social science video

Hello, my name

is Brianna

and I'm in my

second year here

at Seminole State,

and I'll like to introduce my dad.

Hi! My name is Manuel Sanchez.

I'm Briana's dad. I'm a retired NYPD police

officer for 20 years and I'm currently

an active law enforcement officer

here in the state of Florida.

So, this video is called,

"Bridging the Racial and Ethnic Divide."

And the purpose is to have candid

conversations about issues. So,

perspectives and views on race

and ethnicity. So, I wanted to get

the perspective from a retired

and active member of law

enforcement. So, the first question I

want to ask you is do you think

there is a divide between people

from when you started in the law

enforcement agency to now in

the 21st century?

I believe there's been a significant

change in how people were when I

first got into law enforcement in the

early '90s. And now, we're practically in

the 21st century. Back in those days,

I noticed people were more united.

People cared for each other. They

respected law enforcement. Law

enforcement respected the community.

The community came out to us and they

wanted certain things done in their

community. If there's anybody robbing or

stealing or vandalizing or selling their

Cali(?) or that or something like that,

they'd reach out to us with confidence.

You know, we would sit down together

with some of the judge readers and

we'll do this once a week. We'll sit down

at either a church or community center

and they'll come up to us and they'll say,

"Hey, listen. We're having these problems

with these people and they're

destroying our neighborhood, and we want

you guys to help."

And the communication that we had with

them was fantastic.

So there's like a form of unity and trust?

There was, back then.

So, my last question to you is do you

think that this is something that can simply

be solved by having conversations like

these between peers?

Simply resolved? I don't know it'll be

simply solved but I think it's a great

starting point. It's definitely a

great starting point because I think the

gap that we have right now between

police between religious people between

politics; our gap has gone to the point

where it's not going to be fixed just

overnight just by sitting down where we're

doing today. It's definitely a great way

to start. You have to start somewhere.

You have to close that gap somewhere.

Communication's always been the key to

everything. You got to sit down and

communicate. Find out what we're doing

wrong. Find out what needs to be

corrected. Find out how we can correct

it. Is there-can we do it by sitting down?

Can we meet with our community leaders?

Meet with our politicians?

And decide, "Hey, enough is enough. Okay,

we've been vigor and we've been

fighting about every little thing that we

can think of and we're not getting

anywhere." And society's getting worse.

It's getting more ugly. It's getting more

nasty. It's getting more violent. You

know, people are getting hurt.

Innocent people're getting hurt for no

reason, you know. And that's just not

how--I remember being, y'know, my early

'90s when I first became into law

enforcement. You know, back then, there

was the crime. There was the hate, you

know. There was a lot of bickering.

But there wasn't such a big of a gap.

Not the way it is now. I mean, you

can't turn the TV on, you can't turn

on social media without seeing violence,

any type of violence for the most littlest

things. It's just the violence just

doesn't end. You know, we need to,

as human beings, we need to sit down

somewhere and I think a lot of it

starts in the community. A lot of it

starts with our politicians. A lot of it

starts with our community leaders.

You know, that's where we have to

start.

And our first step can be just building

trust again and having conversations

and then going out to our own

neighborhoods and see what happens.

That is the best way to start. Absolutely,

I agree one hundred percent (100%),

So, to conclude to our video, I still

think that people need to realize that

racism is a big issue and I think that

conversations like these are still

relevant to have with friends, family,

peers, and acquaintances. All perspectives

are important to end this racial and

ethnic divide between us. So, thank you for

watching and listening. And thank you for

coming.

It was a pleasure.