Making Sense of the Nationwide Protests

Speaker 1:

Listener supported, WNYC Studios.

Brian Lehrer:

It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. As we continue our coverage of the uprisings against police brutality and systemic racism generally, here in New York and around the country. And on this call in show, we invite you now to call in if you were among the protestors this weekend, and to have your voice heard on the air, 646 435 7280. Of course, it makes a powerful statement to demonstrate as a group, as people did, and here as an additional venue, you can say what you want to say as an individual.

Brian Lehrer:

So if you were protesting over the weekend and that's who we're inviting, people who are out protesting, we invite you to call in. Why were you there? What was the experience like for you? What did you see? What are you thinking about and what are you feeling today? What do you hope to change? What motivated you to go out in the middle of the pandemic and take that risk? How was police behavior where you were? How much do you think the violence that took place was from people not really concerned with the issues or concerned with the issues?

Brian Lehrer:

Whatever you experienced or want to say that's important for people to hear, if you were out this weekend, 646 435 7280. 646 435 7280. With me now is Jamil Smith, senior writer at Rolling Stone, where he covers national affairs and culture. He grew up in Cleveland, went to college in Philly at the University of Pennsylvania. Used to be based in New York and come into our studios for his appearances, now he is based in LA. Hi Jamil. Thanks for being up early for this LA time and welcome back to WNYC.

Jamil Smith:

Good morning, Brian. How are you?

Brian Lehrer:

I'm okay. It's not new that incidents of police brutality get caught on video and make the news, obviously. Why do you think the killing of George Floyd was the final straw to a nationwide response like the country hasn't seen in 50 years?

Jamil Smith:

Brian, I think that it was in a way, because first of all, it's coming on the heels, we should acknowledge, of the news of Breonna Taylor's killing in Louisville, Kentucky, of Aman Aubrey's murder in Southern Georgia. A cascade of these kinds of incidents. Even the Amy Cooper incident in Central Park when Christian Cooper was not physically harmed, but threatened with, essentially the state power and the violence of the police, the potential was there. This is essentially the worst case scenario. You are arrested on a nonviolent charge and you are treated essentially like you were an animal that needs to be lassoed and put into the barn. Three guys on a person who is around 200 pounds, if you're going to arrest somebody, do it, and if not, do something else. That did not look like an arrest. People understand what violence looks like and a person with their knee on someone's neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds, that is not law enforcement. It shouldn't be law enforcement in this country.

Brian Lehrer:

How much do you think the context of the pandemic is relevant or irrelevant to the extent of the uprising?

Jamil Smith:

I think it's very relevant actually and I think it's relevant in this way. One of the things that we've seen in the last few weeks in particular, is the president encouraging people to essentially be reckless with this virus, to go out and interact and just resume their normal lives, whatever ways that particularly looks and people have done it. I remember driving here in Los Angeles, not this weekend, but the previous weekend, along the Pacific Coast Highway and seeing people out there treating it like it was spring break. And I was amazed, the lack of mass, and the lack of decorum when it comes to social distancing. As I wrote it, it felt like people had been vaccinated by their own frustration, or at least, that was their impression, that they were so bold to be able to go out in public like that, without any fear of infection.

Jamil Smith:

And to me, given that it is shown to be disproportionately affecting black communities, to the point where it's three times as many infections in black communities per capita, as in white communities. Frankly, I think it showed a real utter disregard for their black neighbors, in one of the most diverse cities in America. You have all these folks who are dealing with this virus and these folks might be going to the cafes where black and brown folks are serving them or they might be going to a gas station, so on and so forth, all these different things. And they just don't care whether or not they might be spreading the virus to those people.

Brian Lehrer:

But now there were dense crowds around the country this weekend and a lot of them were people of color and others who care about people of color, enough to be out in those protests, in many cases wearing masks, but still with density and of course talking and chanting, moved the virus around people who do care, doing it themselves.

Jamil Smith:

Yes. And I think that we have a little bit of a difference here because people have elected to take that risk, and really you've had people taking on the risk of the virus, risk to their own lives, to plead the state to save our lives as black people. And I've been moved by it, I've also certainly had my moments where I've looked at the coverage on television and felt very cautious. I know certainly the reasons why I didn't go out there and there's a lot of reasons why a lot of my colleagues did not go out there. But I do think that this is different in a lot of ways than folks deciding that, "Hey, I need a haircut and this is why we need to flaunt public safety regulations." This is people literally telling to state, "Stop killing us." And if they need to risk their lives to do so, that certainly would not be unprecedented.

Jamil Smith:

The people in Ferguson risked their lives, the people in Cleveland and Baltimore and all these other cities years ago, risked their lives because of our over militarized police forces reacting in the way that they do, as we see, everyone's safety is at risk when they police the way that they do. And we're seeing it, frankly, at a level which is alarming at this particular go around.

Brian Lehrer:

Let's start taking some of our callers. And again, the invitation is for people who were out protesting over the weekend, we invite you to call in and say, why you were there, what the experience was like for you, what did you see, what are you thinking about and what are you feeling today, what do you hope will change as a result? And anything else you want to say. Katie, in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Thank you so much for calling in. You're on the air.

Katie:

Good morning. Thank you. I was out protesting last night at Barclay Center and in Manhattan. And I just wanted to say that I heard a lot of people chanting "NYPD take a knee" and calling for these symbolic, I guess, demonstrations of understanding. And it is my understanding that some officers, not just in NYPD, but across the country, did take a knee last night and this weekend. But then we see later that same evening, other officers attacking peaceful protesters with batons and just generally being violent and escalating. And I guess, I just wanted to call in to say that these symbolic gestures, don't actually mean anything, because what we're talking about is a structural problem and one cop taking a knee doesn't change the systemically violent and racist role of the police.

Brian Lehrer:

What do you hope will change as a result of the protest?

Katie:

I am hoping that we will defund, not just the NYPD, but police departments across the country. I know we spend something like a hundred billion dollars on policing nationwide every year and invest that money in stuff like reparations and education. We have doctors going into hospitals to treat people with COVID without PPE. We have teachers starting GoFundMe's for school supplies. So I hope that we defund, disarm the police and ultimately abolish them.

Brian Lehrer:

Katie, thank you very much for your call. And we're going to get more on the idea of abolition of the police from Jamil in a minute, but let me hear from some other phone callers first. Devorah in Crown Heights, you're on WNYC. Hi Devorah, thank you so much for calling.

Devorah:

Hi, Brian. I'm a huge fan of your show, by the way. I was out at the Friday protest at Barclay Center and I, as an African American woman, am obviously out there to speak about the injustice, or just, it's not even raising awareness, I'm just speaking out about the injustice towards black people, by the police. And it's just when I'm out there, it feels good. The crowd, everybody is just on the same energy. And what I have seen with my own eyes is that everybody is out there peacefully protesting. Yes, we're angry, but it's not a violent, angry. However, I have seen the police just start macing crowds. They started shoving us. There was tear gas being thrown. And all we were doing was standing and wanting to be heard. I see this every time it happens in the news and it takes a piece of me every single time I see it.

Devorah:

It's gotten to the point where I can't even begin to process it because I'm scared for myself. I'm scared for my friends. I'm scared for my brother. He could just be in the wrong place at the wrong time and I just want this to stop. I would love to defund the police because I no longer feel safe having them around. Going to that protest, I felt like I was going to have a heart attack seeing all those cops out there. It doesn't make me feel good. They are not there to protect us. They're just, I don't know, upholding the institutionalized racism and inequality and I just want to see change in my lifetime.

Brian Lehrer:

Was this the first time you went out to a protest of this sort?

Devorah:

Yes. I mean, no, not really, I've definitely gone to black lives matter protest before, but I will say that the energy out there this weekend was a lot different from anything that I've ever seen. It is just crazy, the things that the people that are infiltrating, the groups of the protesters, the way the media is handling it, I see these things out there and then I see it differently online. And this is just something I've never seen before and if I have to keep going back out there, I felt like my passion was, I was scared at first because we're still in the midst of a pandemic, but I feel like my passion about this issue is just stronger than being scared and wanting to stay in isolation. I just had to go and make my voice be heard.

Brian Lehrer:

Devorah, thank you so much and keep calling us. So Jamil Smith, national correspondent for Rolling Stone, you heard that idea that both of the first two callers brought up and I saw your Twitter thread yesterday that began with this, listeners who didn't read Jamil's Twitter thread. It began with this, ""The entire system of law enforcement needs to be pulled up from its roots and Americans need to move toward a restorative justice model. To those who say the abolition of police is inconceivable. I advise you to read some books about the institution this country has set aside." So would you go there, because for a lot of listeners, the idea that public safety without police, as opposed to merely without police brutality, is inconceivable.

Jamil Smith:

Well, Brian, I think we need to approach this suggestion with some intellectual honesty. No one is talking about getting rid of the police tomorrow, telling them like, "Hey, look, we're going to pull all the police off the street. We're going to defund the police. And they're all going to have to be out of work and we're just not going to have anybody protecting the neighborhoods." That's not what people are talking about when they talk about abolition. We're talking about working towards solutions that don't involve policing as it is currently manifested and giving all of this money, as the caller mentioned, to the tune of $100 billion per year nationwide, including communities like Minneapolis. Where just last winter, just last December, the democratic mayor fought to get a raise essentially for the police department and so that they could hire 14 more officers.

Jamil Smith:

He got 2.4 million in his new budget for them. And why would you do that for a police department that from 2013 to 2019, killed black people at a rate that's more than 13 times higher than their white counterparts. Why does that say to you, we need to have more cops on the street, rather than fewer. Why does that say to you that we need to give the police department more money, rather than less. It's astounding. And we see the same problem here in Los Angeles, and I'm sure in New York City, it's no different. It's a systemic problem throughout the country, in terms of how we think about policing, we need to start thinking about different justice models, because right now we're not getting justice at all.

Brian Lehrer:

And it is an issue here in New York. One of the things that's come up in the last few days is the question of, with the COVID caused budget crisis in New York City, why are things like summer jobs for youth, which would go mostly to black and brown youth, being slashed large percentages, while the projected police budget is only being cut by 1%. So that's a very local and top of mind issue right now here in New York. Perseya in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hello, Perseya, Thank you so much for calling in.

Perseya:

Thank you. How are you?

Brian Lehrer:

I'm okay. You were out this weekend?

Perseya:

Yeah, excuse me. I went out Saturday and Sunday, had pretty different experiences. Saturday, we were mostly in the streets. I was in the crowd that was marching on the Manhattan bridge and there was one ahead group and one behind group. And when the behind group tried to join the ahead group, we were just sort of standing there, when the police rushed and a bunch of people essentially fled and I was with a couple of friends that ran away. But I saw a number, I mean, I saw some people throwing things like water bottles, was about as aggressive I saw people get on Saturday, during the early evening. Things got a little bit worse during the night. But I'm from Philly originally and I was speaking with my parents and my younger brother who were there over the weekend and things were very different there, just in terms of, I think, looting, large scale.

Brian Lehrer:

Thank you very much for your call. So Jamil, let me go back to you with that because I know, and I mentioned in the intro, that you've lived in different cities, and I wonder if your experience living at times in Cleveland, as a kid, Philadelphia, as a college student, New York and LA as an adult, if there's any comparison of the protests or the police response or the violence, where there was violence, that you're thinking about today?

Jamil Smith:

Well, I mean, it's hard for me, Brian, when I see the police responding in this overly militarized way, treating their own citizens like enemy combatants. It's hard for me not to think about the histories of these departments. I mean, the history of abuse within the NYPD, we could fill up your entire show with it. We look at Philly, it's a police department that once bombed its own city, to try to get at black revolutionaries and the movement. In my hometown of Cleveland, I mean, we see their actions are virtually authoritarian, the last couple of days, reports were coming out last night even, that they were going to shut off downtown to the press over the course of this curfew that they've said, that goes all the way to Tuesday downtown. Which if you think about shutting down all of lower Manhattan for two days, and saying you can't go there unless you're going to the office.

Brian Lehrer:

That's what's in effect in Cleveland right now, not just after 8:00 PM or something curfew, but a 48 hour curfew.

Jamil Smith:

48 hour curfew through Tuesday night, which is a curious time to end the curfew, because I feel like people are going to show up on Tuesday night in downtown Cleveland after they've cleaned up all the glass from Public Square, all the way to the Cleveland State University.

Brian Lehrer:

That's weirdness of it, I'm seeing it. 8:00 PM is when the curfew ends on Tuesday. Correct?

Jamil Smith:

Yeah, yeah. Yes, it's just very, very curious decision making by the folks in my hometown. And again, there was local television reporting last night that they had been told by police that no media was going to be allowed there, that mayor Frank Jackson says, "No, actually that's not true. I don't know where I heard that." And it's like, well, if you just look and see where the reports are coming from, you would know where you heard that My Mayor.

Brian Lehrer:

Cheryl in Columbia, South Carolina, you're on WNYC. Thank you so much for calling in Cheryl. Hello.

Cheryl:

Hi, how you doing? I just want to say, please stop quoting Dr King, a humanitarian and civil rights leader, an American citizen protesting police brutality, who was slain by violence. Stop quoting him, stop saying violence is not the answer and quit attacking victims of injustice and violence, instead of turning that same anger and criticism toward the victimizes of injustice and violence. We have got to stop that. And when we stop respecting peacemakers and reasonable people committed to cooperation and reasonable change, stop being surprised when warriors and activists show up and no longer ask, but demand justice in stopping the abuse.

Brian Lehrer:

How much do you think, Cheryl, that the violence has been from warrior's demanding justice and how much from anarchists with their own outside agendas?

Cheryl:

Well, I think activists are ultimately also anarchists for the same reasons because it's systemic injustice. So reason works with people who are reasonable. Some of the police departments have demonstrated they are not reasonable. It is unreasonable to tell the American public, we have no abusive officers, but as I say, prosecute. That's unreasonable. So now you're dealing with people who are unreasonable in their reactions toward those who are trying to bring justice to the people and keep the peace. So why are we surprised now that the tactics have had to change with people, in dealing with people who are reasonable. Now, the protest is just reasonable activism. That's all it is. It's still with the same vein that you have these humane people, these morally just people, coming against people who are immoral. It is not surprising.

Brian Lehrer:

Cheryl, thank you so much. Jamil. What are you thinking listening to that caller?

Jamil Smith:

I think I have to agree with her. But I think that we should distinguish between shock and surprise. We should make sure that we understand that shock, which is something that we feel when we see the George Lloyd video or when we hear about Breonna Taylor being killed in her bedroom, that's a real thing. But are we surprised that police are behaving in that way? Not necessarily, given what we've seen over just the last several years, let alone the history of policing in this country. So I definitely agree with regards to not quoting Dr King or co-opting aspects of the civil rights movement for people's own purposes or their own self aggrandizement.

Jamil Smith:

I think a lot of folks, we got to be careful here that people don't get to self satisfied with what they feel like they may be doing to help. We got to have folks dealing with in the realm of anti-racism, simply being not racist, is not enough. You have to be working towards the end of racism, in conscious and constructive ways in your life. And there are ways for people who are busy with their own lives, with kids, jobs, all of that, to do this. There are ways to do it.

Brian Lehrer:

And we will talk about some of those ways in more detail later in the program, with Ijeoma Oluo. We have now, Jamil Smith, national correspondent for Rolling Stone with us on the phone, as we continue to take your calls, if you were out protesting this weekend, our lines are full right now, but as people finish up, 646 435 7280. To follow up on that, how would you respond to mayor de Blasio and other people who talk about the complexity of the position that the police have been in? That there's certainly been some new recordings of police responding to protest against police brutality, with more police brutality. But police officers in vehicles, in station houses are also being physically attacked in some cases and in some cities. And it's also still their job to protect the stores that are being looted and stop that kind of violence where it's taking place. So what would you say about any complexity of the position that they're in?

Jamil Smith:

I think asking for nuance is always a tricky thing for a politician in this particular moment. However, I think mayor de Blasio was failing in a very specific and acute way to address this crisis. Number one, because he failed the city with his response to the coronavirus crisis, which is disproportionately affecting black and brown New Yorkers.

Brian Lehrer:

Are you thinking of closing schools and other things too late, or when you say he failed-

Jamil Smith:

Closed the schools too late, failing to institute social distancing guidelines too late, failing to really take this problem as seriously as it needed to be taken from the jump. Trump deserves the lion's share of blame on this, on terms of the federal response, but we also have to look at local leaders like de Blasio who are failing black and brown folks, who they serve. And so when you bring this into the conversation, and then you have de Blasio after you see NYPD vehicles try to run down people in Brooklyn protest, say to them basically, understand where the cops are coming from. No, no, no. We don't want to understand where the cops are coming from when they behave in that manner, in such a life threatening manner towards people who are protesting peacefully. And If you get a water bottle thrown at you, that is not a reason to respond with tear gas, especially during a pandemic that is affecting people's lungs. It's affecting people's breathing. I mean, the whole notion of, I can't breathe, it has a double meaning right now, and that people need to understand.

Brian Lehrer:

Yes, indeed. Lucas in Mount Vernon, you're on WNYC. Hi Lucas.

Lucas:

Hi Brian. I don't know where to start, when I was talking to your screener, I got all emotional. So this is my first time calling. I'm from Mount Vernon and my house is in New Jersey. So I was driving a car and was paused at the light at the crosswalk and this lady came, pushing around the plate. She said, "Why am I driving in New Jersey with a New York driving license." I tried to speak and she said, "Keep quiet, when I'm talking, you don't talk." And then next thing she called the Calvary of the whole precinct on me, I have to put my hands up, all true. They said, I couldn't drive the car, I had to call a tow truck, call someone to come drive it. Other hand, I went to court and the prosecutor threw it out. But since Floyd, I saw myself in him because I'm six two, 40 years old.

Lucas:

So yeah, I had said something back, it could have gone south and I could be the guy on my back with someone kneeling on my neck. Being black don't mean so much. They just kill you. I had a hard day yesterday.

Brian Lehrer:

I hear you, Lucas.

Lucas:

One thing I want to say is... Guys from other neighborhood. I know guys from Brooklyn come into Manhattan to come and cause mayhem. Most of the people that destroyed properties are not guys from this neighborhood. Every other places, you see all these guys from another neighborhood come in to cause mayhem. And the police yesterday, they did try to shot the guys from Brooklyn in Union Square, they try to push them back. But at time they know what they want to do. So they just took, two to three other blocks and they went out and I see people going into Rolex and all that grab just to steal.

Brian Lehrer:

So you're saying they're coming from other neighborhoods and doing that stuff.

Lucas:

Yes.

Brian Lehrer:

And would you talk a little bit more about your experience of, I guess, you could call it, driving while black, with the story that you told of being pulled over by that white cop that time and how thinking about it now, you could have wound up as George Floyd and obviously George Floyd is not the first such victim of this kind of thing. Is it with you every time you're driving a car?

Lucas:

Yes. Yes. When you're driving and even if you're not doing anything wrong and you see a cop car right behind you, you reduce your speed or you try to pull over because you feel like they're running your plate or they're trying to pin something on you. Even if you don't have a warrant or something, all in your name, you're just scared. This is what happened, I don't know, it's a two way street. One way runs South, one runs North and they're both two lanes and one lane was all occupied and there's a red light. I saw the other lane and go to the red light. This lady in front, she was driving an SUV, the cops metro van. So I stopped. I pulled up the compartment besides me pull out water and I just drank water. When the light green, I moved, she just pulled behind me and just pulled me over.

Lucas:

She was there for five minutes running plate and doing everything. And my hands cuffed, she's over 50 years, I know she don't have nothing. So I was in the clear. When she came, she said, who was the owner of the car, then she asks about driver's license, registration, and insurance, which I give her, because the car is not in my name but I gave her my driver's license. And she said, "Why are you driving with a New York driver's license?" And I said, "Is it a crime?" And she just say, "Shut up, when I am talking, you don't talk, keep quiet." But if I had said something else, then I just realize like, whoa.

Brian Lehrer:

This could go really bad.

Lucas:

The prosecutor was like, "Oh, this rookie cop." She's not rookie. She know what she was doing because they got like six, seven white guys all over me. And I was just having my hand up all the time, holding up to like, you know what, you pull up when you want to go out of the car. So I was just there and I was just praying. And she gave me like a ticket. She wrote everything from my driver's license. And she wrote driving without a driver's license. How? I just gave you a New York driver's license. When I got the prosecutor said, "Do you have a driver's license?" And I gave it, he took a photocopy of it and the case was thrown out.

Brian Lehrer:

The case was thrown out because she tried to give you a ticket for driving without a driver's license. And as you are describing, wrote down your driver's license number. Lucas, thank you for sharing your story. I hear the emotion in your voice and that it was probably hard to call in with it, so thank you.

Lucas:

I didn't want to cry on national radio, but you know, it's hard. Have a good one. You're doing a good job Brian, I love your show.

Brian Lehrer:

Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. Hang in there. And with Jamil Smith, senior writer for Rolling Stone. Jamil, how much ... well, it sounds like you want to just react to Lucas. So go ahead.

Jamil Smith:

Yeah, yeah. Very briefly. Lucas, we hear you brother. I mean, these are the kinds of stories that people are courageously telling now. And it requires a vulnerability that is demanded of black people, I think, on almost inordinate level. And basically, this raw nerve is exposed all the time. We walk out of our front doors, there's a potential confrontation with police. We know that the images of Philando Castile and of Walter Scott and Tamir Rice, and all of these people who have been killed at the hands of police unjustly, and often without any kind of a weapon on them, it's traumatizing. I think that's really just the word for it. Even seeing the videos of these events is traumatizing to us in a particular way, that I honestly believe has a real effect on our physical health.

Jamil Smith:

And we're not talking about the big death gap essentially, between black and white Americans, that varies by gender. But folks die early, racism kills us in a very specific way. It may not kill us in the same way it kills George Floyd, but it may kill us at 66 when we would otherwise be healthy. And it may kill us because we live in a food desert and don't have enough options. It may kill us because we don't have enough education or the proper education to get the kinds of jobs that we can properly feed our families or take care of ourselves. It's just an accumulation of things that racism does to us, and frankly it hurts the entire country and people need to understand that.

Brian Lehrer:

We're going to run out of time with you in a couple of minutes and the Brooklyn borough president, Eric Adams is going to be on next. But I want to get this in, some people who are NPR listeners may have heard this, but you wrote a few years ago and you talked on NPR's Code Switch just recently about increasing collection in this country, of video showing black death, mostly at the hands of police. There is no such filmography of white death because it doesn't really happen. So what would you like to say about that collection of videos, which usually get used by the media in an individual case by case basis, like with George Floyd, to say, look at this, look how horrible this is, but you're talking about a different collective impact of all these videos. Want to talk about that?

Jamil Smith:

Yes, indeed. Brian, we should make it clear that police violence does happen white people. We're talking about a disproportionate amount of the violence being directed at communities of color and people of color more specifically. So I think what we need to do here is think about those videos in a couple of ways, if you are white and you feel like you were not aware of these kinds of problems, then consume as many of these videos as you possibly can, to understand exactly what our reality is like and understand what we're afraid of.

Jamil Smith:

That being said, if you are black and understand this fear, and have had the talk with your parents, even as a child, about how to behave around police, because you know that even being a child, they're going to still maybe look at you as they did Tamir Rice, as an older person. He was 12, they were talking about him being 20. We have these talks with our kids because, frankly, we just don't know how cops are going to view them. And these are the kinds of things that we don't need to see on video anymore, it's traumatizing for us. I advise folks who are consuming stuff ad nauseum, and don't have to do it for their jobs like I do, to really exercise some self care, therapy works, it really does. I advise folks to really look into that.

Jamil Smith:

But I just want to make sure that our folks are taking care of themselves in the way that they need to, and that our press and those who consume our press, are sensitive to our needs.

Brian Lehrer:

Let me take one more phone call for you and then I think we'll have Eric Adams, Brooklyn borough president, ready to go. Claire in Chicago, you're on WNYC with Jamil Smith in LA and me and New York. Hi Claire. We have the three thirds of the country represented, the three coasts as they say.

Claire:

Hello. Yeah, I just wanted to replicate some things that some of your other callers mentioned, which is that I've been to other protests and I felt like the crowd that I was marching with, was angry, but not violent. And the response of the police officers was escalating the situation. They came out in SWAT gear, they had clubs in their hands, when people were just marching and chanting with signs. And I heard, Lori Lightfoot, our mayor, who I'm generally a fan of, was saying, peaceful protesters don't come armed with bottles of urine.

Brian Lehrer:

Here, let me play that clip since you brought it up, I have that clip. Let me play that clip of Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot. And then you can finish your thought coming right out of that. Here's mayor Lightfoot.

Lori Lightfoot:

Chicago is strong. This is our home. This is a city that we built with our blood, sweat, and tears. This is a city that we must protect so it can provide for us. We know it's not perfect, but if it gets destroyed, we are all left to pick up the pieces.

Brian Lehrer:

There it is. So Claire in Chicago, go ahead.

Claire:

Yeah. I mean, I guess that's the other question. There's just so much talk about destruction and destruction on the part of the people who are protesting and a lot of focus on looting. And I feel like that's not the most important thing that we should be talking about, and there's just way too much focus on that instead of on the fact that people are upset and outraged as they should be. And what should we do? If some windows at Target get smashed, okay, better that than people sitting at home and not responding to what has been ongoing in this country for far too long. And I don't know what the right response is anymore. I'm white, I have two little white sons. I thought about bringing them to the protest. I'm really glad that I didn't actually, because it was the scariest protest I've ever been to in terms of the police response.

Claire:

And people were running in panic at certain points because cops were attacking them. And it was really scary, frankly. And I've heard people say, "Well, of course cops have their hackles up because of the nature of this." But I think that's a reason for them not to have their hackles up, fine show us that you can serve and protect and let people express their displeasure. And if people are saying F the police, okay, I think you can hear that without hitting them or macing them. My sister lives in Oakland and she was teargassed at a protest that was similarly peaceful. She said they were just marching and chanting and the cops just tear gassed them all. And that's when things started getting broken.

Brian Lehrer:

Thank you. Thank you very much. Jamil, just give me one last 15 second response.

Jamil Smith:

Yeah. I mean, first Claire, thank you for trying to raise anti-racist sons. If your white, try to raise your children not to kill us, to view us as human beings, it's most important. And I think frankly, it's important for Chicago's mayor to do the same thing. Chicago is not the buildings that they built. Chicago is the people, New York is the people, Cleveland is the people, all of these cities, Los Angeles, it's the people that make up that city, not the buildings.

Brian Lehrer:

Jamil Smith, senior writer for Rolling Stone. Thank you for getting up early in LA and coming on with us.

Jamil Smith:

It's my pleasure.

 

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