WEBVTT - Michael Eric Dyson 0:00:00.360 --> 0:00:03.200 Hello, I'm Shannon Sharp, host of Club Sha Shay. I 0:00:03.200 --> 0:00:05.800 am the proprietor and the host of Club Sha Shay. 0:00:06.120 --> 0:00:09.200 And my guest really doesn't need any introduction. He's a 0:00:09.280 --> 0:00:12.720 sociology professor. He's a reverend. He's a friend. He can 0:00:12.760 --> 0:00:16.720 watch politically, about religion, about race, about the hip hop culture. 0:00:17.000 --> 0:00:19.880 And he's also the author of the book Tears. I 0:00:19.920 --> 0:00:24.720 cannot stop, Doctor Michael Eric Dyson. All my life, the grinding, 0:00:24.800 --> 0:00:29.920 all my life, sacrifice, hustle beck Price, one slice got 0:00:29.920 --> 0:00:32.959 the dice, swap all my life. I've been grinding all 0:00:32.960 --> 0:00:37.360 my life, rush all my life and grinning all my life. Sacrifice, 0:00:37.680 --> 0:00:42.239 hustle back Price, one slice got the dice, swap all 0:00:42.280 --> 0:00:48.120 my life. I've been grinding all my life. Hello, Welcome 0:00:48.159 --> 0:00:51.120 to Club Sha Shay. I am your host, Shannon Sharp, 0:00:51.280 --> 0:00:56.600 and today's guest is extraordinary. He's a sociology professor at 0:00:56.640 --> 0:01:03.480 Georgetown University. He's hippop culture, he's sports culture. He's a minister. 0:01:03.760 --> 0:01:06.840 He's a pastor. He's a reverend. Doc When you when 0:01:06.880 --> 0:01:09.040 I prefer when I refer to you, do you prefer 0:01:09.080 --> 0:01:17.200 to be called a minister, a pastor, or reverend. Cha's friends. Friend. 0:01:17.280 --> 0:01:23.280 That's good enough for me. Great friend, and I don't 0:01:23.400 --> 0:01:26.040 use the word I don't use that word friend lightly. 0:01:26.240 --> 0:01:29.840 Great friend. We have conversation, we pick up the phone 0:01:29.840 --> 0:01:32.679 and talk to each other. We're just not friends because 0:01:32.720 --> 0:01:37.520 we're doing this interview. We actually converse all the telephone 0:01:37.920 --> 0:01:41.840 frequently often, so people need to understand the depth of 0:01:41.840 --> 0:01:46.119 our relationship. Absolutely, I'm so honored. And that is telling 0:01:46.160 --> 0:01:49.040 the absolute truth. And we talk back and forth. I 0:01:49.120 --> 0:01:50.640 learned so much. I get it off for free. I 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:54.000 ain't gotta pay for it. And look at I get 0:01:54.040 --> 0:01:56.120 it off for free. Like I said, Doc, thanks for 0:01:56.200 --> 0:01:58.120 coming on the day. And let's jump right into it. 0:01:58.520 --> 0:02:02.680 The current state of America. And I think the biggest 0:02:02.680 --> 0:02:05.920 thing that we see is the racial divide between the 0:02:06.000 --> 0:02:09.800 black minority community and our white counterparts. And we see 0:02:09.800 --> 0:02:13.320 the unarmed killing of black men and women in America. 0:02:13.720 --> 0:02:17.040 George Floyd tipped it off. And then we see the 0:02:17.120 --> 0:02:20.920 Blake situation. We see all my Brooks, we see Sandra Bland, 0:02:20.960 --> 0:02:23.639 we see Walter Scott dot We can go on and on. 0:02:24.400 --> 0:02:29.560 What do you think got us here? No, it's a 0:02:29.600 --> 0:02:32.160 great point, and you laid them out there. Richard Brooks 0:02:32.200 --> 0:02:35.680 I'm an our very George Floyd. I mean, and and 0:02:35.960 --> 0:02:39.240 unfortunately and tragically, I mean, when we add Sandra Blake 0:02:39.320 --> 0:02:42.320 or he of Boyd or Brianna Taylor, we can We're 0:02:42.320 --> 0:02:45.480 gonna add more names after this appears. That's part of 0:02:45.520 --> 0:02:48.800 the tragedy, right right. And what God is here is 0:02:48.800 --> 0:02:51.519 the persistence of white supremacy. What God is here is 0:02:51.560 --> 0:02:55.679 that from the slave plantation, when the slave patrols were 0:02:55.720 --> 0:03:00.959 sent out after black bodies, bring him back if they escape, 0:03:01.000 --> 0:03:03.320 bring them back if they're out late at night, because 0:03:03.320 --> 0:03:05.280 you know, black people could get a pass to go 0:03:05.360 --> 0:03:08.520 to visit their girlfriends or wives or husbands and the 0:03:08.560 --> 0:03:13.080 like from plantation to plantation, but if they were disobeying 0:03:13.120 --> 0:03:16.080 any rules, or if the slave owner didn't like what 0:03:16.120 --> 0:03:18.639 they were doing, they would send those darned slave patrols out. 0:03:18.680 --> 0:03:22.640 They were the predecessors to the police. So in early 0:03:22.720 --> 0:03:26.280 seventeen hundreds in Virginia and other places, the police have 0:03:26.480 --> 0:03:30.640 essentially been trying to arrest black mobility and to stop 0:03:31.000 --> 0:03:35.400 black freedom. And as bad as that sounds, we've been 0:03:35.440 --> 0:03:38.760 there from day one seventeen hundred to what's going on 0:03:38.840 --> 0:03:42.000 now in twenty to twenty. But doc then they didn't 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:45.880 have rules and regulation, get them back by any means necessary, 0:03:46.000 --> 0:03:49.080 and if they disobeyed, you have the right to use forth, 0:03:49.120 --> 0:03:52.160 even if that fourth is deadly forth. Now, you would 0:03:52.160 --> 0:03:55.800 think that as we progressed as a society, at least 0:03:55.840 --> 0:03:58.720 I'd like to think we've progressed as a society, that 0:03:58.880 --> 0:04:02.640 the rules would not be in today's society like it 0:04:02.760 --> 0:04:05.880 was back But back then, why can't they see us 0:04:06.400 --> 0:04:09.120 as equal? Why can't they treat us it's equal? Why 0:04:09.200 --> 0:04:12.760 must they use deadly forth as a first option instead 0:04:12.800 --> 0:04:16.240 of a last resort? You and I, as you eloquently 0:04:16.320 --> 0:04:18.440 just put it there, you framed it. We should be 0:04:18.480 --> 0:04:22.680 able to have evolution and progress of the perception of 0:04:22.720 --> 0:04:25.919 white people of black people. But is it really any progress? 0:04:26.480 --> 0:04:28.560 Is there? I mean, they're still killing us in the 0:04:28.600 --> 0:04:31.120 same way. Yeah, as you said, back on the plantation, 0:04:31.440 --> 0:04:34.560 they had some ostensible rules, but not really. You know, now, 0:04:34.600 --> 0:04:36.599 if the slave master got mad you killed one of 0:04:36.600 --> 0:04:39.320 my best negroes, I'm gonna you better you owe me. 0:04:39.520 --> 0:04:41.280 Let me tell you what. The only time reparations has 0:04:41.320 --> 0:04:44.479 basically been paid is for that you cost me some 0:04:44.640 --> 0:04:48.520 labor with this negro that you messed up and you 0:04:49.080 --> 0:04:52.200 hurt his arm, you hurt his leg, or you killed him. 0:04:52.240 --> 0:04:56.320 I want reparations. Ain't that a trip? So the reality 0:04:56.480 --> 0:04:58.279 is is that we've been dealing with this from the 0:04:58.320 --> 0:05:01.320 get goal that you would think there would be rules, 0:05:01.400 --> 0:05:04.840 but qualified immunity means is back on slave plantation side. 0:05:05.279 --> 0:05:09.760 Qualified immunity means that the Constitution gives to local authorities, 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:15.680 especially police people, an exemption from personally being liable for, 0:05:15.839 --> 0:05:20.520 say a murder or police brutality. So even when these 0:05:20.520 --> 0:05:22.760 cops do it, people keep asking, don't they know they're 0:05:22.800 --> 0:05:27.280 being recorded? What difference do it make if at the 0:05:27.360 --> 0:05:30.760 end of the day they know that there is no 0:05:30.839 --> 0:05:33.039 prosecutor that is really going to hold them to account, 0:05:33.800 --> 0:05:37.320 and that very few people in the government are willing 0:05:37.360 --> 0:05:39.920 to step up and to suggest that what they do 0:05:40.120 --> 0:05:43.920 is murder or manslaughter or the like. So we know 0:05:43.960 --> 0:05:46.599 we're living in a society where, yes, you're absolutely right, 0:05:47.000 --> 0:05:51.040 the rules, the conventions, the laws, what police are supposed 0:05:51.040 --> 0:05:52.919 to do and not do. We are supposed to be 0:05:52.920 --> 0:05:56.360 recognized as full citizens of the American polity. We are 0:05:56.400 --> 0:06:00.000 supposed to be recipients of the full benefits of American society. 0:06:00.279 --> 0:06:03.599 But it ain't so, as my man said, it ain't 0:06:03.680 --> 0:06:07.200 necessarily so. The things in the Bible, they just might 0:06:07.240 --> 0:06:10.080 be libel, and that's what he was saying. Play and 0:06:10.120 --> 0:06:12.760 the stuff in the law books might just be something 0:06:12.800 --> 0:06:15.920 you cooked up because it doesn't apply to black people. 0:06:16.240 --> 0:06:19.600 And even if it's on the books, if it doesn't 0:06:19.640 --> 0:06:21.640 get applied when you are a face to face to 0:06:21.680 --> 0:06:24.159 a police person, it's a piece of paper that has 0:06:24.200 --> 0:06:27.800 no meaning. Because when you mentioned qualified immunity and you 0:06:27.880 --> 0:06:31.120 laid it out, it means that the servant, a civil servant, 0:06:31.160 --> 0:06:34.640 can't be held libel unless you can prove that it 0:06:34.760 --> 0:06:38.919 was so egregious that he that he violated you in 0:06:38.960 --> 0:06:41.880 the most in the most heinous of terms. But they've 0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:45.280 made that burden so hot dog, there's no way on 0:06:45.320 --> 0:06:48.560 a consistent basis that you'll be able to clear that bar. 0:06:49.320 --> 0:06:51.520 I mean, you can't clear the bar, You can't clear 0:06:51.560 --> 0:06:54.640 the drinks, you can't clear the bartender, you claim't clear 0:06:54.920 --> 0:06:58.640 the darn establishment. Ain't none you gonna clear. To give 0:06:58.680 --> 0:07:00.880 you an example, tell us when it has been done. 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:04.680 I mean, if it has been, it's extremely rare. The 0:07:04.720 --> 0:07:07.720 bottom line is, it's been very rare that cops have 0:07:07.800 --> 0:07:10.480 been held to account. When they fired those four cops 0:07:10.520 --> 0:07:15.480 that killed George Floyd in Minneapolis, that was a rare thing. 0:07:16.320 --> 0:07:19.080 A few of the cops have been fired here and there, 0:07:19.120 --> 0:07:23.160 but for the most part, qualified immunity has exempted them 0:07:23.200 --> 0:07:26.440 from the kind of stringent barriers that you and I 0:07:26.480 --> 0:07:30.440 would face and stringent penalties that we would confront if 0:07:30.440 --> 0:07:32.640 we had done something even looking like you heard a 0:07:32.640 --> 0:07:35.200 police person, boy, if you heard a copy in this society, 0:07:35.200 --> 0:07:37.400 and God bless them. I don't want anybody to be hurt. 0:07:37.560 --> 0:07:39.600 I don't want cops to be hurt. But at the 0:07:39.640 --> 0:07:42.920 same time, if they if you hurt their eyelashes, there 0:07:43.040 --> 0:07:47.000 is a hunt throughout the land. One of them hurts 0:07:47.120 --> 0:07:50.440 our children, our mothers, our fathers, our brothers, our sisters, 0:07:50.680 --> 0:07:54.520 our aunts, our uncles, our cousins, there is hardly anything 0:07:54.560 --> 0:07:57.880 to be done, and they go on with impunity and 0:07:57.960 --> 0:08:02.080 go back to work and continue to all their salaries. Doc. 0:08:02.120 --> 0:08:03.840 I remember when I was when I was a kid 0:08:03.880 --> 0:08:06.120 growing up, and I would hear about these because this 0:08:06.200 --> 0:08:09.080 was never and this was in Chicago. You hear about 0:08:09.120 --> 0:08:10.760 it in in la you hear it about it in Detroit. 0:08:11.160 --> 0:08:14.360 And I remember when my grandmother my grandfather would watch 0:08:14.400 --> 0:08:17.200 something like this on television. The first thing they would 0:08:17.200 --> 0:08:20.160 say is what did he do to cause the police 0:08:20.160 --> 0:08:22.680 to do that? And now that since we've had the 0:08:22.760 --> 0:08:26.000 advent of cell phone, we know now there are a 0:08:26.000 --> 0:08:29.640 lot of times they didn't do anything to justify dyeing. 0:08:29.720 --> 0:08:32.720 They didn't do anything to justify the treatment at the 0:08:32.760 --> 0:08:36.560 hands of the police industry. I so disagree with you. 0:08:36.640 --> 0:08:40.080 Let me tell you what they did. They breathe, They breathe, 0:08:40.920 --> 0:08:45.280 They existed. They were black and speaking. They were black 0:08:45.320 --> 0:08:48.079 and human. They were black and half the nerve to 0:08:48.320 --> 0:08:50.800 look at a cop. They were black and halth the 0:08:50.920 --> 0:08:54.240 nerve to inhale an exhale they were And my god, 0:08:54.320 --> 0:08:56.880 don't get to the point of I can't breathe, let 0:08:56.920 --> 0:09:00.559 me breathe. Oh my god, you're off limits. And I'm 0:09:00.559 --> 0:09:04.680 being facetious, brother Shannon, But you know, you're absolutely right. 0:09:05.280 --> 0:09:09.160 There is no provocation. There is no you know, thing 0:09:09.240 --> 0:09:14.239 that they've done to precipitate or warrant the kind of nastiness, 0:09:14.280 --> 0:09:18.480 the vicious reprisal, the hatred, the taser, the gun, the 0:09:18.520 --> 0:09:23.720 stun gun, the rubber bullet, the baton. Nothing you and 0:09:23.760 --> 0:09:25.720 I both have been subject to that. I know I 0:09:25.800 --> 0:09:27.880 have been. I know you have been. I mean for 0:09:27.920 --> 0:09:31.120 no good reason, stopping us, throwing me against the car, 0:09:31.520 --> 0:09:33.920 calling me the N word, putting the gun to my head, 0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:37.240 knocking me on the ground. And I'm a well behaved negro. 0:09:37.440 --> 0:09:40.320 I'm not one of these causing no trouble, you know. 0:09:40.640 --> 0:09:42.560 And what difference does it make though? The ones who 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:45.640 quote cause trouble get treated the same way as those 0:09:45.679 --> 0:09:49.240 who don't. So you're absolutely right, no provocation and what 0:09:49.280 --> 0:09:52.360 these films show, you know. And I get so upset 0:09:52.400 --> 0:09:54.360 with some of my white brothers and sisters. I wish 0:09:54.360 --> 0:09:57.319 you would just obey. Let me show you the white 0:09:57.360 --> 0:10:02.480 people who didn't obey you, mother, yell and up. We 0:10:02.559 --> 0:10:04.760 saw that the other day, white boys getting in his 0:10:05.040 --> 0:10:07.640 getting in this trunk, and the man with the with 0:10:07.840 --> 0:10:11.439 the gun. If that would pa, Pa, Pa pa, that 0:10:11.480 --> 0:10:13.840 would have held his to white T shirt and then 0:10:13.840 --> 0:10:15.440 shot him in the back seven times. I know that 0:10:15.440 --> 0:10:18.120 would never happen, that a cop would hold a white 0:10:18.120 --> 0:10:20.840 T shirt and then shoot the guy seven times. And 0:10:20.920 --> 0:10:24.000 God bless him, he lives, but he's paralyzed. Members waist down, 0:10:24.360 --> 0:10:29.360 white boys, white men, white girls, white people, white women, 0:10:29.720 --> 0:10:35.000 white white folk with impunity. They have qualified immunity, it 0:10:35.000 --> 0:10:41.440 seems themselves that no matter how horribly they misbehaved, most 0:10:41.520 --> 0:10:45.600 cops are not going to over respond, shoot them, or 0:10:45.720 --> 0:10:49.240 engage in other nefarious and violent activities that would cost 0:10:49.280 --> 0:10:51.640 them their lives or make them more vulnerable. I've seen 0:10:51.720 --> 0:10:56.240 white boys with machetes, right, I mean literal white boys. 0:10:56.280 --> 0:10:57.680 I know I don't want white men to get upset 0:10:57.679 --> 0:10:59.280 his he called us a white boy, Mike all him. 0:10:59.559 --> 0:11:03.199 I'm talking white boys under seventeen. I've seen white men 0:11:03.240 --> 0:11:06.960 with machetes and knives come at police people and have 0:11:07.280 --> 0:11:11.280 no reprisal, no consequence. They try to talk to them, 0:11:11.360 --> 0:11:15.160 or they run. I've seen cops run. You saw that 0:11:16.080 --> 0:11:19.280 that's in the car and runs because he's so afraid 0:11:19.559 --> 0:11:21.400 because he doesn't want to hurt the person. And you 0:11:21.480 --> 0:11:24.440 got the gun. You could have shot that person. So 0:11:24.640 --> 0:11:27.400 we know that there's a different standard of perception. We 0:11:27.480 --> 0:11:31.440 are existing in different universes of perception, rotating on different 0:11:31.480 --> 0:11:34.360 act seas. And you know, we saw this in the O. J. 0:11:34.520 --> 0:11:37.560 Simpson case. Y'all saw one thing, we saw another thing. 0:11:37.640 --> 0:11:40.280 Y'all hear this, we hear that, and never the Twain 0:11:40.360 --> 0:11:43.199 show meet. And I'm afraid we haven't progressed too much 0:11:43.240 --> 0:11:47.720 more even since then in ninety five. Why is it 0:11:47.760 --> 0:11:50.600 is that they're able to show such great with strength 0:11:50.960 --> 0:11:53.760 at strength as you mentioned it, when dealing with our 0:11:53.840 --> 0:11:57.760 white comma parts as opposed to it's hard for the well. 0:11:58.160 --> 0:12:01.200 And the thing that it hearns me, it makes me 0:12:01.320 --> 0:12:04.360 seeth is that when they say I don't see color, 0:12:04.880 --> 0:12:08.480 stop lying, because if you don't see color, you don't 0:12:08.520 --> 0:12:11.120 need to be a policeman. You can't drive because that 0:12:11.160 --> 0:12:13.679 means you're color blife and you run stop size and 0:12:13.760 --> 0:12:16.640 you run red lights. So we know that you see color, 0:12:17.920 --> 0:12:21.280 knowledge that you see the color, and the stimuli black 0:12:21.360 --> 0:12:26.280 skin versus white skin trigger something different. It's a collective unconscious. 0:12:26.440 --> 0:12:29.200 It's muscle memory. I wasn't joking when I said this 0:12:29.240 --> 0:12:32.240 tracks back to seventeen hundreds. If you've been doing that 0:12:32.280 --> 0:12:37.240 stuff repetitively and repeatedly over a couple three centuries, you 0:12:37.360 --> 0:12:39.680 know it's deeply ingrained. And then you pass on those 0:12:39.679 --> 0:12:42.040 stories and you see what your grandfather did and your 0:12:42.080 --> 0:12:44.480 great grandfather did, and they tell you stories, and your 0:12:44.520 --> 0:12:46.880 great great great great grandfather told your great great great 0:12:46.880 --> 0:12:50.040 grandfather and your grandfather what the deal was, and they 0:12:50.080 --> 0:12:53.800 pass that on to you. It's a collective inheritance. It's 0:12:53.840 --> 0:12:57.800 like the Declaration of Independence. It's a document that articulates 0:12:57.840 --> 0:13:01.840 noble ideals, and in this case it articulates ignoble ideals, 0:13:02.280 --> 0:13:05.240 and people absorb that stuff. Man. And as you said, 0:13:05.280 --> 0:13:08.440 the stimuli of the skin, you know whether it's conscious 0:13:08.480 --> 0:13:10.080 or not. And at this point, what difference does it 0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:14.120 make whether you are unconsciously biased or consciously biased. The 0:13:14.120 --> 0:13:17.640 thing is, you still got the same results. Your intentionality 0:13:17.720 --> 0:13:21.360 doesn't exhaust consequence. What your intent was. My past used 0:13:21.400 --> 0:13:23.840 to tell me a mosquito don't want nothing but blood, 0:13:23.880 --> 0:13:26.360 but it can end up giving you malaria. It's intent, 0:13:26.800 --> 0:13:31.760 draw blood, it's consequence fill your body with malaria. So 0:13:31.840 --> 0:13:35.160 the reality is is that many of these cops don't 0:13:35.200 --> 0:13:37.800 even understand that when they say I don't see color. 0:13:37.840 --> 0:13:40.920 First of all, you lying, as you said. Secondly, if 0:13:40.920 --> 0:13:43.359 you don't see color, that means you don't see responsibility, 0:13:43.600 --> 0:13:47.760 because if you saw racial color and racial identity, you'd 0:13:47.760 --> 0:13:49.480 have to see the way in which white and black 0:13:49.480 --> 0:13:51.880 and brown and yellow have been mistreated in this country 0:13:51.960 --> 0:13:54.560 or treated differently, that white people have been treated differently 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:57.720 than black, brown, red, and yellow people. So how convenient 0:13:57.800 --> 0:14:00.280 you know, I don't see color, Oh, when it comes 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:03.280 time to taking care of your responsibility, I don't see color. 0:14:03.480 --> 0:14:05.400 So therefore I don't believe in a firm devection. I 0:14:05.440 --> 0:14:08.000 don't see color. Therefore I don't believe in reparations. I 0:14:08.000 --> 0:14:10.640 don't see color. Therefore I don't believe in compensating for 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:15.480 historical forms of oppression that have been directed toward African 0:14:15.520 --> 0:14:18.560 American people. So how convenient. When you don't see color, 0:14:18.640 --> 0:14:22.040 you don't see responsibility, you don't see culpability, you don't 0:14:22.040 --> 0:14:25.480 see complicity, and you don't see how you've benefited from 0:14:25.560 --> 0:14:28.640 being a white guy or a white woman for four 0:14:28.760 --> 0:14:31.720 hundred and some odd years. So when you don't see color, 0:14:32.000 --> 0:14:36.360 it's a way of denying your responsibility as a citizen 0:14:36.400 --> 0:14:39.760 of these United States of America. But doc, how do 0:14:39.840 --> 0:14:42.160 we get them to see when you brought when you 0:14:42.200 --> 0:14:45.240 brought the slaves here in sixteen nineteen, and you told 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:47.800 him he was less than, you treated him less than. 0:14:48.160 --> 0:14:50.320 You robbed him of his dignity, you robbed him of 0:14:50.360 --> 0:14:53.360 his humanity, You put him in Chaine. You said this 0:14:53.440 --> 0:14:55.600 is what you are, and then you told him, no 0:14:55.640 --> 0:14:59.880 matter what, you can never be equal. Two Roger twenty 0:15:00.120 --> 0:15:02.960 drest Scott said a slave can never be a citizen. 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:06.400 That's what he said. Plessy versus Ferguson said, you can 0:15:06.440 --> 0:15:08.920 have separate, we can do, we do equal, but it's 0:15:08.960 --> 0:15:11.720 got to be separate. So it's like when I tell 0:15:11.760 --> 0:15:14.800 people a TV is only gonna be a TV because 0:15:14.840 --> 0:15:17.680 that's what we've been told for seventy five years. That's 0:15:17.680 --> 0:15:20.800 what it is. Well, if you tell someone they're less there, 0:15:20.920 --> 0:15:23.880 they're treated less there for four hundred years, how do 0:15:23.920 --> 0:15:27.920 you ever see that person as equal to You can't. 0:15:28.480 --> 0:15:31.680 That's the point. And people try to deny it. They 0:15:31.800 --> 0:15:35.440 try to put it away as a fallacy or a mythology. 0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:38.440 Is not true, it's not real, But it is how 0:15:38.520 --> 0:15:41.360 you gonna tell folk all of a sudden to treat 0:15:41.400 --> 0:15:44.240 people like equals who were never seen as equals, the 0:15:44.280 --> 0:15:48.640 people who were never seen as you know, regarded as 0:15:48.920 --> 0:15:52.920 your peer. And as you said the Supreme Court justice 0:15:52.920 --> 0:15:55.600 in the mid eighteen hundreds, he said in that Dress 0:15:55.600 --> 0:15:59.120 Scott case that black people have no rights, that white 0:15:59.120 --> 0:16:02.560 people are boundary respect and he said, this ain't for you. 0:16:02.640 --> 0:16:05.160 The Constitution wasn't written for you. Declaration of Independence wasn't 0:16:05.160 --> 0:16:08.480 written for you. You You don't he didn't lie. He didn't lie. 0:16:08.520 --> 0:16:10.960 The up wait wait line, Where where the lie? Thatt? 0:16:11.000 --> 0:16:14.240 I mean? Because first of all, the Folding Fathers they 0:16:14.240 --> 0:16:18.160 were all white. They all owned land, and the majority 0:16:18.160 --> 0:16:21.280 of them had slaves. So when they wrote the Constitution, 0:16:21.320 --> 0:16:23.840 they were writing the constitution for people that looked like Bill, 0:16:24.200 --> 0:16:27.560 that were like Bill slave had no land. They weren't, 0:16:27.600 --> 0:16:30.080 They weren't free for the most part. So how am 0:16:30.120 --> 0:16:32.280 I going to write a document for you when I'm 0:16:32.320 --> 0:16:35.720 not talking about you? You better believe it. And they 0:16:35.800 --> 0:16:38.240 and they promoted it. When they wrote that Declaration Independence, 0:16:38.280 --> 0:16:41.040 they put it on Plantation Graham. They didn't have Instagram 0:16:41.120 --> 0:16:44.560 back then. They had Plantation Graham on Plantation Graham and 0:16:44.640 --> 0:16:47.000 on Twitter. And they and they sent that darn thing 0:16:47.000 --> 0:16:50.120 out there with their quills and their pins and their documents, 0:16:50.560 --> 0:16:54.160 and they articulated their beliefs that black people were subserving. 0:16:54.240 --> 0:16:59.120 Read the Declaration of Independence where it talks about savages 0:16:59.520 --> 0:17:03.880 that are Indians and black people who are disloyal. This 0:17:04.000 --> 0:17:08.479 is in the document itself. So when you read the 0:17:08.520 --> 0:17:13.160 founding documents. As you said, three fourths of the signers 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:19.119 of the Declaration of Independence owned enslaved people. And not 0:17:19.200 --> 0:17:25.080 only did they own the enslaved people, they denied black 0:17:25.119 --> 0:17:29.040 people and all women and people who are non property 0:17:29.080 --> 0:17:33.280 holders the ability to vote. So you you wrote the 0:17:33.359 --> 0:17:37.600 darned document all people are created equal, all men, but 0:17:37.680 --> 0:17:41.479 all women. All people create all except women, and except 0:17:41.520 --> 0:17:45.400 black people and except nonproperty holders. You were you were 0:17:45.440 --> 0:17:48.399 putting an asterisk on there to begin with. And whenever 0:17:48.440 --> 0:17:51.600 you read something with an asterist, you know your ass 0:17:51.640 --> 0:17:54.600 is at risk. So you know you're the one. If 0:17:54.640 --> 0:17:56.679 you're the one who is the victim of that asterisk, 0:17:57.040 --> 0:18:00.359 you are vulnerable and you will not be able to 0:18:00.400 --> 0:18:04.680 sustain an argument about the necessity for your equal treatment. 0:18:04.920 --> 0:18:07.720 So from the very beginning, it's been deeply entrenched and 0:18:07.760 --> 0:18:11.000 deeply rooted. So of course people are not going to 0:18:11.080 --> 0:18:16.160 just know overnight that hey, we're supposed to treat them equally. 0:18:17.000 --> 0:18:21.359 We're supposed to regard them with equal passion and equal 0:18:21.680 --> 0:18:27.080 observation and equal regard that they are our brothers and sisters, 0:18:27.240 --> 0:18:30.760 and what we have they should have naw, naw. And 0:18:30.840 --> 0:18:34.439 even when it formally ended with Jim Crow and the 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:38.440 sixty four Voting sixty four Civil Rights Bill, sixty five 0:18:38.520 --> 0:18:41.280 Voting Rights Act, sixty eight Housing Act, all kind of 0:18:41.320 --> 0:18:44.960 informal stuff, all kinds of stuff. Even if you're denied 0:18:45.000 --> 0:18:48.080 the law, the Old Testament, the law, you still had 0:18:48.119 --> 0:18:51.960 the spiritual realities that were persistent. Although even up north 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:54.680 people think, oh they had it better than those down south. 0:18:54.960 --> 0:18:58.040 They were doing horrible things up north as well. So 0:18:58.119 --> 0:19:01.000 to be black in America met you caught hell. White 0:19:01.000 --> 0:19:05.000 people didn't see you differently, And to this day look 0:19:05.000 --> 0:19:07.200 at that. I don't know if you saw that. I 0:19:07.200 --> 0:19:09.080 don't know if it was on Twitter or some social 0:19:09.119 --> 0:19:12.280 media where the two white guys are because you in word, 0:19:12.640 --> 0:19:15.359 you in word, you in don't come this far you 0:19:15.480 --> 0:19:18.320 in word, I mean use it about nineteen to twenty times. 0:19:18.480 --> 0:19:22.440 The cop is sitting right there. The cop doesn't say 0:19:22.440 --> 0:19:25.440 stop calling these people the in word. The cop doesn't intervene. 0:19:26.119 --> 0:19:27.359 This is one of them. I don't know if it 0:19:27.400 --> 0:19:30.160 was either Portland or maybe no. I was outside of Kenosha, 0:19:30.240 --> 0:19:33.160 I think where the bac of Blake happened, and there 0:19:33.359 --> 0:19:38.440 was no attempt to interrupt this. Why because the cop 0:19:38.560 --> 0:19:41.320 is part and parcel, woof and warp of the same 0:19:41.480 --> 0:19:45.600 system and structure that reinforces white supremacy. We see it 0:19:45.680 --> 0:19:49.280 from the White House with Stephen Miller and white nationalism 0:19:49.320 --> 0:19:51.440 down to the everyday level of the cop. We see 0:19:51.440 --> 0:19:57.399 it from Donald Trump who goes to Kenosha and doesn't 0:19:57.440 --> 0:19:59.320 meet with Jacob Blake, lies and said he met with 0:19:59.359 --> 0:20:01.080 their past to day, got one dog, they don't go. 0:20:01.200 --> 0:20:04.879 Jared's sorry, he got one and you're lied about that. 0:20:05.520 --> 0:20:11.160 And then you you justify a seventeen year old allegedly 0:20:11.720 --> 0:20:15.920 who who murdered who allegedly murdered two people and shot 0:20:15.920 --> 0:20:20.439 a third, and you defend him, but you call black 0:20:20.480 --> 0:20:24.919 protesters thugs. Yes, look at the inability of many white 0:20:24.960 --> 0:20:30.639 brothers and sisters to separate themselves from the vicious white 0:20:30.640 --> 0:20:36.240 supremacist ideology that permeates their unconscious. Can't even help it, do. 0:20:36.440 --> 0:20:39.399 You said something very interesting that people thought the North 0:20:39.520 --> 0:20:41.560 was different than a South. But what they failed to 0:20:41.600 --> 0:20:44.840 realize that it was America. In America treated everybody the same. 0:20:45.200 --> 0:20:47.399 And they tried to deny blacks, not try to, they 0:20:47.440 --> 0:20:51.639 did deny blacks the right for fair work, to vote, 0:20:52.040 --> 0:20:55.800 fair housing, civil rights, civil liberties. So this notion that, 0:20:55.880 --> 0:20:59.920 oh everybody, because I read where doctor King he really 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:03.520 apartment in nineteen sixty six in Chicago, and he said 0:21:03.840 --> 0:21:06.560 the bitry all that he got in the North was 0:21:06.600 --> 0:21:08.719 worse than what he got in the South, and he 0:21:08.760 --> 0:21:11.359 didn't know if the non violent protests in the north 0:21:11.600 --> 0:21:13.840 would work like he did in the south. Come on 0:21:14.080 --> 0:21:17.040 head back. He got hit up head, hit up side 0:21:17.080 --> 0:21:19.440 the head with a rock. He was out there, and 0:21:19.720 --> 0:21:23.440 I'm trying to remember that, Cicero. I've never in my 0:21:23.680 --> 0:21:30.320 life seen such violence as I've seen in Chicago. I'm 0:21:30.440 --> 0:21:34.720 eating there. It was Doc. He had been in Mississippi, Alabama, 0:21:35.400 --> 0:21:40.720 George bull Connor done debt with all these and up south, 0:21:41.160 --> 0:21:43.520 because that's where he was up south, in the north, 0:21:44.240 --> 0:21:47.919 running an apartment on the west side of Chicago, trying 0:21:47.960 --> 0:21:53.320 to highlight the criminal levels of poverty that were in 0:21:53.359 --> 0:21:58.360 this particular area and showing that black people were not 0:21:58.520 --> 0:22:01.800 capable of enjoying the same freedoms as their white brothers 0:22:01.800 --> 0:22:05.919 and sisters up up north, in a way that was 0:22:06.000 --> 0:22:09.560 proclaimed even though we know down south they didn't get much, 0:22:09.640 --> 0:22:12.280 but they were honest about it. Up north, they led 0:22:12.359 --> 0:22:15.080 about it. Remember what they used to say that down 0:22:15.160 --> 0:22:18.960 south they love black people as individuals but not a group. 0:22:19.200 --> 0:22:21.600 But up north they love you as a group but 0:22:21.680 --> 0:22:25.720 not individuals to my wife. So it's very interesting how 0:22:25.760 --> 0:22:28.840 that played itself out in the physical geography, in the 0:22:28.840 --> 0:22:34.040 political geography of discrimination and racism in this country. You 0:22:34.080 --> 0:22:36.600 know what doctor I find very interesting is that we 0:22:36.640 --> 0:22:39.000 hear our white counterparts said, okay, as long as your 0:22:39.040 --> 0:22:43.359 peace were protesting, that's fine. What doctor King peacefully protests. 0:22:43.400 --> 0:22:45.880 He still had water cannons turned on him, he still 0:22:45.920 --> 0:22:48.679 had dogs unleashed on him. He's still got set upside 0:22:48.680 --> 0:22:52.080 his head. And then when black started riding about what 0:22:52.160 --> 0:22:54.359 happened in Harlem and what happened in Detroit and what 0:22:54.440 --> 0:22:57.320 happened in the la, well, we won't hear you because 0:22:57.359 --> 0:23:00.920 you're destroyed. So what is it that we can to 0:23:00.920 --> 0:23:06.280