Hey folks. It's me, Michael Bach, your Diversity Dude, and this is Monday Morning Musings.
(upbeat music)
(sighs)
So, um...
I really want to be happy right now.
I really want to be all chipper and be like "Hey! Happy Monday! It's June 1.
It's the first day of National Indigenous History Month, and it's the first day of LGBTQ2+ Pride Month.
Happy Monday!"
But I'm not happy.
I am vacillating between anger and sadness and frustration.
So many emotions, and I feel like if you don't know what I'm talking about or why I'm feeling this way,
you are willfully ignorant or you live under a rock.
So, let me recap for you.
A guy by the name of George Floyd, who lived in Minneapolis, Minnesota was killed last week,
murdered, that's the word I'm going to use,
by police officers because he was suspected of passing some counterfeit dollars.
But he wasn't the first.
He's one of thousands, *thousands* of people of Black Afro-Caribbean heritage who have been murdered.
But just this year, just the ones we know about...
Ahmaud Aubrey in February was out for a jog in Georgia.
He was hunted down and killed by three white vigilantes.
It took 74 days for them to be charged, even though the crime was caught on film.
In March, Breonna Taylor in Kentucky was shot eight times by police while she laid in bed with her boyfriend.
As the police broke in to execute on a search warrant,
the boyfriend, thinking he was under attack, fired his lawfully-held gun.
And now we have George Floyd in Minnesota who had a police officer kneel on his neck for nearly nine minutes
while George said "I can't breathe."
Two minutes of which Mr. Floyd was actually dead.
That officer has since been charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter
while the three other officers involved remain free, even though the entire thing was caught on video.
(sighs)
I am angry, I am frustrated, I am sad, and I'm not alone.
Mr. Floyd's death sparked massive protests across the United States, here in Canada, and around the world
against police brutality and the treatment of people of Black Afro-Caribbean heritage.
I want to do something.
I'm not somebody who sits around and waits for the world to change.
I'm the guy who gets out there and helps change it.
And I have privilege.
Everybody who's watching this video who has skin like mine has privilege.
Whether you believe it or not, it's there.
White privilege is a thing.
It's not something you select, it comes with the model,
and I want to use my privilege to the advantage of people who don't look like me.
We need this conversation about race and racism and police brutality,
and I have the utmost respect for the people that wear the uniform,
but we see time and time again that bias comes into play with people who carry a badge,
and they're making decisions not based on fact, but based on bias.
And I want to be very specific.
People here in Canada would be like (mocking voice) "Oh... that's only happening in the United States."
(normal voice) Nonsense!
This happens every day here in Canada.
The Ontario Human Rights Commission did a study, and I'll put a link down below.
It was an interim study, I have yet to see the final findings,
but they found that people of Black heritage in the city of Toronto were so many more times more likely to be killed by Toronto Police
even though they make up less than 10% of the population of the Greater Toronto Area.
We are exactly subject to it.
So I guess the point of this video is this:
I'm speaking to all of my cousins of privilege, my white cousins, all of you.
Do something.
Don't just post.
Don't just tweet.
Donate and get involved.
Enough is enough.
This cannot continue.
The senseless deaths of really good people cannot continue.
We have a responsibility not to do it for them,
not to do it *for* people of Black Afro-Caribbean heritage, but to do it *with* them.
*We* have a responsibility because if not us, nothing will ever change.
Thanks for watching.
That's it for me.
Please remember to subscribe to my channel and also click the like button, if you like this.
And please share it.
We need this message getting out there.
Remember to connect with me on social media, I am @diversitydudemb,
and connect with CCDI, they are @CCDISocial.
Apologies for the banging, we're having some work done on the house.
I...
Sorry, have a good week.
I'll see you next week for another episode of Monday Morning Musings.
Bye.
(upbeat music)