Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central from New York City, the
Speaker 1: only city in America gets the shows that he's such news,
Speaker 1: he's good Daily show with your host Hugly everybody. How
Speaker 1: you guys going you here to see you? Well? I uh,
Speaker 1: I'm dr hugely and welcome to the Daily Show. Um.
Speaker 1: Of course, between me and Leslie and want and this
Speaker 1: is starting to look a lot like b E T
Speaker 1: I did that. Do not be shocked if you see
Speaker 1: those diabetes commercials. You know, oh zamp you could at
Speaker 1: one foot you still dancing that song. We don't even
Speaker 1: care alright, of course, Uh, we have a lot that
Speaker 1: we need to talk about, so we're gonna get right
Speaker 1: to it. Um so I'm sure I meany of you
Speaker 1: heard by now that, um, a young black man in
Speaker 1: Memphis was pulled over by the police, and we all
Speaker 1: saw how it went down. For the first time, we
Speaker 1: are seeing the violent arrest of Tyree Nichols. What began
Speaker 1: as a traffic stop quickly turned violent. As captured on
Speaker 1: multiple videos released tonight by the City of Memphis, officers
Speaker 1: are seeing pulling nickels out of the car. They used
Speaker 1: pepper spray and to play your tasor during a struggle.
Speaker 1: Then for roughly three minutes, officers are seeing repeatedly kicking
Speaker 1: and punching Nickels while he was handcuffed as Nichols on
Speaker 1: the ground, bloodied and bruised. Several minutes go by without
Speaker 1: any of the officers administering first aid. Nichols died in
Speaker 1: the hospital three days later. Is it a shocking video? Yes? Shocking?
Speaker 1: You know you know who wasn't shocked by that? Black people? Dude?
Speaker 1: I do, No, we were like, we were not like it,
Speaker 1: just like I think that is a word Whould thought about,
Speaker 1: lexicon because the one thing we were not to you
Speaker 1: see black people sitting around Can you believe they beat
Speaker 1: the ship out of another nigga on TV? Can you
Speaker 1: believe it? Because that is pretty commonplace for us. The
Speaker 1: only people who are probably shocked by this and people
Speaker 1: who haven't been paying attention. But for us, that's just
Speaker 1: like a flashbag. So those videos are like so commonplace,
Speaker 1: it's it's hard to be shocked. That's like watching a
Speaker 1: porno and saying he's gonna stick that where ain't no
Speaker 1: where in hell that's gonna fit. I mean, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I'm just making point I don't watch porn or let's
Speaker 1: get let's stick with the story. All right, let's um
Speaker 1: it is not shopping to black people, because that is
Speaker 1: probably every black parents nightmare. It's like, uh, that's why
Speaker 1: we train our children to to deal with police. We
Speaker 1: we act like they're going on safari or something like,
Speaker 1: don't make a sudden news annoys, don't make any sudden move,
Speaker 1: don't smile, don't run, so you can't be shocked when
Speaker 1: the media, also the media that's been a whole week
Speaker 1: prepping us for the video. They told us how vitent
Speaker 1: it was gonna be, to be, to be real, that
Speaker 1: video got more pro than I did for this show.
Speaker 1: It's like I didn't. I didn't. I haven't seen a
Speaker 1: TV show that anticipated sin to remake a night Cord.
Speaker 1: They weren't playing around. It was like they were rolling
Speaker 1: out a new movie release, brought to you from the
Speaker 1: people that bought you, George Floyd and Rodney King. Um,
Speaker 1: I can tell tell you what I did find shocking
Speaker 1: was how fast those cops got arrested. Now, they got
Speaker 1: arrested so fast they didn't give us time to write,
Speaker 1: Like I'm like, nam, then what am I gonna do it.
Speaker 1: This all this gasol, and I gotta pour it back
Speaker 1: in the lire. It's just because, you know, usually it
Speaker 1: takes a considerable amount of time. More like usually when
Speaker 1: they tell us a cop got indicted, a reporters wiping
Speaker 1: tear gas out of eyes. So it's um And it's
Speaker 1: just interesting because they did get arrested fast. And I
Speaker 1: just these cops got arrested so fast. I gotta wonder why.
Speaker 1: I don't know, there's something about them that looks fast
Speaker 1: arrest worthy, Like I can't put my finger on it,
Speaker 1: but I want to arrest them myself. I don't. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know. Maybe they get their haircut
Speaker 1: at the same place. I don't know. I can tell.
Speaker 1: What did scare me is that no one could tell
Speaker 1: us what Tyree could have done to stop this from happening.
Speaker 1: I mean, usually you hear people saying, uh, he should
Speaker 1: have followed orders, but they gave him seventy one different
Speaker 1: orders in thirteen minutes, so not even Wendy's can turner
Speaker 1: order around. That got damn. And then they gave orders
Speaker 1: that didn't make any sense, like telling them get on
Speaker 1: the ground when he was already on the ground, Like,
Speaker 1: I don't know how they do it the Memphis but
Speaker 1: where I'm from the ground is as low as you
Speaker 1: can go. That's it, um. But you know it is
Speaker 1: a complex issue, and I know it helps me whenever
Speaker 1: I'm delving into a complex issue that affects black people
Speaker 1: and I want an expert opinion, what I do is
Speaker 1: I turn um to Fox News. Do that's I learned
Speaker 1: how to make gumbo watching that show too, So it's um.
Speaker 1: It is the reason, um that I found out why
Speaker 1: cops do bad things in the first place, and it's
Speaker 1: apparently because people are so mean to them. This is
Speaker 1: a direct result of is all this to fund the
Speaker 1: police stuff? Right? And if you vilify the cops, you'll
Speaker 1: get less people wanting to be cops. These endless wars
Speaker 1: on police departments now they have dissuaded a lot of
Speaker 1: good people from becoming police officers. That's a fact. They've
Speaker 1: had recruitment problems and they've had retention problems. You can
Speaker 1: look at the data like I can, and what happens
Speaker 1: is you wind up getting stuck playing and simple with
Speaker 1: just bad guys. Mhmm. You think he got in there
Speaker 1: as well, right, Like he is. But the great thing
Speaker 1: about it is that got a guy from Fox and
Speaker 1: say they are bad cops. I got him to agree
Speaker 1: with Antifa. See that's I mean that one day and
Speaker 1: I'm changing it already. It's going great. But there's one
Speaker 1: guy on Fox News and this dude came up with
Speaker 1: something that I gotta tell you, I really did not
Speaker 1: see it coming. Look like gang violence. To me, it
Speaker 1: looked like what young black men do when they're supervised
Speaker 1: by a single black woman. And that's what they got
Speaker 1: going on in the Memphis police department. They've elected some
Speaker 1: uh put some black woman in charge of the police force,
Speaker 1: and we're getting the same kind of chaos in disunity
Speaker 1: and violence that we see in a lot of these
Speaker 1: cities that are run by single mothers. What the is
Speaker 1: he talking about? Funny me, So it is it is
Speaker 1: single black mothers that at a problem. So wait a minute, Um,
Speaker 1: all of these cops, uh, all of them, they had
Speaker 1: single black mothers do And by the way, those are
Speaker 1: the images that came up when I google good cops. Um.
Speaker 1: If Jason Whitlock pruds anything is that you do not
Speaker 1: have to be white tabe black people. Um, And I
Speaker 1: can understand. How can we expect Jason to see the
Speaker 1: plight of black people when this dude can't even see
Speaker 1: his own dick. So uh, I'm d hug. You know
Speaker 1: I was gonna do a dick joke on common since
Speaker 1: you will stop stop all right for more on this story,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna to be joined by Roy Wood Jr. What
Speaker 1: can you uh? Hello, he just he just say, just
Speaker 1: just disagree with the paying speaking too. It didn't come
Speaker 1: to me. I'm sorry. Let's not let a dick come
Speaker 1: between us. It's crazy. What can you tell me about
Speaker 1: the police officers they committed this attack. Here's the thing. Deal,
Speaker 1: first and foremost, they're not just any police officers. They
Speaker 1: were actually part of an elite unit within the department
Speaker 1: with the special focus on violent crime. That elite unit
Speaker 1: that was elite. Yeah, it was like in the whole
Speaker 1: idea of an elite unit. It's already kind of weird, right,
Speaker 1: Like shouldn't the whole police force already be elite? I mean,
Speaker 1: you already got guns, you know what. It's like this
Speaker 1: because it's like when you get on the plane and
Speaker 1: the flight attended to tell you, oh, well, you're lucky
Speaker 1: to day this is one of our elite pilots one
Speaker 1: who the hell who'll find this ship before? Man? But
Speaker 1: there's something even wider about this elite unit, and that's
Speaker 1: in the name of this elite unit. They were actually
Speaker 1: called the Scorpion. The Scorpion to that acronym you don't
Speaker 1: don't you know the police they love the acronyms, and
Speaker 1: Scorpion stands for street crimes operations to restore peace in
Speaker 1: our neighborhoods. Scorpion. And I don't know about you, but
Speaker 1: as a rule of thumb, no police unit should be
Speaker 1: named after a Mortal Kombat character. I agree. You can't
Speaker 1: name a unit Scorpion, because once you give him a
Speaker 1: name like Scorpion, it don't matter what they're even there for.
Speaker 1: They're gonna be violent with the ships. You can have
Speaker 1: a police unit that only does paperwork, but if you
Speaker 1: call them Scorpions, they're gonna be swooping in and whipping
Speaker 1: asked what w two forms? Anyway? Agree? And this is
Speaker 1: the other thing, man, It's not that hard for the
Speaker 1: police to name a unit after something other than a
Speaker 1: deadly animal. You ain't got the name every union after
Speaker 1: Daily out of mus easy just to watch this. Watch
Speaker 1: this securing neighborhoods alongside kind enforcement. That's peaceful. Ain't that snake?
Speaker 1: Don't don't interrupt me. I'm still thinking that didn't give
Speaker 1: me a set? What about this? And what about this?
Speaker 1: And this is a peaceful idea securing homes and rescuing
Speaker 1: kids with orderly, lawful functionality. That's good, sharp woolf damn. Okay, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: just something I forget acronyms. Forget acronyms. We can do one.
Speaker 1: The police shooting this peaceful con gentle enforcement needs officers
Speaker 1: carefully inspecting downtown elements. Don't you want us need to
Speaker 1: finish the weak man? This genocide? Okay? All right, well
Speaker 1: then just just forget the names. Here. Here's an idea, dear,
Speaker 1: here's an idea. Police got all these elite units. How
Speaker 1: about the police form an elite unit that's specifically trained
Speaker 1: to not kill black people. That's the unit. That's all
Speaker 1: I mean. It broke talking six months of bootcap learning
Speaker 1: how to identify black people, identify when our hands are up,
Speaker 1: identifying what compliant looks like, all of it. I bet
Speaker 1: you could do that. If you did all of that,
Speaker 1: you could drop the killings of black people by as
Speaker 1: much just just hey, that's elite to me. We gotta
Speaker 1: start somewhere. Thank you so much for Roary. Would you
Speaker 1: and your everybody all right when we come back, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna talk to the attorney representing Tyreck Guy made Nicola's family,
Speaker 1: So do not go away, all right. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: the Daily Show. Uh, my first cast as an attorney
Speaker 1: who's representing the family of Tyree Nichols. Please put your
Speaker 1: hands together for Ben Crump. How are you? I'm good? Good?
Speaker 1: How you doing? Fred? You're good, I'm good, Fred. Other
Speaker 1: than this situation out of all the time, like usually
Speaker 1: you called me, I think it's Tuesday, and whenever I
Speaker 1: hear from you, I know it's bad news. Like you
Speaker 1: never called you one of a lot of I had
Speaker 1: a baby shower and nothing like that. It's always. But
Speaker 1: you told me about it because my driver happened to
Speaker 1: be Tyree's uh stepfather, and he had told me about
Speaker 1: it previously, and so it struck me differently because I
Speaker 1: know Rodney and I remember when he moved to Memphis, UM,
Speaker 1: and I knew that you were on the case. I
Speaker 1: was I was certain that something positive would happen. Do
Speaker 1: you think that the fact that the officers were erected
Speaker 1: arrested so swiftly is an the cater of things that
Speaker 1: are getting better, or that just we got five black people,
Speaker 1: so we're gonna arresting real fast. You know, that's an
Speaker 1: interesting question, dear here. But I think when you look
Speaker 1: at the fact that they all black officers, it's seen
Speaker 1: to be that this move offless swiftly what I mean,
Speaker 1: very fast, very fast, very fast. The police chief David
Speaker 1: said it was important that they take swift action, that
Speaker 1: they moved swiftly. To Justice Dale. She said that because
Speaker 1: this video was so clear that the community needed to
Speaker 1: see that. And so I said to myself, they got fired, arrested,
Speaker 1: and cha in less than twenty days. So this is
Speaker 1: the blueprint going forward. Dr Huguely, they cannot say anymore
Speaker 1: to us whether the cop is black or white when
Speaker 1: you see them on video commitment crime using excessive force
Speaker 1: against us, that it takes six months, that it takes
Speaker 1: a year. No, you can't tell us that any more.
Speaker 1: Comes We're gonna say, you remember those five black police
Speaker 1: officers are mempor y'all arrested them immediately. Um, what I
Speaker 1: do find interesting is that I know that you have
Speaker 1: tried to, you know, do what you can in terms
Speaker 1: of police reform. But let me tell you congress Congressman
Speaker 1: Jim Jordan, he said, and I think meet the press,
Speaker 1: that he's not sure that any law, any training, or
Speaker 1: any reform could have stopped what happened to Tyree Nichols.
Speaker 1: So that sounds like a set up to not do anything.
Speaker 1: Um Um, I'm tired of hearing about rotting apples. We
Speaker 1: gotta start looking at the trees and the soil of
Speaker 1: the trees grow on if if if the premise, if
Speaker 1: the premise has already nothing could have stopped that. That
Speaker 1: sounds a lot like their approach on guns is we
Speaker 1: might keep everything the same because nothing will stop. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, Dal, it really is troubling when they continue
Speaker 1: to see all this evidence that we have a problem
Speaker 1: with the culture of policing in America. One of the
Speaker 1: questions I was often asked was where they're black officers,
Speaker 1: are you surprised what they did? And I said no,
Speaker 1: because the race of the police officer isn't the determining
Speaker 1: factor of whether they're going to commit excessive use of force,
Speaker 1: But it is the race of the victim, and it's
Speaker 1: often black and brown people who bear the police brutality.
Speaker 1: I mean, dear, we don't see videos of our white
Speaker 1: brothers and sisters who are unarmed facing this kind of
Speaker 1: excessive use of force. I'm waiting to see those videos
Speaker 1: because how often there have we seen, you know, Eric
Speaker 1: Gardner in New York get choked the first I can't
Speaker 1: breathe case, then out to Sterling down in Baton Rouge
Speaker 1: Louise Anna, then Pamela Turner, the sister outside of Houston
Speaker 1: who was having a mental health crisis, and the police
Speaker 1: came in quire McDonald, what is the incentive in the
Speaker 1: way in Chicago got shot sixteen times? But what is
Speaker 1: their incentive to stop? Because what happens is police officers
Speaker 1: who kill black people get a pay vacation. Then they
Speaker 1: come back, they have they have go fund me accounts,
Speaker 1: Then they say police departments need to be uh, they
Speaker 1: need to be retrained, so they get more money. So
Speaker 1: there's no real incentive to make subsitive change when nothing
Speaker 1: really severe. And what police they'll tend to do is
Speaker 1: they'll get rid of the police officers and say, now
Speaker 1: everything we can start at ground zero. Everything's changed, and
Speaker 1: I don't see anything that has changed that that is
Speaker 1: so remarkable that that it would it would leave me
Speaker 1: to believe that these are going to be changes that
Speaker 1: are resident what we're deal We're making some progress. Uh,
Speaker 1: we need to make a lot more, but we're making
Speaker 1: some progress. Because you know what a deterrent to them
Speaker 1: killing us unjustly is. As Reverend Hell and I always
Speaker 1: talk about if they have to do the perp walk,
Speaker 1: if they're being convicted and sent into prison like Derek
Speaker 1: Chauvin and those officers who killed George Floyd, if we
Speaker 1: have more police officers saying that, well, just like you
Speaker 1: think about white people, you de escalate, fine, because you know,
Speaker 1: if you shoot a white person in the back, oh
Speaker 1: you're going to prison. But if you shoot a black
Speaker 1: person in the back, maybe not. Because it's like a
Speaker 1: cliche almost dale black men running away and they say, oh,
Speaker 1: I feel in fear of my life. How can you
Speaker 1: feel in fear of your life when the person running
Speaker 1: away from you? It's less. I say I say this
Speaker 1: all the time the most day, and just play for
Speaker 1: black people living in the imagination, why people it is
Speaker 1: the most dangerous, that's the most dangerous addressed to happen you. Um,
Speaker 1: one of the things that you will always happen, Investor,
Speaker 1: I got I gotta say this, dear. Isn't it funny
Speaker 1: how conspicuously silent the police union is? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, ye,
Speaker 1: hey man, you took the words out of my mouth.
Speaker 1: I'm hosting the show, not you. Then I want to
Speaker 1: make this point every time you have a conversation about policing,
Speaker 1: and invariably somebody would feel the need to go but
Speaker 1: not all policemen are bad. We're talking about the ones
Speaker 1: that are. Um. I wish that somebody would make that
Speaker 1: point on the other side, that not all black people
Speaker 1: are bad. Like that's that's no one ever, no one
Speaker 1: ever says I would never, I would never make the
Speaker 1: accusation that all of anything is bad. But people when
Speaker 1: they say black on black crime or high crime rors,
Speaker 1: they are really painting everybody with one brian brush and
Speaker 1: saying these people can't be trusted. They live that same way.
Speaker 1: So even the mentality that we speak about these things
Speaker 1: has to change. Yeah, and we have to quit making
Speaker 1: excuses for police killing us unjustifiably. I hear so many
Speaker 1: of my white friends say, well, if they would only comply,
Speaker 1: Tyree Nichols couldn't have been more compliant. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: you think about how they try to justify blaming the
Speaker 1: victim when we see video at the video off the video, Hey,
Speaker 1: how about we say the person who actually killed the
Speaker 1: person is the blame and let's stop it there. You're
Speaker 1: right they have a weird notes and of compliance. Because
Speaker 1: I didn't see any of that on January six, I
Speaker 1: didn't think any of them were complying. I didn't any
Speaker 1: of that time. Um, but let me just kick I
Speaker 1: killed you around. I get around with you a lot.
Speaker 1: But I will say this, it's the first time I've
Speaker 1: ever talked to you that I got scared. You sounded
Speaker 1: so exhausted. I've never heard a black man's seth so weary,
Speaker 1: like just exhaust So you gotta make sure that you're
Speaker 1: around to make sure you are right. And thank you
Speaker 1: Dale and Uh. I appreciate the prayers. Brother. I will
Speaker 1: say this what I am praying for. Tyree Nichols mother
Speaker 1: has been dealing with this tragedy with such grace. She said,
Speaker 1: I believe that my son was sent for an assignment
Speaker 1: and now he's back up in heaven with God because
Speaker 1: he's completed. That's assignment. She said, that's the only way
Speaker 1: I can cope with this tragedy. It's the only way
Speaker 1: I can keep waking up. And she said, because I
Speaker 1: have to believe a greater good is gonna happen for
Speaker 1: this senseless death of my son. And so I am
Speaker 1: praying that the President Biden, who we to, will listen
Speaker 1: to us when we say, let's marshaton United States Senate
Speaker 1: back in to uh session and reconvene with Senator Schumer
Speaker 1: and Senator to Booker, and then let's get congress Woman
Speaker 1: Sheila Jackson lead the brain the bill back up in
Speaker 1: the House of Representatives, the George Floyd Justice and police
Speaker 1: in that and let's keep fighting because we cannot let
Speaker 1: her prayers go in vain out. A greater good has
Speaker 1: to come out of this. And I know they're gonna say, well,
Speaker 1: they're not gonna do anything, but we have to strike
Speaker 1: a match rather than curse the darkness. We got to
Speaker 1: go to the mayor, do it on the local level.
Speaker 1: We got to do it with the state level. If
Speaker 1: we can't get to the federal government. We got to
Speaker 1: win the battles we can, because every battle we win
Speaker 1: might just save your child's life. There you go, brand,
Speaker 1: I am you epitomized perseverance. I'm proud of you, man.
Speaker 1: You make me so proud. Attorney Ben Crump um Merce
Speaker 1: Laurel for Mercial Law. All right, we're gonna take a
Speaker 1: really quick break and we're gonna be right back after this.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Daily Show. Um, it's such a
Speaker 1: great artist, y'all must be union Jesus. Uh. This is
Speaker 1: uh my next two guests. They have collaborated on a
Speaker 1: new book for young readers called How to Be a
Speaker 1: Young Anti Racist? Once you please welcome Dr Ibraham ex
Speaker 1: Kindy and Nick Stone. Yeah. Um, so how to be
Speaker 1: a Young Anti Racist. That means you're already banned in Florida.
Speaker 1: So it's funny when we talk about race because we
Speaker 1: live in a country that, um, the Congress has in
Speaker 1: it voted for June tenth view but where the same
Speaker 1: Nations is don't want to talk about slavery. They will
Speaker 1: have Martin Luther King and Robert E. Lee Day on
Speaker 1: the same days. So I think when it comes to racism,
Speaker 1: I think that a lot of people believe that if
Speaker 1: they're not actively saying the N word or doing their
Speaker 1: same bigger than things. That means they're not racist. So
Speaker 1: how can we start a conversation about being anti race
Speaker 1: when you're not quite sure how to quantify racist? We are,
Speaker 1: but I don't think a lot of people are. And
Speaker 1: I think that's that's the very point, because if you're
Speaker 1: not doing anything to challenge all of the unjust this
Speaker 1: and all of the inequity in our society, then what
Speaker 1: happens It persists, So therefore you're reinforcing it. So therefore
Speaker 1: you're being racist. And so we're encouraging people to actively
Speaker 1: try to dismantle us the structure, including young people. But
Speaker 1: what what is their incentive? Like, what would they be nick?
Speaker 1: What is there If this system is working for you
Speaker 1: or not, It doesn't cause you anywhere when you can
Speaker 1: sleep at night, why would you want to change the system?
Speaker 1: It doesn't It seems to be going just as you intended,
Speaker 1: But is it actually working for you? Right? Yes? I
Speaker 1: think for me, it's all about children, right Like, even
Speaker 1: though this is a system that might seem like it's
Speaker 1: working for you, the world is actively changing. If your
Speaker 1: children are not prepared to live in a world and
Speaker 1: move to a world that have people that are different
Speaker 1: from them in positions with power, it's gonna be in trouble, yeah,
Speaker 1: But then they try to remake the world. You see
Speaker 1: that literally where a nation that is run by the
Speaker 1: flintstones and in the jet sins and the stoles are winning.
Speaker 1: You you have to understand, I don't believe a lot
Speaker 1: of people, For instance, I don't believe white people a
Speaker 1: lot of white people are actively racist. But I do
Speaker 1: believe that the notions of white supremacists. They don't agree
Speaker 1: with their methods, but they agree with their goal, which
Speaker 1: is to keep white people in charge. And so if
Speaker 1: that is the premise, then then what incentive, seriously would
Speaker 1: there be to make these changes that only destabilize what
Speaker 1: you know works for you. I think one of the
Speaker 1: things we've been showing and studying racism is that it's
Speaker 1: actually harming white people too. It's not harming them at
Speaker 1: the level it's harming people of color, But there are
Speaker 1: actually white people who are dying of police violence. They're
Speaker 1: not dying at the level of black and brown people.
Speaker 1: But more white people are dying of police violence in
Speaker 1: this country than other countries. More white people are incarcerated
Speaker 1: in this country than other countries. More white people are
Speaker 1: struggling to vote in this country compared to other countries.
Speaker 1: There were million about poor whites in eighteen sixty whose
Speaker 1: poverty was directly connected to the enslavement of black people.
Speaker 1: But I think a lot of white people don't get this.
Speaker 1: When you pour you you are, you are why that's
Speaker 1: why you are like that. I don't think people understand
Speaker 1: that generally what hurts me hurts you. What is good
Speaker 1: for me is good for you. And I think that.
Speaker 1: But there is that thing and uh where where you
Speaker 1: know people will give their last time to keep things
Speaker 1: a certain way as long as it hurts you, Like
Speaker 1: look at what happened with the Obamacare Act. A lot
Speaker 1: of those people in those poor states are being hurt
Speaker 1: by that, but they don't care as long as you are.
Speaker 1: And but the sense of optimism is in what you
Speaker 1: said earlier, children, because in children you have not minds
Speaker 1: there the whole different thing. But um, but in our
Speaker 1: children we can see the potential of things that we
Speaker 1: hope to never that we hope we can realize probably
Speaker 1: never will. So that is angle I think that it's
Speaker 1: probably substituent yeah, I think when it comes to children,
Speaker 1: I have two of my own, and it's important for
Speaker 1: me that they enter a world that they feel empowered
Speaker 1: to change, which is why we wrote this book. Right.
Speaker 1: So Dr Kendy wrote his memoir years ago and I
Speaker 1: latched onto it, slid into his deers, and asked if
Speaker 1: I could do a young reader's version, because it's important
Speaker 1: that young people have the tools. I get so many
Speaker 1: kids who are asking, well, what do I do, how
Speaker 1: do I help? What do I change? How can I
Speaker 1: get into this fight and do something about it? And
Speaker 1: so creating a text like how to Be a Young
Speaker 1: Anti Racist, we're giving them information where they're learning these
Speaker 1: definitions or learning what racism actually what racism actually is.
Speaker 1: So racism is a system of ideas. So you have
Speaker 1: racist ideas and they are basically they're made to keep
Speaker 1: inequities going right. So the whole purpose of a book
Speaker 1: like How to Be a Young Anti Racist is to
Speaker 1: give young people terms that we can all agree on.
Speaker 1: That way we know what we're standing against, like racism.
Speaker 1: Having a term at definition for racism helps them see, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is what we're trying to fight. Because one of
Speaker 1: the things that happens is people who have historically been
Speaker 1: racist refused to define that term, of course, because it
Speaker 1: wants them to exonerate themselves consistently and constantly. And even
Speaker 1: young people therefore don't know what it is, so they
Speaker 1: can't even assess themselves and guide themselves. How would they know.
Speaker 1: We have a lot of people who are raised by
Speaker 1: people who moved out of places that black people are
Speaker 1: moving into. Right that was that was predicate that we're
Speaker 1: gonna move out of places that black people are moving into.
Speaker 1: But those are the people who have the conversation with
Speaker 1: the people who are now having the conversation with the people,
Speaker 1: So they don't think the thing that they did was racist.
Speaker 1: That's that's that's a level of obliviousness that you can't
Speaker 1: you can't quite quantify it is. And and indeed, I
Speaker 1: you know, the heartbeat of being racist is denial. And
Speaker 1: this denial is consistent and constant and citious. You know,
Speaker 1: it does give me hope when when I see people
Speaker 1: like your book beat my book in the New York
Speaker 1: Times best selling this get say no, I'm just gooding.
Speaker 1: And and it's interesting because then they came along at
Speaker 1: the time and you had written a good while back,
Speaker 1: but it resurfaced when the George Floyd protest was coming on.
Speaker 1: They really seemed a moment. Uh. And that seems these
Speaker 1: inflection points where we can generally people are really open
Speaker 1: to listen. But the problem is it's so fast. You
Speaker 1: can only get attention so fast, and then we're onto
Speaker 1: the next thing. And I think that's that's not even
Speaker 1: a purposeful I think it's just the function of how
Speaker 1: we live. But if you could say a substitutive thing
Speaker 1: that people could do every day, like in practice every
Speaker 1: day where they could be an example, because every time
Speaker 1: somebody says something, if somebody deems hurtful, they automatically stopped.
Speaker 1: I don't want to hear anymore. I'm tired of this already.
Speaker 1: We're slavering for one of the years. But Jim crowbing
Speaker 1: around you like trying to not be a slaver as not.
Speaker 1: We haven't had to put as much elbow groups into that.
Speaker 1: But books like this and having conversations where people don't
Speaker 1: turn off are really the crux of what we need
Speaker 1: to be doing. And for young people is so much
Speaker 1: easier to like it is to learn a language. It's
Speaker 1: got to be easier to learn a love language, right,
Speaker 1: it's gotta be easier to learn. And um, what do
Speaker 1: I because because I get angry, Like when black people do,
Speaker 1: it's called anger. When white people are doing it's called
Speaker 1: write this indignation. But it's really hard to come from
Speaker 1: a place of anger and try to be trying to
Speaker 1: cheat somebody something. So I think at least a media
Speaker 1: owners has to be lowering the temperature and listening, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: And I mean, look, the book is really all about
Speaker 1: first turning inward. I think part of the issue is
Speaker 1: that we don't do a good job of humanizing ourselves.
Speaker 1: We don't give ourselves the space to be angery, angry,
Speaker 1: We don't give ourselves a space to be sad. We
Speaker 1: don't give ourselves the space to have unpopular opinions, right,
Speaker 1: like we do. We're all us. But even that you
Speaker 1: know the fact that you're like, I'm angry, and I
Speaker 1: don't you know, I don't know how I feel about
Speaker 1: being angry, Like it makes sense that we're angry. So
Speaker 1: taking the time to look inward and figure out the
Speaker 1: beauty of how to be an anti racist. The adult
Speaker 1: book was that you get Abraham's whole story where he
Speaker 1: is very open about the racist ideas that he was holding.
Speaker 1: So taking that and distilling it down for young people
Speaker 1: so that they can see, oh dang, this thing that
Speaker 1: I'm thinking is probably a little racist. We had an
Speaker 1: event last night in Atlanta and our team moderator that
Speaker 1: was the first question she asked us. She was like,
Speaker 1: I read the book and it pointed out to me
Speaker 1: all of the ways that I have racist ideas, and
Speaker 1: it made me feel a way about myself. What am
Speaker 1: I supposed to do? So then having that self compassion
Speaker 1: where you can see, Okay, yes I am a product
Speaker 1: of a racist environment, I probably have some racist ideas.
Speaker 1: Taking the time to give yourself some grace, you'll give
Speaker 1: other people some grace too, And that's how we kind
Speaker 1: of like get to a point where we're working together.
Speaker 1: The thing that's so frustrating for me is our our
Speaker 1: stories tend to start in the middle. Like we were
Speaker 1: something before this, and our stories seemed to start in
Speaker 1: the middle. So and it's just like, even what's going
Speaker 1: on in Florida, you don't even want us to learn
Speaker 1: our history, Like there was a time when enslave people
Speaker 1: couldn't learn and now it's illegal for us to learn
Speaker 1: about enslaved people. So it's just and you would have
Speaker 1: heard that had you not beat me in the New
Speaker 1: York Times best selling this And I think, I think
Speaker 1: that we have a lot to learn about how things
Speaker 1: work and to really have constructive conversations because it's so
Speaker 1: much more fulfilling to me to shout at somebody, but
Speaker 1: it doesn't really accomplish anything. And I'm really very proud
Speaker 1: that you write books like this. And I think the
Speaker 1: younger you start, I mean, you gotta not be an
Speaker 1: anti racist baby. You have the baby's too. You have
Speaker 1: the baby. What is the baby gonna like? Look, you
Speaker 1: learn it somewhere you either learn to love people where
Speaker 1: you learned hatim like, I don't want chocolate milk. I
Speaker 1: want I'll be young ant color rations and the young
Speaker 1: anti rators work look available. Now. Okay, we're gonna take
Speaker 1: a quick break and we will be right back. Well,
Speaker 1: a lot of the show for the night, but before
Speaker 1: you go, please consider supporting the Boris Lawrence Pinson Foundation,
Speaker 1: their nonprofit that improves mental health services for black communities.
Speaker 1: If you want to support him and their work, please
Speaker 1: donate to the link below. Explore more shows from the
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Speaker 1: Central podcast