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[0:17] Tonya Pinkins: Hi, it is December 10th, 2020. By the time you hear this, some of my predictions may be on their way to coming true. So, first, last night I was introduced to the new drug that will probably be the end of podcasts. It's called Clubhouse. Oh my god, it's a new social networking thing. I'm addicted. I was up till two or three in the morning just listening to conversations and bouncing from room to room. So that's my first prediction. My next prediction is that my next guest is the uh future mayor of Indianapolis. So join me in welcoming Ifeanyichukwu 'Vop' Osili, or as he is known to his constituents as the president of the city council of Indianapolis, Vop Osili for Voice of the People. Hello, Vop.

[1:04] Ifeanyi Osili: Tanya, how are you doing?

[1:07] Tonya Pinkins: I'm good. How dare you think I wouldn't remember your name? It's got so many letters in it sometimes I can't remember it.

[1:18] Tonya Pinkins: So, you know, I told you before you came in, we have to talk politics because you're at the center of it. You can give us some Nigerian politics, you can give us some Indiana politics, and then you can give us some VOP politics. Tell us what is going on in the world.

[1:32] Ifeanyi Osili: Well, I'll tell you what, I'll start with Indianapolis. Uh, this year has been an amazing one for reawakening. There's no two ways about it. Last year, though, even before this started, you know, I determined with uh with uh with our mayor that we were gonna change the way that we handled equity, that we were gonna address it, and let's just start talking about it. Let's normalize that discussion. So we were six months ahead of the reawakening when it happened, already putting stuff into place. You know, Indianapolis is 200 years old for the first time in our history. Every single budget, every single department head, every agency that came to us, because we have to approve all funding, right?

On the city council. We approve all funding. We got, you know, a billion something, you know, uh annual budget. Every single agency had to present its own equity plan. One as a baseline. Who do you have? How are you hired? What are the salaries, et cetera. And how are you spending your money to basically uh embed equity into how we are uh using our taxpayer dollars? So now we have a baseline this year that we can then compare against next year. What improvements are we making to ensure that we have measurable outcomes, measurable differences in achieving equity and equitable outcomes with the uses of our dollars.

[2:48] Ifeanyi Osili: And then, of course, we have public safety. Um and we have talked about it not as obviously not defund the police because we're not even we're not even going down that road. Well, but wait a minute, but defund the police just means take some of the money away from them and put it into other services. Well, how about we just how about first of all, we determine what are the needs of public safety, right? Because you know, I I've got an aged mother, as you very well know, she's in her 90s, right? Um, there is a large contingent of folk who still need to know that when they pick up the phone, the police are there. So let's determine what are the essentials that they need to perform their duties, right?

And then let's see what other funding we need to deal with issues of mental health and trauma and so on. So when I go down this road as I as I'm about to go down this road with you, we look at it as putting sort of public back in public safety. What we've done here in Indianapolis, and we were told it was like the first, but it may not be the body that determines police policy has always been determined by a small group of those already in law enforcement with no oversight, no engagement, nothing from the general public. We have now created something called the General Orders Board, where we have a majority of civilians who will help to determine police policy. So that the policies that we see and that we question and we say, Well, how why is that allowable? We at least now will have an open door so that we determine how we even got there, and then accountability for those results. That to me is enormous.

[4:39] Ifeanyi Osili: Now, you know, it came at a political cost. There, there are a lot of folks who are probably not as excited about that as as I am, and most of our civilians out here are. But having the voice of the people engaged in police policy determination and creation. And do you mean voice of the people, Bob?

[5:00] Ifeanyi Osili: Love the baby, love yeah. No, no, but uh, but yeah, but no, no, no, no, no. But we created that this year, um, just so that we start to have better police community relations. How do we build up a trust that is not there? Now I know that you are the daughter of a police officer, and I know where you stand on a lot. So, you know, you're almost like uh like our test case, you know what I'm saying? Like uh uh our uh the the one that we've got to be able to say, Tanya, if we did XYZ, would this help to reestablish a baseline of trust so that you have a voice in how we're policed? I mean, the whole idea about putting the public back in public safety is the bottom line, and we have so much distrust in our communities across this country.

We got a lot of distrust here in Indianapolis, and we've got to do better about that. We have to we could we coexist. Um, and we can do it ugly or we can do it pretty, or we can just but but we gotta do it, and let's move away from ugly. Let's see if we can get along in a way that says you've got your role, uh, here's our expectation of you, and then those things that you have no business doing, yeah, stop doing. We're not gonna ask you to be a marriage counselor, you know. We're not gonna ask you to to to to get the cat out of the tree. You deal with public safety, we'll find the funds to deal with those other elements. So when we talk about defund the police, it is more a matter of what are those elements that you all are doing that you shouldn't be doing. Now you've been doing them because you were the you were the default, but let's work on those other things uh and and and and get that baseline built up, get that foundation built up.

[6:45] Ifeanyi Osili: Now, you're in a state where that's gonna be hard, okay? I mean, I was talking with some people from the Franklin Foundation, and they were telling me how in 2016, when they uh actually it wasn't the Franklin Foundation at that time, because the Franklin Foundation is new. These people who started this new organization said that in 2016, Pence, and what was Pence, your governor then? Pence was our governor um in 2016. He sent the sheriffs to a voter registration office. They lined up everybody up against the wall. They took all their machines, they went to the person who was running that office and said, You're gonna tell us what irregularities are going on here, or we are going to go to your house and find the drugs.

And so they shut that voter registration office down, and 10,000 people did not get even registered to vote. You know, what are you gonna do about stuff like that? That's not police. That's not police, it's about accountability. And then this reawakening, uh normalizing the the discussion about bias and um an entitlement. But you're in a city, and the rest of your state is not gonna support your city. I mean, in Indiana is is supporting Texas going to the Supreme Court too. I know that. I know that. I know that. In fact, we were the first state to declare for for Trump this year. I mean, literally 6 09 p.m. We were the first state. They didn't even bother you don't even have to count the votes here.

We understand that is how we roll. But that's you know, that's all well and good. But there is a governor right now uh who does get it. There's a governor, you know, right now, and uh and a and a state house too that has uh an understanding we we we're not gonna continue to do the stuff that we used to do because we can't get away with the stuff that we used to get away with without being called out. But calling out is not enough, really. Listen, it it's called accountability, and we gotta do it. There's no other way around it. We don't have, you know, we're not gonna have a a coup in the state of Indiana, right? We haven't won in the in the United States right now. Yeah, well, we don't roll like that here in Indiana. So we're this big blue island in the in the sea of red, and it does take uh it takes it takes uh an ability to sit with folks and talk through it in a reasonable manner.

[9:04] Tonya Pinkins: Well Limbaugh was calling for you all to secede.

[9:08] Ifeanyi Osili: Okay, so um so Limbaugh doesn't really govern kind of you know Indiana and we do have a moderate as a governor. Now in the days of Pence, that was I could not have said that. We have a moderate in state house, and we've got a pretty moderate um uh head of um uh you know the Senate and and and speaker of the House, folks who will listen uh and and make and and take action. So while this iron is still hot, it it's it's why we're doing these things. Now we do we also don't have uh oh, I'll tell you, we don't have home rule, which means that today or or January 1st, when they take office, they could say Indianapolis, you no longer even have a city council. We're running here, we're running all your stuff. Oh yeah. We used to have 29 uh uh city councilors, right? And then when we started having an a majority of the council, you know, we had four at-large members.

[10:07] Ifeanyi Osili: They were all Democrats, and our numbers were pretty great. Well, just one day they woke up and said, we're getting rid of, you know, your at-larges, you really don't need them, right? So it was just before an election, and when they took away those four, we would have had all the seats stayed as they were, we would have lost our majority as Democrats. But we worked really hard and we ended up with a majority that year. Now, our city is pretty progressive. Right now, we have 25 city councillors, 20 of whom are Democrats. Now, I don't know how to say how simple you're going to feel about that. Like, what happened, right? Indianapolis used to be red. And you know, at the end of the day, this is a democratic city, and progress has happened, and it's now, you know, just really a democratic city.

But cities in general tend to be democratic, like Chicago and in Illinois, which is pretty red, and New York, Illinois blue, don't even try. Illinois is blue. Well, but because so many people live in Chicago, but the rest of the state does not vote blue. So that's the case here. That's the case here. So that's why we don't have the power even to have a coup if there was such a thing as a state coup, right? Um, what it does take is folks being rational and having those discussions about how do we progress forward, you know, do not take the powers away from the city of Indianapolis, which is your capital, which is in fact where the capital sits. The capital sits in my own district, downtown. You know, I represent much of downtown.

Um, it requires us to have those discussions about how we move forward in a way that is equitable. And if you don't like equity, please, please determine so now you got to define equity. You keep using this word, so I want to know what it means to you. Um, it means that there are the same opportunities and the same opportunities for outcomes for every single um, uh citizen and resident of the state of Indiana.

[12:02] Ifeanyi Osili: Okay, I want to really want to play with this with you because you know, once I was talking with Michael Eric Dyson and he and I were on a panel, and someone from the audience who happened to be Caucasian said, you know, how what can we do? How can we help? And Michael said, you know, I just want an average black person to have the same opportunities as mediocre white people. Now, how can we switch the equity of that? Because that's really about people giving jobs to friends or to children of friends or to family members. I mean, this whole thing of internships. You can't be an intern and work for free unless you're already from a wealthy family that's going to support you while you're working for free, and that's the pipeline to be in the boss.

How do you put equity there? You put equity there by accountability and by making all of your decisions as public as possible. It is incredibly hard. Tanya, it is incredibly hard to defend bigotry. It is incredibly hard in a room full of somewhat reasonable people. Now, when you get your extremes, don't even open your mouth. There's no point, right? But that's what you're gonna have. I'm gonna defend bigotry right now. Well, there just aren't enough black people who know how to do what we do here at this company. And we don't have time to train them. Then prove it. It's a step-by-step process. Last year we did um our equity study basically for the city of Indianapolis, which was how do we procure in an equitable manner?

First of all, who are we procuring from for all of our city contracts? And let's look at the capacity that we have in the city of Indianapolis, both for minority businesses and women businesses and veteran-owned businesses and disabled uh disabled owned businesses. What capacity do we have? And then who are we actually contracting with? If you don't have the data to back it up, it's my opinion against yours. But if you see that data, how do you, you know, you can of course argue and say, well, I just I like it the way it is, and that's and that's the way it is, right? You can do that. I mean, that's up to you. But in a room full of like maybe four reasonable people out of 10, it's gonna be hard to sway and stand firm on that. Uh it just doesn't work.

[14:12] Ifeanyi Osili: Now, I'm not, we're not in an extreme red state. We are in a red state. So we're in a moderate red state. And I thank God for that. If I'm gonna be in any red state, let at least be a moderate red state where there are people right now, at least in leadership, who have an ability to hear, to see data, to be challenged on that data, and then we sit back and watch and say, now what are you gonna do with it? Here is the direction that we're taking. Are you going to fight us on this? Or are you going to work with us on this so that we fulfill what we have said we're here to fulfill? And that is an opportunity and, and, and uh, I would say an equal opportunity, which is very difficult to outline for outcomes.

What is my outcome going to look like? Do I have the same ability? So even right now, just yesterday we were talking about internships and the fact that we have to put money now into internships. We now have changing the way that we are recruiting for city internships so that it's not just restricted to the state of Indiana, um, and that's the way we've done it, because we are now looking for HBCUs, um, and also, you know, our predominantly sort of, you know, uh Latin X higher educational institutions so that we can start to recruit from them as well, so that our offices, the administration, the council, the agencies, the departments have a pipeline of people of color that reflect really the body of Indianapolis.

Indianapolis has 29% black people, right? I think it's eight percent, you know, Latinx people. We are fast approaching a majority of people of color in the city of Indianapolis. You know, you think about Indianapolis, you think it's out in the prairies, and you know, everybody's gotta be just sure it's just maybe five percent of black people. We have an enormous number here. Our government and therefore our institutions need to reflect that. And that's a discussion we started having last year. In fact, we engaged in an organization called uh Government Alliance on Race and Equity. They've been doing this across the country, working within local governments to help them map out a course so that they can work towards achieving equity and equitable outcomes for all of the residents.

[16:10] Tonya Pinkins: You just being so politician. I got to get you off this politician thing here. So we're going in Nigeria. We're going to Nigeria then that'll get you off this politician thing. So as a Nigerian national, please help me understand these massacres that are going on.

[16:37] Ifeanyi Osili: See, see. Now don't forget now before me before you mess me up in my American home. I am an American citizen born of an American mother. I know this all true, but you also have some roots on the continent.

[16:51] Ifeanyi Osili: It's true, it's true, it's true. Aren't you a king or something? A prince. You know what I'm saying? Um, what we're seeing for the, I think what the rest of the world is seeing is what Nigeria I think is known for a long time, and that is that um, uh there is not accountability in military force, if military use, uh there's not accountability in policing. And because of the social media, now everyone knows uh the level of force and violence that can be meted out on protesters. Um, and that's something that is difficult for a country like Nigeria to be seen in that light now. This has been a year of awakening globally. But Nigeria's a rich nation. You're an oil-rich nation, so this is a wealthy nation, and we are seeing police just shooting peaceful protesters. Like, how does that stop?

[17:50] Ifeanyi Osili: Yes. I mean, because I'm like, this might be the foreshadowing of America. It stops because others now see it, and there's no way to deny it. Just like who would have thought that the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis would have turned this world upside down. But it's because we saw it, and we saw the cool, callous hatred and ugliness of it for eight and a half minutes. Those things become almost impossible to ignore. I mean, how else can you explain this? Now there is this awakening of, you mean this stuff's going on?

[18:29] Tonya Pinkins: I don't see an awakening. I'm not seeing it.

[18:34] Ifeanyi Osili: Nigeria, for the president of Nigeria to finally come out and say we probably use too much force. Unheard of. You know, my father was in government over there. You can be sure that the military governors, you can be sure that the military governors and the military presidents would never have owned up to a thing. They could have beaten someone on his front step, shot them, you know, massacred, decapitated, and he'd have been looking at the camera like Mr. Chauvin, like Officer Chauvin. Like who you gonna believe? Me or your lying eyes. But this we can't get away from and all the young folks who post about this and the disgrace that comes with this. Nigeria is an oil-rich nation, which unfortunately did not invest its money wisely.

It invested its money strictly in oil, can never diversify, and now with oil being, you know, uh now with oil not we're not we're trying to get to our green to get yeah, we're trying to go green. It's just not happening. So, you know, if you think about a country like UAE, where they invested their money, like in, you know, in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, Nigeria could have been like that, but we also have some other challenges of transparency on the use of those funds, you know what I'm saying? Transparency of the use of those funds with people who have the ability to move those funds into places that maybe work for the public good.

[20:11] Ifeanyi Osili: Yes. The American so-called democracy, is Nigeria also a democracy? It's a democracy. Are they both democracies? It's a democratic republic. Um, now it seems like you're implying that there's a lot of, uh, that the corruption is more than there is in America, but the corruption here is pretty extreme.

[20:33] It is, and we heard and we saw agree in the Trump administration, right? Um, but the difference is the volume. So here in America, it would have been tough for Donald Trump to have put two to three billion dollars from the central bank, um, the Federal Reserve into his own pocket. It wasn't as difficult in Nigeria for people; it just didn't quite have as many checks and balances to make that virtually impossible.

[21:05] So the kind of corruption we see is on the sort of thousands and tens of thousands, and you know, people get prosecuted for having stuff stolen, $50,000. When Spiro Agnew in 1973, I think, um, you know, had to resign. Uh, I think there was some issue with him and funding. Uh, it might have been like $14,000 or something. I don't remember what it was. I remember fathers of friends of mine laughing that the vice president of the United States has to step down for $14,000.

[21:38] Our drivers collect more than that for having taken us to collect more money than that. So it's the volume of how much gets, how much is not transparently lost in the paperwork. I mean, that's the difference. So it happens here in America, but it was a little bit more blatant, a lot more blatant then during that time. I can't say what it is now, but it was pretty blatant in its time.

[22:08] So is, um, mayor what, uh, what is that the aspiration, or is it governor, or is it president? Right now, to be frank with you, it is to be the very best council president and the best counselor that I can be.

[22:22] Tonya Pinkins: And then what comes next to you?

[22:24] Ifeanyi Osili: Spoken like a true politician. And from the heart, I mean it, and from the heart, and from the heart. Yeah, I'm just telling you right now, I'm telling you from the heart. That's it. That's it.

[22:33] Tonya Pinkins: Well then let's talk about your film debut.

[22:36] Ifeanyi Osili: Oh, your consistent gonna feel about your film debut. So in the horror film RED PILL. I showed that to someone and they're like, yeah, is that you with a noose around your neck? Are you crazy? That could be the end of you. What are you? Not in 2020. Oh no. Oh no. Uh-uh.

[23:04] When I just say, can you call Tanya and ask if she could use like maybe another still? Not with people. Oh, that was a blast, though. I tell you, I love that. Oh my god. My god, I didn't even know that I could like scream. You know what I'm saying? Or in boats like that. But it came naturally. I'm like, dang, I got this.

[23:32] Tonya Pinkins: You're ready to be in movie number two, huh?

[23:34] Ifeanyi Osili: Oh, you know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? This one with a speaking role. Oh no, it was fantastic. I loved it. Well, thank you for that opportunity. You know what I'm saying?

[23:51] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah, how's that coming?

[23:53] Ifeanyi Osili: Uh, we're very close to the end of posts. All the VFXs, now we're at the, you know, VFX and sound and color, and hopefully it'll be out by the new year. And the thing is, you know, we had hoped we'd have it out by election, but it's gonna be as relevant after election.

[24:11] Tonya Pinkins: Thank you. It's still the same world. And still it's poignant. I mean, still incredibly poignant, especially whatever happens on January 20th, you know, up to January.

[24:21] Ifeanyi Osili: You got to get through December 14th.

[24:23] Tonya Pinkins: Okay, good point. My bad. Absolutely my bad. My bad. Who would have thought this would happen in America?

[24:28] Ifeanyi Osili: This is a third world kind of action.

[24:30] Tonya Pinkins: I did. I wrote it in my movie. I knew it was gonna happen. I saw this. That's why my movie says it.

[24:36] Ifeanyi Osili: Oh, this is in the movie.

[24:37] Tonya Pinkins: I know, but it was a movie, right? It was science fiction or it was fiction. Who would have thought America would be in a position like this?

[24:44] Ifeanyi Osili: We've always thought America would be in this prediction. Because this, when you let someone like that have the keys to the kingdom, you can't take them back.

[24:54] Tonya Pinkins: Tell me about it.

[24:55] Ifeanyi Osili: Wow. Um, I just never would have thought it. It has changed the perception, I think, of America. It's shown that America is vulnerable. It's vulnerable to the same kinds of bad actions that you see in third world countries.

[25:08] That we have allowed this and tolerated this. We've been doing this bad action since America began. I mean, I feel like we're not vulnerable in the sense that geographically, who's gonna come for us?

[25:18] Ifeanyi Osili: Yeah, well, you don't even have to deal with that when we have the, you know, ballistic missiles that can go, you know, twice around the world. But the thought that America would fall to this level where we have someone who is talking about, who is rocking the foundations of our institutions, our voting and our electoral system.

[25:39] Who would have thought that we could be prey to that in America?

[25:43] Ifeanyi Osili: I would because we've been prey to it. I just, we have been prey to it. The Republicans have been trying to keep black people from voting forever. They were lynching us for voting, they were planting, you know.

[25:56] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah, for me, this is like, this is not new.

[25:59] Ifeanyi Osili: It's true, it's true. You know, you're right. You're right, you're right. We have been at it, it's just been another form of it, and never so blatant that the rest of the world can say, like, are you serious?

[26:08] Tonya Pinkins: This is this time of reawakening.

[26:09] Ifeanyi Osili: I know that you don't agree that we are in a reawakening, but at least from my vantage point here in local government, I do see it. We are in a new place. Some white people are willing to give up some power over there in Indianapolis. They're like, oh, here you have some wealth. I've had so much wealth, I have more wealth than I could ever use in my lifetime. Here, you have some.

[26:28] Tonya Pinkins: Is that happening in Indianapolis?

[26:29] Ifeanyi Osili: It's not a giveaway. It is, I, and I'm not gonna say it's a takeaway. But for example, we have an office here. It's called the Office of Minority and Women Business Development. Um, and its job basically has been to look at how we procure. It's never had any tooth to it.

[26:44] You know, we make all these commitments when we, uh, when we sign the documents that we're gonna perform a city service. But if you did not do your due diligence to ensure that you met our goals, because of course we can't call them, they're not quotas, they're goals. There was no punishment.

[27:01] So this year we changed that. And it shocked a lot of folks because now that Office of Minority Women's Business Development can step in and cut your contract. It can bar you from ever doing work with the city of Indianapolis again.

[27:11] So folks were like, oh, oh, we were you serious? Did you really mean all that stuff that was on the paper? Are we really supposed to make a good faith effort?

[27:21] Ifeanyi Osili: Now we had some folks who did an amazing job, and we have others, and I used to, you know, you know, I'm an architect. You know, I worked for many, many years as an architect, both here and in UAE. We had folks who worked with us like that. We were going with them. We never heard from them once the contract came, you know, came about.

[27:36] I realized, you know what, that is wrong. I know what it feels like. Office is gonna have the power to cut you. If you don't behave, we got somebody else standing right behind you who will. And it's that kind of stuff.

[27:48] Tonya Pinkins: So folks may not want to necessarily give it up, but we'll help them give it up. How about that?

[27:54] Ifeanyi Osili: Hmm. You know, I, this sounds like, you know, you make enemies when you say you're gonna change things. So, how do you build your coalition to move up?

[28:03] Ifeanyi Osili: It's tough. It is tough. It is tough. It is getting folks who have a like mind who will at least agree is something fair or not fair. Can we come to that first, you know, that function, that first junction? If we can get past that, then we have another junction that we come to. And then another and another.

[28:17] But we have to have a baseline. Is this right? Can you stand behind this and defend these actions for these generations? Tell me why.

[28:28] Tonya Pinkins: Hi, I'm Tonya Pinkins. And that was part one of my conversation with Indianapolis City Council President, Ifeanyi Osili. Come back for part two.

[28:36] ♪ Musical number: "You is Kind" — performed by Tonya Pinkins ♪

[29:05] Ifeanyi Osili: A red pill is someone who infiltrates a group and then destroys them from the inside.

[29:14] Ifeanyi Osili: This place is spooky. Some people like to live dangerously.

[29:21] Ifeanyi Osili: You know what, guys? I'm gonna go back tomorrow. Did you hear about the creature woman that attacked a father and son hunting down here?

[29:29] Ifeanyi Osili: I don't see the case. This place creeps me out.

[29:36] Ifeanyi Osili: I think we should call a sheriff's office.

[29:59] Ifeanyi Osili: They're after all of us.

[30:03] Ifeanyi Osili: What do we do, Amelia?

[30:05] Ifeanyi Osili: We die.

[30:07] Ifeanyi Osili: But we take some of them with us.