00:00Hi, I'm Lauren Williams,
00:04Features Editor at Essence Magazine,
00:06and today we're talking about the Black Lives Matter movement.
00:08You're joining us now on Essence Debates Live.
00:11I'm joined today by DeRay McKesson and Janetta Elzey.
00:14Welcome, you both, to our show.
00:15Hi. I just want to jump right in.
00:17So talk to me about what the Black Lives Matter means to both of you.
00:20So I think that, you know, this is a focus on ending police violence
00:24and also making sure that we highlight the many ways
00:27that the state is interacting with blackness
00:29and ways that aren't productive and trying to shift that
00:32in whatever way we can.
00:33Right, right.
00:34So a lot of what you see in the media are protests and marches
00:38and a lot of reactionary events,
00:39but you don't often see what's happening behind the scenes.
00:42So I know you both are organizing legislation
00:45and organizing work you're working on.
00:47I think locally in St. Louis,
00:49I can say that there's a lot of stuff that goes on
00:52that people just don't talk about because it's not glamorous,
00:54it's not sexy.
00:56It's lots of late nights in the heat or late nights in the cold.
00:59And then there's, as far as like legislation goes,
01:04working to pass bills, a lot of people are being radicalized in a way
01:08politically that they've never been before.
01:10So this was my first time ever like lobbying or reading through legislation
01:16or bills and figuring out which ones we want to back and don't want to back.
01:20coalitions are coming together of lawyers and
01:24activists and street organizers
01:26and coming together and see which ones they want to push
01:28that will actually affect their community in a positive way.
01:31And then I would also say that in St. Louis, for example,
01:36one of the big things that I'm really, really proud of
01:40is the voter turnout in Ferguson
01:42and getting the civilian oversight board passed in the St. Louis city.
01:47What does that mean?
01:48That just means that there's like a board that if an officer is involved
01:52in a fatal shooting in St. Louis city,
01:54there's a board that looks over the facts
01:58and they can push for change.
02:01Got it.
02:02Just another way to apply pressure.
02:04Right, right.
02:05DeRay, what's been the most successful part of the movement for you?
02:07What's been the biggest achievement?
02:09Yeah, I think that in so many ways,
02:11we never thought that the protest space would create
02:14like a national conversation about race and policing and it did.
02:17So we think about what's happened over the last nine months or plus
02:21is that there's a nationwide conversation happening
02:24about the complexity of blackness, about state violence
02:26and about the police in ways that have never happened before.
02:29And there have been so many people who've been radicalized
02:31and who are now woke in ways that they were not before,
02:35which is really powerful.
02:36I'm excited to see what that means in the next nine months
02:39in terms of translating that energy into tangible,
02:42structural changes.
02:43But I will never discount the power of the conversation
02:45that people are talking differently in ways
02:48that has not happened in our generation.
02:50Right.
02:51What do you guys think the biggest misconception
02:53about the movement has been?
02:54You know, I'm always sensitive to the origin story
02:57of the movement, right?
02:58Like what's so powerful about it is that there was no Martin,
03:01no Malcolm, no SNCC, no SLC.
03:02It was like people in St. Louis came out of their homes
03:05and said, you know, here we are.
03:07And when the police came out aggressive,
03:09they said, we will not go home.
03:10And then so many of us joined into that.
03:13And it's powerful because it reminds you that like,
03:15you are enough to start a movement.
03:17I think that that is like something,
03:18that story is not told often enough.
03:20Right.
03:21And then I would say, you know, for me,
03:22that like people confuse what the role of protest is,
03:25is that we never said that protest is a solution.
03:27We said that protest is like a precursor to the solution.
03:30That protest is about the extending the crisis
03:33and creating something that is unavoidable
03:35for people to focus on.
03:36We never said that protest alone
03:38or sort of street protest is supposed to be the win.
03:40Mm-hmm.
03:41One of the biggest things that I hear often
03:44is that it is, it's made to be that only,
03:48um, that straight men, straight black men
03:52aren't positive or in positive roles in this movement
03:56or they're harmful or they're not doing work,
03:59which is not true.
04:02Um, I would say that I think a lot of people
04:05have done harmful or damaging things to one another
04:08because we're all still learning.
04:09Right.
04:10Um, and we're all still getting to know one another
04:12and you don't know, you know, people's boundaries
04:14and things like that.
04:15But I will say that I feel that straight men in the movement
04:19get a bad rap, um, for being harmful or homophobic
04:24or sexist or misogynistic.
04:26And there are those, but it's not everybody.
04:29Yeah.
04:30Can you guys share any personal stories
04:32that have really informed your participation
04:34in the movement, be it a conversation
04:36with a mom on the streets of Ferguson
04:38or just anything that you've learned
04:40that really continues to, like, burn that fire
04:43and you to continue doing the work you do?
04:45The first person I talked to on August 9th
04:48was a nurse, um, and she was just some random woman.
04:53We parked, my best friend and I, we parked
04:56and we just went out and we were just looking at,
04:58like, just the area where Mike was killed.
05:00Um, and she said to me that she had been there all day
05:05and, like, could not leave.
05:07Um, and she asked the police could she go and see him,
05:12go touch him, go try to see if there was something
05:15that she could do to help him.
05:16In her mind, Mike Brown Jr. was still alive
05:19and she felt that she could just do something
05:22to try to help him, to bring him some type of comfort
05:25in his last moments or something
05:27and the police pointed a gun at her
05:29and told her to get the F back
05:31and she said she was willing to die to try to help him
05:35but it was just too many of them and too many guns.
05:40Um, trying to keep people in the community,
05:42even his mother, to keep the family away from his body.
05:46So that really activated, like,
05:48I just felt like I couldn't leave.
05:50And hearing little babies say they saw Mike Mike get killed.
05:53Um, like, two and three.
05:55That's, that's terrorism.
05:57Black children shouldn't have to know
05:59that it's okay for some random white officer
06:03to come into their neighborhood
06:04and shoot them and nothing is going to happen.
06:07Right, right.
06:08How about you, Dory? Do you have anything?
06:10I think that's a really powerful story.
06:12I think, um, there are so many people, um,
06:14who I remember from August who were, like, really important, right?
06:17Who, I'll never forget the woman who, like, brought her,
06:20um, her grill out every day.
06:22Like, a grill for the protesters.
06:23And she, for me, has always been, like,
06:25a powerful reminder of, like, the sense of joy in community
06:28that, that has sustained the protest space, right?
06:30That, like, people have never forgotten joy
06:32in the midst of so much pain and trauma.
06:34Um, in the same pain and trauma that, like, Neta just talked about.
06:37Um, people remain joyful and, like, community came together
06:41and new relationships were born that, like, had never existed before.
06:44Yeah.
06:44And that's really powerful.
06:45And I see that when I go to any new city that, that sort of,
06:48the spirit of that remains.
06:50Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
06:51For people who are watching this and want to find ways to get involved,
06:54what would you say for someone who has no, um, background in activism?
06:59What could be a foray into community organizing for them?
07:03Yeah, I think that one of the, what I'll say quickly, two things.
07:05One is one of the most important things you can do in protest
07:08is, like, tell the truth, right?
07:09So much of what we were doing in the beginning
07:10was, like, literally telling the truth.
07:11We were saying, like, this happened, it is not right,
07:14and, like, taking that truth as far as we could
07:17and as many spaces as we could be.
07:19And then we just launched a platform called staywoke.org,
07:22which is, like, a way for people to, um, to sort of sign up
07:25with their skills and gifts and say, here's how I want to contribute.
07:28Yeah.
07:28And then we are working on the back end to, like, match them
07:30to different spaces or communities where they can, uh, make the most impact.
07:34That's awesome.
07:35Um, I would say just be honest.
07:39So, like you said, tell the truth.
07:41Um, that's how I feel that we've lasted for so long.
07:44It's because we constantly tell the truth in a new way
07:47that the world has to listen to what we're saying.
07:50I feel like black folks have always been telling the truth
07:52about white supremacy and the systems that support white supremacy,
07:56um, including the police.
07:58But now, because it is a national conversation,
08:01people are more inclined to actually listen and believe
08:05and feel that they can make a difference.
08:07Right.
08:08DeRay McKesson, Janetta Elzey, thank you so much for joining us today.
08:12I'm Lauren Williams.
08:13You've been watching Essence Debates Live.
08:15Be sure to tune in for more segments on Essence.com.
08:18You've been watching us.
08:34Bye.
08:36You do.
Comments