Captions by Athessa :)
Protesting. The act of publicly expressing one's objection, disapproval, or dissent towards an idea or course of action.
"BLACK LIVES MATTER!"
The right to join with fellow citizens in protests or peaceful assembly is critical to a functioning democracy.
And is at the core the First Amendment of the US Constitution.
After the tragic death of George Floyd who was murdered in police custody on May 25th of this year,
protests have erupted across all 50 US states to protest police brutality
and the country's long history with systemic racism
Many of these protests have been coordinated by the global organization Black Lives Matter
with similar protests being held across the entire globe.
Black lives matter was funded in 2013 in response to the acquittal of Trayvon Martin's murderer.
"I just thought we were gonna get some kind of justice.."
Their mission is to eradicate white supremacy and build local power
to intervene in violence inflicted on black communities by the state and
vigilantes. These protests are demanding justice for those brutalized by police
and for a drastic change in how law enforcement operates.
The protests have been going on for 16 days so far and have shown no signs of slowing down.
"How can you win?
You can't win."
Most of these protests have remained peaceful,
but occasionally tension has resulted in rioting, looting, and police brutalizing
individuals, trying to protest peacefully
My name's Anthony Padilla, and today I'm gonna be attending a Black Lives Matter protest in downtown, Los Angeles,
To learn firsthand what this movement means to these protesters.
Is the Black Lives Matter movement
truly making a difference in the way black lives are viewed in the fight for civil rights?
Or are people fighting to change a system,
that's simply far too broken to ever be rebuilt.
Are these protesters generally peaceful and harmless,
simply hoping to raise awareness by showing up in mass,
or are they truly the worse of what some media has portrayed them as?
Criminal anarchists and thugs who demand their cities succumb to the purge.
Thank you so much for uh, being down to be on here and teach us a little bit about the black lives matter movement.
Sure, anytime.
What motivated you to come out to this protest today?
It's my duty to be out here to be a voice for my people
This has been a reality for my life, growing up.
So it's not really a motivation?
The justices need to stop basically, but honestly
It should have been happening a lot t- a long time ago.
These modern day lynchings,
as soon as I go on to Instagram apps or social media whatever it's everywhere and it's almost as if we're being
forced to
normalize it in a sense because it happens so often.
I don't want my niece and my future children growing up in the world like
that I mean my instances they were out here they protested and
we got like, desegregation and things of that nature and now I really see things
happening change real change is coming for and I can't just sit at home and watch from the television, no way.
I was with my friend, when we got rubber bullets shot at us,
when it was, maybe about ten women in the front
With our hands up saying, "hands up don't shoot."
I got a glimpse of what it was like for a black person every day.
And I was just like, "this is, terrifying."
And for the last year now I've been fightin'.
Uh, the system here over Skid Row and what's gonna homelessness?
I had an opportunity to be an on-site property manager after experiencing
losing my housing myself and going through the process. I started working with
the system interacting with inspectors, artists; and I saw literally, that there was no value attached to the life there.
I was being gaslighted, stonewalled, and so forth and denied access to the justice system, denied access to police reports,
pretty much, whatever you can do to say you've been exiled from our justice system,
that was done to me.
You were silenced.
I was silenced, completely.
My brother, Daniel Hernandez
was killed by LAPD
just a few weeks before that
and
it really has affected our family, and we know that it's a problem in our community of South LA.
He was a loving father, a loving son, and a loving brother
He was there for all of us,
and now he's gone, and nothing can replace his life
And the anguish that our families fight through, that's why we're all here,
to seek justice for him,
and hopefully that things change so that this doesn't happen to other families in our community and any community.
How confident are you that these protests will actually lead to change?
I'm very confident,
I mean we've seen change that we hadn't seen in years and years of trying to get these I'm from the South
I'm from North, Florida
um, my cousin's in Richmond, she watched them take down that Confederate statue. They took 150 million out of the police department budget
We're making change now in ways that haven't been made before
It's as confident as, as we can be, you know
you just have to look to one another left and right and
you have to put out into the universe what you want to get achieved and
it's not gonna be easy and it's not gonna take a day. It's not gonna take a month
it may take years but you - the first step is believing
But if you don't believe, then you won't achieve anything period.
I feel like our voices are more heard today in
weeks before than it ever has been, so that's why you see so much change going on within the past two weeks.
So basically don't let up
Yeah, pretty much don't let up.
It's the first time that I've truly felt there might be some hope and not even that for me
But for my youth where I see a crack in the mold. I see a crack.
I don't know what that crack will lead to at a time, but we at least have a crack, we have attention,
we have more eyes, and most important we have support.
I feel like any black person who has ever been oppressed ever experienced
it, needs to come out here and see how many allies we have now;
because back in those days of segregation there were only black people marching,
and being tortured and sprayed. But now we have
everyone with us. We have black, white, asian,
hispanic; you guys are here with us, and I feel like it's so important for us who have been oppressed,
to see that not everyone is as bad as the bad guys.
I think we are actually going to be the generation that ends racism like how -
woah, that's a big statement.
I think so, I think so.
That would be - I'd say that would be a win for everyone.
I can't wait.
How do you feel about people saying all lives matter?
All lives can't matter until black lives matter.
If all lives mattered, we wouldn't be here.
Right.
Because black lives are included in all lives.
I think all lives will matter
once you consider, that black lives matter first.
Right, right, and people are fighting for that
acknowledgement that black lives matter because of course all lives matter, and black lives are part of all lives
Exactly, but all lives aren't threatened right now. We're working on the ones that are.
They don't realize that, our
community is persecuted,
by the police. They treat our community as criminals
they don't treat us like human beings.
If I scraped my knee, Anthony,
am I gonna give you the band-aid or am I gonna get the band-aid.
Maybe if I say, "What about my legs, they matter."
oh, but I'm the one that's bleeding.
That is absolutely true.
So, all of us do matter, but right now our
African-american brothers and sisters are in need of our voices.
What do you think about the phrase, 'silence is violence?'
Silence is violence because you're, it's like negligence, right?
It's like that that scene where someone's injured and someone will walk by and say, oh the next person will help
Oh the next person. Oh, maybe the next person. Maybe I'm not qualified
Maybe someone already called 911, you know, so it's neglect and it just and yeah, nothing will get done
If not, if not me then who?
If you're you're not vocal and you're not speaking
You're basically saying you don't care and you don't care that people are you know?
Not living a fair life and don't have a fair end of the draw, then you know
That blood's on your hands for anything that is done when you're not doing anything about it
So it is violence in a way cuz you're, you know
Exactly.
This Malcolm X quote right here right freedom for everybody or freedom for nobody right?
So if you're sitting there silent and you're enjoying your privilege, you're enjoying that freedom as a white person in our society
That is just the same as being someone who is outwardly racist
Right because you're complicit in that issue.
It stands for something or fall for anything and the wise words of Malcolm X
honestly
If you say to me
That you are not racist. Like that's all that we want to hear stand with us then if that's the case
Don't just watch from afar, don't just let it happen because that's really like that, that shadow
There's that cowardness like we don't need that in these times
Do you feel safe out here protesting despite the thousands of videos that have been released online,
Highlighting just how much police brutality is really going on even at these peaceful protests?
So I took a rubber bullet here
um, it was also a beanbag that went right there. That's why I got 'thanks LAPD' on my leg.
And then I was also out there on Monday and was arrested
So these bullets they really hurt and this is a lot of damage
That was what is that ten, eleven days ago now?
I actually met with a doctor and I was told that this is infected now
So it's it's not just a non-lethal ammo that they're using they're just shooting this indiscriminately into crowds.
They're not concerned about public safety.
They're not protecting us and most importantly they're shooting real bullets at black people
almost every day.
If they're gonna do this to a little white girl
I can't imagine the kind of things that people of color go through at the hands of the police
daily, that's not being reported.
They are the ones that are inciting violence at these rallies and they're dressed up for war
They're outfitted for war and so of course their mentality is going to be to try to stoke the flames and seeing that
Countless times over and over and over again just being so brutal
against protesters seeing that nationwide at these all these protests. It's just
absolutely appalling
I got hit in the chest multiple times at that little stick thing they have or whatever, and
I'm telling you they cause people to start breaking things some of them and then it turn around start shooting at you
I literally saw the energy and some people is like poor they just needed something
Before you knew it, bow baw, things started breaking.
These protests have lasted longer than,
many in recent history, why do you think people are so fired up about this movement in particular?
I honestly think it was a trifecta of all after I've all was being cooped
And yeah
you're gonna have the conspiracy theories of the timing and the irony and the silver lining of why we all have to pay attention because
We don't have sports, and all these activities that distract us, you know what I mean?
So you think it's louder right now? Because there's a lot less distractions that we have in our lives?
Hundred percent.
You've seen that so many times over the past few years ever since like even when Trayvon Martin passed away
So now like when the George Floyd happened a few weeks ago
I feel like that just was a wake-up call for everybody. Right right
You think people didn't quite realize how bad it was?
I feel like the black people did but now that you see that that happened on camera and he had no remorse for having that
his, his knee on someone's neck
You can see like that that's this is something that we really need to change and it needs to happen now.
They've been doing this for so long and now people are saying oh I still have time to change my
Perspective I can still be a part of the solution and not the problem, you know
So there's more time and there's more social media and things like that to get word out that people have to see it
It's in front of them. They turn a blind eye then. They're just being negligent. They're gonna start seeing
Oh, my friends are still talking about this, you know
You're gonna feel alone if you're not a part of this
So there's there's becoming more of a motivation to speak up because everyone is?
Yeah!
Videos are flooding the internet of what's really happening and the police brutality
That is a reality and I feel like since we have so much time to be sitting on our phones and seeing these things
We know that we all have the time to be doing something about it like personally
I don't really want to go back to work until we
fix some of this.
Sophie wants to know how people who can't protest can help this movement.
The best way that you can help is by donating obviously
but even if you don't have
That money or that time to be able to donate
You can always share resources for others to donate and you can always go and sign petitions
There's a number of petitions out there on change.org that you can find.
What do you think the
biggest misconception is about the black lives matter movement?
That the protests are just,
horrible? And all we're doing it's like breaking things and you know all that sort?
You see a lot of riding like a movie
Exactly.
Well, the misconception is that these thugs
Are ----ing things up or messing things up.
Well, the President himself said, thugs in all caps, are the reason for, many problems.
He's the thug
The white people in power the thugs. Historically our country has terrorized every country we've ever touched
I see people that are protesting here cleaning up trash I see
People handing out water and snacks and food and supporting one another. I don't see any thuggish behavior happening here
how do you feel when you hear stories or see these videos of George Floyd and Brianna Taylor and the
thousands upon thousands of others who have
experienced injustice at the hand of police?
As a black woman, it could be me.
I feel, I feel empathetic
you know, I feel like, 'oh my god, like if I hadn't been in that town at that time, that would have been me.'
And, I mean, I have five brothers that are black men
So I feel that ----.I feel it deep.
It just breaks your heart man, I mean,
It just,
crushes because
I have had my run-ins in the law and
had I been in the bad mood or that officer in the bad mood and their
Circumstance was was what it was and didn't turn a certain way
You know, I could be on a different statistic, you know. All right, just a number then
I could be a number. So it's hard to swallow because it could be your friend. It could be your nephew
It could be your own child
Not even yourself. You know, you just look at
People of color and then you look at your family and your relatives and your friends. It's just living with that type of fear
It's
It really takes from the growth and the I call it what's possible
You know of how you put the laws of attraction out in life, you know that really pulls down a group of people
Thank you so much
I appreciate you coming on here and teaching us about the black lives matter movement.
After spending the day with these BLM protesters
I've come to learn just how much they're risking by
Demanding justice and change in their country in a world where history has repeated itself time and time again
Shouldn't we all take this moment to do as much as we possibly can
to ensure we break this vicious cycle of systemic oppression?
Yeah, hell yeah.
I was going 91 miles per hour in the freeway to cop stopped me and he's all like why are you going
91 miles per hour. I said sir, you know, it says it right there. He's like you idiot
This is the 91 freeway and I said. "God damn. You should have seen me on the 405!"
And then he gave me a ticket