joining me now john turnipseed a former
gang member and author of the book
bloodline spend enough time in hell and
you get the feeling you belong he's also
vice president of urban ventures a
minneapolis organization that serves
under-resourced neighborhoods
thanks so much for taking the time to
join me today thanks for having me
i want to talk to you about a number of
different issues but first let me begin
with this
we see the racial strife that has played
out
in this country over the past year in
cities and in communities across america
i know that there are many white
americans today
who are troubled by what they see but
unwilling to really
voice their concerns unwilling to really
engage
in it and frankly fearful that they'll
be cancelled or
fired or have ramifications for them
if they speak out in their communities
what do you
say in terms of a message to those
people today
about how they ought to interact with
their friends across racial lines
who are troubled by what they've seen
but
do not necessarily embrace the idea
that america is a systemically racist
country
well you know i seen a sign the other
day that said white
silence is violent is violence
what what i took from that is if good
people do nothing there's an old saying
you know that's how evil gets a
stranglehold on our community
the people that have power or a sense of
power
have to stand up for people that don't
so
i say you know to all my white friends
uh you know
that lend their privilege and they can
lend their privilege by their voice
with their friends racism is learned at
home
and so this is where we can stop this
it has to be in the homes and in the
hearts of everybody and people
need not to be afraid people need to
speak out
for you know against injustice when the
attorney general
talks about this being a systemic
problem within minneapolis i know that
you live and work in that community
do you share his feelings about this or
do you believe that
derek shoving should be viewed as an
exception to the rule when it comes to
policing
in my view he might not be the exception
but he's a small
minority in the minneapolis police
department you know
chief aaron dondo and i are actually
friends but i've been
abused by police and and beat up by
police and
talked back to by police but i got to
believe that most of the police in our
city
are good police officers the problem is
guys like shalvin were allowed he get 20
complaints
and still keeps his job that's a problem
no nobody else could do that and we and
the police have ignored
what we call thumpers and thumper is
somebody that arrests people and they
always get beat up
and choblin was one of those guys so
um is it a problem yes but i also say
are all black guys gang bangers no
so we have to look at the police
department department on as mayor we
need to do some changes and i think
chief aaron dondo
inherited a bunch of problems
and before him it was really crazy
what i hear when i listen to the
politicians that we have on the national
level
is a depiction of all cops as being
racist all cops as being to your word
thumpers essentially that there's no
interaction that you can have with a cop
where you can have faith that they're
going to uh you know adjudicate law and
order
not along racial lines what can we do
to replace uh sort of this type of
narrative
about cops who clearly in america you
know
the vast majority of them do a good job
they do their duty and they
they live up to the obligation that they
have to protect and serve
yeah one of the ways we have to do it is
police officers have to police
themselves
you know a fellow police officer telling
another police officer that don't do
that that is wrong
means more than me saying it you know
and
police departments have to not allow
this type of behavior
not even let the unions allow this type
of behavior
you know if you are accused of things
over and over again you need to go
and the good cops out there need to
stand up
and talk to the bad cops and get them
out of there
because it's giving all of them a bad
name so i just say the police department
has to police itself we can't make them
do anything
they can make themselves do a whole lot
john thank you so much for taking the
time to join me