>> I'm Dr.

Benjamin F. Chavis Jr., and this is "The Chavis Chronicles."

>> That sort of feeling that the other is someone that is going to take away from you the world that you know and the world that you understand has become ubiquitous in our society.

And with that dehumanization of the other comes the ability to hate somebody.

>> Yes.

>> Major funding for "The Chavis Chronicles" is provided by the following.

At Wells Fargo, we continue to look for ways to empower our customers.

We seek broad impact in our communities, and we're proud of the role we play for our customers and the US economy.

As a company, we are focused on supporting our customers and communities through housing access, small-business growth, financial health, and other community needs.

Together, we want to make a tangible difference in people's lives.

Wells Fargo -- the bank of doing.

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Reynolds American is investing in innovation, people, and manufacturing to grow tomorrow right here in America.

♪♪ >> We're very honored to have on this episode of "The Chavis Chronicles" one of our nation's leading rabbis.

He's also a friend.

Welcome, Rabbi Bob Kaplan.

>> Thank you for having me here.

>> So, Rabbi, as you know, in America today, there's still the appearance of the rise of anti-Semitism, the rise of racism, Where does all this hate come from?

>> Well, I think the most im-- in the deepest space, hate comes from just not knowing that the other person you're talking to is a human being, part of a common creation.

If we want to look through that spiritual lens, we're all part of this common creation by our common creator.

Unfortunately, we're living in a society where that has been sort of devolved and dismantled, where we see the other as not somebody that we can necessarily trust, certainly not somebody that we can even hear their narrative, but somebody who is to be defined as dangerous.

We're circling our wagons.

We're waiting to be attacked.

So, that sort of feeling that the other is someone that is going to take away from you the world that you know and the world that you understand has become ubiquitous in our society.

And with that dehumanization of the other comes the ability to hate somebody.

>> Yes.

>> I've fought most of my career battling segregation.

We really never had integration.

We had desegregation.

But let me just say, on the positive side, there is a growing reconvergence of Blacks and Jews in America.

You're the co-chair of the Black-Jewish Action Alliance, BJAA.

Tell me about BJAA.

>> So, BJAA is dedicated towards, as you said, rebirthing or re-figuring or re-evolving this natural relationship between the Black and the Jewish community in America.

As we evolved -- You know, there's no one Black community.

There's no one Jewish community.

We're very, very diverse, each one of our communities.

However, what we need to do today -- we can't always look back at the past.

But what we need to do today is find those points of commonality, find those values that we share, see the other again as part of our common creation, build those relationships around the justice issues that really brought us together initially and continuously are part of the need of each community, and figure out how we're gonna move it forward.

So, it is an organization that is intentionally intergenerational, bringing together leaders from previous generations and from the growing, new, evolving generation in front of us and learning how to talk between generations.

It's an organization that is examining what is the state of affairs between the Black and the Jewish community?

The pretty stuff and the not-so-pretty stuff.

And how can we raise up all the things that are happening in a positive way in our country?

Give them the kinds of resources they need.

Give them the kind of encouragement that they need.

But to go back to that word, give them the kind of leadership that they need.

And allow it to continue to be the main bulwark, the main force that's pushing us in the correct direction, rather than this direction that you're referring to of separation.

>> I would love to see a meeting, a national meeting of Jewish leaders, a national meeting of Black leaders together.

And not to exclude Latinos or Asians or Native Americans or whites.

You know, I think that the more dialogue, I think we're gonna discover that there's more -- we have more in common than we have in difference.

>> Specifically around that, what we're hoping in the BJAA is to convene just such a meeting, to bring together those who are on the cutting edge of the black and the Jewish communities together, convening it, talking to each other, learning how to dialogue with each other, learning how to listen to the other's narrative, without tearing away or violating the dignity of the other's narrative.

Doesn't mean you always have to agree, by the way.

We just have to be very careful about not violating the dignity.

And when we do violate the dignity, how do we repair that dignity?

But bring them together not to create new programs -- 'cause there's good programs out there -- not to look at saying, "We're gonna be the be-all and end-all."

We want to bring together good minds and caring hearts so they can go out and back into their communities and create or lift up the initiatives that exist or bring new ideas into the communities to make sure the Black and the communities -- excuse me -- the Black community and the Jewish community, in its full diversity, can talk to themselves and talk to each other and figure out how they're gonna move the needle forward as others try to push the needle back.

>> There are three Abrahamic faiths -- Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

All say that Abraham is the father.

>> Right.

>> So if Abraham is the father, hate and kill each other?

>> That's a great question.

So, sometimes you want to say, "I want daddy's love more than than you," or, "Daddy really spoke to me more than he spoke to you."

Well, that's a hard space to be.

But again, we're not listening to how the other heard the message.

When I speak to someone who's a Christian, I never understood certain things until I spoke to some pastors about the word "calling."

Now, when I became a rabbi, I had a calling.

I never had a pulpit.

I was always on campus or out there in the community, building community.

That was my calling.

I didn't know what to call it.

But when I ran into some pastors, I understood the issue of calling.

When I speak to an imam and he's telling me about all the these various different challenges they have about becoming Western, moving from countries where Islam is the majority religion to coming to America where it's not and all the challenges of keeping people connected to their faith and going, "Oh, I know that one?"

-- because we're in the same boat -- it's understanding that everyone has heard the voice in a slightly different way, but it's one voice that comes out of Abraham or it comes out of our common creator.

And it goes into our soul.

But we tend to say, "Well, I heard the voice the right way."

Well, that's where I begin to question.

>> I wanted to ask you about the rise of anti-Semitism, the rise of racism in America.

Is there something that can be done not only to identify this increase in hate, but what can be done in your view, not just to stem it and confront it, but to take away the oxygen, take away whatever's giving life to this anti-Semitism, racism?

>> So, the work that I've been doing for the past 40-some odd years, both in Hillel on campuses and now through the JCRC of New York and the other efforts that I'm involved in, really were birthed in the fact that I grew up in a city housing project in Brooklyn.

>> So, you're from Brooklyn.

>> I'm born and raised in Brooklyn.

I grew up in a city housing project that -- No one likes to call it the projects anymore, but that's what they were.

Everyone lived there.

We shared the same floors.

We shared the same grass outside.

We shared the benches.

We shared the showers.

We shared the stuff of life.

I saw everyone as -- You know, I knew there were differences.

You figured that out, you know, as a kid, just like, "Oh, this one looks a little different.

That one acts a little different.

They don't eat the way I do."

But we shared because they were other human beings who were in the same building and the same project that we were in.

So we got to be in the same project again.

We got to rehumanize everyone.

So we have to spend the amount of energy and time and resources and money to create as many opportunities in our society to bring people back together again, to work together to solve problems together, to see the other as part of the solution rather than part of the problem.

>> What gives you your greatest hope?

>> When I see young folks deciding to fight against all the hate, to become the champions, to become new leaders, to become the inspired folks that's gonna take us forward.

Not only does that give me hope.

That gives me certainty that we're gonna be there.

>> Rabbi Bob Kaplan, thank you for joining >> And, Dr.

Ben Chavis, thank you for having me.

>> That's the question that I wondered, is why?

You know, Congress is supposed to act on our behalf, you know, as the people.

Why would you pass rules and laws that make it a secret, where a gun that is unleashed in havoc in our community -- just where is it from?

♪♪ >> We're really honored to have in our presence one of our nation's leading not only freelance journalists, investigative journalists, Brother Jamaal Abdul-Alim.

Welcome to "The Chavis Chronicles."

>> Thanks for having me.

It's an honor to be here.

>> How'd you first start your writing career?

>> I would trace my writing career back to pretty much high school, John Marshall High School.

I wrote a column for The Gavel, it was called, under the name -- At the time, I hadn't changed my name yet, so I wrote under the name Jason X.

>> Okay.

>> And all I did really was, in my essays, I would emulate the oratory of Malcolm X and Minister Farrakhan.

And, you know, my teachers took note, and next thing you know, I was writing a column for the newspaper there.

>> Your high school newspaper.

>> Yeah.

Yeah.

And then also, you know, in high school there was a very, very critical thing that took place with a teacher by the name of Miss Bell, who required us to enter a newspaper contest, the Milwaukee Journal Martin Luther King essay contest at the time.

And the question was just, you know, if you could list and solve, you know, three problems in the so-called inner city, what would they be?

And I wrote something about the violence that I saw at that time.

And, you know, I cranked out the essay at the last minute.

And a few months later, Miss Bell comes up to me and she says, "Jamaal, Jamaal, I got good news for you."

She said, "You won first place."

And first place was $100, a plaque, and publication in The Milwaukee Journal.

And I just thought to myself, "Hey, if I could write one article a day and get $100 for every one --" >> And The Milwaukee Journal was the daily.

>> Yeah, yeah.

So, I go back to the days when we had two newspapers in Milwaukee.

And after I won that contest, I ended up working for The Milwaukee Sentinel.

And so it was The Milwaukee Journal and the Sentinel until they merged in 1995.

But, you know, the essay that I mentioned actually has relevance to an article that I wrote earlier this year in Washington Monthly.

is about a young lady named Sandra Parks.

And she was struck and killed by a bullet fired indiscriminately outside her home on Milwaukee's north side.

>> How old was she?

>> She was 13.

>> 13 years old?

>> 13 years old.

So, she's minding her own business in her bedroom, where she's supposed to be, you know, at that time.

>> And this is in Milwaukee?

>> In Milwaukee, my hometown.

And somebody was upset with somebody they believed to be in the house, and they just fired indiscriminately.

And the bullet struck Sandra.

So, it was fired from a high-powered weapon.

And the case really resonated with me because Sandra Parks also won an essay contest, the same -- pretty much the same one.

It was a Martin Luther King essay contest.

And in her essay, she talks about the daily threat of violence and how it affects her.

So I looked at her essay, and I'm like, "That's the same essay I wrote 20,30 years prior," which tells me she would have been on the same path as me, had she survived.

So I felt obligated to look into her case.

And to me, it's not enough to just have, like, you know, the police chief or the mayor say it was an AK-47 rifle.

It's like, "Well, where did it come from?"

And so that's what I set out to do for the story in the Washington Monthly.

The story is called "Gun Without a Trace."

But, you know, my history of looking at guns, the origin of guns, it actually goes back, you know, much further, you know, into the 1990s.

And, you know, if someone were to ask me, "What made you want to start doing it?"

believe it or not, it was a song by the rapper Nas.

It's called "I Gave You Power."

And in that song, he actually takes on the mind-set of a gun.

Like, he gives life to the -- if the gun could talk, this is what it would say.

And he told this fascinating, detailed story about just the career of a murder weapon, you know, being in inventory, being discarded in the streets, and stuff like that.

And so when I heard that song, it was 1996, and I told myself, "I want to write a story about a gun so detailed that I can actually tell it from the gun's perspective."

I set out to do the same thing journalistically that Nas had done lyrically.

And I never ended up doing that, but in the process of that, it led me to learn a lot more about the origin of the guns that were being used in some of the worst crimes committed in the community.

Where were they coming from?

And how were they getting into the hands of people who weren't supposed to have them?

>> I want to go back to the case that you cited in Milwaukee, this 13-year-old teenager murdered in her own home.

>> Mm-hmm.

>> You say they found the gun that was used?

>> Yeah.

Yeah.

So, they obtained it from a nearby house, you know, where the shooter had run.

And what I wanted to know was the origin.

In other words, how did it get into his hands?

He's a convicted felon.

>> He was already a convicted felon?

>> Yeah, he was already -- So he's not even supposed to be in possession of a weapon.

Therefore, that tells me someone, somewhere -- it could be him, it could be him with others -- had to illegally transfer the gun to him.

Either he stole it or somebody gave it to him.

So, I wanted to know more about that whole process, and so I filed a Freedom of Information Act request for any and all records about that particular gun.

And I didn't get what I had hoped to get.

In fact, they actually denied it for the most part.

>> Who denied it?

>> The police department.

In terms of, like, what store it came from, they weren't gonna disclose that.

But they included just enough information for me to be able to craft an interesting story about where this gun was manufactured, how it got into the United States, and then the veil of secrecy that surrounds what took place after it entered the United States.

So, we can start with the point of origin, manufacturer.

It's from Serbia.

And the company is called Zastava.

>> That's a long ways from the United States.

>> Yeah, yeah, you know, about 4,000 or 5,000 miles away.

And I think there's a big body of water in between the two, Right?

So... The interesting thing about -- So, Zastava is, like, kind of like a government-part private-owned manufacturer, mostly government, though.

But the interesting thing about this particular weapon is they don't even allow it among citizens in Serbia.

And so that's one part of the story.

You know, it comes from this city in Serbia.

But for it to enter the United States, you have to have someone who's licensed to import weapons, right?

And so, in this case, it's Century Arms.

And they're in Vermont.

And the interesting thing about Vermont is they, too, have a law against this type of -- the magazine, high-capacity magazines.

They don't want them in Vermont.

But they create a loophole, an exemption for a company in Vermont to import, to make them, and to ship them elsewhere.

So, government in that sense -- state government and then the government of Serbia -- they forbid something, they prohibit something for their citizens, but they will allow it.

And the specific reason in Vermont was it's about jobs.

You know, if anyone were to look this legislation up and the reason that they passed it, it was about protecting local jobs.

So, there's these financial incentives.

>> Local jobs in distribution of weapons?

>> Right.

So, there's a gun outlet, right?

Century Arms.

And they're the ones that brought it in from Serbia, right?

we don't really know what happened.

And the reason we don't know what happened is because Congress, in the early 2000s, passed a law that forbids the ATF from releasing information about crime guns.

And the reason they did that is, because at the time, cities like Chicago -- they were trying to compile the information about the origin of crime guns in order to file public-nuisance lawsuits against dealers, you know, those who are, you know, responsible for supplying guns.

And in order to file a lawsuit like that, you got to have information about the origin of the weapons.

So, Congress, basically led by Republicans, they passed laws and rules that said, "Hey, you can't release information about --" To the ATF.

They're telling the ATF, "You cannot release information about the origin of crime guns.

That is, guns recovered in crimes in our community.

You can only release that to police and prosecutors, and then only in connection with the prosecution of a crime.

You cannot use the information --" and this is specific in the rules that they've drafted -- "for civil litigation."

>> So, Jamaal, I'm gonna keep on this point.

To what extent do the elected officials in Wisconsin have some accountability for the tragedy that happened?

>> Yeah, I'm glad you asked that, and, you know, I specifically called and e-mailed several elected officials in Milwaukee, including the mayor.

So, for the most part, I didn't get a response.

And even with the mayor, it was his spokesman giving me something, you know, just kind of standard.

But there wasn't, like, a real, you know, response.

And interestingly enough, the city in Ser-- I'm not gonna pronounce it right, but the city in Serbia where that gun that was used to kill Sandra Parks is from, the city of Milwaukee recently formed a sister city relationship with that city.

And so I thought, "Well, this is a great time for y'all to get together and -- Hey, let's look at this case.

What happened?

Is there anything we can do collectively to stem the tide of weapons from your city into cities like ours, killing children like Sandra Parks?"

For me, that seemed like a reasonable, timely discussion to have.

No one was interested in it.

You know, there's another case, you know, for Black America that really drives home the importance of understanding what's happening and the origin of guns, and that is the tragic church shooting in South Carolina in 2015, right?

So, the white supremacist who unleashed that tragedy, the gun that he obtained, he should not have been able to obtain.

But there were a lot of bureaucratic snafus.

And, you know, some people didn't follow up.

There were misspellings of his name, so the background check failed.

And so he was able to obtain a weapon, but justice could not be pursued if the people are not aware of, what's the background of that gun that was used in that tragedy?

So I put that case in the many cases that show how the pursuit of justice is gonna be contingent.

We have to have information about where the guns are from.

>> Right.

Thank you for not letting this issue evaporate, fade away from public attention.

>> Right.

>> We've taken the whole program to talk about this one case because it is significant and relevant not just to Milwaukee, but to every major city in America.

>> Right.

>> So, thank you for joining "The Chavis Chronicles."

>> Thank you for having me.

>> For more information about "The Chavis Chronicles" and our guests, visit our website at TheChavisChronicles.com.

Also, follow us on Facebook, X, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.

Major funding for "The Chavis Chronicles" is provided by the following.

At Wells Fargo, we continue to look for ways to empower our customers.

We seek broad impact in our communities, and we're proud of the role we play for our customers and the U.S.

economy.

As a company, we are focused on supporting our customers and communities through housing access, small-business growth, financial health, and other community needs.

Together, we want to make a tangible difference in people's lives.

Wells Fargo -- the bank of doing.

American Petroleum Institute -- our members are committed to accelerating safety, environmental, and sustainability progress throughout the natural gas and oil industry.

Learn more -- api.org/apienergyexcellence.

The Reynolds American organization -- on a mission to grow a better tomorrow by building a smokeless world.

Reynolds American is investing in innovation, people, and manufacturing to grow tomorrow right here in America.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪