00] and I know we'll get into that later with some of your work, but if we just take a little quick teaser, now, how can we create positive change within each other when we are literally others to each other? 

Matthew Solomon: Yeah. I mean, that's, that, I mean, that's, that's my daily.

Matthew Solomon: You know, the daily question that I wake up with is how do we, how do we move the needle? And it's especially after 2020. In addition to black lives matter and how those protests were demonized, right. And, and how the media, which they always do this when, once, you know, like George Floyd was murdered, it was, Oh, well he was on drugs or he did this or he did, you know, the, the, the character assassination part, but there was also the stuff with COVID and people, othering people who [00:17:00] were wearing masks.

Matthew Solomon: Or got vaccines or didn't get vaccines or all of that. It is, it is ingrained in us and it really is. So I do, and this, this is feeds into like my conflict resolution work, which is really about, you were talking about lived experience. It's really about. 

The Role of Empathy in Social Change
---

Matthew Solomon: Acknowledging another person's lived experience is not going to be the same as mine.

Matthew Solomon: And so if I care enough and I'm willing enough to see the world through your eyes for even a moment, like it creates connection, right? And it reduces the, the effects of othering and things like that. And so it's, it's really a process. It is about doing not just anti racism work, but decolonization work and being willing.

Matthew Solomon: To say, okay, I have these biases. Most of them are unconscious and, and it's a product of society, socialization, [00:18:00] TV and film, and the, the, the media as a whole. It, there's been an investment in the othering because of capitalism and white supremacy. Like that, you know, the, the eugenics that was used to dehumanize black people and indigenous people in the United States.

Matthew Solomon: Like Hitler in Germany pulled from that to dehumanize Jewish people and black people and LGBTQ plus people and like all of that. And so it's a, it's very intertwined and ingrained is the same thing that's happening with Palestinians. You know, in, in, in Gaza and Rafa and the West bank and all of that, it's, it's that the, the structural dehumanization.

Matthew Solomon: So how do, how do we, how do we change that is first recognize that and acknowledge it and then be in community with people get into. This is talked about in the film also. And then there there's some other folks, there's a book called healing [00:19:00] justice lineages that talks about the importance of addressing our own trauma and, and healing our individual trauma so that we can also heal our collective trauma.

Matthew Solomon: And, and a lot of what we're talking about is the, is in the process. Is included in the process of that and recognizing where we're othering people and on the effects of it. Like for me, as an empathetic child and an empathetic adult, I'm always like, why would somebody do that to somebody else? Right.

Matthew Solomon: Right. And I have to fight that, that naive part of me and really sit with. People are invested in it because they benefit from it.

Bruce Anthony: Okay. Let's go back to the police. 

The Concept of Copaganda
---

Bruce Anthony: Let's talk about what is cop Ganda cop 

Matthew Solomon: again, propaganda. Yeah. 

Bruce Anthony: Yeah. 

Matthew Solomon: So propaganda is [00:20:00] propaganda that, that. You know, supports police asserts this image, Alex Vitale talks about this in the film. And then Dr. L Jones, she's a professor from Halifax, Nova Scotia, who's in the film.

Matthew Solomon: Like they both talk about how, you know, we're, we're from, from as children, we're socialized with this positive image of the cops are heroes and they're friendly and they're here to help us. And. I was just having a conversation about paw patrol, right? The cartoon with the police dog. And so it, and then growing up, it was like, we had the dirty Harry movies and like all the cops, like, I can't even watch cop shows anymore.

Matthew Solomon: Because it, it shows, but it's like, you have these cops that face the quote evil in the world. And they, especially TV and film, they break the rules because the evil is so evil that police can't be confined by rules. Right. And so [00:21:00] it's justified in TV and film. And then out in the world, there's no accountability for police inflicting violence and harm or planting evidence or things like that.

Matthew Solomon: There's very little accountability. Like it comes up, but it's very rare that police officers actually go to trial, let alone get convicted for something like that. But it's this, this, this repetitive positive image showing like police doing no wrong. They're here to keep us safe, which that's really not the role of police.

Matthew Solomon: Police are here to protect property and the interest of the, the wealthy and the people in power. There's even, I was talking to somebody in Denver who's on the public safety task force. And he was like, city to city. It's rare that there's a definition of what police do. But in Denver, they literally say protect property and protect, I forget how they, I think corporate interests or something like that.

Matthew Solomon: So, so when we look at in reality, police really [00:22:00] solve a very small portion of crime. Their role is to arrest people, write tickets under the umbrella of getting bad guys off the streets. But what that does is perpetuates. Cycles of violence, people get incarcerated. They come out, they have less, less freedom, less access to resources.

Matthew Solomon: They've been in this confined space that's incredibly violent. And so if you're in there, even for a short amount of time, you come out and then how do you relate to people outside of that? And, and so the cop aganda part. Is really the, the propaganda that props up police as as this positive, like, you know, thing, which it's not.

Bruce Anthony: Yeah. So I mean, I hear exactly what you're saying because one of my favorite shows is Law and Order, SVU Mm-Hmm. . And one of my longtime favorite characters. First of all, Olivia Benson love her, but one of my longtime favorite characters was Elliot Stabler, who consistently [00:23:00] brutalized suspects. Mm-Hmm. . And nobody ever really.

Bruce Anthony: Even today, I mean, he's got his own show, Elliot Saber, again, having his own show. So it's funny. I, I did an interview speaking to a gentleman who wrote a book on policing. And he talked, we talked about the romanticism of police. And that is some of the reasons why people enter in the police force. But then they basically scare them straight with some of the police training.

Bruce Anthony: And so, yeah, that's, you know, I'm not gonna say all police are bad, but the system is. The system is, yeah, 

Matthew Solomon: it's a system that if you look at the way that they're trained and the mindset and the, the culture of policing. It is all about violence and control, like it's not protect and serve, it's command and control.

Matthew Solomon: And we see [00:24:00] this on the college campuses with the, with the encampments, the anti genocide, anti war encampments. And when the police are called in to clear it, doesn't matter that these are 19 year old kids. It's the riot gear and the shields and the bear spray and, and all of that. And, and it's this militarized force.

Matthew Solomon: Um, and that's, and that's, and that's the culture of it. That's what's ingrained in them. And you gotta like you back the blue and protect your brothers and sisters and it's us against them. And. Uh, the, the mental, I saw that interview, by the way that you had, it was really great. And, and the, the, the mindset that, that they're programmed with in the academy, you know, never lose a fight.

Matthew Solomon: You have to be in command when you walk, they call it command presence. You have to walk in, you got to get control of the situation. You get on the street, don't take crap from anybody, but you get into a fight at the drop of a hat. You got to write tickets. You got to make arrests. Like there's a. A book [00:25:00] of inconvenient cop from a former NYPD officer who talks about the quotas that are illegal and not supposed to exist.

Matthew Solomon: But he's like, yeah, you got a four arrest for tickets, I think. And then 10, you have to 10 stops or something like that. It's 10, four, four. Which none of that keeps us safe, but just, it just aggravates everybody. 

Bruce Anthony: There's always that running joke. You know, when people are driving, it's the end of the month and the beginning of the month, Hey, you got to be careful.

Bruce Anthony: Cause they got to meet their recorder. They're going to give you tickets out there. You brought up something that, uh, I wanted to touch base on. 

Deputy Gangs in LA County
---

Bruce Anthony: And you said something about the deputy gangs. And LA County, can you explain to me exactly what that is? 

Matthew Solomon: Yeah. So Cerise Castle, who's a reporter with knock LA, she, after, so she was covering the, the George Floyd protests in 2020 and was shot in the face [00:26:00] with a rubber bullet.

Matthew Solomon: And I remember that had a lot of damage was laid up for months. And, and so she, she talks about this. She has a, there's a 10 segment story. It's called the tradition of violence on knock LA's website. She also did a podcast on it, which is really great. But she talks about how she started hearing about gangs with like deputy gangs within the, it started with stations, like different sheriff's department stations in LA County.

Matthew Solomon: And she started doing the research and, and drilling down and finding there are at least 13 gangs that are known, uh, uh, that are named like the executioners that were tied to stations. They have like initiations. They all have tattoos. 

Bruce Anthony: This is the police, the police, the sheriff's department. This is not citizens out on the street, LA gang culture.

Bruce Anthony: This is LA gang culture. Now being in the police department. 

Matthew Solomon: Yes. [00:27:00] And the sheriff's department,

Matthew Solomon: it's not like, like in, in, I mean, it's been said, but I remember in boys in the hood, they're like PD, they were talking about is, is the biggest gang in the city. And this is, and that's LA PD as a whole. Like there are, there have been, it's been documented that there are gangs and other police departments, but, but within the sheriff's department, LA County sheriff's department.

Matthew Solomon: In particular, there's a ton of research that, and they've had. Oversight hearings and like the, the deputy, I forget if it's chief or what the, the designation is, has a tattoo that's tied to one of the gangs, you know, and they, they, they're like, no, it's about like station pride or it's about this or it's about that, but then she's interviewed former deputy gang members, she's interviewed people who've been the victims of violence from the deputy gangs and talk like really gets into [00:28:00] like the initiation process.

Matthew Solomon: The, the murders, the planting of guns and evidence, things like that. And then, and then the, those deputy gang members who have raised up through the ranks. 

Bruce Anthony: Okay. 

Nationwide Issues with Policing
---

Bruce Anthony: Oh, in, in your studies and your travels and you're meeting different people, does Does this exist only in LA or LA County, or does this exist in like Wyoming and Texas and Illinois and Indiana and New York and Jersey?

Bruce Anthony: Is this, is this a self contained situation or is this spread out across the board? 

Matthew Solomon: Yeah. I mean, every, and I've been in, you know, we've done 57 screenings across the U S like I said, and probably. We've had returns to, to certain areas. 

Police as a Gang
---

Matthew Solomon: So I've probably been in like 30 something cities, different cities. And no, everybody considers that the police are a gang.

Matthew Solomon: [00:29:00] Now, whether they have the tattoos and all of that, that's not as, as clear. As for sure with the LA County Sheriff's department, but, but, but all, but the, the culture of it is like a gang, they're gang members, but they, they had, they're backed by the state. There's very little accountability. They're given carplodge basically to do whatever they, they need to do.

Matthew Solomon: Yeah. So I remember like on, on that interview that you had, there were differences explained between gangs and, and police. Right. And I, I would take issue with, with that, you know, that, that you all were discussing and, you know, but, but in the case of the LA County Sheriff's department, it like these are like tattooed gang members.

Bruce Anthony: Okay. Yeah. They are, they have all the markings of a gang. You brought up something, 

Matthew Solomon: the thing, I'm sorry. 

Historical Ties Between Police and Gangs
---

Matthew Solomon: One other thing, like if you going back to the nineties and like Tupac and Biggie, and there were [00:30:00] LAPD members, officers who were affiliated with the Bloods gangs and were doing security for death row records and things like that.

Matthew Solomon: And so it's, it's, there's always been kind of like, Interweaving thing. Like, like you're talking about Italians and the Irish and, and I forget the movie, but it was like one son was a cop and one son was a drug dealer. You know, I know what movie 

Bruce Anthony: you're talking about. The guy that played Joker. Uh, yes.

Bruce Anthony: Phoenix. Yeah. He was in the movie with, was it Marky Mark? What's the other brother? You can call him Mark Wahlberg all you want. Yeah, I know. I would mark, mark to me, mark, but I know what movie you're talking about. And, and yeah, there's, there's probably a lot of those dynamics that, you know, one, one of the siblings is, is it's law enforcement, and another one is it, it's funny that you brought up the, the crookedness of some of the cop cops of planned evidence and things like that.

Bruce Anthony: I, I, I'm, I'm going to get comments on YouTube about this, but I'm gonna say what I had to say. 

Underhanded Tactics in Law Enforcement
---

Bruce Anthony: Rudy [00:31:00] Giuliani was praised for taking down the mafia using the RICO statute and, and basically crippling the, the mafia, not to the point where they don't exist anymore, but to the point where they are not as powerful as they once were.

Bruce Anthony: What rarely ever gets talked about is the underhanded tactics of which he used to get Some of these things, things like telling people that wouldn't inform that, Hey, if you don't inform that doesn't matter, we're going to go tell them that you did basically giving them a death sentence. So these underhanded tactics by the FBI, the DEA, AT have been documented over history, but some people still just want to believe that cops and everything associated with that is just on the up and up.

Bruce Anthony: Because if we, if people can't believe that. Then that means the system is corrupted. And then what do they believe it? So I kind of understand why they wouldn't want to face these facts. [00:32:00] These are facts. 

Matthew Solomon: I mean, in a lot of these, like the, the race, race conversations and civil rights and social justice, like the people love to invoke Dr.

Matthew Solomon: King, right on all sides. And, and he was, I debt labeled, uh, a terrorist, the most dangerous communist, most dangerous for like the, the United States government labeled him, what, one of the most dangerous people in America. 

The Black Panther Party and COINTELPRO
---

Matthew Solomon: The Black Panther Party were labeled as terrorists. There was a, you know, COINTELPRO where they had agents infiltrating and trying to take it.

Matthew Solomon: That when the, the, the story was that, Oh, they were this violent terrorist group. The reality was they're protecting their communities, feeding people like the, the school lunch program in the United States is, came from the Black Panther Party. Late sixties, early seventies. So they were keeping their people [00:33:00] safe, keeping their communities safe.

Matthew Solomon: They were trying to hold police accountable. They were feeding students, educating like when they, I was talking to a, uh, a colleague of mine and she was like, yeah, as soon as the black Panther party started to be about political education, that's when. Like things started going down and, and the members were getting arrested or assassinated or stuff like that because it was the, the political education realizing, oh, We're actually being oppressed in the system.

Matthew Solomon: So other folks can make a lot of money and we're actually not free. Like we've been told we're free. 

Bruce Anthony: Matthew. Could you imagine if we had social media back in the sixties and seventies? I, I think about that, that would be absolutely amazing. I want to go back to something. I know we're, we're going all around, but I want to go back to something that you brought up as far as quotas.

Quotas and Officer Incentives
---

Bruce Anthony: Is this connected at all to officer incentives [00:34:00] and what are officer incentive systems? 

Matthew Solomon: Right. Well, in, so with the quotas specifically, because it's in the book, an inconvenient cop, he talks about that's the measure of if you're doing your job or not, and so they have the, the 10, 4, 4 quota. And so it's like officers would be like, Oh, I'm going on vacation in two weeks.

Matthew Solomon: I need to make my quota or like you were saying at the end of the month, I haven't made enough arrests. I got to make my quota. And so then you go looking for stuff or you go planting stuff or you go making an arrest that won't hold up. But at least you made an arrest. Right. And so it uses. It uses people as pawns property, but it's dehumanizing because it's all a game that somebody profits off of when we're talking about in the incentive systems, but I know this from having talked to cops, like once you get on the street.[00:35:00] 

Matthew Solomon: The way that you prove yourself is, and that the way you show your job is it, they call it jamming people up. Right. Which is like stopping frisk, you know, like, Hey, what are you doing? Let me see your ID. Like, but you gotta be doing that. If, if somebody mouths off to your partner or, or, but you got to like jump in and take them down and, and fight.

Matthew Solomon: You have to make arrests. You got to write tickets. You got to like all of this stuff that we think is about safety just perpetuates more of the violence. But. They don't have measures for how safe did you make this area of town today? The, the crime crime stats are often tied to arrest as, as like the only means to really measure if people are safe or not versus.

Matthew Solomon: Like I was saying before, the things that actually produced safety. And so there, there is that incentive and you have to prove yourself and the whole culture of policing. You got to prove [00:36:00] yourself to the old timers and who are the old timers that they've been around forever. They were. You know, when there's a, there's research from the Brennan center and the FBI with white supremacists infiltrating law enforcement agencies, or even be like in LAPD in the forties, Southern officers in quotes were recruited, right.

Matthew Solomon: And who are Southern officers most likely to be KKK members. So it's all, it's all interwoven. And then you have the, the incentive and then the, the, the racism that's ingrained and who are the easiest populations to over police so that you can make your quotas, generally the, the, the poorest, right? The ones with the least resources, which are generally black and Brown communities by design with red lining and housing discrimination, like all of, and that's the thing, like all of those systems.

Matthew Solomon: Including mental health and social work all feed into policing and the policing mindset and the, we have to control [00:37:00] people and populations. We have to punish people who make mistakes or break laws or whatever, regardless, like that was one of the things from sociology back in the nineties was. You know, the whole thing about like, somebody would go to jail for stealing a loaf of bread.

Matthew Solomon: But we had at the time, the savings and loan, the savings and loan scandal, the guy that did that, Michael Milken, like he went to like, like a country club, nothing, but if you steal a loaf of bread, because your kids are hungry. Like you're in jail in, in like one of the most violent. Systems being like LA County, California, one of the most violent systems in the country.

Bruce Anthony: That's a lot on police. 

Matthew Solomon: Yeah.

The Me Too Movement and Men's Role
---

Bruce Anthony: Let's talk about, let's talk about [00:38:00] safety of women. You wrote a book, man's school relating with women in the me too era. Can you tell us a little bit about the book and a little bit about the me too era and what men need to learn about that era? 

Matthew Solomon: Yeah. So the, I mean, it's really like, it kind of comes about through the same lens, which is if we care about people, we would do things differently.

Matthew Solomon: If we set aside, or if we acknowledge that we all have certain lived experiences based on our gender, skin color, religion, physical abilities, or disabilities, things like that. Right. And so when, when the Me Too movement happened online, now Me Too was started by a black woman named Tarana Burke in 2006.

Matthew Solomon: And she often does not get, she doesn't get enough credit. She often doesn't get credit for that. But so she started Me Too and then around 2017, 2018 with the Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby [00:39:00] and all of that, the hashtag Me Too, the online movement was started, co opted, started. And women were sharing their stories online.

Matthew Solomon: And so a lot of what was happening was men not living, being in that lived experience would push back and be like, well, that doesn't make sense. You must've done this, or you must've done that, or it couldn't be that bad or whatever, and, and negating the lived experiences of most, mostly women. There were some men too, but mostly women who were sharing their stories.

Matthew Solomon: And so, because I've been involved in this type of work for a long time, I was engaging with, with men. On mostly Facebook and women were like, Oh, you get it. We're exhausted. Please write a book or teach a class or something. 

bruce-anthony--he-him-_1_06-04-2024_153210: And 

Matthew Solomon: so I wrote the book because I figured that would be like, who's going to come to a class.

Matthew Solomon: That's right. Um, so I wrote the book. It's short, it's like 73 pages or something, but it really, it's really about [00:40:00] relationships and acknowledging other people's lived experiences and how we can listen better. How we can, how we as men. At the, at the time. And it was a very, this was 2018. So the book is very like gender binary, like men and women.

Matthew Solomon: There's not a lot of, there's not really. A lot in between that's something I would probably do differently now, but, you know, it's interesting cause the whole thing about like the, the, the man or the bear thing has just come up on social media, but it, it, it really is about personal development as men.

Matthew Solomon: Like how can we show up and really be confident and strong in who we are, but also being sensitive and in, in my work, transformative leadership, I think The leaders who have inspired me that I, that I've been inspired to follow are always the ones who've had compassion and empathy and knew who I was cared about, who I was cared about, what I was interested in.

Matthew Solomon: Like, those are the people that I would go to [00:41:00] battle for, 

bruce-anthony--he-him-_1_06-04-2024_153210: you 

Matthew Solomon: know, it's the ones that are like putting on this fake vibrato and the. You know, the alpha, like whatever, and you're all been charged. Like, I have no respect for folks like that, you know? So it's really about, like you were saying at the beginning, like developing empathy and compassion and, and acknowledging that we all have different lived experiences based on how we grew up and who we grew up with and how we show up in the world.

Bruce Anthony: Yeah. I, I've had to check a couple of male friends of mine since the whole diddy Scandal has come out and before the video, they were like, I don't understand why she just didn't go to the police and you know, why didn't she just leave? And I'm like, bro, it's like, you really don't understand power dynamics and these things are, these conversations are important, but also I understand why women are just absolutely exhausted talking about it.

Bruce Anthony: It's kind of like me being a black man, trying to explain to somebody who isn't [00:42:00] black about racism and they're like, I just don't get it. And I like, Hey, you know what? My head hurts. Yeah. Go read a book. And that's what I wanted to say to men. So go read Matthew's book. You can learn something. 

Leadership, Partnership, and Intimacy
---

Bruce Anthony: You do other work as well, and you're, you do a lot of work that focuses on leadership and partnership and intimacy.

Bruce Anthony: Can you tell me a little bit about that? 

Matthew Solomon: Yeah, so, so for me and like, it all, it all ties in right. The, the, the leaders that I've been inspired by there, there's an, when I talk about intimacy, a lot of times we, we think it's sex and relationship, but intimacy is really getting to know people. At a deep level, like being able to share with each other, like, this is what's going on with me, or this is why I'm feeling or responding this way.

Matthew Solomon: And, and so when we can do that for each other, and this is, I've seen this, I've, I've [00:43:00] facilitated this, but it came out of me, Experience it, experiencing this in my years of work as a, as a student of personal development and transformation and things like that, like when we're open and honest with each other, and we listen to each other in a way that acknowledges and has somebody feel heard and, you know, heard and valued.

Matthew Solomon: A lot of the other ring that we were talking about, a lot of the misconceptions and the judgments disappear, and we relate to each other on a human personal level. And so for me, leadership, partnership, and intimacy are, are three pillars because the real leaders who inspire people to not only follow, but to, to lead them, to lead as well, develop that intimacy and know how to create partnership.

Matthew Solomon: We get things done by being in partnership with each other. Or if we look at it from a decolonial aspect, like we were talking about for being in [00:44:00] community. What are we doing together? What are we working towards together? How can we use our varied talents and, and things I'm, I'm good at this part. You're good at that part.

Matthew Solomon: Great. Let's do that together and, and make it, make it move, get it moving. So that's, that's where all of that comes from. And I, and I, you know, as a facilitator. When I go into organizations more times than not, there's a hierarchy where the people at the top are almost completely cut off by people in the middle, definitely cut off from people at the bottom, different departments are siloed off.

Matthew Solomon: So nobody knows who's what or who's doing what or how to do what. And so there's always these breakdowns on people and ultimately people trying to cover themselves so they don't lose their job. And so it becomes not about. Like on a, on a, in a university setting, it, it becomes not about serving the students and what does [00:45:00] the university stand for and how are we growing and expanding is I got to get tenure.

Matthew Solomon: I got to cover my butt. I got to, you know, can't don't want to talk about DEI because I'll get blow back from the community. I don't want to address that there are race or gender issues on campus. Because, you know, so we'll just bring in somebody to do like a, a one hour talk or a four hour training. So we can say we did and check that box, but nothing ever changes, 

bruce-anthony--he-him-_1_06-04-2024_153210: you 

Matthew Solomon: know?

Matthew Solomon: So, so when, when we approach community from a place of really being investing in really investing in each other. And what's going to serve everybody. Then we start to make changes that actually benefits everybody. 

Bruce Anthony: So I have a question because I dig everything that you're saying. 

Challenges in Changing Mindsets
---

Bruce Anthony: However, I know there's going to be pushback.

Bruce Anthony: I know that there is pushback. There's going to be people saying Bruce had [00:46:00] this guy named Matthew, the super ultra liberal who wants to hug everybody and love everybody and sing Kumbaya. He doesn't realize that we live in a conservative, capitalist, Capitalistic country, and it's all about survival of the fittest.

Bruce Anthony: How do we get through to those people? Yeah, because there's a whole section, at least half of this country has that type of mentality. Well, I'll say a couple of things for, yeah, go ahead. And I was just, I was just like, how do we, how do we reach those? How do we beat it in their head? Not literally, but get it to the point where they understand.

Bruce Anthony: If we live this way, it's better for everybody. This will benefit you as well. It's not taking anything away from you. It's going to benefit you. 

Matthew Solomon: Well, okay. So first of all, I'm, I'm much more to the left than liberal, which brings me to, I'm not about Kumbaya and I mean, I love hugs. [00:47:00] What I also get that you got to fight for stuff and there's liberatory revolutionary practices and you got to tear down the system, right?

Matthew Solomon: And, and replace it with the stuff that works. And so how do we do that? Fred Hampton. What was building coalitions with, with white folks and, and, and the young lords and all of that, because there's power in coalition 

Bruce Anthony: and the Latinos that were in Chicago and the Latinos, 

Matthew Solomon: but yeah, all of that. So it's, so here's, here's where I'm at, because this is, this has been an evolving thing because, and like I said, I, I wake up with this every day, like, how do, how do we get more people to see it?

Reimagining Safety Through Media
---

Matthew Solomon: So film re imagining safety. When white liberals see the film and, and I, I see liberal as closer to the center or right than left. And this is just so framing this [00:48:00] conversation in that when white liberals see the film who are in a place where they it's like, yeah, there's problems, yeah, we need to fix the problems, but what are you going to do?

Matthew Solomon: And then they see, and they're afraid of defund the police, right? They're like, oh, we can't defund the police, but then they see the film and how it's explained. And how the solutions are already happening. There are violence prevention teams all over the country. There are community responders all over in various parts of the country.

Matthew Solomon: Right. If these are things that are working. So when people see the film, they're like, Oh, I get it now. And then that changes their minds. And then they start to address. Each other and the systems from, from that place, when we're talking about, you know, so there's probably, I, I would assert that there are some folks who are not going to be reachable and that's, and that's fine.

Matthew Solomon: And by getting people to see through [00:49:00] media, through, and I think like that's the other thing too, as. One of the reasons that I was on board with doing a film is because who's going to go out and read the, the 20 something books that I've read on this. Not a lot of people, but you put an 83 minute movie on people are going to, and it, and it, it sparks conversation when we do the community screenings, then people get to connect with the leaders in their communities who are doing this work.

Matthew Solomon: So it's that it's as, as a filmmaker, I see a responsibility in changing You know, stereotypes and tropes, storyline, tropes, casting tropes, like who, what race plays, what characters or how are people seeing and, and, and creating new storylines. Now, Hollywood is a whole other establishment, you know, but there's, there's a lot more avenues for people to get content, [00:50:00] you know, and self distribute or on, or there are other platforms, you know, that, that you can get your, like with re imagining safety, you know, I, yeah, it would have been great to be on like HBO or Netflix or whatever, even though Netflix is not great for filmmakers, but I, but I wanted as many people to see it as possible.

Bruce Anthony: Yeah, as large, as many platforms as possible. 

Matthew Solomon: And so there's a company called Indie Rights, which is basically they support self distribution, but they have direct paths to Amazon, Tubi, YouTube, Google play. They also go to all the film markets and pitch it and all of that. But I knew that I would at least be on four platforms that are different levels of accessibility.

Matthew Solomon: Where anybody can see the film, you know? So it's that, so it's our storytelling. It's our, it's our education, our education. Like we got to educate people. On the harms and the alternatives and, and all of that. And, and it is a fight. 

Community and Revolutionary Practices
---

Matthew Solomon: Like I, [00:51:00] you know, I, I feel very honored to, to be in community with the black Panther party and the Panther party in Washington state when we communicate a lot and like they are very much.

Matthew Solomon: A revolutionary organization. And a big part of that is about divesting from the system and not participating. And so they, they do trainings on growing your own food and conflict resolution. And, and they'll do like, so they do self defense and things like that. And so it is, it's, it's. Not really the Kumbaya part, but it's being in community and not relying on these, these systems that are these systems of oppression.

Bruce Anthony: I get it. I get it. Matthew, sometimes you can just got to let people know, Hey, look, I'm all for peace, but I can also punch you in your face to get the progress. I mean, sometimes you just got to let people know that, Hey, look, we can have a conversation or we can have a different conversation. It's [00:52:00] however you want to take it.

Bruce Anthony: But I'm gonna get a point across. Uh, Matthew, thank you so much for being on the show. Is there something that you would like to leave my audience with? 

Final Thoughts and Takeaways
---

Matthew Solomon: A big thank you for, for, for listening. And you know, the, the, one of the big takeaways from my film, which I mentioned is when we care about each other for real, we do things differently and we have a lot more compassion, empathy, and respect.

Matthew Solomon: And so. I would love, yeah, to leave that like, like in our dealings with people. And I have to fight this every day too. Cause I, um, Gen X, I was raised to like, oh yeah, you want to go there? Let's go there. But it's like, all right, who does this serve? 

bruce-anthony--he-him-_1_06-04-2024_153210: And, 

Matthew Solomon: and, and how can we, and this is the conflict resolution part.

Matthew Solomon: Like, as I was like, how can we create partnerships? I work together. So that's, that's that. 

Bruce Anthony: All right, Matthew, thank you so much for joining the show. Thank you so [00:53:00] much for telling us about both your film and your book. I know my audience has learned a lot. I'm going to, once again, all those links are going to be in the description section of both the audio and video platforms.

Bruce Anthony: Go watch the movie. Everybody's got to be. Everybody's got to go watch the movie, fellas and women and everything in between. Go grab the book, go grab the book and learn something. Matthew, thank you so much for coming on the show. I really appreciate it. 

Matthew Solomon: Thank you. It's been great.

Closing Remarks and Call to Action
---

Bruce Anthony: Once again, I want to thank Matthew Solomon for joining me for that very insightful and enlightening interview. You know, I bring guests on here that are experts in their field. To explain their field to people who are unfamiliar. And Matthew did a very good job of explaining the other [00:54:00] side of policing, the institution of policing that some people want to deny or just don't want to hear about or, and other people who are just saying, yep, that's definitely how police operate.

Bruce Anthony: Also talking about. Me too. And women and women's safety. The most important thing that anybody can take away from this interview, aside from the excellent film and book that Matthew has written is understanding that empathy is so vitally important. To our everyday lives, you know, this is something that I stand on business with every day of the week and every show and every interview.

Bruce Anthony: It's about understanding other people that are different from you, understanding their walk of life. And even though you might not be able to understand [00:55:00] anything. To have empathy for whatever plight they've gone through, to not minimize it, to not put it down, to just shut up and listen and try to let it absorb into your mind, into your heart.

Bruce Anthony: That's empathy. That's understanding. That's what we should have for our fellow person. I'm not going to say man or woman, for person, for people. That's how we actually move forward as a human race. And a lot of people are going to say all that tree hugging and stuff and, and it is no good and you, and you liberals are always talking about that.

Bruce Anthony: That's not what America is. First of all, a lot of the people that say that are not tough. Okay, that's first and foremost. A lot of people that, that, that try to stand on that alpha American fake bravado. Aren't really tough. They talk a big game, but they're, they're not really tough. If you confront them, they back down.

Bruce Anthony: There's no such thing as an alpha or a [00:56:00] beta. We are alphas and betas depending on the circumstances, but what we are always, and what we should always be is human beings who have empathy for one another. That's how we progress in society. And a lot of the things that Matthew was saying right on the butt.

Bruce Anthony: So get his work. 

bruce-anthony--he-him-_1_06-04-2024_153210: In the 

Bruce Anthony: description section of both the audio and video platform are all the links to not only his film, his book, his website. You can contact him yourself. You can send him an email and try to get more information and learn more about what he's teaching, what he's worked on, what he's doing.

Bruce Anthony: I implore everybody to do that because Matthew is speaking the real out here and I'm glad to hear it But ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank all of you for both listening And watching and until next time as always a [00:57:00] holler. Whoo. That was a hell of a show Thank you for rocking with us here on unsolicited perspectives with Bruce Anthony.

Bruce Anthony: Now, before you go, don't forget to follow, subscribe, like comment and share our podcast, wherever you're listening or watching it to it. Pass it along to your friends. If you enjoy it, that means the people that you rock will enjoy it also. So share the wealth, share the knowledge, share the noise. And all those people that say, well, I don't have a YouTube.

Bruce Anthony: If you have a Gmail account, you have a YouTube, YouTube. Subscribe to our YouTube channel where you can actually watch our video podcast. But the real party is on our Patreon page after hours uncensored and talk a straight ish after hours uncensored is another show with my sister. And once again, the key word there is uncensored.

Bruce Anthony: Those are exclusively on our Patreon page. Jump onto our website at unsolicitedperspective. com for all things us. That's where you can get all of our audio, video, audio, and even buy our merch. And if you really feel ingenuous and want to [00:58:00] help us out, you can donate on our donations page. Donations go strictly to improving our software and hardware so we can keep giving you guys good content that you can clearly listen to.

Bruce Anthony: And that you can clearly see. So any donation will be appreciative. Most importantly, I want to say thank you, thank you, thank you for listening and watching and supporting us, and I'll catch you next time. Audi 5,000, please

bruce-anthony--he-him-_1_06-04-2024_153210: him over for stays the same.