1 00:00:01,517 --> 00:00:05,373 So I wanna talk for a minute about human beings and about riots. 2 00:00:05,373 --> 00:00:08,511 This past Monday night while we were all sitting there 3 00:00:08,511 --> 00:00:11,192 waiting for that blow that we all knew was coming, 4 00:00:11,192 --> 00:00:14,008 and hoping that we might be wrong just this one time, 5 00:00:14,008 --> 00:00:18,536 I said on Twitter that the fundamental danger of a non-indictment is not more riots, 6 00:00:18,536 --> 00:00:20,611 it is more Darren Wilsons. 7 00:00:20,611 --> 00:00:22,920 And that thought struck a chord with a lot of people. 8 00:00:22,920 --> 00:00:25,975 It was linked to more than any tweet I've ever made. 9 00:00:25,975 --> 00:00:29,337 But later on that night, we saw some things happen in Ferguson. 10 00:00:29,337 --> 00:00:32,749 We saw some unrest, we saw things that you could call riots; 11 00:00:32,749 --> 00:00:33,918 and when that happened, 12 00:00:33,918 --> 00:00:36,448 a bunch of other people on Twitter were delighted by the idea 13 00:00:36,448 --> 00:00:41,688 that that heartache and grief and rage gave them a social media gotcha moment. 14 00:00:41,688 --> 00:00:45,418 "So who's the real danger now, mister social justice warrior?" 15 00:00:45,418 --> 00:00:48,837 "Ya see all those thugs out there? You see how you people act?" 16 00:00:48,837 --> 00:00:50,194 "What do you have to say now??" 17 00:00:50,194 --> 00:00:52,024 Well, here's what I think now: 18 00:00:52,024 --> 00:00:54,819 I believe what I said, now more than ever. 19 00:00:54,819 --> 00:00:57,777 And if you think what happened on Monday disproves what I said, 20 00:00:57,777 --> 00:01:00,362 you didn't understand what I was talking about. 21 00:01:00,362 --> 00:01:02,942 I wasn't happy at all about what happened Monday night. 22 00:01:02,942 --> 00:01:04,861 I hate to see people pushed that far. 23 00:01:04,861 --> 00:01:08,023 I hate to see people's community family businesses destroyed. 24 00:01:08,023 --> 00:01:09,188 I hated seeing that. 25 00:01:09,188 --> 00:01:11,937 But I'm also clear that if you ask me to weigh one against the other, 26 00:01:11,937 --> 00:01:15,994 we are weighing the destruction of property against the loss of a life. 27 00:01:15,994 --> 00:01:20,071 And if you value some people's property more than the life of a black child, 28 00:01:20,071 --> 00:01:22,284 we're not on the same team. 29 00:01:22,284 --> 00:01:26,001 And regardless of that, for us to even discuss caring about one or the other 30 00:01:26,001 --> 00:01:29,310 is presenting a false choice because they're not in opposition to each other. 31 00:01:29,310 --> 00:01:32,195 One is a byproduct of the other. 32 00:01:32,195 --> 00:01:37,278 That unrest we saw Monday night was a byproduct of the injustice that preceded it. 33 00:01:37,278 --> 00:01:40,758 This is not a choice, this is a cause-and-effect relationship. 34 00:01:40,758 --> 00:01:44,995 If you're worried about the effects, you need to be thinking about the cause. 35 00:01:44,995 --> 00:01:49,826 Riots are a thing that human beings do because human beings have limits. 36 00:01:49,826 --> 00:01:51,634 We don't all have the same limits. 37 00:01:51,634 --> 00:01:55,974 For some of us our human limit is when our favorite team loses the game. 38 00:01:55,974 --> 00:01:58,858 For some of us it's when our favorite team wins a game. 39 00:01:58,858 --> 00:02:01,905 The people Ferguson had a different limit than that. 40 00:02:01,905 --> 00:02:07,367 For the people of Ferguson a lifetime of neglect and facto segregation and incompetence 41 00:02:07,367 --> 00:02:08,946 and mistreatment by every level of government 42 00:02:08,946 --> 00:02:10,286 was not their limit. 43 00:02:10,286 --> 00:02:12,234 When that malign neglect set the stage 44 00:02:12,234 --> 00:02:17,204 for one of their children to be shot down and left in the street like a piece of trash, 45 00:02:17,204 --> 00:02:19,112 that was not their limit. 46 00:02:19,112 --> 00:02:24,406 For the people of Ferguson spending 100 days almost entirely peacefully protesting 47 00:02:24,406 --> 00:02:26,672 for some measure of justice for that child, 48 00:02:26,672 --> 00:02:30,947 and having their desire for justice treated like a joke by every local authority, 49 00:02:30,947 --> 00:02:32,115 was not their limit. 50 00:02:32,115 --> 00:02:34,262 And then after those 100 days, 51 00:02:34,262 --> 00:02:37,117 when the so-called prosecutor waited until the dead of night 52 00:02:37,117 --> 00:02:39,700 to come out and twist that knife one last time, 53 00:02:39,700 --> 00:02:43,694 when he came out and confirmed once and for all that Michael Brown's life didn't matter, 54 00:02:43,694 --> 00:02:47,532 only then did the people of Ferguson reach their limit. 55 00:02:47,532 --> 00:02:51,462 So when you look at what happened Monday night the question you should be asking is 56 00:02:51,462 --> 00:02:56,807 how did these human beings last that long before they reached their human limit? 57 00:02:56,807 --> 00:03:00,938 How do black people in America retain such a deep well of humanity 58 00:03:00,938 --> 00:03:05,974 that they can be pushed so far again and again without reaching their human limit? 59 00:03:05,974 --> 00:03:08,396 How do we keep going through this same cycle? 60 00:03:08,396 --> 00:03:10,721 Because that's the thing: it's not just these 100 days. 61 00:03:10,721 --> 00:03:14,687 It's the 100 times this cycle played out before Michael Brown. 62 00:03:14,687 --> 00:03:19,437 The thing about that tweet I sent out Monday night? That tweet wasn't really from Monday night. 63 00:03:19,437 --> 00:03:24,666 I made the exact same tweet a year and a half ago about Trayvon Martin 64 00:03:24,666 --> 00:03:28,557 The exact same tweet word-for-word. All I did was switch out the name. 65 00:03:28,557 --> 00:03:29,749 And that's how sick, 66 00:03:29,749 --> 00:03:34,977 that's how predictable and sick this white supremacy Groundhog's Day is that we live in. 67 00:03:34,977 --> 00:03:39,843 You can literally word-for-word have the exact same conversation year after year, 68 00:03:39,843 --> 00:03:42,952 and just switch out the name of the black child we lost. 69 00:03:42,952 --> 00:03:45,982 There is nothing more exhausting or more inhumane 70 00:03:45,982 --> 00:03:50,291 than black america's eternal cycle of being shocked but not surprised. 71 00:03:50,291 --> 00:03:53,778 When you have to go through your whole life with all your muscles tensed, 72 00:03:53,778 --> 00:03:56,614 waiting for the same blow to come again and again, 73 00:03:56,614 --> 00:04:01,845 knowing it will hurt a bit more each time precisely because you always know it's coming. 74 00:04:01,845 --> 00:04:04,975 And then you have to teach your children how to go through the same cycle, 75 00:04:04,975 --> 00:04:07,470 that's the definition of torture. 76 00:04:07,470 --> 00:04:10,480 Those are not fit living conditions for a human being. 77 00:04:10,480 --> 00:04:14,818 So when I see President Obama say he has no sympathy for people who destroy a car, 78 00:04:14,818 --> 00:04:17,555 I'm sorry but I do have sympathy for them. 79 00:04:17,555 --> 00:04:21,282 I'm not happy to see them doing it but human beings have limits. 80 00:04:21,282 --> 00:04:25,614 When I watched that footage of Michael Brown's mother out there crushed and heartbroken, 81 00:04:25,614 --> 00:04:28,948 and I see her family talk about burning this thing down, 82 00:04:28,948 --> 00:04:30,237 I'm not happy to see that, 83 00:04:30,237 --> 00:04:33,114 but I don't think we should be making excuses for that. 84 00:04:33,114 --> 00:04:34,975 I don't think we should be explaining that away. 85 00:04:34,975 --> 00:04:36,864 I don't think there's anything to be ashamed of. 86 00:04:36,864 --> 00:04:38,003 That is real life. 87 00:04:38,003 --> 00:04:41,197 That is what happens when you treat human beings this way. 88 00:04:41,197 --> 00:04:43,414 So if you hated what you saw on Monday night, 89 00:04:43,414 --> 00:04:46,691 if you hated seeing those human beings pushed past their limit, 90 00:04:46,691 --> 00:04:48,554 you need to do something 91 00:04:48,554 --> 00:04:52,612 about the government and the justice system and the institutions of policing 92 00:04:52,612 --> 00:04:54,773 that do not treat them like human beings. 93 00:04:54,773 --> 00:04:58,024 If you watch the news Monday night and didn't like the effects, 94 00:04:58,024 --> 00:05:00,690 you need to do something about the cause. 95 00:05:00,690 --> 00:05:05,326 You, I, we need to go out there and make this country into a place 96 00:05:05,326 --> 00:05:09,326 where black lives matter.