Why We Riot

I am Brother Cornell West. This is Chris Hedges hundreds of comments. Hey what's up. This is Chuck D Public Enemy property rage. And this. Is Newton.

Everyone. This is Manny faces producer and host of News beat today.

We're doing something a little different in light of the horrific slayings of African-Americans in recent months. We've decided to rerelease one of our most powerful drops to date. It's called Why We riot. It's our first award winning episode an examination of the racist institutionalized inequalities threaded into the very fabric of American society that forces historically oppressed and tormented communities of color to inevitably rise up in rebellion

It took three months for authorities to charge the man with his murder. George Floyd Brianna Taylor Ahmad Aubrey all victims of what many consider to be modern day lynchings.

The incredible New Jersey based Fusion outfit the band called Fuse provided the musical underbelly of why we riot while its frontman and our artist in residence hip hop firebrand Silent Night delivered incendiary verses along with bandmates soul clock and Kay desert Ray on vocals.

This is an important episode. It's one we wish we didn't have to make in the first place and it's certainly one that we wish we'll never have to rebroadcast again. Something tells me that we will. For now please support news beat by subscribing on your favorite podcast app. Also take a moment to leave a rating and review it. It always helps gets us noticed. And for more social justice coverage in our unique compelling musically fueled way. Visit us at U.S. News beat dot.com.

Once again this is why we riot as a kid who is 13 years old.

I had no idea this was coming. I had no idea that upright. You know I wasn't politically conscious at that age and I didn't come from a politically active family. My family were not activists. My father passed when I was 4 years old. My mother lived with her parents I lived with them. We lived a regular life. I did live in what at that time was called the ghetto and it became the inner city now just north. By 1967 the community that I lived in was all

And somebody ran upstairs says Springfield Avenue was on fire.

Newark New Jersey became a city of race riots violence looting and hate for five days. It was a battleground and the looters paradise. Colored Citizens clashed with police National Guardsmen and state troopers. Twenty four people were killed and twelve hundred. Nearly half the city was in the grip of a new flare ups. Similar riots in other medical centers with hatred near danger point between white and black extremist groups. In Europe. There was an uneasy tension punctuated

In front of what is today called the West District precinct. My house was roughly a mile as the crow flies. The police arrested a black cab driver named John Smith. They took him into the precinct that precinct had a notorious reputation.

People being beaten and killed in there. Initially when Smith was arrested. And keep in mind that that precinct set in the heart of a major housing project. At that time was the Hayes Homes project and right across the street was the Stella Wright project and right below that was the Scudder home project.

Within that area that was said to have been the most densely populated black community in the United States at that time. I mean there were literally thousands of. I mean it was like a city unto itself. Those three because you couldn't even tell they were different housing pride just looked like one great area of projects. All of them about 13 stories high. So the precinct was right in the heart of that.

And so people could see from their windows John Smith being dragged in there drag them into the streets and that's evident land since they are people of a community and a rumor got started that Smith had died.

Even though representatives of civil rights organizations came to the precinct and met with the police and knew that Smith had not been killed but he had been beaten and so there was a demonstration in front of the West District precinct which led to a confrontation with the police. And that's how the uprising of 1967 began.

Inured.

Twenty six people were killed and almost all of them conclusively were killed either by the police the state troopers or the National Guard. The author Ron Rambo wrote a book called No cause for indictment. And in that book he chronicles how no police guard no one was indicted or went to trial for the murder of the people that took place during not during the rebellion. The police were saying they were firing because they were being fired

Oh my God. You want to travel. Cyprus shot out a shot of the National Guard without calling a sniper firing at each other. You know people not familiar with the city and they kill people they kill Ella Spellman.

You know while she was standing at her window. Like on the seventh or eighth floor of the building that she lived in.

You know we used to have a saying in the in the black power movement at that time we call it right around the corner is because all of this was happening and some people were under the impression that a revolution literally was around the corner when money came King Junior was shot for example April 4th 1968.

We had over one hundred and fifty mass rebellions around the country killing.

Martin just was it was too much too much you couldn't take it anymore. Something snapped and some snapped inside of all of it. You know with those signs please.

I have some very sad news for all of you. And that is that Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight.

So you just don't know when that's going to happen. But it is true all around the world. Had various riots in terms of rebellions against forms of oppression.

And it's hard to know what the catalyst is the deeper causes usually accumulative the structural their institutional the economic political and cultural vicious stereotypes against peoples and so on yet Jewish resistance in Poland. Well of course it was back to being pushed against the wall. Palestinians in Gaza against Israeli occupation. Back to being pushed against a wall. Each one of these you have distinctive conditions and circumstances but there's one button push.

She can't take it no more that history starts the moment there was a year Pan who took an African and that Africans fought back.

Our level of civil disobedience is nothing compared to what we used to do almost hundreds of years ago. Whether it was on the continent via a bag. On a slave ship through the middle passage to women throwing themselves off. Balconies and draft or committing fratricide so their children wouldn't have to face the horrors of being kidnapped being enslaved like. The civil disobedience the little bit that we see now is an expression of.

People being fed up at one point. But it doesn't encapsulate the entire history of black people resisting not oppression. But the system seeing capitalism and patriarchy.

I mean we're always going to have civil disobedience. People to get tired and they're going to rise up dead in a rebellion.

That's United States history period. But the level of what we see in the streets right now is nothing compared to what you see in the mass in the streets in America.

When it comes to how particularly African-American people fight back.

We begin this week with so much emotional unrest all across the country after those devastating shootings you see some rallies like this one in Minnesota did turn violent over the weekend. Dozens of officers injured this healing is going to be hard.

And we have so many striking images to show you at this encounter between a young woman and officers in riot gear in Baton Rouge. Last night people asking for peace in Los Angeles protesters joining hands making a statement as the country mourns the loss of those lives in Louisiana and Minnesota and of course those five officers in Texas who say her name.

Say his name. They. Say their names. Say Ana. Why.

They say my name wrong in their roll call. They think I should be happy to say it they don't. They say I'm only troubled when my product most is they give me signal. Behind closed doors. They go to neighborhood I can't afford to save me my three sisters and my dad was born and. Raised. The family still with a fiancee more. Naps. 554. Can call. Got pulled dope. The. Third time this month the slick shrink. Gave me the third degree before a third. Try to have parts of

A city that saw that this is the first offense. On the day. Of the raid Nancy. The. WOMAN. OKAY NOW. GET. A break in a. Second. Child on the playground. A lot of people after the uprising of 2015 looked to history and wanted to know more about the history of Baltimore. To figure out how they could make changes that would have lasting impact. And so 50 years from now we wouldn't be looking back and say well we should have made some changes in 2014 and 2015 and then we

Around 6 p.m. this evening groups of teenagers began breaking windows in a small area in east Baltimore. Several fires were started for the most part the destruction and disorder in our streets has followed this pattern. However it has spread and it has become worse.

These acts make no sense and serve no purpose except to bring further grief for the hardship and further disorder to the people of Baltimore.

We had fires set in different parts of the town. Eventually there would be. Fires and looting and about 15 different business districts all across the city.

In Baltimore City we had damages of 12 million dollars. Second only to D.C. six people were killed in the unrest in 1968. We have taken the following steps to restore law and order.

In our state. You may be sure that the situation is under control and under constant vigilance of state and local authorities. We have proclaimed the state of emergency in Baltimore City and Baltimore County. Every available unit of the Maryland National Guard has been fully mobilized and deployed within

There were a thousand businesses affected here in Baltimore according to insurance records and five thousand five hundred and twelve people were arrested mostly for breaking curfew in Baltimore. Mostly the events lasted between April 6th and April 9.

While today we are pressing to confront force with force.

But now violence house fire. The lessons of these past hours have not been lost on any airline. We know now as never before. How vital is the law to our liberty. We know now as never of more or less violent is no friend to freedom and that the mob is no ally of civil rights.

It's certainly contested as to what were the underlying issues that people were so angry about in 1968 and in 2015. Of course 2015 the predominant issue was police brutality and

It demands an end to poverty and racial injustice to which we're totally committed in our time.

But that change was slow in coming. And so a lot of people think that there was a loss of hope. Peter Levy in our book writes about Dr. King talking about what's happening in the other America he says.

Dr. King says one America's invested within rap Schering beauty. And if we can find many things that we can think about a noble terms. In this America little boys and little girls grow up in the sunlight of opportunity and innovation and millions million people's.

Experience everyday.

The opportunity of having life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And all of that diminish.

And in this America millions of young people grow up in the sunlight of opportunity. Tragically and unfortunately.

There is another American.

This other America has a barely ugliness about it that constantly transforms the billions of hope and to the fatigue of despair. In this America millions of work starved men. Walk the streets daily in search for jobs that do not exist. In this America millions of people find themselves living in rat infested vermin fields Sloan. In this America.

People are poor by the millions they find themselves perishing on a lonely island of poverty. In the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.

Baltimore unfortunately was a pioneer in some of the government policies that created segregated neighborhoods not just here but where they were a model for cities all across the nation. One of the most shameful things that Baltimore City Council did in 1910 was to pass an ordinance that divided

Shown here on cell phone video. Gray is in handcuffs as police escort him into the back of a police van. The answer to what kills Gray lies in what happens next.

Absolutely. There were underlying social issues that made people take to the streets in 2015. I was sitting in my office and I started to hear murmurs from people that there was going to be unrest after on the day that Freddie Gray's funeral took place and the family and asked there not to be demonstrations even in that day. But there were rumors flying that something big was going to happen. And I went and picked up my son and high school. We drove home. Right past Mondawmin Mall

And it seems like that was just that the spark that set off all of the unrest in public transportation is a huge problem. And that was made very evident when the buses shut down and we had this layer of police brutality in this one particular case that was just one of many that people had been worried about in Baltimore and complaining about for a long time. All of those on top of each other combined with this history of.

Residential segregation disinvestment in certain areas while other areas of Baltimore City are well invested. That whole history just came to a fore in 2015. And.

Had a predictable result. So. Much sound no fucking to it is. That his talent is high had his kids school system.

Did Miss the man last night. No nooses. Past the panic zone. Do we know this. Because. They. Know. This because they owe us. 40 acres a pipe dream. They. Say. The. Dead. Don't cut the photos half of them can't stop. A man can pull some. That's. My.

Question. Since. I. Bought a souvenir. So. Now began a web. Site. I've been a. Cornerstone is gone and nobody knows. What happened. But the pain. Can be gone. Down the corner for some real shit. Inside the. Camp and. It's nothing specific or is it. It's been building since it was on. We don't call it. A.

Riot. We call it an uprising because it was a collective response. To oppression. One of the things that people need to keep in mind and one of the reason we call it a rebellion is because this was happening all over the country. Many people don't know that between 1960 and 1972 there were more than one thousand recorded urban civil disturbances or riots in the United States. In naming it. That. You bring yourself closer. To the reality that brought it into being.

In name in calling it a rebellion. See if it's a riot. People think a riot like.

After a basketball game. College after a soccer game. Europe.

You know they think of some trivial reason understandable excitement.

Sox fans waited 18 years for a trip back to the World Series. Some fans took the celebration to fan. History the straight.

Damaging property. I also condemn in the harshest words possible the actions of the punks last night who turned our city's victory into an opportunity for violence and mindless destruction. But when you say rebellion everybody knows that when you say rebellion you're talking about something Civic. Something social.

Something really serious happen.

When you say rebelling the shooting of 18 year old Michael Brown has opened a wound in the community. The violence which erupted in the anger following a candle light vigil was taking place in Ferguson a suburban St. Louis because most people at some point in their own histories you know if you're Irish you know about the Irish Rebellion.

Oh you American you know about American Revolution.

It's only when you come to black people that the idea of people using force to change or to address their situation becomes taboo.

Last night again in suburban St.. LEWIS The scene that photographers captured looked like a police state using the same tactic get up in the same weaponry we've come to expect in urban warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan. Police in Ferguson Missouri once again had to put down and head off violence in the streets following the shooting days ago of a young unarmed black man. It was supposed to head off to college this week.

Now the American Revolution all kind of force was used. People don't talk about human rights when they tarred and feathered Tories up big in West da t in New Jersey. You know people don't call the Boston Tea Party a riot.

That was a riot. You know. I mean they dressed up like somebody else. They went and destroyed property threw the tea overboard.

But when black people.

No black people can not bear. Look when Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman and Thaddeus Stevens went to Abraham Lincoln and told him that he needed to put arms in the hands of the people who had the biggest vested interest in winning this civil war.

He winced because it was the immediate thought. Well we put guns in their hands they're going to get revenge. But what we did to them for the past 200 years. Wow you can never predict a riot though on Monday the Kings had a riot is the language of a day on how we've done to see that a riot.

Is the language of the.

It has a particular singularity in its distinctiveness that you got a lot of oppressive conditions you got levels of social misery but they can be in place for a while and is still not right.

And what is it that America has failed to heal. Usually there's a particular moment where the righteous indignation spills over because people can just no longer take and failed to hear that the economic plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years.

Be a police killing a fellow citizen that could be an act of bad ugly act of a violation of the respect of somebody's got to be something as deeply psychic. And it touches the spirit of the people. They reached a point where they actually engaged with.

How many summers like this one do you imagine that we can expect.

Well I would say this we don't have long. The mood of the Negro community now is one of urgency. One of saying that we aren't gonna wait. That we've got to have our freedom. We've waited too long. So that. I would say that. Every summer. We're going to have this kind of vigorous protest. My hope is. That it will be nonviolent. I would hope that we can avoid riots because riots are self-defeating and. Socially destructive. I would hope that. We can avoid riots but that we will

From a police murder police violence police brutality. That's not the only one but that tends to be. The one that of course Rodney King got beat up in L.A. That was Major ninety to what most Americans saw when they watch Rodney King's. Fifty six times by white policeman a jury saw differently the jury in the above entitled action. Find the defendant Laurence M. Powell. Not guilty of the crime of assault by force likely to produce great bodily injury and with a deadly weapon that had to do

When people reached the point it just can't take it any longer. It's got to be some kind of resistance that spills over beyond legal means.

There hasn't been a decade since 1967 when there wasn't an urban uprising somewhere in the United States of America I mean look at what happened after Rodney King in Los Angeles in Cincinnati in Florida and Liberty City. You know I mean every decade there's been some uprising. I think that massive oppression goes hand in hand with forms of resistance. And riots oftentimes are forms of resistance and therefore they're.

Unavoidable and inescapable. They're always already there as possibilities and as long as you have. Economic exploitation cultural degradation. Psychic put down injury and assault. On a chronic basis you're going to have riots and rebellions. Part.

For me to believe that in this day in a 2014 so many years after Dr. Martin Luther King the civil rights movement we're seeing National Guard troops on the street to prevent this kind of violence in this day and age it's something I didn't think we'd be seeing.

It would be interesting if the corporate media turned the cameras on the daily funerals of the young brothers and sisters who died before eating is that they kept track of the dilapidated housing if they really went inside the school system not first and foremost the prison system.

They make big money on that but the school system follow a young brother or sister trying to get a job.

Year in year out still unemployed get a job underemployed no trade union to protect. Follow that and then make the connection between this one moment and this countless police brutality and then the righteous indignation. Then you say put yourself in their shoes. How long would you remain silent how long would you remain complacent. How long would you remain content to put yourself in their space. Get out of your own egocentric predicament and conceive of the world

Good evening. Our top story is breaking right now in Baltimore where rioting has broken out in the street. The state of emergency was declared in St. Lewis County. Today is the scene that a lot of us never anticipated. Violent clashes between police and roving groups have left several officers injured and turned one West Baltimore neighborhood into chaos as calls for racial justice last night were drowned out by the sounds of gunfire.

Hard to believe this is going on as I keep saying that a major American city. I don't remember seeing anything like this in the United States of America.

For a long time so Wolf Blitzer said I can't believe this is happening now. What he says I can't believe this is happening a black man. Well you know what I tell people all the time. Black Lives Matter starts under a black president.

There's no excuse for the kind of violence that we saw. Yes it is counterproductive when individuals get crowbars and start prying open doors to. Loot they're not protesting they're not making a statement they're stealing when they burn down a building they're committing arson they're destroying and undermining businesses and opportunities in their own communities that rob jobs and opportunity from people in that area.

So grapple with that shit like. Let's figure out how does that happen. Because at the end Barack Obama played his role in keeping the Empire only.

He escalated expectations so high. It's audacity of hope that he talked about really did seize the hearts minds and souls and bodies of a lot of.

I stand before you again tonight.

After almost two terms as your president to tell you I am more optimistic about the future of America but never before.

Once you have rising expectations shattered. Black lives matter on the black president. Says it on Sunday night. You've got a black president black attorney general black head of Homeland Security and black folks voted and supported all three of them. But the is still killing young black youth week in and week out and can't stop other than some investigation that takes a year and so forth. These are serious must be systemic. It's not a question of just another

I think there was an assumption that if a black man was elected president black people would be good but Barack Obama is also a person who helps and has helped perpetuate white supremacy and militarism.

There's no like indicator no statistic that anyone could pull up that shows a marked material resource improvement for black people in this country for poor people in this country that includes black people poor poor whites poor everybody else nothing materially change things got worse right.

He represents the Democratic Party and the platform he does not represent black liberation or freedom or what that looks like. So that's what Wolf Blitzer was saying. I can't believe under a black president that we could be seeing rebellions right. But you know the police have been this way since the founding of this country towards black people. This usually against police conduct. Rebellions happen in our communities.

So this is the situation that we're faced with today. And this is why these struggles continue to come up. It was police brutality that triggered the rebellion of 1967. Colin Kaepernick takes a knee in protest of police brutality because police brutality continues to this day. You know Michael Brown is killed two years ago in the two years since Michael Brown was killed. The police have killed twenty

And this is why this this thing keeps churning. Why is it that the issue won't go away. You know we were like. Well we elected a black president so that these we like.

A post-racial nirvana. All right. Hello Chicago. You know and obviously the events. Of the time show us that that we are far away from.

Smashing everything that's in my favor. Yes. You got no choice before accessing the cities and your permission slip that this is the greatest city garbage. Yes we break we ask and nobody said. It is what. Most said in the. Open. He just simply pulls in as a breath. Play. Cameras fall put his country in debt. How many got left when they signed the case to collect. On the. City's something's got to. Ask. That doesn't seem this sudden death. Simply trying to hit a. Possible. This. Lab was used

With. Of course. When I looked at Baltimore after the death of Freddie Gray and Ferguson after the death. Of Michael Brown of course. It brought back memories of what happened in 1967. My fellow American. We have endured a week. Such as no nation should live through. A time of violence.

And tragedy. People talk a lot today about terrorism. Of course. And we talk about military occupations in other countries but I can remember the first night. I saw the guard roll up 16th Avenue.

I was 13. I didn't know any difference between the National Guard and the army. They all had on green uniforms so they wore army to me right.

From my second floor apartment. You could see them growing up you know as a kid I had seen all these war movies but I had never seen a tank until. July of 1967. Because the guard had half tracks. Half track is a small tank. In which one man sits but it has a big automatic camera. Not a. Rifle but a cannon.

And you see these half tracks coming up the street you know is like this is stuff you saw in the movies right now it's happening in real life. You see these half tracks coming off these military trucks jeeps trucks filled with men jeeps filled with men. Men with rifles men with guns on their hips with the helmets and everything. And they actually set up a little checkpoint a couple of days right in our intersection. With. State of emergency was declared and the martial law went into effect.

And the Kerner Commission issued a report on the Kerner Commission report.

Now it's interesting there's a whole history behind the Kerner Commission report even before the commission begins its work.

And even before all the evidence is and there are some things that we can tell about the outbreaks of this summer they actually issued a first draft and the first draft was kill because Johnson and others felt that the first draft was too radical. Now imagine that a government report.

That the government kills because they think it was too radical.

First let there be no mistake about it. The looting and arson plunder and pillage which have occurred are not part of a civil rights protest there is no American right to loot stores or to burn buildings are fire right from the roof.

That is crime and crime must be dealt with. Fortunately.

And swiftly and certainly under law so they toned down the Kerner Commission report and issue the what became the official Kerner Commission report and it said that America was moving toward two societies one black one white.

This is our basic conclusion.

Our nation is moving toward two societies one black one why separate and unequal.

That's the line that everybody remembers to pursue our present course will involve the continuing polarization of the American community and ultimately the destruction of basic democratic values. The alternative will require a commitment to national action and passionate massive and sustained backed by the resources of the most powerful and richest nation on Earth from every American.

It will require new attitudes to understanding and above all new will despite its shortcomings.

I think it's a very valuable report and does help give insight into what happened and why it happened and also makes recommendations some of which is still relevant for today. One of the reasons the Kerner Commission report remains relevant is because the fundamental condition that the report attempted to address has not been changed.

The irony is 50 years after the Kerner Commission report was issued. We're still two separate societies. In fact. In some ways the United States is more racially segregated today than it was in 1968 when Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated. New Jersey for instance New Jersey is more segregated than some of the states in the south. Our school system I believe is the 5th most segregated school

All the other acts were actually more racially segregated a drag and made the street a riot is the language of the unheard.

Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight.

My fellow Americans we have endured a week such as no nation should live through a time of violence and prejudice.

Our nation is moving toward two societies one black one white separate and unequal.

Most Americans saw when they watched Rodney King's fifty fifty six time by white police a jury saw the shooting of 18 year old Michael Brown has opened a wound in the community no violence.

But she's worried that violent clashes between police and roving groups have left several officers losers. And last night people asking for peace in Los Angeles protesters joining hands making a statement as the country.

We don't need normalcy anymore. We need like visionaries intellectual like organizers that are also like can put theory to practice and practice a theory.

We need people to shake things up tap drop ideas that someone is going to think you're crazy and ten years later is going to be like I see it now. You know we need disruptors we don't just know people that now know how to be a part of a movement that's almost a formula. It's like you can open up a book and be like that one two three four five six seven to doing a protest Oh no that's not how protests or reforms are supposed to always happen.

People rise up when they've exhausted every other form of redress. You don't think black people go to city council meetings.

You don't think black people write their elected representatives make phone calls to their Congress people you know have meetings. They do all the stuff we do all the stuff that white people do.

But our issues continue to be either ignored or in adequately address. You know every now and then there's some token gesture made you know and then there's a big celebration. And then we go back to business as usual. People rise up when they just can't take it anymore. You know if. I mean no one plans a rebate plan there's no good planning and executing these things. These things are a spontaneous reaction to oppression.

And they will continue to happen. As long as people remain oppressed. People. Will.

Power to the people the power to reap with service to the people the power. This is not recent because how would you win conceded. That what. Black Ski Linda at war hey say I'll see all three years the freedom family well we are bound somehow. Found because revenge.

Is about justice. So we'll get. That property and. It was. Breaking Curfew. Listen to take. Your property and see. Your property. You can see what the mobile. Physical what's different from McGlone because they never seem to get it of course. Live in. Let go where the president is gone a. And explore what it could bring. Different. Fear. Of where the uprising is going to calm an explosion between. Five. Different. Housing is going to come in.