- So we've had to say Black Lives Matter unfortunately
because we live in a culture, in a society
that has given us many reasons
to feel like they don't matter.
And I'm wondering from you,
if we're at the tail end of generations of black Americans,
who have felt like their lives,
don't have the proper amount of value,
like what do you think have been some of the effects
of that on us psychologically or emotionally?
- [Man] Oh, great question mate
- One of the first protests we did for Black Lives Matter
was in 2013, on July 15, on Rodeo Drive.
It's one of the first times
that we didn't take a protest into our neighborhood
because we know what's happening on Crenshaw and King,
we know what's happening in Watts and Compton,
so we decided to go to Beverly Hills,
the epicenter of whiteness
and I remember, you know, all the cops were out,
helicopters were out, we were on the steps of Rodeo Drive,
people were eating food and drinking wine
and I had this moment where I asked everybody stop drinking,
put your wine glasses down, put your forks down
and take a moment to grieve with us
because you don't have to experience this every single day,
the helicopter, this is the helicopter that roams
our streets and our communities every single day,
imagine the psychological impact that has on feeling hunted
because that's what we feel,
we feel hunted because that's what's happening,
Ahmaud Arbery was hunted, Breonna Taylor was hunted,
Ezell Ford was hunted, Redel Jones was hunted,
these are not people who are going into a fight
with law enforcement, they're usually running away from
and if you're running away from something,
something has to be running towards you with a gun
that's called being hunted.
So I feel like we have to actually paint that picture
for a lot of America to understand,
the kind of grief and rage that comes from us.
What does it take for a child in Minneapolis
to burn down a police precinct?
Why would that be the target?
Why would a police precinct be the target?
That is the ultimate symbol for so many of us,
for the last 401 years, that is a symbol of hatred,
humiliation, abuse, and death, law enforcement,
they can't paint it any other picture
because that's what we've lived,
you can't take our life experience from us.
My nephew's first experience with cops, he was 11 years old,
running home in the alleyway,
guns pulled out at him, 11 years old.
So something that does something to your mind,
your spirit, your body and it does something generationally
that doesn't stop with me, it doesn't stop with my child,
that's generational trauma, and we have to be,
I think the reason why BLM,
was really the voice around healing justice,
we made it popular, that's not our phrase,
that phrase comes from a brilliant black woman
but we made it popular because so much of the history
of black movements have been to deny the pain and the trauma
and to only focus on the politics,
sometimes focus on art and culture,
like the Panthers did a brilliant job
at art and culture with Emery Douglas
but we wanted to elevate the conversation around healing
and that it was okay to talk about depression and anxiety
and bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, and any other shit
because this place has been so bad to us,
that is a normal human response to have all of those things
and so how do we heal from that?
And how do we do it as a collective?
And how do we do it outside,
often of the medical industrial complex?
- That's fantastic, you know,
you remind me of when the events of Ferguson happened,
I was at my home and I walked down to my local coffee bean
and there was a friend of mine there, Brandon Johnson,
the homie Brandon Johnson and he was visibly upset,
I walked in I was also upset and we were talking
and he specifically said,
we are being hunted, we are being hunted,
to take that on as like someone is coming after you
'cause I remember schools with metal detectors
and that the psychological trick,
I remember when I went to a school
and there was a metal detector
and then suddenly went to a different school
and there was no metal detectors.
Can you guess what the populations
of these student bodies were?
So it's like, that's a thing that comes on us,
yeah so I was sitting there with with my friend Brandon
and I had realized for myself even,
I had internalized these deaths as par for the course,
you know, my first reaction was, that's what they do to us
and it took me until I wanna say Freddie Gray,
when I was like, I literally threw up,
our host was just kind of like, I can't take this anymore
and I'd realized in some sort of way,
how complacent in the sense I had been, which is why again,
I wanna bring it back to Self-care
because a lot of the stuff that you're talking about,
for me, has been very helpful,
talking about mental health, talking about depression
and all of these things because, you know,
I remember Richard Pryor used to have a joke,
like we need therapy, he was saying this in the 70s,
after what we've been through, we need some therapy
and so I wanna expand a little bit on that,
yeah, I guess I just wanna expand a little bit on that.
- Sure, I mean, you know, I think,
so much of the conversation,
it circles in the conversation of like politics,
this is a political issue, right?
But this is so much more, this is a planetary issue,
this is a planetary fight,
we are fighting for the survival of humanity,
when we fight for the survival of black people
and I think we need to remind people that as well,
paint a picture of what has happened to us and what's been,
not just in this country.
There is a global pandemic of anti black racism
and it doesn't just impact black people in America,
I've been to lots of countries
and obviously the first thing I'm doing
is talking to black people,
I'm usually going to go talk to black people
and whether it's Australia, or London,
or Amsterdam, or Scotland or the continent, or Brazil,
black people are saying thank you
for giving us the opportunity and the voice,
to lift up what is happening to us again.
I don't like the term Self-care, it is too pre-live,
I choose to use the term collective care
because collective care actually pushes and challenges,
all of our institutions, so not just say,
hey, must be having a hard day today,
go ahead and take a Self-care day,
Self-care days don't stop white supremacy,
what stops white supremacy is changing your systems,
so collective care means that if I'm going to work,
my work environment understand the impact
of anti black racism and how that shows up
inside both the workplace and the world
and that there is already mechanisms in place,
that will think about how I am, my care, my needs
and all the other black people who work those needs,
I think that's really important
that there's a place in space inside of institutions
that are challenging the ways in which,
anti black racism shows up and how we're treated,
especially young black folks in entertainment,
that I've spoken to, who are like, my job doesn't get it,
they don't understand and the same corporations
that are plastering Black Lives Matter on their screens
that are giving Black Lives Matter donations
and yet in their very environment,
they're not actually treating their black staff,
black creatives well
and so that's also a really important conversation.