“If we can learn how to disagree with respect, we can work on issues we agree on,” said Dr. John Brown Childs at the last “Conversations with Black and Brown in Blue” event this past Weds. in the Student Center Ballrooms. He was also joined by Cynthia Renaud, retired Chief of Police for the Santa Monica Police Department, to speak about the challenges they had to overcome existing alongside the justice system and as well as how to improve upon it. The event was hosted by Chief Nadar Oweiss of Sonoma State Police and as well as Dr. John Sawyer, Vice President of Student Affairs.

The lecture began with Dr. Sawyer recounting the need for students and faculty to be having conversations with individuals inside law enforcement. As has been said many times throughout the lecture series, “If you don’t have a seat at the table, then you invariably are on the menu.” He also mentioned that it was important to have a police presence in more dangerous communities but that there also needs to be a “transformation” of the police instead of the more popular policy belief of reform or defunding the police. 

The theme of the evening was transcommunality, a word that Dr. Brown Childs uses to speak more specifically on the subject of working together from a place of commonality or agreement instead of focusing on the parts of ourselves that’s different. In his work at the Soledad Correctional Training Facility, Dr. Brown Childs teaches transcommunality to the men incarcerated there and has noticed a difference in their behavior since he began instruction.

“The men with whom we work there come from all different walks of life, vocations, and affiliations but we can sit there and work on common tasks together and they really do emphasize the mutual respect, and if you have mutual respect, then you can disagree.” Said Dr. Brown Childs on his work within the correctional facility. “You can disagree, but you don’t have to be disagreeable.”

Dr. Brown Childs, along with being present for the 1965 Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee protest in Alabama, is also a celebrated author and has one book on the subject of transcommunality. “Transcommunality: From the Policies of Conversation to the Ethics of Respect.” was published in 2003 and has since been an excellent source of information on the subject. 

Chief Renaud added upon Dr. Brown Childs’s words on transcommunality and said that now more than ever, with the importance of transcommunality, we need to “help each other live within a unit,” and to make strides towards understanding each other by way of transcommunality. She also made the point to describe that, “community policing isn’t something that you do, it’s a philosophy.”

After retiring in October of last year, Chief Renaud has since continued her work by becoming the Immediate Past President of the International Association for Chiefs of Police. The IACP is the world’s largest and most influential professional association for police leaders with its mission being to enhance community safety by shaping the future of law enforcement.

In addition to the conversation with both speakers, the lecture series also served as a way to help out students by raffling off a sum of money that could be used on books next semester. One of this week’s winners, Terra Bransfield, had previously attended all of the lectures but had only attended one this semester. 

“There were a lot of different folks with different perspectives and stories and I definitely found myself not necessarily agreeing, but it allowed me to hear all the different perspectives that I might not have considered,” said Bransfield about the lecture series. “I think that changing the term from reform to transform is an interesting way to think about it.”

The Conversations with Black and Brown in Blue began on campus as a way to better involve the students and faculty in tough conversations around policing and biases that some hold against law enforcement. The lecture series aims to “encourage open and honest dialogue in order to reduce barriers and misperceptions.” To watch this lecture and the last four, visit the Student Involvement page on the Sonoma State website and go to ‘Conversations with Black and Brown in Blue.’