I'm a tenant in the building. Are you?
We see what we see now,
it doesn't get as filtered as it used to
before you only see
on tv, you only see on the newspaper.
Please don't come close to me!
I'm going to tell them there's an
African-American man threatening my life!
I think this has become another...another
lit match and a powder keg of people just wanting to take a stand.
You're trapped him, he's breathing right there.
Let me see a pulse!
It wasn't just George Floyd, there were so many situations within the past month
within the past six months where I've been seeing these things
I caught it Mo, it's okay. I've seen it twice.
You guys see this?
I do, I sure do see it.
More and more people in the United States and around
the world are finally waking up to the fact that
this has been the status quo in our communities and we need to stop it.
There is an African-American man...
Ya'll see this racism here?
I got this all on camera, watch out!
Memorial day is coming up, that is an important American tradition.
Morning clouds for sure, we will see some sun as we head into the afternoon
I was in my backyard and I was checking
Facebook and I came across the video
my brother posted privately.
And as soon as I heard the way in which you called for police
it just kind of hit me in the gut.
There is an African-American man...please send the cops immediately!
I was so angry and I was upset because I just imagined my brother being
there when the police arrived and being slammed to the ground.
That's all that the image I kept seeing.
So I said Chris, can I post this to Twitter?
I'm just very familiar with how Black
Twitter can very quickly spread the word and identify people. I wanted to make
sure that if my brother was birding again
he'd never encounter her doing that to him and that no one else would either.
I have a teenage daughter and I said, well maybe it'll go viral and she
laughed at me she said mom you need like 10,000 views
for it to go viral. And as the day progressed it kept increasing, increasing.
Now there's over 44 million views.
I wanted the world to see it, that kind of weaponized racism.
I was just done, I was through.
People were responding to that and saying what if the police came?
On the heels of that, we saw what happens when the police comes.
It was this footage that went viral.
I don't really even want to show you but we have to show you a few minutes
of this 10-minute video.
Mr. Floyd should have not died.
He should still be alive today!
I'm a tenant in the building? Are you?
It was a day after, the whole incident
happened with George Floyd
in the same city.
It actually happened literally like five
minutes away
from where we were at.
He was the first person who whipped out his phone and started taking
pictures of us. So we thought, you know to
protect ourselves we should record and document this as well.
We have an office here and this guy came accusing us we can't be here.
What office are you in?
Don't worry about that! We don't have to tell you anything!
I'm calling 9-1-1 then.
Calling 9-1-1 for non-emergency reasons or threatening for non-emergency reasons
should have some sort of consequence behind it you know
it's not a hotline that you just call for anything.
With a climate like this, the cops showing up, guns blazing
it could have gone a whole different way.
People were sharing they were doing so
much research.
The thing is there's so much of this that happens every day that goes
unseen that doesn't get documented.
I will watch videos of like what I call, the Karen's.
Hi, I'm asking you if this is your property?
I refuse to watch the videos of Black people being killed.
I see it as an extension of terrorism against Black people because the
psychological and emotional impact of watching that is horrific.
We know that there are inherent dangers...
I was watching a Minneapolis press conference,
a few moments later they showed part of the video of George Floyd.
There was no warning and I heard him call out "mama" and I'm a
mom of three, and it just cut through to me and I said
I can't sit here..I can't... I have to get out.
The next day, I went to the Fairfax protest in L.A.
It felt good to be on the street. It felt good to
to be there with so many people and so many white people.
Overnight, police did use tear gas to disperse the crowds...
at least one man is dead this morning.
What was really conflicting is due to
covid and being in quarantine and being in the house,
I've unfortunately developed more of a relationship with my phone
because I'm not out doing the things that I would usually be doing.
Things were changing every single day where you kind of felt the need to stay
informed.
The latest spark is this middle of the night post...
Once the looting starts, the shooting starts?
This is the messages that we're seeing, I don't know if you on social media
because the news don't tell you everything.
Everyday there was a new revelation or everyday something changed from the day before.
We're all just at a point where we are
super fed up with the same thing happening over and over and over again
to the point where people are not afraid to call out their friends and they're
not afraid to call out their family or call out brands or publications
that take from black culture but don't give anything when it's
important to.
We the National Football League admit we were wrong for not listening to NFL
players earlier.
It's kind of bittersweet because I'm not
going to applaud what should have been happening from the beginning, but at the
same time I've never seen some of the people in my life speak out
the way that they have and I am grateful because it's actually making changes.
My brothers and sisters in America, we love you!
When i saw the U.K. protesting, I had tears. I was so moved.
That's when I knew we had a movement that had really caught fire.
We must never forget that economics was the reason
that Black people were brought to this country.
We came to do the agricultural work in the South and the textile work in the North.
You know, I'm a Gen X-er, I'm not a Millennial. So, I have my old lady crotchety things
about social media but, imagine if Martin Luther King had a Facebook.
Like the way in which you know information could have been sent out.
The opportunity to view and see things
as they authentically were, as opposed to how they were spun
widespread in the media.
No, this is for the people so they can see
even in Montclair, what we are living with even in Montclair.
Black Lives Matter, really originated as a message and a platform
to connect Black people,
back to our history and our traditions
of community organizing.
I often times take stock of the time we're in and just
feel so grateful to be alive in this moment where we have
the types of tools and technologies to do the work that we've done
and to have it have a kind of reach.
But the reality is that, so many freedom
fighters did it in a context without this technology.
They figured out a way to get their
message across.
I'm going to call their names
because they need to be heard.
Frances Cooper and Margaret Everlsey Cooper.
My parents, were young avid
activists in the Civil rights movement
and just about any movement you name.
So there's the similarity there
but what they didn't have with social
media,
that can reach as we know worldwide
it can strike a chord, it can identify someone who's done something
wrong right away.
It's a tool that can be unnerving and used incorrectly
but it's also a wonderful grassroots tool.
I was born in '98 so this is kind of
like the only thing that I know. I think it's the support that they're
getting and the fact that they know that they'll have multiple people behind them.
You know no matter what technology
or tools we have
we still can find the courage within to do what we can with what we have.
Black people have always been resisting,
have always been trying to transform
their lives.
We will shape and mold this
country, or it will not be molded and shaped at all.
Circumstances that we have faced for
nearly 500 years.
The message definitely got heard this time.
We're very happy to have a platform to help address
these issues and their spirit kind of
lives on.