Welcome to The Daily Social Distancing Show.
(laughs) That's cute. That's cute.
I appreciate that. Thank you for having me.
Um, you are somebody who's on the ground
and not just now, but you have been on the ground.
Um, take me through a little journey, if you don't mind,
just for the viewers, to paint a picture of Minneapolis.
You know, a lot of people were shocked
at what happened in Minneapolis.
A lot of people were shocked at what happened to George Floyd.
A lot of people were shocked at what happened
in the aftermath to George Floyd.
But you're one of the people who wasn't so much shocked,
but rather, it's almost like you were like...
you were like "This is what was bound to happen
because of Minneapolis' story."
Tell me a little bit about that and-and why you believe that.
I would say not only just the history
of the police in general, right, where we know that the roots
of the institution of police come
from slave catching and union busting, right?
But in the city of Minneapolis, the police department's
only been here for about 150 years,
but we know that before George Floyd, there's Philando Castile,
and there's Jamar Clark, and there's t...
uh, Terrance Franklin and Thurman Blevins
and Marcus Golden and Fong Lee and so many others.
And... (clears throat)
Minneapolis has actually been the poster child
for reform, right?
Um, we had an openly gay indigenous woman
as police chief,
uh, former police chief Janee Harteau.
Uh, we received a-- not we--
the Minneapolis Police Department received a review
from President Obama's Department of Justice.
They even received a settlement to receive training
to not put people-- detainees-- in prone positions,
which is the exact tactic that, um, Chauvin--
Derek Chauvin-- used to murder George Floyd.
Uh, so, and currently, we have a black police chief,
Chief Rondo, right?
And still the Minneapolis Police Department
manages to murder black people in the streets.
And so...
uh, this-this is the, um... this is the setting
for what happened to George Floyd,
and, uh, we saw, uh, with the murder of Jamar Clark
five years ago, um, you know, our demands back then
were actually that we wanted to see the tape
of the murder, right?
-Right. -We wanted to take it to the public
and-and to the family, especially.
We wanted a DOJ investigation into, uh,
the 12-hour standoff that we had with the police
in which they, um, really brutalized protestors
by driving their bikes into people,
um, by dragging young hijabs by their, uh, by their scarves,
by punching young black queer women in the face.
So we wanted an investigation into that behavior.
(chuckles): We wanted no grand jury...
because we knew a grand jury would not get us, uh,
get us justice.
Um, all of our, um, all of our demands
were really in sight of making the system give us justice,
and ever since then, we've actually changed our focus
to focus much more on abolition
and what does it mean to reduce the scope
-and the scale and the power of police. -Right.
Um, and so that's what Defund the Police is really about,
and that's the work we've been doing as Black Visions
and, uh, Reclaim the Block over the last few years.
So, let's go through each thing step by step.
Um...
you-you have lived in Minneapolis for how long now?
Uh... wow.
I've been here since 2003...
so almost... I'm coming up on 20 years.
Right. And so, you've lived in this place
that is predominantly white, and yet, at the same time,
experiences... predominantly black people
experiencing brutality at the hands of police.
I'm sorry, 60% of black folks...
-Say that again, please? -Uh, 60% of people murdered
by the police, or involved in police shootings
over the last 18 years have been black people.
And what is the percentage of black people in Minneapolis?
We... About, uh, 12% of the population here, I believe.
-Yeah. -Wow.
So it's-it's safe to say that...
a tiny portion of the population has been experiencing
a majority of the force that the police exert
on-on-on people.
And... and I think that's something that has been missing
from the conversation.
You know, yes, George Floyd has been the catalyst,
but a lot of people, in my opinion, or what I've seen,
haven't been talking about, like, you know, all of...
all of the little... little flints
that have been causing this flame,
all of the little tinders that have been creating
what we're seeing right now.
So, so, talk us through a little bit of...
of Minneapolis's problems.
Like, what do you think has contributed
to what became the explosion that we saw post-George Floyd?
Mm-hmm. Say, I talked to you a little bit about some of...
the reforms that the police department has tried
-that did not work, -Right.
uh, but some of the, like, numbers inside of our state
actually-- right?--
um, Minnesota has the fourth largest employment gap
between black and white folks.
Um, and we have one of the largest disparities
in home ownership, at 76% for white folks
and 24% for black folks.
Um, and in 2019, we were actually named
one of the, uh, fourth worst metros in the country
-for black people, -Right.
based on education and housing and access to health care
and so many other things.
Um, and so... those are the...
those are the disparities, and, as I mentioned before,
those are mirrored in the Minneapolis Police Department
in the way in which they treat black people
in the state and in the city.
Do you have any idea of why this sparked the outrage that it did?
You know, because Minneapolis does have this history,
Minneapolis does have this pain.
You know, the black community has been subject to-to...
countless, as we've seen--
I mean, even the officer in question
had something like 20 previous complaints against him.
-Yes. -What do you...
what do you think sparked Minneapolis's rage
the way that it was sparked after George Floyd?
An organizer here, Jason Sole,
uh, said, um, in a video
that Minneapolis was one bullet away from being Ferguson
five years ago.
It wasn't a bullet, right? But it was a murder.
It was a murder by the police.
And so, um, that foretelling and that clarity,
um, really hit me.
Also, the really underlying currents of all of that
being organizing, right?
We didn't stop organizing, um,
after the media stopped paying attention in Minneapolis
or many other cities, um, as police continued to brutalize
and kill black folks.
Uh, we continued organizing and talking to our neighbors
and-and having conversations about defunding the police
and what could be possible and what would...
what community-led safety could look like, and...
Right, and that's... that's something--
sorry to interrupt you-- but that's something
I-I really wanted to chat to you about.
I really found this interesting, in... in and around the work
you've been doing in Minneapolis,
because before, I would argue, before it became, you know,
in vogue to talk about this,
you've been one of the organizers
on the ground in Minneapolis working to defund,
abolish and foster community, uh, policing,
or community accountability, and-and I wanted...
I wanted to talk to you about that.
What has that been like on the ground,
and what does that actually mean
in terms of the communities working within themselves
to hold people accountable?
'Cause I think a lot of people have heard snippets of this
but don't truly understand what it means.
Um, it's honestly a lot of organizing
and storytelling, right?
It's organizing folks, um, or, uh...
it's organizing folks, it's organizing our community members
to really take their own power back
in telling the story of how it actually is their power, right?
So many folks are disillusioned with, um, politics
or elections or, um, even their own, like, city governments,
uh, because they don't actually see themselves reflected there,
and they don't actually see themselves heard.
And so we really wanted to engage
our communities' imaginations about what could be possible
and how we could protect one another.
And we really see it could become possible
during this uprising, right?
The police really left us to ourselves
when white supremacists descended on our cities,
and so it's been community patrols,
it's been, uh, medic training,
it's been food drives and transportation services
and handing out PPE and Narcan,
and training folks how to take care of each other
that's really actually protected us in this time,
and that's some of the work we were doing before.
In 2018, Black Visions and Reclaim the Block
actually forced the city council
by getting hundreds of community members out repeatedly
to budget hearings, uh, to remove $1.1 million
from the police department and reallocate it
to things like the Office of Violence Prevention.
Before this uprising, our city government planned
to cut that office, right?
Their plan was to remove it.
-Wow. -We only got two years ago.
Uh, we haven't even had a chance to see
what the great impact of that could be,
and so one of our demands has been: You got to fund that,
you got to fully fund that for years to come.
And so those are the kinds of things that we want,
and those are the kinds of things
that we're trying to get our community to fight for
so that there can actually be real protection for black folks
and other marginalized communities, uh, 'cause our...
You know, the announcement yesterday was amazing,
and what got it to happen is the on the ground organizing
that folks have been doing, uh, for years,
uh, not only in Minneapolis but all around the country.
It-it really was huge, because you had the city council
come out and say that they're-they're committing
to working to dismantle the police department
as we know it.
And this-this, I mean, has blown people away,
because I don't think this is
a conversation anybody thought any city council
would ever be having, you know, now.
It didn't seem like it would happen,
and clearly the protests and the... and the movement
have creating... have created something.
Activists and organizers like yourself have created something.
Um, is this what you want to see?
Were you happy when this was announced?
100%. And on Prince's birthday. I'll name.
So, you know, Prince knew something about the revolution.
Um, but yeah, uh, this was one of...
this is one of the things we wanted to see. This is a win.
We've seen a lot of wins over the last two weeks.
I want community and people to really claim that
and really understand what's possible with people power,
uh, 'cause we can do this, and we can really craft a world
in which all of us are safe,
um, and all of our dignity and humanity is honored.
And, um, the public commitment is great.
The work continues, right?
We actually have to see some things pass.
We have to actually have conversations.
Um, Minneapolis is making history
by beginning a community-driven process to dismantle MPD,
and decades of organizing by communities have led to this.
Um, but we have a lot of hard work ahead of us,
and it's gonna take every single one of us
learning new skills and building new relationships,
um, and really trying things that we haven't done before.
-Right. -Uh, but we believe that the reward
is gonna be a city that, uh, really invests
in life-affirming policies and programs and services
that care for our people
instead of police that terrorize us.
Before I let you go,
um, I know that being an organizer is often thankless.
Being an organizer is extremely difficult,
and now more than ever, people are willing and excited
to help organizers and activists who are on the ground.
So, if there are people who want to help out in Minneapolis,
if there are people who want to send resources,
where do they find your organization?
Where do you think that they should, um,
drive their resources towards?
So, you can find us at Black Visions
and then @BlackVisionsMN on Twitter,
um, on Instagram and Facebook.
And we are, you know... Come see us, see about us.
We're a black-led queer and trans-centering organization
with healing and transformative justice at the center
that's really trying to build powerful campaigns
to get black folks free in Minnesota.
Um, Reclaim the Block and MPD150 are also really great resources
to learn more about defunding the police and abolition work.
-Mm-hmm. -If you have questions and if you want to talk
to your neighbors and your family about this
and if you're curious and you want to learn more
about community-led safety, definitely go there.
The Movement for Black Lives is a great resource.
Um, check out, um, you know,
all of the different organizations doing work,
black liberation work, all across the country.
Um, and then, uh, we actually...
If you want to help, uh, support with your dollars
organizations that are on the ground,
if you go to bit.ly/FundTheCommunity,
you'll find a bunch of organizations on the ground,
um, and funds on the ground in Minneapolis
that are part of this ecosystem
that are supporting, uh, folks on the ground
and uprising work in this moment.
Miski, thank you so much for taking the time today,
and, uh, as you say, congratulations
to you and the community on your win,
and hopefully, there will be more to come.
Thanks so much, Trevor. Appreciate you.