Speaker 1: Native Lampid is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership with
Speaker 1: Reisent Choice Media Minneapolis.
Speaker 2: I need y'all to make some noise, make.
Speaker 3: Some noise, all right, So again tonight is about justice, community,
Speaker 3: power and connection. I need y'all up on your feet
Speaker 3: as I introduce our next guest to hit the stage,
Speaker 3: who will be singing the Black National anthem. I need
Speaker 3: you up on your feet, y'all show some love for
Speaker 3: Thomasia Petres.
Speaker 4: Good evening, everybody, Thank you so much. My name's Thomasina Petris.
Speaker 4: Forty years ago, nineteen eighty six. I found my voice here.
Speaker 4: I became a singer because of this theater, because of
Speaker 4: North North Side, North High So I am honored to
Speaker 4: be able to lead you with a little help. Come on,
Speaker 4: and you're welcome to sing along.
Speaker 5: Lift every voice hand, sing till their long heaven ring,
Speaker 5: ring with the hornies.
Speaker 6: Of leave.
Speaker 5: Liberty, Let our joy sing rise past.
Speaker 7: The leaves, sneak skies, Let resign loud.
Speaker 2: As the rolling scene.
Speaker 7: Oh yeah, let's sing a song full of the faith
Speaker 7: that the dark past has talked, a sing a song
Speaker 7: full of the hope that the prayer has.
Speaker 8: Broad broads facing the risezing.
Speaker 6: Sun of a new day.
Speaker 2: This new baby eagle.
Speaker 7: Let us much arm till victory.
Speaker 2: He's one. Oh yeah, let us my home to liberty.
Speaker 2: Here's one.
Speaker 9: Oh.
Speaker 8: Let my charm till equity.
Speaker 2: Equity is one woe, one love.
Speaker 5: Let us my charm till victory.
Speaker 2: He is one.
Speaker 10: Yes.
Speaker 6: All right, Welcome home, y'all.
Speaker 11: Welcome home.
Speaker 10: Wait a second, they got to get my mic out. Okay,
Speaker 10: here we go. Welcome home, y'all.
Speaker 1: Do y'all have any of those friends or chosen family
Speaker 1: members that are your bootleg Beyonce, that's ours down there.
Speaker 10: Thank you, Welcome home.
Speaker 12: It's a Pleasure's a privilege, and a pleasure and an
Speaker 12: honor in every other adjective possible to describe how it
Speaker 12: feels to be here in your presence tonight. So I
Speaker 12: just want to say, before we begin to give yourselves
Speaker 12: a round.
Speaker 10: Of applause for being here with us tonight. Good evening, everybody.
Speaker 13: I bring you greetings from the great state of Florida.
Speaker 10: I just looked at my phone.
Speaker 13: I think y'all are about five degrees here, maybe feels
Speaker 13: like below zero.
Speaker 11: It's warming up. That's the Florida in it. You could
Speaker 11: thank me later for that.
Speaker 13: But in all seriousness, I just I feel real humbled
Speaker 13: right now to be in shared space with you to
Speaker 13: hopefully this evening have some breakthroughs. If you came into
Speaker 13: the doors feeling a little bit shaky, maybe needing to
Speaker 13: be propped up on one side or the other, or
Speaker 13: maybe needing or feeling like you need a word something
Speaker 13: to pierce the tenseness of the space.
Speaker 11: I hope that you find that this evening.
Speaker 13: Maybe you're here because you are the person to.
Speaker 11: Pierce the space.
Speaker 13: Maybe you're the person that's gonna leave us all inspired
Speaker 13: and feeling like as we leave this share vicinity.
Speaker 11: That will go out there and will multiply. But I
Speaker 11: got to tell you.
Speaker 13: Just coming from one of the fifty states, you all
Speaker 13: have made us incredibly proud.
Speaker 11: Yes, yes, yes, made us incredibly proud.
Speaker 13: I know, I know that the sacrifice has been far
Speaker 13: too great and too often, Minnesota, that sacrifice has fallen
Speaker 13: right here on y'all shoulders. But I want you to
Speaker 13: know that by your sacrifice and through your service and
Speaker 13: by your example, you've really stiffened the spines.
Speaker 11: Of many of us all across this country.
Speaker 13: And you've set an example that as other communities confront
Speaker 13: these kinds of challenges that are being brought down by
Speaker 13: the people who are supposed to help us, but find
Speaker 13: it right now in their spirit to hurt us. And
Speaker 13: in the case is that we've experienced here, kill us.
Speaker 13: It's gonna take a mighty army. But I'll tell you
Speaker 13: we are greater than them. Every day of the week.
Speaker 13: We has got to keep at it all right, So
Speaker 13: God bless you and welcome this evening.
Speaker 1: Well I'm gonna say this because we didn't say this.
Speaker 1: We are your hosts of Native Lampid.
Speaker 14: I'm angelau Rae.
Speaker 1: This is Andrew Gillim and that is Bacari seller. We're
Speaker 1: thrilled to be here with you all, and I want
Speaker 1: to echo andrew sentiments and just tell you all, thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you all for showing us what courage looks like
Speaker 1: when fear is trying to overtake you and terror is
Speaker 1: trying to overtake you. So we really want to thank you.
Speaker 1: And this was our offering to you, not to come
Speaker 1: and make content and go viral, but to come and
Speaker 1: commune with you the way that we do every single
Speaker 1: week on Native Lampod. It is a safe space for us,
Speaker 1: and we wanted to create that same safety with some
Speaker 1: of the people that we are admiring the greatest right now.
Speaker 1: The other thing that was really important to us is
Speaker 1: that we come and pour back into the community as
Speaker 1: best we can. So we partner with an organization, a
Speaker 1: coalition I started called State of the People to engage
Speaker 1: in some mutual aid efforts with the Minnesota Freedom Fund, with.
Speaker 14: The Capri Theater.
Speaker 1: And so many other partners throughout the city to give
Speaker 1: back groceries for those of your neighbors that are afraid
Speaker 1: to go to the grocery store right now, hygiene.
Speaker 14: Kits, diapers for the babies, wipes.
Speaker 1: We also have at the end of the program, we'll
Speaker 1: be presenting micro grants to seven small business winners. So
Speaker 1: we wanted to come with an offering because we dare
Speaker 1: not take another thing from such a beautiful city. So
Speaker 1: thank you all for having us right and at this time,
Speaker 1: our Beyonce Bakari has a panel that he's hosting, so
Speaker 1: we're gonna.
Speaker 12: Last fort y'all slide out, though I wanted to kind
Speaker 12: of save this for last because I wanted to introduce
Speaker 12: you all to some people that are here just to
Speaker 12: point a personal privilege. I know that you were talking
Speaker 12: about it, but the pain that we feel sometimes we
Speaker 12: find ourselves so interconnected. And I was speaking to Eddie
Speaker 12: Rye earlier. Shout out to mister Rye. Who is Papa right?
Speaker 12: Who is Angela's father? We all kind of come from
Speaker 12: this background of civil rights of movements. And on the
Speaker 12: front row with us today is the family of Ricky Cop.
Speaker 12: Please stand up. His dad is, his twin brother, his
Speaker 12: mama is. Although this family has been holding it together,
Speaker 12: many of you all know Ricky Cop was gunned down
Speaker 12: right here in Minneapolis, minis Or by Minnesota State Police
Speaker 12: not long ago. And so I wanted them to come
Speaker 12: in this space and feel the warmth. Because as we
Speaker 12: go from m Mittil to Michael Brown, as we go
Speaker 12: from Henry Smith and Samuel Hammond and Dellano Middleton all
Speaker 12: the way to MegaR Evers, as we think about all
Speaker 12: of those lives that were lost, all of those weddings not,
Speaker 12: had those graduations, not, had all of those individuals who
Speaker 12: weren't able to grow up and raise a family, all
Speaker 12: of that pain that we feel in our community, it's
Speaker 12: important that we wrap our arms around each other, particularly
Speaker 12: on a nightlight tonight, and so we're gonna have a
Speaker 12: lot of fun. But I wanted you to share this space.
Speaker 12: Give them around of applause, and then we're gonna get
Speaker 12: started with the first pattern.
Speaker 1: We also want to acknowledge the folks who are streaming
Speaker 1: live nig lampod family.
Speaker 14: We appreciate you. This is about Minneapolis.
Speaker 1: We're wrapping our arms around Minneapolis, but we also are
Speaker 1: wrapping our arms around you.
Speaker 14: So let's get started with Carl.
Speaker 10: Yeah, thank you, thank you, welcome home.
Speaker 12: Get them around of applause because the show can finally
Speaker 12: start now that they off stage. I was supposed to
Speaker 12: have some theme music, but they don't even worry about it. Bye, Okay.
Speaker 12: So as we get started, we got a couple of
Speaker 12: people I wanted to bring on because we have some
Speaker 12: national figures who play.
Speaker 10: A loop a large looming role. You know who they are.
Speaker 10: They are organizers.
Speaker 12: The first person I wanted to bring on was Elizabeth
Speaker 12: Booker Houston, who you may have seen Come on Elizabeth,
Speaker 12: who is a viral content creator who was actually joining
Speaker 12: us tomorrow as a special guest host of Native Lamb podcast.
Speaker 12: I don't know. They ain't really give me the instructions.
Speaker 12: That seat is perfect. Oh and Georgia Ford. How many
Speaker 12: of you all know Georgia Ford from right?
Speaker 10: Head lord?
Speaker 12: They cheering louder for you, I said, I said.
Speaker 10: So, miss.
Speaker 12: Well Elizabeth, you should have brought some more fans, I asked.
Speaker 12: I asked Georgie, I said, how do you want me
Speaker 12: to introduce you? I said, it just says independent journalists.
Speaker 12: She talking about Emmy Award winning and then she said,
Speaker 12: wait a minute, multiple Emmy Award winning. So we want
Speaker 12: to make sure down south, down south, we have to saying,
Speaker 12: you give people their flowers while they're living.
Speaker 10: Amen.
Speaker 12: And so George, we want to make sure you give
Speaker 12: your flower, give you your flowers. And I you know
Speaker 12: this crowd loves you, home loves you. Next we have
Speaker 12: Juan Puranio. Come on, oh, Prano, I have to roll
Speaker 12: my r. I'm working on it.
Speaker 10: Who is the CEO of Lulac? Now? Uh, let me
Speaker 10: just tell you that.
Speaker 12: I think it's a fascinating time in this country because
Speaker 12: we are finally starting to see that good people of
Speaker 12: like mind, singular hearts are being faced with oppression no
Speaker 12: matter what they look like. And I think the country
Speaker 12: is actually witnessing good people being gunned down in the streets.
Speaker 12: I've oftentimes asked what would happen in this country if
Speaker 12: white people were killed in the streets. You know, for
Speaker 12: me that was a question coming from South Carolina, that
Speaker 12: was a question that we always asked. For me, it
Speaker 12: was like, when are we going to see individuals come together?
Speaker 12: Because that is the only way that we change in
Speaker 12: So Wan's presence here, the work that you do for
Speaker 12: the Hispanic community, the work that you do, because many of.
Speaker 10: Us have been singing.
Speaker 12: Our praises and our prayers and bowing our knees and
Speaker 12: praying that our brothers and sisters who may not look
Speaker 12: like us are not being drug out of their homes
Speaker 12: in the middle of the night or rounded up like
Speaker 12: wild animals. And so we pray with you, we're here
Speaker 12: with you, and we're glad you're here with us tonight
Speaker 12: one And so following him, I know he's on an
Speaker 12: executive committee meeting, because the NAACP is the most meet
Speaker 12: in this organization known to man.
Speaker 10: Is he out here? Is he ready yet? All right?
Speaker 12: Well, we actually have Derek Johnson, who's the President n
Speaker 12: CEO of the NAACP, who will join us shortly, but
Speaker 12: while he stumbles out here, I wanted to start with you,
Speaker 12: and actually, Georgia, this is home for you. I wanted
Speaker 12: to start with you and talk about this is kind
Speaker 12: of fascinating to me because dealing with the case of
Speaker 12: Ricky Cobb or Filando Castile or George Floyd. One of
Speaker 12: the things I realized is God sometimes uses some really
Speaker 12: unassuming messengers. And the other thing I realized is that
Speaker 12: we keep coming back to this place. Talk to me
Speaker 12: about how this has taken a toll, the changes you've
Speaker 12: seen throughout from your bird's eye view in the community,
Speaker 12: and the resilience you've seen in this community.
Speaker 10: As we sit here.
Speaker 15: Today, Minnesota is ground zero.
Speaker 16: We've been ground zero.
Speaker 15: And I think that the rest of the country had
Speaker 15: this perception of, you know, ain't no black people there.
Speaker 10: We said that all the time.
Speaker 16: Well you ain't saying it now.
Speaker 10: I know I was, well, I was wrong.
Speaker 16: I was wrong, But so we're ground zero. Prince predicted it.
Speaker 15: He was probably the only person who said the revolution
Speaker 15: will start in Minnesota, and people thought he was crazy.
Speaker 15: But the thing is, what we're experiencing right now in
Speaker 15: Minnesota should be a code read for America, and as
Speaker 15: an independent journalist, I live in this kind of interesting
Speaker 15: intersection where I'm able to amplify stories mainstream media does not,
Speaker 15: while also still holding them accountable.
Speaker 16: And I've been calling them out in this moment.
Speaker 15: Because i feel like the principles of journalism being neutral,
Speaker 15: being objective, these things have never really served us, But
Speaker 15: right now I think they're central to our demise. Mainstream
Speaker 15: media can no longer be neutral about the dismantling of
Speaker 15: our democracy yet still expect to be protected by it.
Speaker 15: You can't stand by idly and just report the facts
Speaker 15: of a US citizen having their constitutional rights violated, but
Speaker 15: then be upset when your journalists is attacked by the
Speaker 15: police and say, oh, but our First Amendment.
Speaker 16: No, it doesn't work both ways.
Speaker 15: Media is not on an island of their own, and
Speaker 15: so that has been my vantage point in being here
Speaker 15: in Minnesota. But because I'm from here, these stories are
Speaker 15: also my stories. The things that are happening in our
Speaker 15: community also impact my family, They impact my children, and
Speaker 15: so I don't think any of us really wanted to
Speaker 15: be ground zero for this long. We're still recovering from
Speaker 15: what happened after George Floyd businesses barely getting by. But
Speaker 15: it is that resilience and that perseverance that even Bovino
Speaker 15: himself had to acknowledge that the organizer is here. Yes,
Speaker 15: he said, those organizers, they're really good, you know. And
Speaker 15: so that is a testament of who we are, of
Speaker 15: how we love on one another. And I think essentially
Speaker 15: why the nation is looking at us right now in
Speaker 15: this moment to lead in a pathway forward, and I
Speaker 15: think that we are meeting the moment.
Speaker 12: Want to talk about your organization, give a round of
Speaker 12: applus for sure, First of all, for some people in
Speaker 12: this room, this would be an introduction to your organization.
Speaker 12: For those of us who are somewhat in this space,
Speaker 12: it's the parallel partner to the NAACP in the Hispanic community.
Speaker 12: Talk about your organization briefly, but more importantly, talk about
Speaker 12: the toil that you're seeing, weight on the individuals that
Speaker 12: you represent, and very succinctly tell us what we can
Speaker 12: do in this room to join hands, or what you
Speaker 12: all can do to join hands with us.
Speaker 10: How do we bridge that gap?
Speaker 12: Because I will tell you this, one of the most political,
Speaker 12: politically brilliant, yet sinister, unholy things that was ever done
Speaker 12: in American politics was shipping immigrants to sanctuary cities that
Speaker 12: were predominantly black in places like Chicago and places like Baltimore,
Speaker 12: and try to drive a wedge.
Speaker 10: Between these communities. How do we bridge that gap?
Speaker 17: Well, thank you very much, Macary. So the organization that
Speaker 17: I represent is called the League of United Latin American Citizens,
Speaker 17: or as we refer to it as LULAC. It is
Speaker 17: a country's oldest Latino civil rights organization, founded in nineteen
Speaker 17: twenty nine in Corpus Christi, Texas, and effectively it was
Speaker 17: modeled after the NAACP. We have councils, THENBACP has chapters,
Speaker 17: and we have members just like THENAACP does. And we've
Speaker 17: been doing the exact same work that the NAACP did
Speaker 17: in the South, in the Southwest, and in the West.
Speaker 17: So one of the seminal cases that we've litigated, for example,
Speaker 17: is Menendez versus Westminister, which is a precursor to brownne
Speaker 17: Board of Education, and so the same thing, the same
Speaker 17: fights that we had in Texas to decigregate pools and
Speaker 17: restaurants and funerals, homes and barriers sites. We've been doing
Speaker 17: that for the last ninety seven years and as i'd
Speaker 17: taken to, you know, inventory what we're seeing today, sadly,
Speaker 17: we're going back to that time and we're having to
Speaker 17: fight some of those same fights. One of the episodes
Speaker 17: in our long history has been what they called the
Speaker 17: Braselo program. And I don't know if the Baselo program
Speaker 17: was a program that the United States basically had with Mexico,
Speaker 17: which was a foreign worker exchange program. They allowed Mexican
Speaker 17: Mexicans to come into United States to do the work
Speaker 17: that no one else would effectively do. We're talking about
Speaker 17: nineteen forties, nineteen fifties, Okay, when they were finished with
Speaker 17: those workers, they effectively deported them back. Over a million
Speaker 17: Mexicans that were here and had been here for almost
Speaker 17: a decade at that point, were effectively shipped back to
Speaker 17: Mexico with their families, with their US born children. US
Speaker 17: citizens were actually caught up in those effective rates. And
Speaker 17: what we're seeing is effectively this a new Brasero program.
Speaker 17: And let me explain what that means. They're trying to
Speaker 17: take away birthright citizenship. Okay, they're trying to take away
Speaker 17: birthright citizenship. We sue this administration on the four Hours
Speaker 17: after he signed that executive order.
Speaker 12: Well, this executive order that Stephen Miller wrote, let's be
Speaker 12: exactly that's right.
Speaker 17: They are redefining effectively what immigration is, taking away temporary
Speaker 17: protected status, taking away asylum, taking a refugee status from folks. Literally,
Speaker 17: student visas are basically now null and void, unless you
Speaker 17: may want to come from or a white person from
Speaker 17: South Africa, they can still get visas. It's interesting Africa,
Speaker 17: it's interesting how that happens. So what they're basically trying
Speaker 17: to do is they're going to try and get as
Speaker 17: many Mexicans, Mexican American immigrants as they can out. And
Speaker 17: that's not just Latino immigrants, but if you're from Asia
Speaker 17: or from Africa, and even if you're from Ukraine or
Speaker 17: some Eastern European country, then they're going to let us
Speaker 17: back in with new work visus, with no pathway to
Speaker 17: citizenship ever, no birthright citizenship effectively for our children.
Speaker 10: Okay.
Speaker 17: And we know that they're going to somehow or another
Speaker 17: find a way to reduce wages for these immigrants that
Speaker 17: come into this country to work. That is servitude, okay.
Speaker 17: And we know where that effectively is going to lead,
Speaker 17: and that's why we're fighting this fight for me. Our
Speaker 17: work has been so important to make sure that it
Speaker 17: is in lockstep with the NAACP. I have the privilege
Speaker 17: to serve on the board of the Leadership Conference and
Speaker 17: Civil Rights with Maya Wiley because that's kind of sort
Speaker 17: of how I've always grown up. My family is beautiful.
Speaker 17: It is assimilated into this country like no other. I
Speaker 17: have a nephew who's got red hair because his mom
Speaker 17: is Irish. I got three nieces and nephews that are
Speaker 17: Afro Latino like we are really what the American dream
Speaker 17: is right now. We're struggling and fighting for that because
Speaker 17: our community is in fear. They are at home, they're
Speaker 17: taking the night shifts, they're not going out during the day.
Speaker 17: Their children are missing school. Ten fifteen thousand children have
Speaker 17: basically disappeared from Miami Dad's public schools. It really is incredible.
Speaker 17: And you've seen the stories of that young man Liam,
Speaker 17: who is used as bait to get his father out,
Speaker 17: and they're both now in Texas Didley, Texas in detention, and.
Speaker 10: They just they just shipped out a six year old Venezuelan.
Speaker 17: And a two year old girl, Chloe right, who is
Speaker 17: also deported, and she's two, and she's a US born
Speaker 17: citizen with her father, and we're trying to basically get
Speaker 17: her back. And so that's why this is so important
Speaker 17: for us. That's why the community aspect of it is
Speaker 17: so important for us, because you know, this is the
Speaker 17: fight for our generation and it will define who we are.
Speaker 10: I think one of the most important words he used
Speaker 10: was our hour.
Speaker 12: We have friends we all know. I mean, I had
Speaker 12: these same discussions in the barbershop. We talk about a lot,
Speaker 12: we talk about OnlyFans, models, we talk about a lot.
Speaker 12: But one of the things we always talk about is
Speaker 12: there's always that one guy in the barbershop who's like
Speaker 12: that ain't my problem. But when you're quiet when they
Speaker 12: come for them, and then you're quiet when they come
Speaker 12: for them, and then you're quiet when they come for them.
Speaker 12: When they come for you, you look around, ain't nobody
Speaker 12: gonna be there to help you. And so I think
Speaker 12: our in community is so important and we have to
Speaker 12: get back to that. But you got to promise me
Speaker 12: one thing now. Now, when I'm out there marching for
Speaker 12: the death of Ricky Cobb, I need some of y'all
Speaker 12: out there marching with me too. Now, not a crazy
Speaker 12: part about this. And I gotta tell that's what I
Speaker 12: tell my white liberals, I tell my Hispanic friends, my progressives.
Speaker 12: I'm like, look, now, you ain't gonna find no bigger
Speaker 12: supporter for planned parenthood and female productive rights than me,
Speaker 12: reproductive rights than me. But when there's a little black
Speaker 12: boy that died, you got to be marching with me too.
Speaker 12: That's the only way this think work.
Speaker 17: Yeah, and so I will be very frank. You know,
Speaker 17: LULAC historically has made some decisions that it shouldn't have.
Speaker 17: Nineteen thirty six, they supported calling Latinos white. That was
Speaker 17: a choice that Latino's actually made as a community. Would
Speaker 17: we make that same choice now? I don't think so, certainly,
Speaker 17: not under my leadership. And let's be very frank. Latinos
Speaker 17: can be racist too, right, we.
Speaker 10: Know that prejudiced something about racist, but we go down
Speaker 10: a whole another.
Speaker 17: Even within our own community. And we had to take
Speaker 17: our accountability for this past election cycle because Latino men
Speaker 17: voted for this.
Speaker 12: Yeah, I was on y'all. I was gonna mention it
Speaker 12: at the end of the day.
Speaker 17: And so I'm I'm working to make sure that our
Speaker 17: folks effectively know what's that steak? And I think clearly
Speaker 17: now they know what's that steak?
Speaker 10: And I live in.
Speaker 17: Miami and it's interesting, Oh, the Latino Republicans are like,
Speaker 17: I didn't vote for that.
Speaker 10: I guess you did vote for that. So listen.
Speaker 12: One of the badest women that if you don't know,
Speaker 12: you need to follow her. Elizabeth is dope with a
Speaker 12: capital D. Now the reason that she is so dope
Speaker 12: and I have only admired her from afar, I didn't
Speaker 12: know anybody, and then.
Speaker 10: Angelau was like, we gonna have it.
Speaker 12: I was like, hey, So the reason is because she
Speaker 12: cuts through the bullsh the stuff, and she does it
Speaker 12: in a way where she meets people where they are.
Speaker 12: So we have different generations in here, right right, and
Speaker 12: you do understand that the way that your mama and
Speaker 12: daddy and grandparents communicated with people is not the way
Speaker 12: that's effective today. Their entire generations of young people, young women,
Speaker 12: who just respond to.
Speaker 10: The way that you talk about politics.
Speaker 12: And so my question is, from your vantage point, particularly
Speaker 12: in this content creation, are we seeing the apathy that
Speaker 12: people say, is there are people thirsting for change? And
Speaker 12: how can we utilize that as a springboard to kind
Speaker 12: of catapult and bring in communities together and doing some
Speaker 12: of the good work that you talk about doing.
Speaker 10: It's coming, it'll come on.
Speaker 11: My bad.
Speaker 18: I think that everybody sped up, and that's what a
Speaker 18: lot of people have in common, regardless of where they
Speaker 18: sit generationally.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 18: So I'm a millennial, and I know you were referring
Speaker 18: to the fact that I have a slick mouth because
Speaker 18: I'm from Memphis, Tennessee. So I cuss a lot.
Speaker 10: Are you from Memphis? What high school did you go to?
Speaker 11: I went to Bartlett.
Speaker 10: I hated it. Where is that.
Speaker 11: It's in the suburbs Memphis. I know, we moved out
Speaker 11: there when I was a teenager.
Speaker 10: It was terrible. My mama helped desegregate Hamilton High School.
Speaker 10: My daddy went to Hamilton. There you go, That's where
Speaker 10: I grew up.
Speaker 18: So I grew up around the corner from Hamilton High School. Actually,
Speaker 18: But yeah, so I have.
Speaker 10: A slick mouth. I cuss a lot.
Speaker 18: And I think it's funny because you were like, oh,
Speaker 18: you know, different generations. But the funny thing is, whenever
Speaker 18: I get my openers, because I also do stand up comedy,
Speaker 18: whenever I do shows, and I have my people that
Speaker 18: open for me. I love when they come in the
Speaker 18: green room and they're like your audience old as hell, Elizabeth,
Speaker 18: and I'm like, yeah, because I talk. It's like a
Speaker 18: king of comedy and that's an older generation, a king
Speaker 18: or a queen of comedy, and so it does span generations.
Speaker 18: So I see that with my content and how it
Speaker 18: resonates with people. It's really not just younger people, it's
Speaker 18: not just older people. It's not just folks in the middle.
Speaker 18: It's everybody. Like it's a wide range, and when it
Speaker 18: comes to addressing the apathy, people just need some direction
Speaker 18: and they need it to make sense. We spent so
Speaker 18: long with everybody talking down to folks and over folks.
Speaker 18: And I say this as a lawyer, I hate it
Speaker 18: because the reason why we make everything so complicated is
Speaker 18: so we can keep it in charge three hundred dollars
Speaker 18: an hour. But it affects everybody. Everybody should know the law,
Speaker 18: everybody can understand the law. And I just don't operate
Speaker 18: from that vantage point that just because you don't have
Speaker 18: a law degree or a bachelor's degree or even a
Speaker 18: high school diploma that you can't understand it. You can
Speaker 18: come to my page and learn something and you can.
Speaker 10: Figure it out. I had a whole group of people.
Speaker 18: Understanding substantive due process when everything happened with abortion rights
Speaker 18: being overturned. If you don't know what that is, go
Speaker 18: find my page because you'll learn it in about five minutes.
Speaker 18: And it's possible to teach people these things. And so
Speaker 18: when we cut through that whole knowledge gap and all
Speaker 18: this elitist behavior that we have with the way knowledge
Speaker 18: is gate, captain, just share it with everybody in a
Speaker 18: way that actually makes sense, and you're not just trying
Speaker 18: to talk over everybody's heads. Then people will be willing
Speaker 18: to be more active. And that's what I see every
Speaker 18: day of my page. My favorite comments are not for
Speaker 18: people who've been following me forever. It's people who say
Speaker 18: I didn't understand or care about the law of politics
Speaker 18: until I found your page, and that always makes me happy.
Speaker 12: One of the other she says, substanative due process, substanitive
Speaker 12: through that's three words. I'm from South Carolina. We still
Speaker 12: count on our fingers and toes.
Speaker 10: But one of the other.
Speaker 12: Words that we're gonna get real cozy with not tonight,
Speaker 12: but in Minnesota, because I think we just got to
Speaker 12: teach people this and have this fight of the two
Speaker 12: words qualified immunity. It's something I've been dealing with for
Speaker 12: a very long period of time in cases around the country.
Speaker 12: I don't know is Derek coming out here. This is
Speaker 12: a live pod, so I get to yell in the back.
Speaker 12: I guess he's gonna join another panel before we, So listen.
Speaker 12: We have two mics up here, and I'm gonna have
Speaker 12: time for two questions. I got rules about questions, y'all listening.
Speaker 12: Questions have question marks. I know y'all got a little
Speaker 12: written speeches.
Speaker 10: Get them in the.
Speaker 12: Next panel, ask them questions. Okay, and then I don't
Speaker 12: know where we got away with teaching people. There's no
Speaker 12: such thing as a dumb question. I always tell people
Speaker 12: that there is a such thing is a dumb question.
Speaker 10: You smarter when we answer there? You go okay. You
Speaker 10: know I hear you. So make sure we have time
Speaker 10: for two questions. Bring them up.
Speaker 12: If you have a question. There's a microphone right here.
Speaker 12: Two questions. Just line up those two people before. I
Speaker 12: wanted like a rapid response from you guys understanding where
Speaker 12: we are. It's fascinating to me that in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 12: everybody said we would be here. In twenty twenty four,
Speaker 12: running for election, everybody said we would be here, and
Speaker 12: it seems like nobody listened. If there is one consequential event, moment,
Speaker 12: or thing we could do from this point forward, what
Speaker 12: would that consequential moment, event or thing be to help
Speaker 12: create the change we.
Speaker 10: Want to see?
Speaker 16: Depoliticized humanity?
Speaker 10: What does that mean?
Speaker 16: It means our humanity has become.
Speaker 12: Political humanity is oh, not like people or human beings,
Speaker 12: but like.
Speaker 15: Correct, I think, especially like from a media dvantage point.
Speaker 15: I think again, going back to why I feel like
Speaker 15: we need media reform, everything is we got to tell
Speaker 15: both sides.
Speaker 16: Well, what's the other side of the truth?
Speaker 19: A lie?
Speaker 16: That's problematic?
Speaker 20: Right?
Speaker 15: It's very and it becomes divisive because then it's everything
Speaker 15: is us and them, them and us me against you.
Speaker 15: And some stories are nuanced, some stories have seven, eight,
Speaker 15: nine sides, not just two. And so I think right
Speaker 15: now we're living at a time where everything is left right, Republican, democratic,
Speaker 15: and I'll just be honest for me, I don't And
Speaker 15: I think I hear this a lot from people I
Speaker 15: talk to in community. Is not everybody sees themselves represented
Speaker 15: in those identities, and the deeper you get into black
Speaker 15: and brown communities, people don't really see.
Speaker 16: Themselves represented in that.
Speaker 15: And so America has to get to a place where
Speaker 15: we depoliticize humanity.
Speaker 16: Everything is not political.
Speaker 15: Some things like we just witnessed to a woman be
Speaker 15: brutally shot in the face, a US citizen, and then
Speaker 15: our politicians are trying to force feed us that this
Speaker 15: is about immigration, and then we just saw another US
Speaker 15: citizen be shot down, and it's this isn't immigration, but
Speaker 15: it has become political because our elected officials are not
Speaker 15: seeing the humanity of these US citizens and they're giving
Speaker 15: us all of these different justifications. At the end of
Speaker 15: the day, if America didn't have such a hard time
Speaker 15: listening to black women, I think looking back at the
Speaker 15: church protests that had everybody, and believe me, I lived
Speaker 15: in the Deep.
Speaker 16: South and the Bible Belt.
Speaker 15: I was getting calls, Georgia, what was you doing in
Speaker 15: the church doing the protest? But if y'all would have
Speaker 15: just listened to a black woman, Alex pretty might still
Speaker 15: be here today.
Speaker 10: I heartily agree with you.
Speaker 12: I also think along with that, there's something that I
Speaker 12: echo a lot with Angela and Andrew is that many
Speaker 12: times we get caught in our own silos and we
Speaker 12: seek out news and opinions that reinforce our own views.
Speaker 12: And we live in very segregated communities. We just do,
Speaker 12: particularly in the South. What's the most segregated place in
Speaker 12: the country. Church on Sunday in the South, right, And
Speaker 12: oftentimes we don't get out of our silos to hear
Speaker 12: the opinions of others. And I think in order to
Speaker 12: give people the benefit of their humanity which they don't
Speaker 12: give us, sometimes you have to. I like that deep
Speaker 12: politicized humanity as both Paul's real quick. One second, y'all
Speaker 12: say hello to my good friend Derek who just joined
Speaker 12: us today.
Speaker 10: I don't know if y'all know this man. Do y'all
Speaker 10: know this man? Do y'all know him?
Speaker 12: Derek Johnson from Mississippi. That's how we pronounce it downside
Speaker 12: by way of Detroit. Who's here with us today. I
Speaker 12: got a big.
Speaker 10: Question for you. We're not gonna do these questions right here.
Speaker 10: I'm sorry. I got a big question.
Speaker 12: For you, and then we'll do these rapid responses because
Speaker 12: that was I'm gonna ask you some questions in the
Speaker 12: back along that line, but people oftentimes ask the question,
Speaker 12: is the NAACP ready for this moment? That's the first question.
Speaker 12: Is the NAACP necessary now? Mind you, I say yes
Speaker 12: to both of them, but you need to be able
Speaker 12: to answer that for these folks.
Speaker 10: And also talk to me about the moment.
Speaker 12: That we're in, because you, as a student of history,
Speaker 12: can go and talk about since the inception of the
Speaker 12: NAACP through now and is this something we've seen before?
Speaker 12: Is this a new struggle? Are people is being sick
Speaker 12: in time? Being sick and tired? Is that something that
Speaker 12: we just have Do we have to deal with this
Speaker 12: every four or five years? How do we this is
Speaker 12: this You may not be able to answers, but how do
Speaker 12: we break these chains?
Speaker 21: So thank you didn't even give you one. You know,
Speaker 21: the question is is NACP ready for this moment? The
Speaker 21: real question are black people ready for this moment? Our
Speaker 21: institutions are as strong as we populate them and give
Speaker 21: them strength. And any time we set our institutions over
Speaker 21: here and we put us over there, that's a losing proposition.
Speaker 21: And never in the history of the black community has
Speaker 21: there been a singular leader a singular organization or a
Speaker 21: singular strategy. The real question for all of us, if
Speaker 21: we are going to lend our voice to freedom self determination,
Speaker 21: what vehicle are we going to use to get there?
Speaker 10: And I'm agnostic.
Speaker 21: You can pick any of the vehicles, but pick one
Speaker 21: and get off the sideline of criticis.
Speaker 10: Amen right history, we have never seen this before.
Speaker 21: We've always seen this before at the exact same time,
Speaker 21: because this fight is about power, domination and control, and
Speaker 21: what we are witnessing is in a democracy where your
Speaker 21: vote is your currency, they're running out.
Speaker 10: Of white people to have enough votes.
Speaker 12: In that called the browning of America that Stephen Miller
Speaker 12: is definitely afraid of.
Speaker 21: In nineteen o nine when we were created with those
Speaker 21: Africans who had American citizenship met the year before, who was.
Speaker 10: Asked to join those non whites in.
Speaker 21: The media in New York because they were non white.
Speaker 21: Because if you was Irish Italian, you was not white.
Speaker 21: If you was Jewish, you was not white. If you
Speaker 21: was anything other than Anglo stacks in Protestant you was
Speaker 21: not white because racist or social construct and each one
Speaker 21: of those individuals were not doing this to say black
Speaker 21: people are doing it because their own communities were under attack.
Speaker 21: But then when le Garde gets elected in thirty four
Speaker 21: in New York, who.
Speaker 10: Was Italian, and they begin to carve.
Speaker 21: Up to see the New York and say, these are
Speaker 21: the Irish districts, and here are the Italian districts.
Speaker 10: In Harlem, you get the black district. And then World
Speaker 10: War two.
Speaker 21: Happened, and then the washp class beget out of beginning
Speaker 21: to run out of white people. Oh Irish, we're gonna
Speaker 21: give your president. You could be white now. Oh Jewish,
Speaker 21: it's not world War two. We're gonna make you white now.
Speaker 21: And that process continue. The difference is we can never
Speaker 21: join the white club.
Speaker 2: And I'm okay with that.
Speaker 21: But the white club was frustrated because the New Deal
Speaker 21: policies and the shifting of tax policies, and from nineteen
Speaker 21: thirty two up until last year, the big Ugly Bill.
Speaker 21: That's been the fight throughout. We've seen this before and
Speaker 21: we've never seen it at the exact same time. And
Speaker 21: so the use of othering to divide and the store
Speaker 21: to cover up the tax policy ship, the use of
Speaker 21: othering to divide in the store to cover up the esteem.
Speaker 21: Epstein files that still have not been released to use
Speaker 21: of divide and the store to show to try to
Speaker 21: cover up the fact that white Middle America, your pockets
Speaker 21: have been picked.
Speaker 10: Your farms cannot.
Speaker 21: Be harvest and your jobs you cannot sell cheap labor
Speaker 21: because we're not doing those jobs. Again, that's what this
Speaker 21: is all about. Mass distraction and distortion. We've never seen
Speaker 21: this before, and we've seen it before.
Speaker 12: So the reason when anybody asked me, the reason, the
Speaker 12: reason that I have faith in the NAACP is your
Speaker 12: only really as good as your membership. That membership looks
Speaker 12: like us, and it's very strong, but you're also as
Speaker 12: good as the leadership that the member elects.
Speaker 10: You want me to leave Derek up here for this
Speaker 10: next panel? What? Oh so? Anyway?
Speaker 12: I got some more questions for him. But you know,
Speaker 12: Angela's the boss of the podcast.
Speaker 10: Everybody know that. But I do want you to do
Speaker 10: me one big favor.
Speaker 12: I want you guys to stand up and give a
Speaker 12: round of applause to these four individuals who are on
Speaker 12: stage with me tonight.
Speaker 22: Stand up, take your bow, Elizabeth, Georgia Vaughn, Dear, thank
Speaker 22: you for joining the Native Podcast. Next up is Andrew Gillham.
Speaker 22: And by the way, we are not the same person.
Speaker 22: I'm really happy that we are both in a room together.
Speaker 10: You can't top that.
Speaker 13: Thank you, Bagard, thank you, thank you, thank you, Beyonce. Y'all,
Speaker 13: we're gonna keep it, keep it moving one. Thank you
Speaker 13: all again for your patience for being here with us
Speaker 13: and your energy level. We're gonna keep this conversation going
Speaker 13: with a panel of some elected officials, our political leaders.
Speaker 13: We keep name checking our electeds, and tonight we've had
Speaker 13: a couple of them agree to join us, and so
Speaker 13: I'll go through a little bit of an introduction, some questions,
Speaker 13: and then we'll have this mic right here.
Speaker 11: To my right, you're left where we'll.
Speaker 13: Take audience questions. So not to belabor, let's bring our
Speaker 13: panelists up. We're gonna start with some familiar names.
Speaker 10: You know, well state senators.
Speaker 13: They to have Mohammad give her a round of applause.
Speaker 13: Stay Representative Cedric Frasier, the immediate.
Speaker 23: Passed and forty sixth mayor of Saint Paul, Minnesota, my
Speaker 23: brother from fam you Melvin Carter, and.
Speaker 11: Another young leader in this state.
Speaker 24: Y'all have potential on potential, on potential, y'all have a
Speaker 24: pipeline here in this state of incredible young leaders, and
Speaker 24: this one is no is no exception, and that is
Speaker 24: your Lieutenant Governor, Miss Peggy Flanagans.
Speaker 13: And Senator Zev Muhammad. We introduce you first. You probably
Speaker 13: were further back there. Y'all give the senator another rap
Speaker 13: of applause means so, no, you can't see the audience,
Speaker 13: but they can see you, watch your expressions. One I
Speaker 13: want to thank each of you are elected leaders the folks,
Speaker 13: whether you are holding political position at this moment in time,
Speaker 13: once you've established yourself in the community as.
Speaker 11: A leader, people look to you for leadership.
Speaker 13: And I can only imagine that these last couple of
Speaker 13: uh well now over a month probably of this federal occupation,
Speaker 13: a government force that was sent here supposedly to.
Speaker 11: Bring safety and peace.
Speaker 13: I have to treat it like I treat everything that
Speaker 13: comes out of the President's mouth. Whatever they say, interpret
Speaker 13: the opposite, because instead of peace and safety, we've gotten chaos,
Speaker 13: we've gotten destruction, and we've gotten death. And Lieutenant govern
Speaker 13: I'm gonna start with you with this question, which is
Speaker 13: to simply the set out the states. What has it
Speaker 13: been like trying to lead during this time, supporting your governor,
Speaker 13: holding down your position, supporting these electeds around the state,
Speaker 13: and the most importantly, supporting your people.
Speaker 11: What's the state of mind? How are you all getting
Speaker 11: through this?
Speaker 13: And where do you diagnose where you are right now
Speaker 13: in this fight with the feats?
Speaker 25: Well, I would say we're exhausted, but not tired. And
Speaker 25: as we have watched over the last eight weeks, but like,
Speaker 25: let's be real, the surge has started, but ice has
Speaker 25: been here for a long time, and so you know
Speaker 25: what we have seen and I absolutely am eager to
Speaker 25: hear from my colleagues because they have been on the
Speaker 25: front lines. But what we have seen is just absolute
Speaker 25: chaos and fear. And what is being done under the
Speaker 25: guise of safety right couldn't be further from the truth.
Speaker 25: When there are two Minnesotans who have been killed by ice,
Speaker 25: when we have five year olds and two year olds
Speaker 25: who are being detained and brought to Texas, and just
Speaker 25: the lies, the lies, the continue to come out of
Speaker 25: this administration about the individuals who have been killed at
Speaker 25: their hands.
Speaker 14: It is outrageous.
Speaker 25: And so what I have seen over the last several
Speaker 25: weeks is the best of Minnesota is folks who are
Speaker 25: stepping up, who are standing outside of schools and daycares
Speaker 25: and churches and getting food and mutual aid and responding
Speaker 25: in a way that I think folks weren't expecting from Minnesota.
Speaker 25: But we care about each other. We stand up for
Speaker 25: our neighbors. And this isn't just about the Twin Cities.
Speaker 25: As we've been traveling across the state, ice is everywhere. Right,
Speaker 25: We're in Alexandria, they're there, Detroit Lakes they're there, Saint
Speaker 25: Cloud they're there. And so this just terror has to stop,
Speaker 25: and they got to get out. And I want to
Speaker 25: just name something that I think is really there's a
Speaker 25: through line here. Individuals who are being detained are being
Speaker 25: brought to Fort Snelling, which was essentially a concentration camp
Speaker 25: for Dakota women, children and elders, and now that's where
Speaker 25: folks are bringing, you know, brought to in this moment.
Speaker 25: And so the through line is that the federal government
Speaker 25: continues this long cycle right of separating families of detention.
Speaker 25: And so I would say again we are exhausted, but
Speaker 25: not tired, and will continue to show up for our neighbors,
Speaker 25: continue to use non violent protest and resistance. And that's
Speaker 25: what you've seen happen all across the state, and so
Speaker 25: much of the groundwork that has been laid is because
Speaker 25: of the good organizing work that has happened over the
Speaker 25: last several decades in this state. People have relationships, they
Speaker 25: have trust, right and we can then just put all
Speaker 25: that into action.
Speaker 11: And actually give it a run of the cause. It's
Speaker 11: been pretty obvious that you can.
Speaker 13: You can't overcome the will and quite frankly, the sheer
Speaker 13: might that they put on the ground overwhelm me the
Speaker 13: law enforcement of the communities here in Minnesota and Minneapolis
Speaker 13: in the surrounding area unless you have deep, well built, trusted.
Speaker 11: And strong relationships that can carry you through.
Speaker 13: Senator the Lieutenant Governor really set the framework by bringing
Speaker 13: in our Native brothers and sisters in the history of
Speaker 13: the dissension facilities here of to just put it plainly,
Speaker 13: the racism that guys the policies of this administration, gentlemen,
Speaker 13: I'm being generous with this term, but Stephen Miller, the
Speaker 13: avout I think, unapologetic racist that runs these policies in
Speaker 13: the White House, use the pretexts in part for coming
Speaker 13: to minute, Minnesota, the Somali community, as President says low
Speaker 13: Iq right, which the man who stated that couldn't be
Speaker 13: lower in an Iq as far as I'm concerned. But
Speaker 13: for those of us who were watched from outside, I mean,
Speaker 13: I've been offended every time I've heard the President speak
Speaker 13: about Somali Americans, but as is Somali American yourself, and
Speaker 13: I realized that your jurisdiction and your governance now expands
Speaker 13: far beyond that. But it be a haphazard of me
Speaker 13: not to ask you how is this reverberating within the
Speaker 13: Somali community here in the state, the attacks and what
Speaker 13: does mutual aid? How is that coming? And to focus
Speaker 13: for your community? Are their needs that this group, those
Speaker 13: who are watching, those of us around the country where
Speaker 13: spread out is, are there things.
Speaker 11: We can do to be a greater aid and support.
Speaker 26: Thank you for having me, and thank you everybody for
Speaker 26: being here. Well, first of all, the smaller community here
Speaker 26: is a large community, but compared to the rest of
Speaker 26: the community, to small community right where eighty thousand people,
Speaker 26: if not less, across the country, less than two hundred
Speaker 26: thousand people were a fraction of the population of this country.
Speaker 27: And I think to see some of.
Speaker 26: The most powerful people in this country, whether it's this
Speaker 26: administration or tech billionaires, and the ways in which that
Speaker 26: they're using the algorithm to talk about our community.
Speaker 9: Has been disheartening.
Speaker 26: And the one thing I know about Somali people is
Speaker 26: that we're an incredibly resilient community. I came to this
Speaker 26: country when I was nine years old and I am
Speaker 26: twenty eight years old. My community has been here for
Speaker 26: less than thirty years, but.
Speaker 14: They have made Minnesota their home.
Speaker 26: They are not everywhere you go, whether you're coming out
Speaker 26: of the airport, you're the person who's checking you in
Speaker 26: or checking you out as a Somali person. That your
Speaker 26: Uber driver is a Somali person. When you take your
Speaker 26: mother to a nursing home or it's our final days,
Speaker 26: the person who's taking care of them is a Somali person.
Speaker 26: The thing I learned in the last five years from
Speaker 26: Minnesota since the murder of George Floyd is just how
Speaker 26: resilient Minnesotans are and how much we're a fabric of
Speaker 26: this community. So many of the people who are on
Speaker 26: the ground that are protesting what's happening are also speaking
Speaker 26: about the frustrations that they're feeling about what people are
Speaker 26: saying about their Somali neighbors. And what I have seen
Speaker 26: from my neighbors is I don't think I've shoveled a day.
Speaker 14: There's a day.
Speaker 26: There's not a single day I've shoveled snow this year.
Speaker 26: And it's because my neighbors understand the work that I'm
Speaker 26: doing and they're showing up for each other.
Speaker 2: We have done massive.
Speaker 26: Food drives for through a number of schools in our communities.
Speaker 26: We have seen people raise thousands of dollars. I think
Speaker 26: I put a goal GoFundMe on my social media and
Speaker 26: by the end of the day had raised like fifty
Speaker 26: thousand dollars. And so Minnesotans understand that at a time
Speaker 26: where in the federal governments, the state government, every system
Speaker 26: that we know that's supposed to help people is failing.
Speaker 26: They are looking to each other and they're creating systems.
Speaker 26: And I just have never seen such a powerful community
Speaker 26: just across the board. I mean, we have like we
Speaker 26: are better than the police, we are better than the government.
Speaker 26: Like I'm like, these people can do whatever and nobody.
Speaker 14: Can can do anything better.
Speaker 26: But we're a resilient community and at the end of
Speaker 26: the day, him speaking about Somali's it just means he's
Speaker 26: talking about Minnesotans, because that's who we are, that's our community.
Speaker 11: I love that.
Speaker 10: I love the.
Speaker 11: So Renegga and Alex Preddy.
Speaker 13: We should say their names and lift up their family
Speaker 13: and their loved ones in.
Speaker 11: Their absence right now, in their physical absence.
Speaker 13: Black bodies have been put on the line quite a
Speaker 13: bit in this state. In fact, most of us around
Speaker 13: the nation began paying attention because of the black lives
Speaker 13: that have been risked here. Have you representative noticed any bifurcation,
Speaker 13: any difference in response from the community based off of
Speaker 13: who the victims are, or is it true that people
Speaker 13: are seeing an assault on one as an assault on everybody.
Speaker 13: I'd love your honest interpretation of that.
Speaker 28: No, thank you for that, and thanks thanks for having
Speaker 28: me out here. I appreciate that, and thanks for the
Speaker 28: audience for being here tonight during these trying times. I
Speaker 28: just want to I need to say again that I
Speaker 28: am very proud of the way Minnesota has stood up.
Speaker 28: We are showing not only the rest of the country
Speaker 28: but the world how you push back when you're looking
Speaker 28: at tyranny and authoritarianism trying to be forced upon you.
Speaker 28: So Minnesota shul always give themselves a hand and around
Speaker 28: applause for that, you know.
Speaker 10: And I've been saying.
Speaker 28: This, and I've been I've been in many rooms since
Speaker 28: this has been happening here in the state. What I've
Speaker 28: been saying and the most folks is because you keep
Speaker 28: showing up, it gives me hope. We may feel helpless,
Speaker 28: but we're not hopeless.
Speaker 29: Right.
Speaker 10: We may be tired, but we're not given up.
Speaker 28: And what I'll say, what I say also is that
Speaker 28: they picked the wrong state. Right there were and I
Speaker 28: say that, and I say it because of this reason.
Speaker 28: Only right there were people killed before they came to
Speaker 28: the state of Minnesota. I say, you just had killed
Speaker 28: the folks. But we made sure that the rest of
Speaker 28: the world and the rest of the country knew exactly
Speaker 28: what was happening here. We made sure we were going
Speaker 28: to have the receipts in real time to show the
Speaker 28: rest of the world and the rest of the country
Speaker 28: what was happening here on the ground in Minnesota. And
Speaker 28: that happens because of what we've been through in this state.
Speaker 28: You know, my sisters just talked about George Floyd. We
Speaker 28: built a system of community after what happened to George Floyd.
Speaker 10: Right. And let me say this, I what I tell
Speaker 10: folks all the time, because.
Speaker 28: When we played the politics here, I still hear some
Speaker 28: of my Republican politagies talking about we're going to go
Speaker 28: back to the eighties or the nineties when we divided
Speaker 28: and segregated, and we can we can put out and
Speaker 28: we can demonize people and demonize people that didn't look
Speaker 28: like the folks in the suburbs, right and look like
Speaker 28: people in certain communities within those neighborhoods.
Speaker 10: Right.
Speaker 28: And what I always say to them is like, you're
Speaker 28: living in a time that doesn't exist anymore. Because now
Speaker 28: our neighbors they know each other, our neighbors, their friends,
Speaker 28: their family, their kids are hanging out, they're having sleepovers,
Speaker 28: they're doing carpools. They have a connection with their neighbors
Speaker 28: that they didn't have when we had such segregated communities.
Speaker 28: That they didn't have in the seventies and the eighties.
Speaker 28: We have those connections now. And because we have those connections,
Speaker 28: what we were saying is, you're not going to tell
Speaker 28: me that my neighbor that I should hate my neighbor,
Speaker 28: or be fearful of my neighbor because I know my neighbor.
Speaker 28: I'm gonna give you this example right here, and I'm
Speaker 28: gonna stop with I'm gonna give.
Speaker 10: You this example. My daughter.
Speaker 28: I walk into the bus every morning. That's how I
Speaker 28: find some peace and this chaotic stuff is going on.
Speaker 28: And she's got a friend named Freedom that she's six
Speaker 28: nice to every day. And when this president won and
Speaker 28: they started going to school, she would say, hey, Freda
Speaker 28: tells me that her family is really scared to go outside.
Speaker 10: I said, why is that.
Speaker 28: She said, her family is there Mexican and they're feelful
Speaker 28: that they're gonna get snatched if they come outside, so
Speaker 28: they're not going to work anymore. And she doesn't know
Speaker 28: she's going to continue to be able to continue to
Speaker 28: go to school. Jesse, yesterday, we're on the bus stop
Speaker 28: and I said, how's free to how's free to holding up?
Speaker 28: She said, well, she told me she's probably going to
Speaker 28: have to be homeschooled for the rest of the year,
Speaker 28: but she may be back next year.
Speaker 10: She texts her. Literally, it's almost real time. Broke my heart.
Speaker 28: She text my daughter as they're waiting for the bus,
Speaker 28: stop and the bus is always late in it's cold outside,
Speaker 28: So we didn't deal with that right. So she texts
Speaker 28: my daughter and she says, I'm no longer going to
Speaker 28: be riding the bus for the rest of the school year.
Speaker 28: I believe I'm going to be in school. I'm be
Speaker 28: a parent pickup, but I'm gonna be riding the bus.
Speaker 28: My daughter texts back, what's going on? She says, because
Speaker 28: of this.
Speaker 10: Ice thing broke my heart.
Speaker 28: Breaks my heart to know that this is what our
Speaker 28: young people have to deal with. They're tearing found me
Speaker 28: is apart. They're terrifying young people. But what gives me
Speaker 28: always young people aren't going to forget about this.
Speaker 10: They are.
Speaker 28: They are creating the future resistence to this right. They
Speaker 28: are creating the future leaders that are going to know
Speaker 28: what not to do when you're making policy. They're creating
Speaker 28: the future leaders that are gonna know how to absolutely
Speaker 28: be proactive in taking care of their neighbors and taking
Speaker 28: care of their community folks and being right there and
Speaker 28: standing up for them.
Speaker 10: So, no, I don't see a difference in their response.
Speaker 28: I see our neighbors showing up here day in and
Speaker 28: day out, just like the way they showed up when
Speaker 28: George was murdered on the middle of the street in
Speaker 28: broad daylight. I see them showing up and saying, enough
Speaker 28: is enough. We're not going to stand for this. And
Speaker 28: you know what, We're not going to have true healing
Speaker 28: until we have accountability, and we're making sure we have
Speaker 28: the receipts for that accountability.
Speaker 11: I love that.
Speaker 10: Turn to the audience.
Speaker 13: If you have a question, we can begin to form
Speaker 13: a question line over here.
Speaker 11: As I talked to Mayor Carter.
Speaker 13: So you see, yesterday the President appeared to make some
Speaker 13: sort of I actually don't know what to call is thing.
Speaker 13: Some people the media is running with a pivot or
Speaker 13: a retreat. The President did an interview thirty minutes before
Speaker 13: we started here this evening on Fox News and basically says,
Speaker 13: not a retreat.
Speaker 11: We're still he's.
Speaker 13: Still committed, so on and so forth, but thinks that
Speaker 13: the deaths have been unfortunate in some other flowery language, again.
Speaker 11: People executing his will on his behalf. But those were
Speaker 11: his comments. I'm curious how you see.
Speaker 13: This as whether or not this is a retreat, maybe
Speaker 13: a retreat from the state of Minnesota to be reincarnated
Speaker 13: in another city.
Speaker 11: In another state someplace else.
Speaker 13: Or does the administration appear to have learned a lesson
Speaker 13: and we may see a secession here until at least
Speaker 13: after the midterms earned a lesson.
Speaker 30: No, I don't you said it from the beginning. At
Speaker 30: some point we have to understand that, you know, my
Speaker 30: angelous say, when somebody tells you who they are, believe them.
Speaker 30: And at some point we have to understand that the
Speaker 30: things that they are doing are a feature of their plan,
Speaker 30: not a bug of their plan. And y'all made it
Speaker 30: so inconvenient for them that he had to find a
Speaker 30: different news cycle. But do I think that the death
Speaker 30: of two absolute, completely innocent people is going to change
Speaker 30: their course?
Speaker 13: No?
Speaker 10: And here's why.
Speaker 30: You know, after George Floyd was murdered, I was on
Speaker 30: some show and they asked me, you know, what are
Speaker 30: you going to do differently now that this happened?
Speaker 10: And I said nothing.
Speaker 30: And I said nothing, I said, Well, the most important
Speaker 30: thing you have to know about the murder of George
Speaker 30: Floyd is how historically unsurprising it was that my father
Speaker 30: and his father and his father could tell you about
Speaker 30: unarmed people being killed at the hands of law enforcement.
Speaker 30: And so we had to know that this was there.
Speaker 30: And the point that I was just trying to make
Speaker 30: is the things that we need to do because this happened,
Speaker 30: we actually already started doing before this happened in our work,
Speaker 30: because we know that this is that this is a phenomenon.
Speaker 30: But as my Lieutenant governor was talking about the Fort
Speaker 30: Snelling I was thinking about the dread Scott decision where
Speaker 30: they brought dread Scott to Fort Snelling and he sued
Speaker 30: and he said, Hey, I went to Fort Snelling, so
Speaker 30: you know, I ought to be free. And I'm not
Speaker 30: a legal scholar, but ultimately, what the Supreme Court of
Speaker 30: our country said, the United States Supreme Court that we
Speaker 30: look at as the highest level of justice in the
Speaker 30: on the planet. The Supreme Court said, We're not even
Speaker 30: going to actually answer your question, but what we'll tell
Speaker 30: you is that a black man has no rights that
Speaker 30: a white man is bound to respect in the first place.
Speaker 30: And so I say all of that to say that,
Speaker 30: you know, when you place this in a historical arc,
Speaker 30: I think it would be farcical for us to assume
Speaker 30: that these two murders, which are awful, by the way,
Speaker 30: the what's the the evilness with which they're operating is
Speaker 30: asking the sheer incompetency with which they're operating. But I
Speaker 30: don't think that they are suddenly woke up this morning
Speaker 30: better in terms of competency or better in terms of
Speaker 30: morality either one because of.
Speaker 10: This news cycle.
Speaker 13: Here you're here, Are there any I'm gonna keep looking
Speaker 13: over here in case there are questions, and in the
Speaker 13: absence of them, I know.
Speaker 11: We'll have to wrap soon.
Speaker 13: But there is yeah, you to you, yes please.
Speaker 19: I'm so sorry.
Speaker 25: I just wanted to I wanted to build on what
Speaker 25: mayor Carter just said, because I think there is this
Speaker 25: idea today that somehow, because Greg Bovino is leaving, that
Speaker 25: somehow we're cool, right and bringing Tom Holman in. And
Speaker 25: I don't mean to be crude, but I saw a
Speaker 25: post today that said replacing Greg Bovino with Tom Holman
Speaker 25: is like pooping your pants and changing your shirt, right.
Speaker 14: And so I just.
Speaker 25: I think that that's really important to know that going
Speaker 25: back to eight weeks ago is not enough, going back
Speaker 25: to six months ago is not enough, right, going back
Speaker 25: to February of twenty twenty five is not enough.
Speaker 10: Right.
Speaker 25: Ice has to get out, And it is very clear
Speaker 25: to me that this has been the plan all along.
Speaker 25: You have bright red signs in all caps that say
Speaker 25: mass deportations now behind Donald Trump at rallies at the
Speaker 25: Republican National Convention. This was not in the fine print, right,
Speaker 25: They've been saying what they are going to be doing
Speaker 25: for a very long time. And so we can take
Speaker 25: a breath, We can catch our breath today for a moment,
Speaker 25: but get real that today we've already seen footage of
Speaker 25: people being violently pulled from vehicles, of.
Speaker 19: Folks being detained.
Speaker 2: So it is not over right.
Speaker 25: It's just that Donald Trump knows this is a bad look,
Speaker 25: and so a little bit of shuffling of the deck
Speaker 25: chairs is not going to cut it. They got to
Speaker 25: get out right and like we got to rip it
Speaker 25: apart and start over.
Speaker 11: That's right, Thank you. Listen to Gon.
Speaker 14: Good evening, Pane.
Speaker 31: I do want to have a I have a question
Speaker 31: and I also want to make a comment. I do
Speaker 31: want to refer back to the question about it being
Speaker 31: a change because of those who are now the murdered victims, right,
Speaker 31: and I think just coming from Minneapolis born and raised,
Speaker 31: there is.
Speaker 14: A change in response.
Speaker 31: There has been a change in response because not only
Speaker 31: was Renee good good enough and not only was George
Speaker 31: Floyd a good enough reason. This has been a white
Speaker 31: male that has been murdered in broad daylight in America,
Speaker 31: on American soil. So the response that the nation has
Speaker 31: took over and the response even from the NRA has changed.
Speaker 31: We didn't get that same response with Filando Castile. So
Speaker 31: there is a difference in the response that we see
Speaker 31: with not only two white bodies, but it took for
Speaker 31: a middle aged white male to be murdered to get
Speaker 31: the response across the nation.
Speaker 10: But that's not my question.
Speaker 31: My question is to Lieutenant Governor Flanagan with the extortion
Speaker 31: letter that we received from Pam BONDI, what will be
Speaker 31: the response. I've seen the response from Governor Walls, but
Speaker 31: what is our real response in regards to extortion which
Speaker 31: is a crime which finger.
Speaker 13: You can thank Florida for that, by the way, thank
Speaker 13: you gift from Florida.
Speaker 11: Yeah.
Speaker 25: So I think we can go back to our Secretary
Speaker 25: State right, who is in charge of the voter rules,
Speaker 25: And his answer was simply no, right and no is
Speaker 25: a complete sentence. And he couldn't even give that information
Speaker 25: if you wanted to, because it is already illegal right
Speaker 25: to share that information. And so I'm glad that you
Speaker 25: brought that up, because let's be clear again, going back
Speaker 25: to the through line, preventing certain people from being able
Speaker 25: to vote is the goal, right, And so we have
Speaker 25: to be really clear, this is already in litigation.
Speaker 9: Right.
Speaker 25: They have already tried to ask for the voter roles.
Speaker 14: They have already tried to ask.
Speaker 25: For the names and identities and sensitive information of our
Speaker 25: neighbors who aren't who utilize public programs.
Speaker 30: Right.
Speaker 25: Also, no, and so I think our incredible Secretary of State,
Speaker 25: along with our amazing Attorney General Keith Ellison, who by
Speaker 25: the way, has been the most valuable player right for
Speaker 25: our safe like suing the Trump administration fifty times, that
Speaker 25: is what this is all about. So Noah is a
Speaker 25: complete sentence, and I am grieful for the leadership of
Speaker 25: those two constitutional officers. But let's be clear, the goal
Speaker 25: is to try to prevent folks from voting, and we're
Speaker 25: not going to let that happen.
Speaker 14: Hello, Hanne, I have a question, and it's kind of.
Speaker 32: I don't want to say loaded, but I hear some
Speaker 32: of the comments and we all see the news, but
Speaker 32: I want to ask, how do we continue to build
Speaker 32: and trust as a community and a whole as a
Speaker 32: community without identifying and acknowledging some of the hurt and
Speaker 32: the pain some of our community has not only been
Speaker 32: through that's outside of this ice situation, but also the
Speaker 32: the things that has happened within certain communities that has
Speaker 32: affected us as a whole. And as leaders and politicians,
Speaker 32: it's good to keep us good face, like I understand that,
Speaker 32: but for us as people to trust you all, it
Speaker 32: has to be knowledged because it's not just good, and
Speaker 32: it's not just home all the time, and it's not
Speaker 32: just these things. There's things that's happened that has affected
Speaker 32: all of us from individual communities, and we want to
Speaker 32: welcome us as a whole.
Speaker 11: Examples, I don't.
Speaker 16: Necessarily want to.
Speaker 32: I don't think it's like effective to give like an
Speaker 32: example really.
Speaker 11: Just in general.
Speaker 13: If the thing is is that in the black community,
Speaker 13: we've confronted X, and let me I think, I think, okay, okay,
Speaker 13: never mind, this is inside conversation.
Speaker 11: They know what the example is.
Speaker 32: Okay, it's an inside conversation. As Minnesota, and I want
Speaker 32: to say I'm a proud Minnesota and I love the
Speaker 32: fabric that we've created. And I've never appreciated the term
Speaker 32: Minnesota nice more than ever now. Minnesota nice means that
Speaker 32: we vibe check each other, and we have culturally acknowledged
Speaker 32: other people even when we don't know them deeply. We
Speaker 32: say high and we give them a surface level kindness.
Speaker 32: And I've never appreciated Minnesota Knights as much as I
Speaker 32: do now, and that's extended to everyone here in this room.
Speaker 32: But I just want to say, as leaders, we have
Speaker 32: to start to trust. We have to start acknowledging not
Speaker 32: just the good but also the things that as humans
Speaker 32: are problematic that affects other people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but let's be honest.
Speaker 30: That definition you just gave of Minnesota nice is a
Speaker 30: new definition of Minnesota nice. Absolutely, because my grandfather would
Speaker 30: have said, Minnesota nice means they don't call you the
Speaker 30: N word, they smile at you while they deny your law. Absolutely,
Speaker 30: And so what you're talking about is so important because
Speaker 30: we're a state we've always planted our flag. We are
Speaker 30: a home ownership state, where education stay, where a healthy state,
Speaker 30: where an employment state, all those things, and all of
Speaker 30: those things are also the spaces in which we have the.
Speaker 10: Worst dispirities in the nation.
Speaker 30: And when you were talking, I was Rember when I
Speaker 30: first ran for city council one hundred years ago. I
Speaker 30: remember telling a group of folks, I love Minnesota so much.
Speaker 30: I want some of it in my neighborhood. And so
Speaker 30: but let me tell you, like what they're trying to do,
Speaker 30: and let me tell you and the reason they chose
Speaker 30: the wrong state, what their.
Speaker 11: Goal is to do is pit us against each other.
Speaker 10: And I saw it.
Speaker 30: We had an action in Saint Paul a couple months ago,
Speaker 30: and we were trying to get the Ice out of it.
Speaker 30: We got them out of there. We were trying to
Speaker 30: pull our police officers out of there. We got Ice
Speaker 30: all the way out there. They were all the way out.
Speaker 10: Three ICE agents.
Speaker 30: Turned around and walked right back in the crowd, not
Speaker 30: to arrest anybody, not just to like needle some folks
Speaker 30: and then walk out. And it went to hell. They're
Speaker 30: doing that on purpose. They're trying to like figure out
Speaker 30: how to needle that in between.
Speaker 11: Us on purpose. And you're right, sister, we.
Speaker 30: Have specific issues in our African American community. But one
Speaker 30: of the things that I think has has has pushed
Speaker 30: Donald Trump to that place we've been able to hold
Speaker 30: our discipline. And when we hold our discipline, then the
Speaker 30: news story isn't about some glasses that God broken.
Speaker 29: Or building they burned down, or is it the only.
Speaker 30: Thing they can cover is the fact that you murdered
Speaker 30: this man in the streets, shot him in the back.
Speaker 30: And so our ability to kind of navigate through this.
Speaker 30: And let me tell you, I have conversations with people
Speaker 30: in so many different communities that well, our community and
Speaker 30: all of our communities are unique, and all of our
Speaker 30: communities are challenged, and all of our communities are different,
Speaker 30: and we won't be able to hold together. You had
Speaker 30: the answer in your question, we won't be able to
Speaker 30: hold together without acknowledging those uniquenesses and the unique pain
Speaker 30: points that our African American community has, and the unique
Speaker 30: pain points that our Native community has, and then our
Speaker 30: Somoley community has, and our Jewish community have and those
Speaker 30: types of things. And the next level is making sure
Speaker 30: that we're kind of pulling all of those things together
Speaker 30: and saying, yes, there's some uniqueness, is there, but like,
Speaker 30: we have a common enemy right now who's trying to
Speaker 30: attack all of us, and our power exists in being
Speaker 30: able to be in this together.
Speaker 13: Nice, We've got two minutes, two minutes remaining, and I
Speaker 13: wanted to come back to our lodges on accountability. So
Speaker 13: right now, we've got a Justice Department that is really
Speaker 13: the injustice department. Remember the inversion, if it comes from Trump,
Speaker 13: is the opposite.
Speaker 11: This is the Justice Department, not under Pambondi.
Speaker 13: They're doing anything, but what is just my question is
Speaker 13: is on the accountability front, the folks who were the
Speaker 13: ICE agents who are masked, and I believe they're masked
Speaker 13: and don't want their faces shown because they've got to
Speaker 13: create a dissidence between humanity and then what they see
Speaker 13: is inhumane, which is.
Speaker 11: Their behavior towards all the rest of us.
Speaker 13: What does that look like in an administration where you've
Speaker 13: got a Justice Department that won't fairly investigate, You've got
Speaker 13: a president who is likely going to pardon outright every
Speaker 13: ICE agent federally before he leaves office, and yet our
Speaker 13: communities have suffered devastating harm. How do we make sure
Speaker 13: that the individuals who perpetuated and rain down this harm
Speaker 13: on our communities get the cost of justice that they deserve.
Speaker 28: So we've already started their process and that's a great question.
Speaker 28: I'm glad you asked before we got out this panel.
Speaker 28: So we've started their process County Attorney may Mriorati, Attorney
Speaker 28: General Keith Ellison, who said one of our superstars, they're
Speaker 28: already they've created portals to collect evidence, to collect information
Speaker 28: so that we can see what kind of harms are
Speaker 28: being done, so that we can then vet that information
Speaker 28: for potential charging.
Speaker 10: I think County Attornity Mary Mority.
Speaker 28: Came out to day and said we think she believes
Speaker 28: they have some sufficient evidence to move forward on the
Speaker 28: renee Good matter pretty soon.
Speaker 10: So we are already in the process of doing that.
Speaker 28: We've got some legislation that we that we're crafting to
Speaker 28: move forward to get people the ability to sue civilly
Speaker 28: for the harms that it's been done by these federal agents.
Speaker 28: The one thing I think they're gonna have a hard
Speaker 28: time doing. We've got some really smart people out there
Speaker 28: that can catch people and identify people with some freak
Speaker 28: facial recognition stuff. We're going to find these folks, And
Speaker 28: what I told people is going to be similar to
Speaker 28: how maybe like the Nuremberg trial and the jacent It's
Speaker 28: gonna be after the fact. But we're gonna find you
Speaker 28: and we're gonna hold you accountable. And the one thing
Speaker 28: for murder, there's no statute of limitation. So so, but
Speaker 28: what I will tell you to the community, and I
Speaker 28: didn't come here to campaign, but I will tell you
Speaker 28: to the community. You have to look at the people
Speaker 28: that are running to be leaders in these offices and
Speaker 28: positions that will be in a position to try these cases,
Speaker 28: to charge these cases and hope people account right. Look
Speaker 28: at how those candidates are moving right now to give
Speaker 28: you a pretty good idea of what they may or
Speaker 28: may not do if they're leading those offices. So we're
Speaker 28: gonna need strong leaders to make sure we carry that
Speaker 28: out and have the accountability because like I said, there's
Speaker 28: not going to be any healing until we do have accountability.
Speaker 11: There it is Minnesota, y'all have some of the best.
Speaker 11: You all have some of the best.
Speaker 13: Elected officials that I've encountered around the country.
Speaker 10: Will you give it up again for all four.
Speaker 11: Of our panelists or what the sacrifice.
Speaker 29: In this tests?
Speaker 1: All right, everybody's give it up one more time for
Speaker 1: these outstanding elected officials.
Speaker 14: Thanks for hanging with us.
Speaker 1: We have some other amazing folks who I know you
Speaker 1: all have seen, many of.
Speaker 14: You follow work with. Before we get.
Speaker 1: To that, I do want to just take a moment
Speaker 1: to shout out our friends at Act Blue who immediately
Speaker 1: went into action on Saturday night ten sure that there
Speaker 1: was a fundraiser page setup for the Minnesota Freedom Fund.
Speaker 1: You all know the great work that they're doing every
Speaker 1: single day. We thought it was so important to show
Speaker 1: you all for everybody who's.
Speaker 14: At home, like I'm scared to go to Minnesota, that's all.
Speaker 1: Right, send you money because we want to make sure
Speaker 1: we can bail people out of jail. We want to
Speaker 1: make sure we can get groceries on tables, we want
Speaker 1: to make sure we can get.
Speaker 14: Grants to small businesses. And our good friend.
Speaker 1: Eli Darris, who is the executive director of the Minnesota
Speaker 1: Freedom Fund, is joining us.
Speaker 14: Now, give it up, give it up, Give it up, y'all.
Speaker 1: He loves you because he is supposed to be at
Speaker 1: home on paternity leave.
Speaker 14: Okay, so he loves y'all. He's here. I also want to.
Speaker 1: Recognize the president of the University of Minnesota's Black Student Union.
Speaker 1: Many of you all know him, and if you don't
Speaker 1: know him, at home. We've seen him go viral recently
Speaker 1: for some powerful remarks in the face of ice terrorism.
Speaker 14: Give it up for Gutu Chin Kaso. Please got fans.
Speaker 14: Oh this brother I know very very well.
Speaker 1: We became close after I read his New York Times
Speaker 1: best selling book My Grandmother's Hands. And you all know
Speaker 1: that Resma Minicum is doing the work of the people
Speaker 1: every single day in Minnesota, making sure that we are
Speaker 1: able to process the trauma that we experience on a
Speaker 1: day to day basis and resume wherever you want to sit.
Speaker 14: We thank God for you. Oh no it's not. It's
Speaker 14: not last just yet.
Speaker 1: So Attorney Leslie Redmond, I want you all to give
Speaker 1: it up for her, because literally this would not have
Speaker 1: happened if it wasn't for Leslie. Leslie brought every single resource.
Speaker 1: Somebody wasn't calling me back. Leslie was like, since I
Speaker 1: got you, let me say less.
Speaker 14: And she was on it. So I just really thank
Speaker 14: God for you, Leslie. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: And it was very important to Leslie that she was
Speaker 1: on a panel this evening with someone who she loves
Speaker 1: very dearly.
Speaker 14: He has a shared sibling to us.
Speaker 1: He is President Derek Johnson of the naacps coming back
Speaker 1: to join us to chat it up a little bit,
Speaker 1: all right.
Speaker 14: So Resma, I want to start with you. I do
Speaker 14: because you know why.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you why, because the one thing I
Speaker 1: know you're gonna do is get us straight. We got
Speaker 1: to heal like where right now people are saying, oh, well,
Speaker 1: there's no point in being in Minnesota anymore.
Speaker 14: They're about to withdraw eyes.
Speaker 1: But now there's all of this destruction, literally death, literally
Speaker 1: grief as we sit here right now. Ilhan, our dear sister,
Speaker 1: was holding a town hall and a man comes up
Speaker 1: and sprays some foreign substance on her in her direction.
Speaker 1: Ilhan is the smallest giant I have ever seen in
Speaker 1: my life.
Speaker 14: So she was like, the town all gonna continu but.
Speaker 1: I think that it's important for us to understand how
Speaker 1: we reckon with what's going on.
Speaker 14: And as doctor King Best said, where do we go
Speaker 14: from here?
Speaker 10: Yeah?
Speaker 33: You know, Doctor King also said another thing. He said
Speaker 33: that just before he passed. He said, you know, I'm
Speaker 33: afraid that I've taken my people into a burning house,
Speaker 33: right and I want to start there because a lot
Speaker 33: of times we start with healing like this, like it's
Speaker 33: this magical thing. Right, And what I want to say
Speaker 33: is if in this moment in time where people are
Speaker 33: being murdered in the streets, that are officials' only caveat
Speaker 33: is to say we need to be better. They are
Speaker 33: leading us into a burning building. You get to be
Speaker 33: angry in this moment, You get to be pissed off.
Speaker 10: In this moment.
Speaker 33: You get to figure out how you turn towards each other.
Speaker 10: As opposed to on each other. That's what they want
Speaker 10: us to do.
Speaker 33: And so when I talk about healing, about healing, I'm
Speaker 33: talking about how do we tend to the things snatching babies.
Speaker 10: Out of people's arms.
Speaker 33: They're executing people by shooting them in the back and
Speaker 33: in the chest, and don't care that you're filming it.
Speaker 33: They're shooting women in the face and then calling them
Speaker 33: foul names after they do it.
Speaker 11: They kneeling. And let me say this last piece.
Speaker 10: This don't sound healing, but it is healing.
Speaker 33: What I'm talking to you about is healing is tending
Speaker 33: to the things that are showing up and beginning to
Speaker 33: figure out how you use that as fuel for your liberation. Right,
Speaker 33: We're not going to get out of this and return
Speaker 33: back Gavin Newsom ain't coming to save a Shaw.
Speaker 14: Can you say it again? Gay got mad at me
Speaker 14: when I went together.
Speaker 33: Gather Newsome, the current governor of Minnesota, are not coming
Speaker 33: to save us.
Speaker 10: What Let me just ask this one question.
Speaker 33: What if what we're seeing right now is the best
Speaker 33: they got?
Speaker 10: What if there are no better angels?
Speaker 33: What if what we're seeing is all they got for us?
Speaker 11: What does that.
Speaker 33: Mean in terms of what we need to do right?
Speaker 33: And that's what I want to talk about when I
Speaker 33: say healing.
Speaker 10: So when your question.
Speaker 33: About healing says we have to start nobody coming to
Speaker 33: save us. The mid terms ain't coming to save us.
Speaker 33: We are being asked right now, who are we going
Speaker 33: to be in the face of tyranny?
Speaker 10: That's the healing.
Speaker 14: Well, y'all see why we started here. He set the tone,
Speaker 14: didn't he Eli?
Speaker 1: So I want to come to you because freedom is
Speaker 1: in the name of the fund And to Resmu's point,
Speaker 1: you know, for years we have toiled with this concept
Speaker 1: of freedom, but we're lacking in resource right So even
Speaker 1: right now we're like, what are we going to build? Well,
Speaker 1: what are we going to build without proper resource? Like
Speaker 1: we won't even stay going to black businesses multiple days
Speaker 1: a week unless there's a fast. Oh okay, but you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, like, we won't even support each
Speaker 1: other unless we're required for many of us.
Speaker 14: I'm not saying all of us, too many of us.
Speaker 14: So what does healing look like?
Speaker 1: What does freedom look like without resource? And how do
Speaker 1: you encourage people to give what they have towards a
Speaker 1: common cause toward our liberation?
Speaker 29: M hmmm.
Speaker 34: Well, One, we have incredible resources, as the rest of
Speaker 34: this state and the rest of this nation has bear
Speaker 34: witness to. Uh, even when it seems as though there's lack.
Speaker 34: They may have looked at Minneapolis, Saint Paul, the Twin
Speaker 34: Cities and thought that, you know, we were lacking in something,
Speaker 34: we were weak, We were going to be easy that
Speaker 34: you know, this was going to be a push over,
Speaker 34: that they were going to create an example lot of
Speaker 34: us that they were then going to replicate another municipalities
Speaker 34: around the country. What they saw was a people respond
Speaker 34: robustly with a deep and embedded resource that's inside of us,
Speaker 34: and that's people power.
Speaker 7: Right.
Speaker 10: Uh.
Speaker 34: So we are the resource and as Resmus said, no
Speaker 34: one is coming to save us.
Speaker 10: We're the help that we've been waiting on it.
Speaker 34: So people have been able to see the power of people.
Speaker 34: And I fundamentally believe in the power of people to
Speaker 34: impact the realities that we want to see around us,
Speaker 34: to help to create the realities that we want to
Speaker 34: see around us. We said we were going to get
Speaker 34: ice out of here. We said that we were going
Speaker 34: to melt ice. We begin to see some of the
Speaker 34: tactics that they use, and so we created counter tactics.
Speaker 34: They weren't allowing people to be able to peacefully go
Speaker 34: and get hygiene, or go to the grocery store or
Speaker 34: do whatever, and so what did people decided to do?
Speaker 10: So we decided to.
Speaker 34: Galvanize our own resources and to create alternative ways that
Speaker 34: people would still be able to get food, still would
Speaker 34: be able to get provisions, still would be able to
Speaker 34: get resourced. Right, So, you know, the top level to
Speaker 34: the answer of their question is we the people are
Speaker 34: the resource. We have absolutely everything that we need to
Speaker 34: create the reality that we want to see around us.
Speaker 34: And so the nation was able to bear witness to
Speaker 34: that in terms of in terms of our giving our
Speaker 34: resources out, our financial, our emotional, whatever the resource is
Speaker 34: that we are giving out. I am a firm believer
Speaker 34: in sowing and weeping that what we what we put out,
Speaker 34: we get back multifold. And what I'm investing now in
Speaker 34: terms of I'm supposed to be at home with my
Speaker 34: family right now, right.
Speaker 6: I have an eight day old daughter, but this is
Speaker 6: so important to me.
Speaker 34: The environment that is cultivated is so important to me
Speaker 34: that I know I have to invest my time, my resources,
Speaker 34: my intellectual abilities, well whatever it is that I got,
Speaker 34: I know I gotta do this because twenty years from now,
Speaker 34: I want her to inherit a certain type of America, right,
Speaker 34: And so so I'm going to invest in now. I'm
Speaker 34: going to fight against the powers that be now. I'm
Speaker 34: going to do whatever it needs to be happening now
Speaker 34: because I have to. I have to be fighting for
Speaker 34: that greater later. And so, you know, those who are
Speaker 34: having a tough time of deciding how they're going to
Speaker 34: invest in or what they're going to invest in, I
Speaker 34: really don't know much to say to them, because to me,
Speaker 34: the state of the Union, the great conflammation, the great
Speaker 34: fire that we see burning around us, If that's not
Speaker 34: clear indication enough that we have to get off of
Speaker 34: our resources and do something you know what again, whether
Speaker 34: that is time, whether that is financial like whatever it is,
Speaker 34: I don't have a lot to say to anyone who
Speaker 34: would sit on a fence in a moment like this.
Speaker 34: We have to do something or something that's going to
Speaker 34: happen to us. So I know that's a non answer,
Speaker 34: but that's what I have.
Speaker 1: It's perfect. I want to take this moment. Speaking of
Speaker 1: resources I know we have in the audience. I hope
Speaker 1: they're still here because we meant to acknowledge this earlier.
Speaker 1: Jazz Hampton, who is an attorney earlier somewhere yes, right here, okay,
Speaker 1: and wanted to oh right over here, okay, yes, I
Speaker 1: can see in the dark now, Jazz, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: For those of you who have had interaction with law
Speaker 1: enforcement and are still confused about what to do.
Speaker 14: Jazz has an entire.
Speaker 2: App called Turn Turn.
Speaker 1: Signal, and it's here to provide other resource to you. Also,
Speaker 1: you don't feel like you're loan, because we do have
Speaker 1: everything we need. So on that I want to go
Speaker 1: to you YouTube because I think it's important. We are
Speaker 1: always talking about what young people aren't doing, what young
Speaker 1: people ought to do, and I think in rooms like this,
Speaker 1: what I love to do. I love hearing from young
Speaker 1: people about what we're not getting right to facilitate the
Speaker 1: type of future that Eli just talked about. So what
Speaker 1: do we need to do differently to support young people
Speaker 1: because we're not getting it right. Clearly, it ain't on y'all,
Speaker 1: it's on us. We all all do y'all got okay, Well,
Speaker 1: I'm all they young people too out here.
Speaker 35: We've got some young people in the back of board members.
Speaker 35: Shout out, y'all, yeah, sure for more of us. First
Speaker 35: of all, I just want to thank you Angela and
Speaker 35: the rest of you know, the Native lampod and the
Speaker 35: whole the whole crew for reaching out to me, you know,
Speaker 35: me being a junior at the University of Minnesota, being
Speaker 35: you know, younger twenty one, and just being in the
Speaker 35: space with so many amazing people, you know, legislators, just
Speaker 35: amazing people, you know, I'm trying to say, even president
Speaker 35: and a CP right here.
Speaker 13: Yeah.
Speaker 35: Yeah, So that's that's it's a blessing to be here, truly,
Speaker 35: just talking to your point about maybe what the people
Speaker 35: before me can potentially work on. I mean, honestly speaking,
Speaker 35: we're here because of people before me. So the first
Speaker 35: thing you have to always acknowledge the things and the
Speaker 35: gratitude to them or to kind of be here in
Speaker 35: these spaces to do this. And even being BSU president,
Speaker 35: you know, we're built on activism, We're built on change.
Speaker 35: We're built on fighting for what's right and fighting for
Speaker 35: the needs to create the better future as you talked
Speaker 35: about for people coming in behind us. And that's kind
Speaker 35: of how I view this as well. As it can
Speaker 35: be tough as a student, you know, you want to
Speaker 35: focus on your academics. You want to focus on, you know,
Speaker 35: maybe your future like an internship or a job. That's
Speaker 35: what I'm looking for right now. But you know, but
Speaker 35: at the end of the day, you can't deny what
Speaker 35: reality is. And what reality is in front of us
Speaker 35: all within our communities is that ICE. ICE is a
Speaker 35: terroristic organization. They're causing a lot of harm to our people.
Speaker 35: You know, whether that's old, young, whether that's immigrant or citizen,
Speaker 35: it doesn't matter what it is. They are causing continuous
Speaker 35: havoc and terror. And I think the biggest thing is
Speaker 35: I don't know if you guys got wrong before, but
Speaker 35: one thing I've learned is at least is just organization
Speaker 35: i'd say in the sense organization to gather troops, to
Speaker 35: gather people. I think throughout multiple different areas, multiple differences,
Speaker 35: and even within our universities, there's definitely a lot of division.
Speaker 35: I'd say division because of I don't know whether it
Speaker 35: be you know, race or ethnicity, or economic status or
Speaker 35: whatever it might be.
Speaker 11: There's there's still that division and also.
Speaker 35: That sense of I know somebody mentioned it earlier, kind
Speaker 35: of like I don't really have to worry about if
Speaker 35: it's not directly affecting me. And I know that that
Speaker 35: is not a good mindset to have at all, because
Speaker 35: when it gets to you, then who's going.
Speaker 2: To help you?
Speaker 10: Right?
Speaker 11: You feel me? Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 35: So I just view that as a sense of organization
Speaker 35: is key. Organization is important Continuously pushing and relying on
Speaker 35: young youth people like me to step up out of
Speaker 35: this out of our shelves, to really be here in
Speaker 35: these spaces. I mean, I'm so blessed to be here,
Speaker 35: but there's so many others that can be here that
Speaker 35: can really speak to so much more that I probably
Speaker 35: can't even speak to, and I want to to really
Speaker 35: push them to be here as well. I'd say so
Speaker 35: pushing on the youth, pushing them to continuously push to
Speaker 35: be better. Organization is definitely another big key step, and
Speaker 35: I think hope as well. I think in a lot
Speaker 35: of ways that can be lost when you're maybe talking
Speaker 35: to certain people that are older than you. Maybe they've
Speaker 35: seen a lot or they've been through a lot, and
Speaker 35: they don't really see that hope. But I think to
Speaker 35: continue pushing for hope is basically giving your services to
Speaker 35: your community. I think that can bring hope in a sense.
Speaker 35: Like let's say, if you're losing hope or if you're
Speaker 35: losing whatever you're going through, one thing I always think
Speaker 35: about is going back to my community, being a service
Speaker 35: to my communities, and I think that is the first
Speaker 35: step to hope, is relying back on your communities and
Speaker 35: pushing that forward as well as organization and you know,
Speaker 35: pushing on the youth. So that's kind of my answer.
Speaker 14: I guess, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: I want to come to you, Attorney Leslie, and I
Speaker 1: want to sit here for a moment in what I
Speaker 1: believe is starting to take shape on the stage, which
Speaker 1: is the role of each community member, right like we
Speaker 1: all have a role to play. Some of us are
Speaker 1: utility players. You're supposed to be in DC right now,
Speaker 1: but you feel called to stay home in Minnesota. Served
Speaker 1: as an NAACP president. I don't know how many organizations
Speaker 1: you got now, but you connected us to multiple businesses
Speaker 1: today that needed support. When we talked about mutual aid,
Speaker 1: you said you knew some people that can help with
Speaker 1: mutual Like at every turn, there was.
Speaker 14: A dot you were connecting.
Speaker 1: And I want to know what is the conviction that
Speaker 1: drives you to do that, and how do people who
Speaker 1: are sitting at home watching this on the live stream
Speaker 1: tap into that conviction even if they're not dot connectors,
Speaker 1: maybe they are one that needs to be in service
Speaker 1: in a particular way. But what is that conviction that
Speaker 1: you tap into when it feels like hope is gone,
Speaker 1: when it feels like fear and terror is writing.
Speaker 14: How do you tap into that?
Speaker 19: M such a good question.
Speaker 32: Grace and peace everyone, So first I would say, you know,
Speaker 32: my mom tells me sometime like Lesly, you're so fearless.
Speaker 32: I wish I was so fearless like you, and I
Speaker 32: have to remind her that I'm not fearless. There are
Speaker 32: a lot of times I'm afraid, and as a believer
Speaker 32: in the Bible constantly says, be not afraid, be of
Speaker 32: good courage, right, because God knows that we are going
Speaker 32: to be afraid.
Speaker 19: I don't think, amen.
Speaker 32: I don't think that David wasn't afraid when he went
Speaker 32: up against Goliath.
Speaker 19: It's just that he had more faith than he had fear.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 32: And so for me, you know, I really believe that
Speaker 32: we are our ancestors' wildest dreams. I believe that everything
Speaker 32: that we're seeing right now is a parallel to places
Speaker 32: that we've already been before. Right when we look at
Speaker 32: what Ice is doing right now, I think a lot
Speaker 32: about the Fugitive Slave Act right eighteen fifty and how
Speaker 32: we have to separate law and ethics.
Speaker 19: Right.
Speaker 32: Just because something is legal does not mean that it
Speaker 32: is ethically and moracally correct, right, and that is where
Speaker 32: civil disobedience has to rise and where we have to
Speaker 32: come to stand in our greatness. I think about drape
Speaker 32: Domania and when they tried to tell black people we
Speaker 32: were crazy for wanting our freedom.
Speaker 34: Right.
Speaker 32: I'm just I have crazy faith, Angela, Right, I have
Speaker 32: crazy faith to believe that we were meant to be free,
Speaker 32: that this is not the world that God intended for us, right,
Speaker 32: this is what humans have made it to be. And
Speaker 32: in twenty twenty, I said, Black Minnesota, we are done dying,
Speaker 32: and white Minnesota, you are done hiding your white Wakanda
Speaker 32: has been discovered and it's time for black people's humanity
Speaker 32: to be recognized.
Speaker 10: Right.
Speaker 32: And so I didn't know what I was saying in
Speaker 32: twenty twenty though, Right.
Speaker 10: That was God.
Speaker 14: That was God.
Speaker 10: It wasn't me.
Speaker 32: But as we fast forward to here we are in
Speaker 32: twenty twenty six, and white people are being killed in
Speaker 32: broad daylight.
Speaker 2: This is something I never thought I would really see in.
Speaker 32: Minnesota, right, And I'm seeing the parallels with Renee sitting
Speaker 32: in her car like Filando was sitting in his car
Speaker 32: when I see Alex laying on the ground and being murdered,
Speaker 32: like we saw Jamar Clark laying on the ground and
Speaker 32: being murdered.
Speaker 36: Right.
Speaker 14: And they didn't hear us, Angela, they didn't fill us.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: And I told people the black.
Speaker 32: Community, we've been warning, we've been prophesying, right, telling them
Speaker 32: what would happen if something doesn't change. And sadly we're here,
Speaker 32: But I believe that God has plans to prosper us
Speaker 32: and not harm us. I believe that what the enemy
Speaker 32: meant for bad, God meant for good. And so I
Speaker 32: believe that we are really at h we at a crossroad,
Speaker 32: brother Resma, right. And a lot of the time we
Speaker 32: talk about history repeating itself as if it's inevitable, but
Speaker 32: I think iver pieces o because we repeat ourselves, right,
Speaker 32: And so I'm determined not to repeat the sins of
Speaker 32: our past. And I was born in nineteen ninety two,
Speaker 32: this is my Jesus year.
Speaker 10: I'm thirty three, amen.
Speaker 32: And you know I was born right around the time
Speaker 32: where there was uprising in la and then I ended
Speaker 32: up leading in twenty twenty and then here we are,
Speaker 32: right here in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 19: That doesn't feel like a coincidence to.
Speaker 1: Me, right.
Speaker 32: I believe that we were destined to fight this fight.
Speaker 32: I believe that we were born for such a time
Speaker 32: as this. And I wouldn't trade places with Harriet Tubman.
Speaker 32: I'm not trying to run from Delaware to Maryland, right,
Speaker 32: and so because this is our run though, this is
Speaker 32: our fight, right. They say it's not just not a race,
Speaker 32: it's not shout out to Nipsey hustle, just a marathon,
Speaker 32: but it's a relay, right, and so we're passing the
Speaker 32: baton to each other, and me and my good sis
Speaker 32: Tis Jones of True Our Speaks have been having a
Speaker 32: lot of conversation around our narrative and how we can
Speaker 32: capture and reclaim our story. And that's why I say,
Speaker 32: don't complain activate right, because we all can't do everything,
Speaker 32: but we all can do something, Angela. And so my
Speaker 32: conviction comes from knowing that I owe something to future generations,
Speaker 32: I owe something to our ancestors, and I'm determined to
Speaker 32: be who God meant for me to be.
Speaker 13: Love it.
Speaker 1: Well, we have a phenomenal panel full of license and
Speaker 1: unlicensed preachers, and Derek is they'll close us out because
Speaker 1: both of my co hosts are texting me as if
Speaker 1: Bacari didn't start it by going over his time. But
Speaker 1: there's that Derek I'm looking at. He's given me you
Speaker 1: got a sadman room if not go back reclaiming my
Speaker 1: time for the president, I know nobody knows, Derek. I
Speaker 1: want you to talk to us about you mobilize hundreds
Speaker 1: of thousands of people. NAACP chapters mobilized hundreds of thousands
Speaker 1: of people.
Speaker 14: All over this country and there.
Speaker 1: Comes a time where, Leslie, we get called back home, right,
Speaker 1: can you please talk to us about the importance of
Speaker 1: standing ten toes down with membership organizations, especially when there
Speaker 1: might be a vote in the Senate on whether or
Speaker 1: not these Nazis, these January six ers, these terrorists now
Speaker 1: in Ice Mass are.
Speaker 14: Gonna get funded or not. You have a whole legislative arm.
Speaker 14: It's time for us to.
Speaker 1: Stand side by side with our civil rights org So
Speaker 1: can you please talk about the importance of that.
Speaker 21: So thank you, and I appreciate Lanslie. I remember when
Speaker 21: we first met French president, and the crazy thing was
Speaker 21: you was in law school and during the same time,
Speaker 21: and I said, have you lost your mind? But receiving
Speaker 21: Leslie at the exact same time, I had to deal
Speaker 21: with the eighty year old deacon who was honorey as
Speaker 21: hell but committed like nobody's been business and appreciating the
Speaker 21: middle aged sister who's trying to get the kids through
Speaker 21: high school while I'm talking to.
Speaker 10: The brother who's an executive. We are not a monoliths.
Speaker 21: We are a collective of Africans in America, and we
Speaker 21: got to respect how we show up at every step.
Speaker 21: The problem with leadership of institutions like the NAACP too
Speaker 21: many people sitting in his seat and then make it
Speaker 21: about them. It's ego centric and as a result of
Speaker 21: that we lose traction because they're trying to get to
Speaker 21: the news camera. What's going to happen, What must happen
Speaker 21: by Saturday. That will be a budget bill adopted or
Speaker 21: continued resolution in there is a line item of giving
Speaker 21: Ice more money. We need to mobilize folks. That's the
Speaker 21: q coles there to call folks. Senator Kloborshaw want to
Speaker 21: be a senator, I mean a governor. She need to
Speaker 21: be here clear from you all here. Not only do
Speaker 21: you vote against this bill if the line item is
Speaker 21: in there, you bring five fears along with you from
Speaker 21: the Senate. Because two times now we have been betrayed
Speaker 21: by Democrats who relied on black volks to get in office.
Speaker 21: And we must approach just understanding that political parties are
Speaker 21: nothing but vehicles for agendas, and we have to have
Speaker 21: a clear black agenda, and we always have had a
Speaker 21: clear black agenda.
Speaker 10: Far too many of.
Speaker 21: Us fall prey to the partisan conversation.
Speaker 11: Who cares.
Speaker 21: If our folks still not not getting the food that's needed.
Speaker 21: So as we look at what's happening here, one of
Speaker 21: the things we can do is mobilized, as we're doing
Speaker 21: across the country, to put the pressure on Senators to
Speaker 21: not vote for this bill if the ice funding gets
Speaker 21: in there.
Speaker 2: But if it passed, that doesn't stop.
Speaker 21: The process, because that Bob Moses said, do some vices movement.
Speaker 21: Every episode just a different theater in the fight on
Speaker 21: our journey to freedom, and we will get there. Why
Speaker 21: because we are a people who fight, we persevere, and
Speaker 21: we will get self determination.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, y'all give it up for this amazing piano.
Speaker 14: We're so grateful to each of you.
Speaker 1: And speaking of elected officials who are accountable to the people,
Speaker 1: who are regularly representing what we need done, ensuring that
Speaker 1: our voices are heard, and that there's an advocate in
Speaker 1: one of the highest offices in Minnesota, please join me
Speaker 1: and welcome me your Attorney General, Keith Ellison. He's got
Speaker 1: a receiving line, y'all, he's coming, Attorney General Keith Ellison.
Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, I mean I try. I said, I'm
Speaker 1: channeling Angela Davis. That's who I was named after I
Speaker 1: yield the floor to the journey.
Speaker 36: Generally, thank you Angela, Hey, thank you guys for being
Speaker 36: out here tonight.
Speaker 10: I can't think of a more important place for you
Speaker 10: to be.
Speaker 36: Our country, in our state, in our city, in this
Speaker 36: very moment, has been the site of the largest single
Speaker 36: escalation of ICE agents of immigration officials in the history
Speaker 36: of the United States. Ordinarily, ICE has about one hundred
Speaker 36: people for the five state area, the five state area.
Speaker 36: Now they have four thousand ICE agents for just the
Speaker 36: state of Minnesota, which is an increase.
Speaker 10: I don't have to tell you what's been happening.
Speaker 36: You live here, you've been seeing it, you've been experiencing
Speaker 36: it yourself.
Speaker 10: But this blanket of.
Speaker 36: Attack is certainly not normal, not justified, and is not legal.
Speaker 10: So what we have done about Operation Metro Surge.
Speaker 36: First of all, as we filed a lawsuit which was
Speaker 36: heard yesterday, and what we argue was very simple that
Speaker 36: if the federal government cannot bully and take over Minnesota
Speaker 36: and pass laws to make us do what the federal
Speaker 36: government wants, if they can't do it with an executive
Speaker 36: order or with a piece of legislation, they certainly can't
Speaker 36: do it with four thousand armed masked men. If they
Speaker 36: couldn't pass the law that said all Minnesota law enforcement
Speaker 36: is now an ice agent, which they could not do.
Speaker 36: They certainly can't say, oh, you don't want to do
Speaker 36: it our way, We're going to send people with guns
Speaker 36: in large numbers to your state to intimidate and even
Speaker 36: kill people. At the end of the day, believe we
Speaker 36: are going to prevail because we're right and what we're
Speaker 36: doing is just. And I am telling you that we're
Speaker 36: not here to back down. And I will also tell
Speaker 36: you this, there is no legal barrier to a state
Speaker 36: prosecutor charging a federal agent. You understand there's no legal barrier.
Speaker 36: I've been a lawyer for thirty six years. I'm here
Speaker 36: to tell you that law and morality are not the
Speaker 36: same thing. That unjust things happen in the name of
Speaker 36: the law, and you know. But what I'm telling you
Speaker 36: is that it is not a fact that the federal
Speaker 36: agents can commit crimes in this state and never have
Speaker 36: to worry about accountability.
Speaker 10: You heard the Vice.
Speaker 36: President of the United States tell you absolute immunity. I
Speaker 36: don't know if he's lying or if he just doesn't
Speaker 36: know the law, but he's absolutely wrong.
Speaker 10: You could pick lying.
Speaker 36: Or ignorant, but he's wrong either way. You can pick
Speaker 36: either one, but it is not the case. And the
Speaker 36: real challenge, and I'm just going to be very clear
Speaker 36: with you guys, is the pragmatic reality of completing an
Speaker 36: investigation and then getting a case to a grand jury
Speaker 36: or getting enough probable cause to charge.
Speaker 10: Now, there's a lot of cases that.
Speaker 36: Are hard to bring because you do have evidentiary barriers.
Speaker 36: In this situation, there's so much video evidence. There is
Speaker 36: so much video evidence, and look, so the reality of
Speaker 36: the situation is I'm not going to stand upereard and
Speaker 36: say I'm charging that dude with this, and I'm gonna
Speaker 36: tell you why, because that would be improper.
Speaker 10: Prosecutors shouldn't do that.
Speaker 36: We will remember when George Floyd was murdered, First we got
Speaker 36: the evidence together, then we charge all four of them
Speaker 36: with murder. I'm just using that as an example to
Speaker 36: let you know that nobody here should feel that these
Speaker 36: people are just going to skate on this. Okay, you
Speaker 36: shouldn't feel that way. Now when when when on the
Speaker 36: first time, when they killed h renee Good, local police
Speaker 36: went and said we need to process the crime scene,
Speaker 36: find evidence, put put things down, you know, the little
Speaker 36: little cards, and put the numbers down, and make sure
Speaker 36: that we process the scene. And the federal agent said, no,
Speaker 36: you're not going to be allowed to do that, and
Speaker 36: we're going to take the casings, we're going to take
Speaker 36: this car, and we're going to take the gun. So
Speaker 36: then it was like, okay, that's different. And then they
Speaker 36: shot a man in North Minneapolis. Who's who survived only
Speaker 36: right over there y'all might have been who was there
Speaker 36: that night in North Bend the epics when it was
Speaker 36: when the chemical irritant was in the ear, like smoke everywhere.
Speaker 10: Good to see you there, Latania.
Speaker 36: And then but and then they said, no, you're not
Speaker 36: going to process that scene. So now on this one
Speaker 36: we hear about Preddie getting shot. We went to court
Speaker 36: and got a court order and got a judge to
Speaker 36: rule that the evidence may not be destroyed, may not
Speaker 36: be tampers with, and we have to have access with
Speaker 36: it in the gut.
Speaker 10: The judge issue the order Saturday night.
Speaker 36: We were back in court yesterday arguing it and the
Speaker 36: court is not not ruled yet, but we are confident
Speaker 36: that they're not going to be able to mess around
Speaker 36: with this evidence.
Speaker 10: So what I'm just.
Speaker 36: Telling you that that whether it's a civil action that
Speaker 36: we've taken or whether it's the criminal cases we are
Speaker 36: we are going to do everything we can to make
Speaker 36: sure there's truth and accountability here. Now, let me just
Speaker 36: tell you this, this situation, this oppression that Minnesota is
Speaker 36: under right now, will not be solved in a courtroom.
Speaker 36: It just won't be like so after the Floyd case,
Speaker 36: did police brutality stop?
Speaker 10: No.
Speaker 36: That's why at the time I said, this is not justice,
Speaker 36: but it is accountability. The real justice and the real
Speaker 36: freedom and the real true democracy will be because you
Speaker 36: go out in the street and demonstrate and say no
Speaker 36: to this oppression. It is the people in the street,
Speaker 36: in the hearts and the minds of the people marching
Speaker 36: in nine to below weather, standing up and saying no,
Speaker 36: we're not going to let you roll over us this way,
Speaker 36: which is going to win the day. Together with elections,
Speaker 36: together with the artists, together with all of these things
Speaker 36: that we collect to try to create a just society.
Speaker 10: And it's not overnight.
Speaker 36: And I cannot guarantee you perfect safety as you fight
Speaker 36: for justice any more than people could guarantee Martin Luther King. Oh,
Speaker 36: nobody's ever gonna hurt you if you stand up for justice,
Speaker 36: or nobody's ever gonna hurt you. Nobody's ever gonna harm
Speaker 36: you if you if you protest, Jimmy Lee Jackson, we
Speaker 36: all know what happened. There's no there's no guarantee of
Speaker 36: perfect safety when an oppress or feels threatened that you're
Speaker 36: trying to be free yourself. So at the end of
Speaker 36: the day, friends, I am asking you to protest. I'm
Speaker 36: asking you to protest peacefully and safely. But I would
Speaker 36: rather you be out there facing those bad guys, and
Speaker 36: that is exactly what they are than sitting at home
Speaker 36: worrying about your own comfort and safety safely not doing anything.
Speaker 10: We need people to be We need everybody to.
Speaker 36: Do any whatever they can do. And some people, look,
Speaker 36: they got bad needs there, they've got disabilities.
Speaker 10: They can't be out there protesting.
Speaker 36: Well, maybe you can make calls and get people to
Speaker 36: the election that's coming up. Maybe you can do mutual
Speaker 36: aid for people who are shut up in their homes
Speaker 36: and can't even go to work because they're scared the
Speaker 36: iations going to stop them. But at the end of
Speaker 36: the day, all of us have to do something in
Speaker 36: this movement that we're in, and you being here tonight
Speaker 36: is doing something, is doing something important, because let me
Speaker 36: tell you, presence is Presence is power, friends, witnesses power.
Speaker 36: And let me tell you the bad ones out there
Speaker 36: who are trying to press all of us, they know
Speaker 36: very well that you're having a meeting here tonight at
Speaker 36: the Capri. You think they don't know, they knew if
Speaker 36: they were spying on you in the sixties. You think
Speaker 36: they're not spying you on you in the twenty twenties.
Speaker 36: Of course they are, but screw them. We're not scared
Speaker 36: of them. And I don't care if mister miss Christinoan
Speaker 36: knows that I I'm here working with you guys.
Speaker 10: And you should not.
Speaker 36: And if you're scared that she's going to know about you,
Speaker 36: be hey, are you in the wrong place?
Speaker 10: This is this movement. We are guarantee.
Speaker 36: Success because we are faithful. We are guarantee success because
Speaker 36: we are faithful, and we won't quit and we won't
Speaker 36: ever give up. Now, a last word that I want
Speaker 36: to say to you, And I don't know if Angela
Speaker 36: wants me to answer any questions or not, but there
Speaker 36: is one word I want to say to you before
Speaker 36: I rap, I want to urge you and talk to
Speaker 36: you about the fundamental importance of human solidarity in this moment,
Speaker 36: because so often we're oppressed based on our identity and
Speaker 36: as African Americans. You and I know two hundred and
Speaker 36: forty six years of slavery, one hundred years of Jim Crow,
Speaker 36: and disparities in race every single year after that, There's
Speaker 36: never been a moment where black life in America has
Speaker 36: been celebrated in official channels. The one time somebody black
Speaker 36: becomes president, it scares this country so bad that it
Speaker 36: brings on Donald Trump. So you and I both know
Speaker 36: the deal here. But what I'm saying to you is,
Speaker 36: as a child who's as a child of African descent,
Speaker 36: as a black man in America, who can trace my
Speaker 36: roots in America since seventeen forty two, I can.
Speaker 10: These folks can't.
Speaker 36: Tell me I don't I'm not from here, And no
Speaker 36: black person in this room whose ancestors came here and
Speaker 36: slavery can be told you're not from here. But did
Speaker 36: you know that you were not a citizen up until
Speaker 36: the fourteenth Amendment?
Speaker 10: Did you know that?
Speaker 36: Did you know that the Supreme Court justice in the
Speaker 36: United States, the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court,
Speaker 36: said black people who were born, lived their whole lives
Speaker 36: and died in this country for seven generations up until
Speaker 36: the about eighteen fifties were not citizens. So this thing
Speaker 36: about citizen has always been racially informed. Did you know
Speaker 36: that the first statutes on immigration to this country said
Speaker 36: only free white people could come here.
Speaker 10: It wasn't until nineteen sixty five.
Speaker 36: That Asian, Latin American, and African people could immigrate to
Speaker 36: the United States. Immigration was a civil rights bill, just
Speaker 36: like the Voting Rights Act was.
Speaker 37: And so I'm gonna send me over here like a
Speaker 37: sign man.
Speaker 14: He just said, might drop.
Speaker 1: Okay, y'all give it up again for Attorney Generarchy Dallas,
Speaker 1: and he walked all the way out.
Speaker 14: We love him.
Speaker 1: We're so grateful for his passion, first commitment, for being
Speaker 1: here with that this evening again on such short notice.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Attorney General Keith Ellison. I'm bringing
Speaker 1: out my co host Andrew.
Speaker 14: Gillam Macari Sellers.
Speaker 1: We have a quick panel with some clergy folk who
Speaker 1: are doing tremendous work.
Speaker 2: Who cares about truth when the last more than say it.
Speaker 1: As you all know, there was a big organizing effort
Speaker 1: with clergy at the airport just last week.
Speaker 14: It is important that folks are raising.
Speaker 1: Their voices because we know there's a whole other one
Speaker 1: that has a whole church. But he's also working with lice.
Speaker 1: But we'll talk about that another time. Please welcome to
Speaker 1: the stage, Reverend doctor Karen McKinney, Professor and Community Liaison
Speaker 1: at Betha University, Minister Janeyamuri Bates, Betsamurray Believe, Co Executive
Speaker 1: Director of Faith in Minnesota, and Isaiah and our good
Speaker 1: sister when Tana Mellikein, executive director of Groundwork Action Call Hosts,
Speaker 1: So you're coming back out, We're gonna ask some quick
Speaker 1: questions and I know we're getting the calls to action.
Speaker 14: So the hour is late and we got to work.
Speaker 1: I don't know where when Tana is, but she will
Speaker 1: join us soon hopefully.
Speaker 14: All right, Well, first of all, ladies, can.
Speaker 1: You talk about the importance of motivating and moving clergy
Speaker 1: to act at a time like this. I think about
Speaker 1: the letter from the Birmingham jail and what doctor King
Speaker 1: was challenging us with. Come I Andrew challenging us with and
Speaker 1: it feels like this moment is yet again a choice
Speaker 1: between white nationalist Christianity and black liberation theology, and then
Speaker 1: somewhere in between everybody else when Tana, everybody give it
Speaker 1: up for when Tana we introduced one time a mother
Speaker 1: gen Yes, but I want you to weigh in on that, Jamay,
Speaker 1: and then I'll yield to you.
Speaker 16: I mean absolutely.
Speaker 20: The reality is is that we are we are going
Speaker 20: to constantly recreate history, and we get to be deciders
Speaker 20: on if we're going to be history makers in the
Speaker 20: midst of it. And so I would say it is
Speaker 20: not just about frankly agitating the Church, but it is
Speaker 20: about agitating America that proclaims and professes to be the Church.
Speaker 20: And so when you are living in a place in
Speaker 20: the land that weaponizes my Jesus and my Bible, I
Speaker 20: am I find it incredibly important that people who say
Speaker 20: that they know God, say that they know Christ, actually
Speaker 20: live that out and call other folks into it. And
Speaker 20: so the action that we took on Friday, on the
Speaker 20: Day of Truth and Freedom, even the fact that that
Speaker 20: I think it's important to say, even the fact that
Speaker 20: that day came into being was because of a bunch
Speaker 20: of people of faith and union leaders and community members
Speaker 20: who said that we are going to take ourselves seriously
Speaker 20: enough to build the kind of power to orchestrate the
Speaker 20: kind of organizing necessary to have something like that, because
Speaker 20: the reality is that people can call for an economic
Speaker 20: blackout or a general strike and like say that thing.
Speaker 20: But then you got to look back to what happened
Speaker 20: in Montgomery, Alabama in nineteen fifty five, when folks in
Speaker 20: a church said we're going to have the Montgomery bus boycott.
Speaker 20: It was not just oh, let's do this thing and
Speaker 20: we're going to say it and it'll happen. They put
Speaker 20: in the ground game to have three hundred and eighty
Speaker 20: one days of people being able to get to work,
Speaker 20: to be able to get their kids, to be able
Speaker 20: to go to groceries and not take the bus, and
Speaker 20: so with a man and so I do think that
Speaker 20: people of faith have to make sure that we are
Speaker 20: truly taking ourselves seriously enough to strategize what does it
Speaker 20: mean to do something today, what is it going to
Speaker 20: mean for us tomorrow, what is it going to look
Speaker 20: like for our people to day after that, and actually
Speaker 20: put in the real grit and organizing that's required to
Speaker 20: make that kind of thing come to be.
Speaker 12: I had a shirt that said Jesus is not just
Speaker 12: a Sunday thing because lot of times we don't ascribe
Speaker 12: to the notion that they teach us in the Book
Speaker 12: of James that says that faith without works is dead.
Speaker 12: Because sometimes we become a very prime people. Our knees
Speaker 12: get sore, we put holes in the carpet and forget
Speaker 12: that we have to put our shoulder to the wheel
Speaker 12: on Monday to go out and get out the ditch.
Speaker 10: My question is about the.
Speaker 12: Disconnect that the church has perceived with this new generation
Speaker 12: that's coming up, and how we as believers of whatever,
Speaker 12: can bridge that gap because we need them in our doors.
Speaker 12: The church used to be Andrew and I we were
Speaker 12: having this discussion and Angela as well last week on
Speaker 12: the show. But we all agree that the church used
Speaker 12: to be that, and our stress used to be the
Speaker 12: epicenter of change. That's where we had our organizational meetings,
Speaker 12: that's where we had our precinct meetings. That's where we
Speaker 12: fed the hungary in our communities. I mean, this event
Speaker 12: in nineteen sixty five would have been in somebody Baptist
Speaker 12: Church in Minneapolis. Doors open bus is going to get
Speaker 12: folks bringing them here church moms. I mean, so, how
Speaker 12: do we get back to that or evolve to the
Speaker 12: next iteration of that while also opening our arms to
Speaker 12: a generation that feels is that the church is not
Speaker 12: their home anymore.
Speaker 10: And for me, that's that's almost devastating. McKinney.
Speaker 38: That's a hard one, see because and maybe it's because
Speaker 38: I'm older, and then that disconnect, I see, it's there.
Speaker 38: I have ninety four nieces and nephews, ninety four nieces
Speaker 38: and nephews and grand nieces and great grands and so
Speaker 38: when I started doing this, I started calling up my
Speaker 38: nieces and nephews and saying, come come with me.
Speaker 19: You have to care. You don't have a choice. And
Speaker 19: it's like, oh, that's Dan, Karen, Reverend and Karen. But
Speaker 19: some of them listen.
Speaker 38: So I think there's a disconnect, but there's also you know,
Speaker 38: they see what's going on and they care. And so
Speaker 38: when I said come to this training, you know, some
Speaker 38: of the four of them showed up and came to
Speaker 38: the training, and it's like.
Speaker 19: You have you have to be out there with me.
Speaker 38: So so I think they're seeing and I'm not sure
Speaker 38: that that. I mean, I know there's a disconnect. But
Speaker 38: in my church, we have a rebirth of young people
Speaker 38: because I remember the days when you know, I'm standing
Speaker 38: and I'm shaking hands and standing by the door.
Speaker 19: And there's not too many young people. But then I
Speaker 19: counted seven babies.
Speaker 38: I said, seven people with seven babies walk by, you know,
Speaker 38: and it's like, we're getting people, and so.
Speaker 19: They want they people are hungry for it.
Speaker 38: And in my church, which is Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church,
Speaker 38: we are unashamedly black, yes, and we're proud to be
Speaker 38: a black church and own that, even if all of
Speaker 38: our men are not.
Speaker 19: And so we want that black history.
Speaker 38: We profess that, we say that we are proud of that,
Speaker 38: and we call forth people to be active and not
Speaker 38: sit back. And so you know, I was designated in
Speaker 38: my church to be when we started this Black Core
Speaker 38: Leadership team, We're going to be one of these churches
Speaker 38: that is involved in Isaiah and faith in Minnesota. The
Speaker 38: pastor said, you take the lead on that. So I
Speaker 38: took the lead on that, and I was with those
Speaker 38: people who got arrested on Friday, because I'm taking the
Speaker 38: lead on that, and that's the expectation. And there's all
Speaker 38: kinds of people from my churches and all the other
Speaker 38: churches that they put in and they say yes. And
Speaker 38: I left this meeting, left a meeting where people were saying,
Speaker 38: we're going to caucus and are you committed to caucusing
Speaker 38: and are you committed to bringing ten more people with
Speaker 38: you to Caucus on February third, And people were saying, yes,
Speaker 38: I'm committed to this for the long run, and I'm
Speaker 38: going to ask my people.
Speaker 19: So we're still We're still doing it.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I love that. Give her a round of applause
Speaker 10: for that. I mean, and I am. I mean.
Speaker 12: My last comment on this is that I am absolutely
Speaker 12: unapologetic about the onus that I put on the Black Church.
Speaker 12: And the reason being is because I feel like as
Speaker 12: a community.
Speaker 10: And this may be right or wrong, but I'll probably
Speaker 10: die with this.
Speaker 12: We don't survive, but we thrive if our church is
Speaker 12: the foundation of our community, not just our faith.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would agree with you speaking of the foundation
Speaker 1: of our community. Sit next to someone who created the
Speaker 1: Groundwork Institute, and I want to just take a moment
Speaker 1: here because without Antana protests and general strikes and all
Speaker 1: of that. The rally last week would not have happened
Speaker 1: last Friday, and so let's please give it up for
Speaker 1: Buntana and all the work she's doing. And I also
Speaker 1: just want to acknowledge the human cost of the work
Speaker 1: she is battling to make sure that her loved ones
Speaker 1: are safe in the midst of putting her body on
Speaker 1: the line for all of us. And so I want
Speaker 1: you for a moment to talk about the fact one
Speaker 1: I'm acknowledging you give all of you to this community.
Speaker 1: I want to know and this is probably going to
Speaker 1: be very hard because you're a black woman in America,
Speaker 1: but I want to know what this room can give
Speaker 1: back to you.
Speaker 9: First, I just want to say thank you for having me.
Speaker 39: And I also want to say the only reason I
Speaker 39: was a part of the march in the rally last
Speaker 39: week is because Janey propositioned me to show up and
Speaker 39: take that role. Janey was the person that really was
Speaker 39: the foundation of it and called me into her team.
Speaker 9: They actually just voted me in.
Speaker 39: On Monday as official member, and so I just want
Speaker 39: to acknowledge all the work she did, So thank you. So,
Speaker 39: as Angel shared, i I'm an air trained American. I'm
Speaker 39: a US citizen, but I also am struggling with immigration
Speaker 39: issues across my family. I mean, just yesterday when coordinating
Speaker 39: with Angela around this, I had a family member picked
Speaker 39: up and now they're in New Mexico and we're trying
Speaker 39: to figure out what to do about it. Lately, in Minnesota,
Speaker 39: most folks have been getting sent to Texas, and now
Speaker 39: we got folks going to a new state.
Speaker 9: As y'all know, about.
Speaker 39: Three thousand folks have been picked up over the last
Speaker 39: couple of weeks. They have been sent all over the country.
Speaker 39: I have family members who are US citizens. I've had
Speaker 39: family members with green cards. I have folks with more
Speaker 39: complex statuses who have been picked up by ice.
Speaker 9: There is no strategy, no theory.
Speaker 39: They are just picking up our community members and making
Speaker 39: them disappear. And at the same time, the other part
Speaker 39: of this battle is that I'm an executive director of
Speaker 39: not one but two institutions, Groundwork Institute and Groundwork Action,
Speaker 39: where I got to get up every day and do
Speaker 39: the political organizing and do the development and the train
Speaker 39: and all that. At the same time, you know, having
Speaker 39: to figure out what autlly can I send a Whipple
Speaker 39: to pick up my cousin, because I can't go back
Speaker 39: there again after, you know, being there just a couple
Speaker 39: weeks before that, picking a different family member. And so
Speaker 39: I asked for everyone in this community is to continue
Speaker 39: with the demands ICE out of Minnesota. Absolutely, I need
Speaker 39: you to contact your member of Congress and make those demands,
Speaker 39: your state rep, your city council member, every single level
Speaker 39: of government. The other thing I'll add is that last
Speaker 39: Friday during the march, I sat at my computer and
Speaker 39: I deleted my Netflix. I deleted every Postmates, all the
Speaker 39: little services I had, I canceled them.
Speaker 9: The only place I've been shopping at is my co op.
Speaker 39: Like folks that I know have already taken a political
Speaker 39: position to say we stand with immigrants, we don't stand
Speaker 39: with ICE, and I have just been unapologetic about rethinking
Speaker 39: about the way I spend money, the way I move,
Speaker 39: and I encourage everybody else in this room to do that.
Speaker 39: And I just think one other thing I got a
Speaker 39: name that I think can't be forgotten about this moment
Speaker 39: is that I am very clear that the only reason
Speaker 39: I have the right to be in the United States
Speaker 39: is the work of black Americans. It is very clear
Speaker 39: that after passing the Civil Rights Act and after the
Speaker 39: passing of Voting Rights.
Speaker 9: Act, the Immigration Act was passed.
Speaker 39: After that the work of Martin Luther King to open
Speaker 39: the door and all the others to open the door
Speaker 39: to allow immigrants into the United States. And so I
Speaker 39: very clearly see, after all the organizing I did for
Speaker 39: Jamar Clark and Philando Castile, I have very overwhelmingly seen
Speaker 39: the Black American community step up in this moment and
Speaker 39: stand in solidarity.
Speaker 9: And I'd be remiss if I didn't name that. And
Speaker 9: so I don't know what more to ask for.
Speaker 39: I have seen folks really step up in this moment,
Speaker 39: and I just encourage folks to continue to do it
Speaker 39: with their political power, their message, and their money.
Speaker 12: So I guess before we do our lot of actions
Speaker 12: that they're any final I mean, I'm a big I'm
Speaker 12: the person who's crying on the airplane. I have my
Speaker 12: hoodie own and they'd be like, why is he tearing up?
Speaker 12: Because it's a Marven Sap plan in my ear. So
Speaker 12: I'm that emotional guy who's crying. Any parting words for
Speaker 12: this audience as we begin to bring this to a
Speaker 12: close of faith, the strength that we have, what we
Speaker 12: need to do to persevere to get through uh, this
Speaker 12: dark time. You can preach a little bit, just a
Speaker 12: little bit, have a pisk pal, you're not that Baptist stuff.
Speaker 10: Love it.
Speaker 38: I would just I guess I would say God chooses
Speaker 38: no hands but our hands. God uses no hands but
Speaker 38: our hands and feet and and and so we have
Speaker 38: to choose. We have to choose to let God use
Speaker 38: our hands and feet. And we have to choose it
Speaker 38: every day. It's not a one time choice. You're not done,
Speaker 38: you know, and tomorrow I get to just lay in. No,
Speaker 38: we have to we have to choose it every day.
Speaker 38: And it matters for the generations that come behind us.
Speaker 19: What what kind of kids? What are what are our
Speaker 19: kids going to have?
Speaker 11: You know?
Speaker 38: If we keep going backwards? So we have to pick uh,
Speaker 38: and we if we can't let go. Yeah, I guess
Speaker 38: that's what I says.
Speaker 20: I mean, I would just lean, have us all lean
Speaker 20: into the story of the Good Samaritan, the notion that
Speaker 20: there is there when anytime there is someone who is hurting,
Speaker 20: someone who has beaten, someone who has oppressed, someone who
Speaker 20: is down trotten for whatever reason, we are called to
Speaker 20: do and to act. And there were folks who walked
Speaker 20: past that body and thought, I can't I can't do
Speaker 20: anything about that, because if I do, what happens to me?
Speaker 20: And the one who decided to stop said, I, if
Speaker 20: I keep going, what happens to them?
Speaker 2: And I think there is a collective what.
Speaker 20: Happens to us if we don't act?
Speaker 14: And so is that is the call?
Speaker 16: And for the Minnesotans.
Speaker 20: I can't end this without saying for the Minnesotans who
Speaker 20: are in the room, specially black Minnesotan's.
Speaker 10: February third is caucus Day.
Speaker 19: Okay.
Speaker 20: We we could talk all day in like little settings
Speaker 20: like this, but it is so incredibly important that we
Speaker 20: use our voice and having oversize an outside stay about
Speaker 20: what happens in our state and in our country. And
Speaker 20: you get the opportunity to do that when you caucus,
Speaker 20: and when we caucus together in unity.
Speaker 14: Amen.
Speaker 20: Amen, So y'all join me at a training on on Monday. Okay,
Speaker 20: Monday is six thirty a Greater Friendship Missionary Baptist Church.
Speaker 20: We're gonna get trained to caucus together with the actual strategy.
Speaker 20: Wein just gonna show up. Willy Nelly, We're gonna come
Speaker 20: through and actually win an agenda.
Speaker 27: Okay, I go to a Catholic church, so I can't
Speaker 27: sermon like that.
Speaker 13: It's not in me.
Speaker 9: I'll try my best. I'm in the.
Speaker 10: That's around the wine and a little bit.
Speaker 9: But we do do that.
Speaker 1: We do that a little bray is you better watch
Speaker 1: that backwash.
Speaker 27: Okay, y'all laughed a little too hard at my people.
Speaker 39: But so I just I'd be remiss if I didn't
Speaker 39: talk about what happened about an hour before I walked
Speaker 39: in this room, a Congressoman Omar at her town hall
Speaker 39: was standing there talking about how we need to hold
Speaker 39: the federal government accountable.
Speaker 9: And a man walked up to her with a substance
Speaker 9: and sprayed her in the face. And you know, I.
Speaker 27: Have to also talk about how Congressman orders.
Speaker 9: She swung back. She literally swung back.
Speaker 39: She approached him and then cleaned herself up and then
Speaker 39: continued the forum, continued the conversation, she put out a
Speaker 39: statement and said, we have to keep going.
Speaker 9: We have to keep fighting.
Speaker 39: And this is very difficult, this is absolutely horrific. But
Speaker 39: also we have to keep going. We have to keep fighting.
Speaker 39: We can't sit here and wallow. You know, feel the pain,
Speaker 39: feel the trauma, experience it, process it, you know, go
Speaker 39: to your place of faith, you know, do what you
Speaker 39: need to do. But also after that, we have to
Speaker 39: you know, leave this, leave these spaces and go back
Speaker 39: to organizing. And that there are folks with less access
Speaker 39: and privilege and all the things who are sitting in
Speaker 39: detention centers that are dependent on us to leave this
Speaker 39: room and stand up for them because they can't stand
Speaker 39: up for themselves. So no matter what we're experiencing, it's
Speaker 39: a little bit harder to go to the gas station,
Speaker 39: it's a little bit harder to get around.
Speaker 9: You got to carry your passport one hundred percent.
Speaker 39: But if you have the privilege to stand up for
Speaker 39: someone who literally can't leave their house, I beg you
Speaker 39: to do it. I beg you to take that action.
Speaker 39: And then being an electoral really, as Janey said, you.
Speaker 9: Have to caucus.
Speaker 39: It is if you have the if you have the
Speaker 39: ability to. For some folks it's not safe, I get it.
Speaker 39: But if you have the ability, caucus on February third.
Speaker 39: One thing that you could do at caucuses that people
Speaker 39: often forget is you could do resolution. So there's statements
Speaker 39: where you say, I believe that we need ice out
Speaker 39: of m N or I believe in a higher minimum wage.
Speaker 39: You can write statements like that and bring them there
Speaker 39: and get them added to your plat parties platform.
Speaker 9: You can join one of the committees.
Speaker 39: So there are so many opportunities for you to take
Speaker 39: a position and let it be known where you stand
Speaker 39: and really defend the folks next to you that.
Speaker 9: Just don't have the capacity to defend themselves.
Speaker 39: So I just ask you to, you know, be a
Speaker 39: true neighbor and stand up for whoever you know can't stand.
Speaker 14: So thank you all, so very much.
Speaker 1: Let's give it up again for Reverend doctor Karen McKinny
Speaker 1: minister today.
Speaker 14: We're so grateful, bring you on.
Speaker 6: Thank you so much, so great.
Speaker 1: Okay, y'all, we're going to get to our calls to
Speaker 1: action or repping the show.
Speaker 13: But you can know, well I'll just say I love
Speaker 13: that because we talked about this on the show. But
Speaker 13: how the right wing is really bastardized evangelicals right, every
Speaker 13: time you hear evangelicals, the evangelical community got behind Trump
Speaker 13: x y Z. I think what religious people are they
Speaker 13: talking to. They're not talking to these women that we
Speaker 13: just heard from. That's the true meaning. And I think
Speaker 13: spirit of the Word of God and the spirit of God.
Speaker 11: The other thing that comes to for CTA.
Speaker 13: And I think it was set here on this stage
Speaker 13: around I think exercising the muscle of repetition, the fact
Speaker 13: that we can't just do it one time. We reference
Speaker 13: the Montgomery bus boycott, but we oftentimes don't reference the
Speaker 13: fact that after the first day of the boycott, the
Speaker 13: black community went back to the church that night and
Speaker 13: decided and voted as a community whether they would go
Speaker 13: back and continue the boycott the next day. And then
Speaker 13: at the end of that day they showed back up
Speaker 13: at the Baptist church and they voted again whether they
Speaker 13: were going to continue the bus boycott the next day.
Speaker 13: They thought that the bus boycott was going to be
Speaker 13: one night, one day, and then two days, and then
Speaker 13: a week, and that week lasted over a year. They
Speaker 13: exercised the muscle of coming back and coming back and
Speaker 13: coming back. And I don't think this is a lesson
Speaker 13: that you all need here in Minnesota. In fact, I
Speaker 13: think this is the lesson you all are teaching the
Speaker 13: rest of the country.
Speaker 1: Cut that song because we don't like have it licensed.
Speaker 1: I was trying to text it nicely. Don't do that
Speaker 1: in the middle of a CTA it or get cut.
Speaker 1: So if you want to play our music while we're talking,
Speaker 1: that's fine, but not anything that's not licensed.
Speaker 13: So to conclude is simply to say thank you for
Speaker 13: teaching us the lesson and helping us exercise the muscle,
Speaker 13: the discipline of coming back again again again.
Speaker 11: Delay is not denial.
Speaker 13: Trump may think they are winning right now, but delay
Speaker 13: is not denial. In my faith tradition, accountability will come
Speaker 13: and we will win this thing in the end.
Speaker 11: God, bless Yaul, and thank you for being earth.
Speaker 10: So mine is very easy.
Speaker 12: I know that we are on this journey together and
Speaker 12: we are getting extremely weary. It seems very cyclical that
Speaker 12: every three months or four months, or five months or
Speaker 12: six months, it feels as if we're being pulled down,
Speaker 12: we are being put upon, we're being oppressed, We're being suppressed,
Speaker 12: and it feels as if sometimes the faith and the
Speaker 12: prayers simply aren't working. It feels like the price that
Speaker 12: we're paying for change with every body and all the
Speaker 12: blood that's flowing through the street is just too high.
Speaker 12: We're tired of going to memorial services. We're tired of
Speaker 12: going to funerals. We're tired of seeing people gunned down
Speaker 12: on our streets with our own eyes. We're tired or
Speaker 12: seeing people drug out of their homes. We're tired of
Speaker 12: seeing black women die in the hotel excuse me, hospital
Speaker 12: lobbies because they refuse to give them care. We're tired
Speaker 12: or seeing our farmers suffer. We're tired or seeing people
Speaker 12: just suffer because of who they love, or who they
Speaker 12: pray to, or the color of their skin.
Speaker 10: We're just tired.
Speaker 12: And I guess my call to action is we all
Speaker 12: stand before you to just a little bit more tired
Speaker 12: today than we were yesterday. But it's incumbent upon us
Speaker 12: to dig deep. Like Andrew said, it's incumbent upon us
Speaker 12: to rely on that faith because when we were brought
Speaker 12: to this country, we were stripped of everything we had,
Speaker 12: but our faith.
Speaker 10: Rely on that rock.
Speaker 12: Rely on that faith, and make sure when you go
Speaker 12: out you work extremely hard to make tomorrow better than yesterday.
Speaker 12: My dream is for so steady and stokely to have
Speaker 12: a better America than the one that I inherited. My
Speaker 12: fear is that I'm running behind on that mission. So
Speaker 12: I'm encouraging all of you to join me in that journey,
Speaker 12: just to make sure that all these little black and
Speaker 12: brown boys and girls can grow up and say that
Speaker 12: this America is made in my image. This America is
Speaker 12: something I can be proud of. This America actually gave
Speaker 12: us a check that we can cash and no longer
Speaker 12: has insufficient funds written on it. So we're here with
Speaker 12: you all. I'm asking for your prayers, I'm asking for
Speaker 12: your work, and I'm asking for you to rely on
Speaker 12: that faith because we all need.
Speaker 10: That at this time.
Speaker 1: Thank you, b So my kind of action is all
Speaker 1: thank yous to y'all. We love y'all so much. Thank
Speaker 1: you for welcoming us with open arms. I want to
Speaker 1: give a shout out again to Act Blue for their
Speaker 1: Minnesota Freedom Fund the setup. We pray that again you
Speaker 1: all at home will donate to that for all of
Speaker 1: you in this room. If you have neighbors who need groceries,
Speaker 1: we have so many groceries for y'all to take hygiene kits.
Speaker 1: Please make sure you go through Paradise all to do that.
Speaker 1: We say it again, I'm directionally challenged, so I believe
Speaker 1: him I also want to give a special shout out
Speaker 1: to Capri Theater. Y'all please give it up for them.
Speaker 1: They turn this around so quickly. If you don't already,
Speaker 1: please make sure you're donating to support the mission of
Speaker 1: this critical work. This created a safe space for all
Speaker 1: of us to express ourselves and to know that we
Speaker 1: would not be terrorized by the Ice people. Also, I
Speaker 1: want to shout out Attorney Leslie Redman, who I shouted
Speaker 1: out earlier when Tana Mellikan again, Ellie, I'm sorry, not Ellie,
Speaker 1: I'm used to r Elie, Eli, Danielle Lauren of Minnesota
Speaker 1: Freedom Fund, all of them.
Speaker 13: Do.
Speaker 14: Wanna Thompson, who's going to be joining us just in
Speaker 14: a moment to.
Speaker 1: Lift up the small businesses that received the micro grants
Speaker 1: El Barito, Mercado, Colonial Market and Restaurant, Westside Boosters, Turn
Speaker 1: Signal and Jazz and all of our community partners and
Speaker 1: all of you please give it up for yourselves. Dwana Thompson,
Speaker 1: Where are you come? A noun stee's business? It says up,
Speaker 1: stay to the people, represent say of the people.
Speaker 14: Come on DT, everybody.
Speaker 40: I know the night has been long, but it's been good,
Speaker 40: right it's been sold and riching, and so Angel loves
Speaker 40: to have me come do this part only because I
Speaker 40: have been living my life off of a very simple
Speaker 40: African proverb for a while and it says that there
Speaker 40: are some people who are so hungry that God can
Speaker 40: only appear to them in the form of bread. So
Speaker 40: I've been asking myself, and I'm asking you tonight, what
Speaker 40: is your bread? What do you have to give tonight?
Speaker 40: We do have groceries for over two hundred and something families.
Speaker 14: We brought the bread with us.
Speaker 40: But there are some businesses who've been thinking about how
Speaker 40: they can stand with community during this time, and that
Speaker 40: does not come with That's not easy for them. They
Speaker 40: probably don't even have the resources to do it. And
Speaker 40: this won't change everything, but it is a start to
Speaker 40: recognize that we need each other. So to these seven businesses,
Speaker 40: we see you, we love you. Please stand up when
Speaker 40: you are called Soulbo Britney Class, I can't see nothing
Speaker 40: but hell, mpls Sierra Carter, Sammy's Avenue Eatery Michael McDowell.
Speaker 40: I know that KB Brown had to leave, but walk
Speaker 40: past promotions, y'all give it up for what clat promotions
Speaker 40: Czara Cafe, mister Calise or missus Calise, I'll be kitchen
Speaker 40: berry berry and right smart wellness, y'all give it up
Speaker 40: for doctor Khalil and Felicia. I will meet you at
Speaker 40: the back to make sure that you get your micro
Speaker 40: grants tonight, right, And so thank you so much for
Speaker 40: everybody who stayed with us tonight. Again, we want if
Speaker 40: you don't need the resources yourself, but you know a family,
Speaker 40: please come back and get them. We are going to
Speaker 40: also donate whatever is left to local organizations who are
Speaker 40: doing the food giveaways daily so it will not go
Speaker 40: to waste. And thank you so much for your support tonight.
Speaker 14: Oh that's not on.
Speaker 6: Okay.
Speaker 1: Now to close us out, Thomas Senat Petris, one of
Speaker 1: your very own, is gonna join us again to take
Speaker 1: us home.
Speaker 14: As we in Native Lampard.
Speaker 1: We will tell y'all what we always say, welcome home, y'all.
Speaker 4: All right, ladies and gentlemen. So I'm really proud to
Speaker 4: debut Thish this song. We just launched it called Don't
Speaker 4: Buy the Lie. Kashimana Ahua and myself wrote it for
Speaker 4: just this moment. We're honored to be able to sing it. Tonight.
Speaker 4: If you want to see the video, videographer with Jossi
Speaker 4: did the video for us. It's available on Thomasina's music dot.
Speaker 2: Square and YouTube.
Speaker 19: So this is for the love of our.
Speaker 16: Community and for you.
Speaker 4: Thank you for being here tonight and letting.
Speaker 41: Us use our voices this way.
Speaker 6: Oh.
Speaker 5: I got my head in my head. Oh you got
Speaker 5: me thinking, mm hmmm. Sometimes I don't understand.
Speaker 2: Why you want me drinking. M I got my head
Speaker 2: in my hands.
Speaker 6: Oh you got me fussing.
Speaker 8: Because you done up to my place. Now you got
Speaker 8: me cussing? Why you want me naked? Why you want
Speaker 8: me brood? Why you want me frighten?
Speaker 13: Home?
Speaker 2: Person confused? Don't mind.
Speaker 8: It's gonna cust you to cause when they hurt me,
Speaker 8: they hurt you.
Speaker 2: We're all connected.
Speaker 42: Can't you see none of us suffery.
Speaker 11: Till all of us suffery.
Speaker 7: You don't care who I am.
Speaker 2: You don't wanna know me. You just want to cos
Speaker 2: ho to Lord show me. You ignore true.
Speaker 6: Rather be blind to see me.
Speaker 19: But the shame is on you.
Speaker 2: Because you could never own.
Speaker 10: It's always been.
Speaker 43: Free, so afraid of faces, so afraid of truth, moresnessing, hatred.
Speaker 6: What's this world? Coming to God.
Speaker 8: It's called a costume to cause when they hurt me,
Speaker 8: they hurt you. We're all connected.
Speaker 42: Can't you see none of us surfree?
Speaker 2: Normal till all of us surfery.
Speaker 5: I got my heart in my hate, dreaming of what
Speaker 5: could be.
Speaker 8: Or all in no violence, nos going hungry.
Speaker 4: No, no nose in addiction, no.
Speaker 6: Dying yards, Every life a secret more sacred than you God, No.
Speaker 8: Gods gonna lost you too.
Speaker 2: Husband.
Speaker 6: They hurt me, they hurt you.
Speaker 2: We're all connected.
Speaker 29: Mh.
Speaker 2: Can't you see none.
Speaker 6: Of us suffree? No till all of.
Speaker 8: Us suffree, None of us suffree, Still all of us suffery.
Speaker 2: Can we say it to everybody? None of us suffree,
Speaker 2: to all of us.
Speaker 29: Free?
Speaker 10: Thomas say, I cut your suffen?
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