The Front Row is our passion series offering an up-close look at the creators and cultivators that are reshaping Omaha’s community. Culxr House is a community hub focused on creating a safe space for talent and economic opportunity in North Omaha. We spoke with Founder and Director Marcey Yates, as well as Culxr House partner and Demonstration Organizer JaKeen Fox, about how they’re equipping locals to take action toward change, and their long-term goals for restorative justice in Omaha’s Black community. This interview was conducted on 6/19/20.

At Omaha Fashion Week, we are working to facilitate discussion and education around important topics that are significant to our community. The Front Row series does so by giving community members the chance to share their perspectives, missions, and goals. We hope that these interviews increase awareness and create an open dialogue between all sides of the issues. We always welcome questions or comments and can be contacted through the button below.

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How have you and your organization been involved in the Black Lives Matter movement?

MARCEY: At Culxr House, one of the things that we always intended to be was a resource, not only for arts but for the community. We fight to bridge social gaps in the community by building up our leaders, building up entrepreneurs, and having a safe space. We can shift because we have a lot of different focus points here at Culxr House. Many people see the music and the arts but that’s not the only thing. We facilitate civic engagement and the opportunity for the folks involved with Culxr House to get involved in other ways. This time the community is involved with fighting injustice, which I think is great, so because there’s a lot of experience it’s something that we can easily shift our attention to.

JAKEEN: What I’ve been doing is convening opportunity and collaborating, based on my connections with both community organizers and non-profits, to get them involved in justice work. Specifically, justice for James Scurlock, but also, the wider kind of justice for Black and Brown folks in Omaha and the state. I have partnered with Marcey at Culxr House to host this space of organizers getting together to create collective action and collective missioning for what our city should look like. We’ve also created an opportunity for community members to bring supplies, pick up signs, and get training on organizing demonstrations, protests, and collective action. Culxr House has been a great partner in hosting a lot of those conversations. It is also a great creative space and decompression space for folks that have been doing that kind of work, either as protestors or as organizers, to come and relax after the hard day.

Marcey Yates, Founder and Director of Culxr House. Photo by Ariel Panowicz.

What concrete results are you working toward?

MARCEY: The focus is to continue the awareness of Black lives and raise awareness of issues like police brutality and allocations of [government] funds. We want what’s going to be best for our communities. Direct results right now are people actually showing up to these protests, being consistent every day, and growing momentum. There's been a lot of momentum and building awareness so that, right now, is the direct result. The other results would be later down the road, continuing to take further action as the world continues to change, so we’ll see.

Additional Reading: City of Omaha announces changes for use of force and diversity, Community wants Accountability (via NOISE 6/26/20)

Additional Reading: Omaha mayor, police chief discuss OPD policy changes announced Thursday (via WOWT 6 News 6/25/20)

JaKeen Fox, Lead Organizer on the Don Kleine Demonstration. Photo provided by JaKeen Fox.

JAKEEN: I created the demonstration effort as an individual, so I'm the Lead Organizer on the Don Kleine demonstration. I’ve taken on demonstrating to voice displeasure with the justice process that had to do with Jake Gardner, a known racist and white supremacist in our community, not being charged with any of the infractions or the murder of James Scurlock, who is a 22-year-old Black man who leaves behind a loving family and a daughter. We picked Don Kleine because we saw him as a representation of the last lynchpin to justice in the system, but we know a lot of people are culpable. We feel that the police didn’t interview witnesses the day-of the incident like they were supposed to. The City Prosecutor, Matthew Kuhse, didn’t press those charges initially. Then, Don Kleine failed to press charges after giving the defense narrative in his press conference, as opposed to an unbiased reading of the facts of the case. There are a lot of people that we could hold accountable, but as a County Attorney, it’s important to be the objective purveyor of those facts and not taint a jury pool. In the opportunity that we do have a Grand Jury, they should be using their position professionally. Until the Grand Jury physically convenes as a body, Don Kleine could stop this whole process, review the facts, and press charges. That’s what we’re hoping for. Our goal is that he either press charges or resigns.

Additional Reading: Prosecutor wants grand jury to review case of Omaha bar owner who fatally shot black protester (via CNN 6/2/20)

Additional Reading: Special Prosecutor Appointed in Death of James Scurlock (via The Daily Record 6/11/20)

Additional Reading: Special investigator prepares for grand jury (via WOWT 6 News 6/11/20)

Have you had to make any hard decisions during this time?

JAKEEN: Deciding that this was going to be a sustained effort and not a weekend demonstration. We’ve been there since June 4th, so more than three weeks every single day starting at 6 AM and ending at 8 PM. It’s a hard decision going against the status quo, knowing that the local administration is very conservative and uses police against its citizens. It’s tough to galvanize community members to say, “This is worth it.” We’ve experienced quite a bit of abuse. I’ve been called the n-word during this demonstration by community members, neighbors, and people that drive by. It’s a tough choice every day to know that you’ll experience that kind of abuse, being told to go back to your own country. It’s a tough thing to continue that good work. Knowing that hundreds of unnamed victims don’t get the recognition that James Scurlock has had in the city or the nation, how do we make sure that we’re honoring all of those people? By making this movement about more than James Scurlock, but about justice in general for people just like him.

What are some action-oriented ways that the community can get involved?

MARCEY: Right now, the best way to support is to keep spreading awareness. If you really mean it, keep talking about it. Keep showing up to protest, keep sharing whatever links you can, keep sharing whatever graphics you can, just be consistent. I’m not saying do it all day every day but be consistent if you support the movement. Along with that support, just be patient. There’s not a need every day but later down the road, there may be another one.

JAKEEN: There’s a sign-up link we have on the Culxr House website where the community can sign up to demonstrate, or you can always donate supplies. Culxr House has become a hub for a lot of the demonstrations that are happening in the city. People that aren’t just coming to our demonstration but have been downtown, out west, on 72nd, all come to Culxr House to get professional protest training and manuals that we offer and pick up supplies like food, water, signs, shirts, all of that stuff. There is a collective atmosphere around all of this, but we know that James Scurlock’s injustice wasn’t the only thing that happened in Omaha. Close to 200 protestors were charged with breaking curfew. The Mayor has recently decided that people that are first-time offenders won’t be charged, that compounding consequences for people that have criminal records was the route to go. We don’t have the current number of how many of those protestors will be charged. They’re asking for a week in jail for expressing First Amendment Rights and freedom to assemble. We find that to be racist and unjust, so we’re creating action on that. You can always demonstrate with another group at the courthouse, which is happening every day, as well.

Additional Reading: Omaha City Council votes to extend city's state of emergency, which could lead to extended curfews (via Omaha World-Herald 6/2/20)

Additional Reading: Charges to be dropped for Omaha curfew violators with no criminal record (via Omaha World-Herald 6/16/20)

Additional Reading: Diversion Program FAQ, including length, requirements, and cost (via National Safety Council Nebraska)

Culxr House is stocked with merchandise, along with free shirts for protestors. Photo provided by JaKeen Fox.

How have you been organizing and training for protest?

MARCEY: People who are interested in volunteer protesting can sign up online and, from there, you’re instructed to watch a Protest Training video on our Culxr House website. You can come down to Culxr House and drop off supplies. Protestors, you can come to create your own protest sign and shirts, you can pick up your protest manual, and you can pick up supplies like water, Gatorade, snacks, towels, sunscreen, masks, all the things that you’ll need while you’re out there. We’ve organized it in a way where it’s educational, safe, and unique.

What would you say to someone who may feel too inexperienced or nervous to protest?

MARCEY: I would suggest that they sign up for a shift with our protest because, again, we are able to train and have a protest manual so you are familiar with what you can do. You’re also in a small group of 25-30 people. There’s no right or wrong way to do it, we just want a safe way to encourage people to do it. Anyone that’s nervous will definitely come back from the situation feeling more confident and glad they did it.

Sign Up to Protest

This movement has been going on for a long time and will hopefully continue in the future. What are some goals that you would like to accomplish in the next five years?

JAKEEN: There’s been a common theme about defunding the police. I personally believe in abolishing police and redirecting those funds and resources to communities so they can understand what restorative justice looks like. My goal in the next five years is to at least have a balanced budget in Omaha. Currently, the police get 37% of the city’s budget, which is outrageous. Even defunding the Omaha Police Department’s budget by $80 million, they would still be the second-largest funded entity, just under the Fire Department. We find that unacceptable. We need a balanced budget. We need to increase our resources around education, social services, and mental health, and those are the areas that we’ll be looking to increase funding in while we defund police departments.

Additional Reading: What Exactly Does It Mean to Defund the Police? (via The Cut 6/12/20)

Additional Reading: The “abolish the police” movement, explained by 7 scholars and activists (via Vox 6/12/20)

I think another goal is to look at the criminal justice system. It can’t just be the police that reform. We need to reform that entire function, understand what justice means for victims and survivors, and how we create rehabilitative opportunities for people that commit crimes because they will always come back into our communities. If we haven’t done the work to restore them as people, we aren’t creating a safer environment. We are just further disenfranchising those folks, which helps recidivism rates. We want to lower recidivism, which is returning to jail. We have to bring a whole new worldview into these issues and figure out a baseline, a foundation of facts, that we can agree on. Until we can do that, we’ll have this divisive atmosphere and that’s one of the biggest barriers.

Additional Reading: Is Prison Necessary? (via The New York Times)

Additional Reading: What Is Prison Abolition? (via The Nation)

Additional Reading: What Does Justice Look Like Without Prisons? (via Novara Media)

Several Omaha Public School students have started having conversations with their schools and the school board about getting school resource officers, which are just school police, out of the schools, and replacing them with social workers and mental health counselors. They’ve been having a wide conversation about how we start to disassociate with police departments, even in schools, which I think is amazing.

What kind of obstacles would stand in the way of these long-term goals?

JAKEEN: An obstacle is getting people to look at facts as opposed to misinformation. Since 2016, we’ve seen how we’ve been at each other’s throats with who and what to believe. We need people to join us in creating a foundation of truth as opposed to opinion-based information. If you look at facts, we see that even with the increase in school resource officers in schools, none of those officers have stopped a single school shooting throughout the nation, but they’ve arrested hundreds and hundreds of Black and Brown kids for minor behavioral incidents. We need to start looking at factual information like that and analyzing what it means to have the police force and how that police force impacts society.

City officials also have to diversify their information streams. It can’t just be that the usual suspects are the people they call on when Black and Brown people are exhibiting their feelings about social unrest. They have a few specific leaders they talk to that they believe represent the entire community. We still have the same issues 20-30 years later because they’re talking to the same people. We need them to diversify who they’re talking to and recognize that there’s a new generation of leaders. That power is decentralized, and we all can speak to our own experiences, not just a few people.

MARCEY: I can speak from my playing field, which comes from small businesses being able to get loans. As an organization, being able to get funding so I can expand staff and continue to build programs and things like that. If organizations could get the funding that they need, businesses could get the necessary loans, the necessary help with starting up their businesses. That’s a huge thing.

A gathering at Culxr House. Photo provided by Marcey Yates.

How can the community support the Black Lives Matter Movement into the long-term future?

JAKEEN: There’s a couple of ways. Some indirect ways are not spending money at places that have made racist or anti-Black statements. We’ve developed a list of Omaha-specific businesses that have made these kinds of remarks, and we’ve created the graphic. Then, substituting those places for Black-owned businesses that are circulating that dollar in Black communities because as you strengthen that community, you strengthen that voice.

Additional Reading: Black-owned businesses to support (via Jocelyn Music)

Additional Reading: A list of Omaha and Lincoln black-owned restaurants and businesses for you to support (via Sarah Baker Hansen)

To support the movement long-term is to keep an awareness of injustices that are happening in our city. I’m creating a newsletter that helps people that aren’t necessarily connected to the movement directly to see and understand some of those concepts and to know exactly what’s happening in Omaha, specifically.

Also, you have to study. You have to read from sources that you haven’t considered before to understand those concepts and ask questions. What is defunding the police? There have been a ton of great Black authors that have written about what this could look like, not only in books but in great articles. I encourage self-study and there are a ton of resources that could help people with that. Those are the things that we’ll have up on the Culxr House website and be able to talk about in-person, too.

MARCEY: I would tell them just to be patient. This kind of thing takes time. You have to figure out the specific needs. There are going to be long-term needs. Just be patient and keep the same energy a month from now, a year from now. The energy so that when we are applying for certain things or trying to make certain moves in our community, that progress doesn’t get stopped. That we’re able to get the same kind of assistance that we’re getting right now and the same kind of support.

How would you suggest that people start discussing these important issues?

JAKEEN: There are a ton of resources online. One of the ones that are gaining traction is the "8 Can't Wait" Movement. It talks about eight easy ways that police reform can happen, things like banning chokeholds, creating citizen review boards that are independent of the police, banning the use of Tasers, demilitarizing the police, and looking at police contracts.

For Omaha, the police contract is up for review this year and we need to bring the community into that conversation. A lot of people don’t know that you can rent military equipment for police departments. You can have a tank in your community for $1. We need to be looking into how the police and the military are working together and say, "That’s unacceptable for our community."

Also, join us at Culxr House. We’re having these conversations every day. There’s a great flow of people that come in and out and have different connections to the community. We host organizer meetings, as well. If you want to start having those conversations and getting to know people that are in agreement with you, contact us at the Culxr House and we’d be glad to get you plugged in.

To learn more about Culxr House and get plugged in, click the links below!