WEBVTT 00:00:01.517 --> 00:00:05.373 So I wanna talk for a minute about human beings and about riots. 00:00:05.373 --> 00:00:08.511 This past Monday night while we were all sitting there 00:00:08.511 --> 00:00:11.192 waiting for that blow that we all knew was coming, 00:00:11.192 --> 00:00:14.008 and hoping that we might be wrong just this one time, 00:00:14.008 --> 00:00:18.536 I said on Twitter that the fundamental danger of a non-indictment is not more riots, 00:00:18.536 --> 00:00:20.611 it is more Darren Wilsons. 00:00:20.611 --> 00:00:22.920 And that thought struck a chord with a lot of people. 00:00:22.920 --> 00:00:25.975 It was linked to more than any tweet I've ever made. 00:00:25.975 --> 00:00:29.337 But later on that night, we saw some things happen in Ferguson. 00:00:29.337 --> 00:00:32.749 We saw some unrest, we saw things that you could call riots; 00:00:32.749 --> 00:00:33.918 and when that happened, 00:00:33.918 --> 00:00:36.448 a bunch of other people on Twitter were delighted by the idea 00:00:36.448 --> 00:00:41.688 that that heartache and grief and rage gave them a social media gotcha moment. 00:00:41.688 --> 00:00:45.418 "So who's the real danger now, mister social justice warrior?" 00:00:45.418 --> 00:00:48.837 "Ya see all those thugs out there? You see how you people act?" 00:00:48.837 --> 00:00:50.194 "What do you have to say now??" 00:00:50.194 --> 00:00:52.024 Well, here's what I think now: 00:00:52.024 --> 00:00:54.819 I believe what I said, now more than ever. 00:00:54.819 --> 00:00:57.777 And if you think what happened on Monday disproves what I said, 00:00:57.777 --> 00:01:00.362 you didn't understand what I was talking about. 00:01:00.362 --> 00:01:02.942 I wasn't happy at all about what happened Monday night. 00:01:02.942 --> 00:01:04.861 I hate to see people pushed that far. 00:01:04.861 --> 00:01:08.023 I hate to see people's community family businesses destroyed. 00:01:08.023 --> 00:01:09.188 I hated seeing that. 00:01:09.188 --> 00:01:11.937 But I'm also clear that if you ask me to weigh one against the other, 00:01:11.937 --> 00:01:15.994 we are weighing the destruction of property against the loss of a life. 00:01:15.994 --> 00:01:20.071 And if you value some people's property more than the life of a black child, 00:01:20.071 --> 00:01:22.284 we're not on the same team. 00:01:22.284 --> 00:01:26.001 And regardless of that, for us to even discuss caring about one or the other 00:01:26.001 --> 00:01:29.310 is presenting a false choice because they're not in opposition to each other. 00:01:29.310 --> 00:01:32.195 One is a byproduct of the other. 00:01:32.195 --> 00:01:37.278 That unrest we saw Monday night was a byproduct of the injustice that preceded it. 00:01:37.278 --> 00:01:40.758 This is not a choice, this is a cause-and-effect relationship. 00:01:40.758 --> 00:01:44.995 If you're worried about the effects, you need to be thinking about the cause. 00:01:44.995 --> 00:01:49.826 Riots are a thing that human beings do because human beings have limits. 00:01:49.826 --> 00:01:51.634 We don't all have the same limits. 00:01:51.634 --> 00:01:55.974 For some of us our human limit is when our favorite team loses the game. 00:01:55.974 --> 00:01:58.858 For some of us it's when our favorite team wins a game. 00:01:58.858 --> 00:02:01.905 The people Ferguson had a different limit than that. 00:02:01.905 --> 00:02:07.367 For the people of Ferguson a lifetime of neglect and facto segregation and incompetence 00:02:07.367 --> 00:02:08.946 and mistreatment by every level of government 00:02:08.946 --> 00:02:10.286 was not their limit. 00:02:10.286 --> 00:02:12.234 When that malign neglect set the stage 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, 00:02:17.204 --> 00:02:19.112 that was not their limit. 00:02:19.112 --> 00:02:24.406 For the people of Ferguson spending 100 days almost entirely peacefully protesting 00:02:24.406 --> 00:02:26.672 for some measure of justice for that child, 00:02:26.672 --> 00:02:30.947 and having their desire for justice treated like a joke by every local authority, 00:02:30.947 --> 00:02:32.115 was not their limit. 00:02:32.115 --> 00:02:34.262 And then after those 100 days, 00:02:34.262 --> 00:02:37.117 when the so-called prosecutor waited until the dead of night 00:02:37.117 --> 00:02:39.700 to come out and twist that knife one last time, 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, 00:02:43.694 --> 00:02:47.532 only then did the people of Ferguson reach their limit. 00:02:47.532 --> 00:02:51.462 So when you look at what happened Monday night the question you should be asking is 00:02:51.462 --> 00:02:56.807 how did these human beings last that long before they reached their human limit? 00:02:56.807 --> 00:03:00.938 How do black people in America retain such a deep well of humanity 00:03:00.938 --> 00:03:05.974 that they can be pushed so far again and again without reaching their human limit? 00:03:05.974 --> 00:03:08.396 How do we keep going through this same cycle? 00:03:08.396 --> 00:03:10.721 Because that's the thing: it's not just these 100 days. 00:03:10.721 --> 00:03:14.687 It's the 100 times this cycle played out before Michael Brown. 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. 00:03:19.437 --> 00:03:24.666 I made the exact same tweet a year and a half ago about Trayvon Martin 00:03:24.666 --> 00:03:28.557 The exact same tweet word-for-word. All I did was switch out the name. 00:03:28.557 --> 00:03:29.749 And that's how sick, 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. 00:03:34.977 --> 00:03:39.843 You can literally word-for-word have the exact same conversation year after year, 00:03:39.843 --> 00:03:42.952 and just switch out the name of the black child we lost. 00:03:42.952 --> 00:03:45.982 There is nothing more exhausting or more inhumane 00:03:45.982 --> 00:03:50.291 than black america's eternal cycle of being shocked but not surprised. 00:03:50.291 --> 00:03:53.778 When you have to go through your whole life with all your muscles tensed, 00:03:53.778 --> 00:03:56.614 waiting for the same blow to come again and again, 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. 00:04:01.845 --> 00:04:04.975 And then you have to teach your children how to go through the same cycle, 00:04:04.975 --> 00:04:07.470 that's the definition of torture. 00:04:07.470 --> 00:04:10.480 Those are not fit living conditions for a human being. 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, 00:04:14.818 --> 00:04:17.555 I'm sorry but I do have sympathy for them. 00:04:17.555 --> 00:04:21.282 I'm not happy to see them doing it but human beings have limits. 00:04:21.282 --> 00:04:25.614 When I watched that footage of Michael Brown's mother out there crushed and heartbroken, 00:04:25.614 --> 00:04:28.948 and I see her family talk about burning this thing down, 00:04:28.948 --> 00:04:30.237 I'm not happy to see that, 00:04:30.237 --> 00:04:33.114 but I don't think we should be making excuses for that. 00:04:33.114 --> 00:04:34.975 I don't think we should be explaining that away. 00:04:34.975 --> 00:04:36.864 I don't think there's anything to be ashamed of. 00:04:36.864 --> 00:04:38.003 That is real life. 00:04:38.003 --> 00:04:41.197 That is what happens when you treat human beings this way. 00:04:41.197 --> 00:04:43.414 So if you hated what you saw on Monday night, 00:04:43.414 --> 00:04:46.691 if you hated seeing those human beings pushed past their limit, 00:04:46.691 --> 00:04:48.554 you need to do something 00:04:48.554 --> 00:04:52.612 about the government and the justice system and the institutions of policing 00:04:52.612 --> 00:04:54.773 that do not treat them like human beings. 00:04:54.773 --> 00:04:58.024 If you watch the news Monday night and didn't like the effects, 00:04:58.024 --> 00:05:00.690 you need to do something about the cause. 00:05:00.690 --> 00:05:05.326 You, I, we need to go out there and make this country into a place 00:05:05.326 --> 00:05:09.326 where black lives matter.