[00:00:01] Speaker A: Y'all don't really care about a brother till we burn our whole thing down, y'all. We about to go to work. Yeah, we bout to let it burn like Cyndaquil. Yeah, I bet you will. Try to skip it. They been lynching us in Zimmertil. And that's really freaking generous. Cause honestly, they have been killin us since we were property. No, stoppin me from saying how it is. This ain't the whiz. Ain't no easing down the road where we live. That's the biz. We can't go out for a jog or a swim, walk a dog, fall asleep in the car. Fall asleep where we live. So we about to let it burn. Just like gushers say. They be trying, but I do not care what gushers say. Putting black screens up, make a few bucks. My life isn't marketing. Yo, who you think you tryna play? Um, I liked it better when, like, nerdy was all fun and stuff. This is really angry. Like, don't you think you said enough? Ha. Well, it's frickin tough. Cause I'm beIN loud and the people are not playing with you now. Yeah, you can burn a whole thing down, yeah, yeah, I don't care if you're uncomfortable. We can burn a whole thing down? You can burn a whole thing down? Couldn't care about another zone. You can burn a whole thing down, burn it down. Y'all don't really care about a brother till we burn our own thing down, burn it down.
Yeah, we about to go to work, yeah, we about to let it burn.
[00:01:20] Speaker B: Pokemon. The youngin's what I'm focused on. I'm so old and golden. I ain't know you was talking about Pokemon. But I'm more like me and nerdy next to a burnt down system with a can full of gas and a handful of matches. I know we ain't miss Em. Fame is not my mission.
Watching all the leaks, leaders leading, banking on they minions. But we torture enough the takers and we giving to survivors. City of liars. Making black people compliant coon rapids? Who are you asking? I'm proof survive the boom bap trick, bro. Ethics got me laughing at your message. And if black lives matter, you would not get so defensive. We got cops and thieves and robberies and gaslighters. We are not the same. We on the scene, we pass typing. Cause y'all don't care about us and we ain't come to ask. We just mind our business and then people be so sucking madden the gun and mask and pass the ethanol? Y'all can really kill us for anything? Y'all just bend the laws? This ain't performance art? This ain't performative? Saving the racist, heteronormative? You can burn the whole thing down?
[00:02:21] Speaker A: I don't care if you're uncomfortable? We can burn the whole thing down? You can burn it, burn it, burn it down? Couldn't care about an autozone? You can burn a whole thing down?
Y'all don't really care about a brother till we burn our own thing down?
[00:02:37] Speaker C: Burn it down?
[00:02:39] Speaker A: Yeah, we bout to go to work? Yeah, we bout to let it burn.
[00:03:06] Speaker D: To?
[00:03:07] Speaker C: Views from the ground?
[00:03:08] Speaker E: Views from the damn ground?
[00:03:10] Speaker C: Views from the ground?
[00:03:11] Speaker E: Views from the damn ground?
[00:03:12] Speaker C: Views from the ground?
[00:03:13] Speaker E: Views from the damn ground?
[00:03:15] Speaker C: And that's on that, on that, on that. Hey, so go ahead for my reoccurring guest host, y'all can.
[00:03:24] Speaker E: All right. My name is Jaylen. I use she her pronoun. Super excited to be with you all tonight.
[00:03:31] Speaker F: My name is Brandon. I use he him pronouns. And, you know, we out here living. Glad to be in the studio once again.
[00:03:37] Speaker C: Yes. And my name is DJ, and I use they them pronouns. So we're gonna jump straight to our weekly updates. So take it away, Jaylen.
[00:03:47] Speaker E: Oh, right. So this week we are going to talk about the 31 white supremacists who were arrested and charged with conspiracy to riot. So the police stopped a U Haul in Coeur Delaney, I think it's pronounced Idaho, after a concerned citizen made a call alerting them to suspicious activity that looked like a little army. Inside the back of the truck, they found 31 men, all wearing the same clothes. They wear khakis, navy blue shirts, beige hats, and the white face cloth. They were associated with the white nationalist group Patriot Front, which is a white supremacist, neo Nazi group whose members perceived black Americans, Jews, and LGBTQ people as enemies. Police said they found evidence of what appeared to be a homemade riot shield and some protective equipment. They also said they found one smoke grenade. So 31 people in a truck. Like, you see the video, and it's literally how it sounds. And it was just like, there's just so much to it. So these people were from all over the us. Like, it wasn't just Idaho, it was Michigan, Texas, Colorado, Wyoming, Illinois, Arkansas, Missouri. Like, folks flew in for that.
[00:05:09] Speaker C: Oh, wow.
[00:05:10] Speaker E: It's. Yeah.
[00:05:11] Speaker F: All for. The event was like a pride event, right?
[00:05:14] Speaker E: Yes.
[00:05:14] Speaker F: That they came to do whatever they were planning on doing it.
[00:05:18] Speaker E: Yeah. Intimidating, fear, for sure. But, like, it was a pride event. And not a very spicy pride event either.
[00:05:27] Speaker F: I didn't realize that Idaho was the LGBTQ capital of the US. Unless it is. I could be misinformed.
[00:05:35] Speaker E: Idaho is an interesting place. When I thought about it, I was like, when's the last time we heard anything about Idaho? Like, and we're not talking potatoes. Like, come on, it's been a minute. And so then I remembered, like, I was doing some research very randomly, and Idaho was one of the last places to declare a Martin Luther King day. Like, they were very against it and had an Idaho human rights day. Like, it was. There was, like, Martin Luther King comma Idaho Human Rights day. And that was. Yeah, but. But it's also interesting in that they were one of the first places to, like, they had excusatory laws for people of color to go to school, but also, like, five short years after that, one of the first places to let people of color go to public schools. So it's a complex racist spot. I guess it was, yeah. So those all 31 men are already out and bonded. And I wonder where that money came from. That lets me know they're organized to some bit.
And it brings up a couple of things. My first thought is conspiracy to riot charge. Like, it is a misdemeanor in Idaho, which I thought was interesting because here it's a felony, there's a gross misdemeanor. And in Minnesota, that's like, if there's a group of three or more people and they pose a threat to cause violence is a gross misdemeanor. And I believe in December, there were some folks who were arrested. Dj, do you recall?
[00:07:21] Speaker C: Yeah, that was the new year's Eve. The new year's Eve, the noisy five. And, yeah, they were shooting fireworks, and it was a small group of. Or a decent sized group of them downtown.
[00:07:36] Speaker F: Yeah. And they said that, like, having gas masks and stuff like that was like, them trying to incite a riot just because they had, like, a few things being ready for police to retaliate to them. That makes you, like, you know what I'm saying?
[00:07:51] Speaker C: Yeah. And so they. And so they all charged them, and then they charged five of them with felony riot charges. So.
Which was crazy.
[00:08:02] Speaker E: So, yeah, for a noise demonstration, and we have this small army, like it was described, and they get a misdemeanor and they're bonded out and they're back with their families and not facing felony charges. So we'll have to see how that goes.
[00:08:20] Speaker F: And to mention Patriot Front, all these white men love to hide their identities when they're out demonstrating with Patriot Front, all their mug shots are now public. And you could, you should go take a look at them and see what their little ugly faces look like if you'd like. It's pretty entertaining.
[00:08:36] Speaker E: Some of them.
[00:08:37] Speaker F: Some of them look exactly like how you think they would look. And.
[00:08:40] Speaker E: Yeah, yeah. So one of the members, Thomas Rosseo, I'm probably pronouncing that wrong, of Grapevine, Texas, has been identified as one of the lead organizers of the deadly unite the right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017, where that car ran into the protesters and one ended up dead. So these folks have a history. And we go back to, like, police love to use their resources for torturing people of color and oppress minorities. But when it comes to these far right groups, they're always, like, three steps behind. Like, for them to travel. That lets me know that they talked about it. So there's chats about it. Like, I feel like what's, it's frustrating for me because, like, we were talking about on New Year's Eve, a few folks are out and it's this overwhelming presence. And they were beat and they, like, they were ready, so to speak. But these white supremacists, it took a citizen to call and say something, and then they, you know, got them at the last minute. And, like, I'm thankful for that. Thankful that wasn't a more horrible event. But also, it's like, dang, they got a lot of space to do a lot of crazy stuff, like the airport, the hotel. No one at the hotel said anything. I mean, they were in the hotel parking lot, but they had checked in. Like, I don't know. It's just a lot of complacency and I don't like it.
Let's see.
So sorry, I thought you were going to say something.
Moving on, we are going to talk about. Last Thursday began the highly anticipated select House committee hearings to investigate the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. The House select committee began its case, began making its case for Donald Trump's involvement in the attack. Testimony from members of his own administration. And his kids were in the video. Like, Ivanka's not letting her money go. She can't go down with her daddy. I thought that was funny.
Both of them were in there basically just saying, like, he had no reason to believe that the election was being stolen. And he just chose to anyway. And the people who chose to believe the lie with him remained in his inner circle. And those who didn't kind of got picked off. And that's why attorney or former attorney general will barr Island. I sucks. It's like, in parentheses, he sucks. So we shouldn't believe anything he says is what Trump says. But did you guys catch any of that?
[00:11:28] Speaker F: Yeah, I just saw, because they've had the second one, I think, just yesterday or recently, and they, I forget the representative's name, but he was literally giving tours on the 5 January to this guy who, and not just a regular tour. He's down in the tunnels and the back hallways. And this guy is on his phone taking photos of not the architecture or not any of the artwork. He's taking photos. And, like, essentially, if you watch the videos and see the little clips and video grabs that they showed, it's like he's making a plan, he's making a route. And then that same guy who was seen on the surveillance cameras on the 5 January, on the 6 January, he's, like, recording videos of him saying, like, oh, it's about to go down. The funniest part, to me, it's not funny, but the funniest part, he was like, we're outside the capital with a good 2 million concerned patriots. Patriots. I was like, you know what 2 million looks like? He literally said, we're like almost 2 million strong. I was like, boy, your perception is all the way off. But literally, in that same video, on a much heavier note, he's talking about, like, pelosi, we're gonna come get you. Talking about how she's going to need an extreme makeover after they're done with her. Like, he's saying all of these aggressively violent things. And this is the guy who, on the day before, on the fifth, was given a tour of the Capitol and not just a regular tour, and I forget the guy's name. The representative who gave him the tour literally said, I gave no tours in the Capitol. And now here he is on video on the fifth, the day before, be seen giving a tour.
[00:13:09] Speaker E: So, yeah, watching all of that, it's just like, dang.
In, like, watching the time lapse, it just blew my mind. Cause, like, whoo. If they looked like us, there is no way this would have been. I mean, we wouldn't have got close at all. Wouldn't have got close, man. So it's just like, there's video and testimony from the cops who were, you know, frontline that day and when they broke the line and they were describing their experiences, and it's just like, I.
What?
I used to live in DC, and DC cops are strict. Like, you get ticketed for jaywalking I know multiple people that have. So for the Capitol police to not be ready for something like that and be able to contain that, I call. I'm suspicious of that. I will forever be suspicious of that.
And watching it in real time is just, like, just how they react to us protesting. Like, for Dante Wright, like, just the aggression is different. They were still trying to talk to these people as they were attacking them. Like, full on attacking them.
[00:14:19] Speaker F: They were holding the little old lady's hands, walking her down the steps after they just went and raided the captain.
And to me, the funniest part about it is always how these people supposedly back the blue, until now you feel you're being oppressed. Now it doesn't matter what uniform they're in, you're gonna go in there and end up killing people. Right? And now these patriot front guys, who I assume back the blue as most of them do, when you see them zip tied in cuffs on their knees, getting their masks taken off and getting mug shotted, it's like, do y'all still back the blue, or do you now feel that you're being oppressed? Like, it just shows how they never really have experienced true oppression, but now they feel like they're the ones under attack, so now they're going to fight back.
[00:15:09] Speaker E: Yeah. There was some testimony from a cop who was black describing how they were calling him the n word while also having the thin. Right blues flag. And so it's just like, there's just a lot with that. And I think as we watch more of it, folks have been talking about Watergate and how that was swayed by public opinion. And some have mentioned that these hearings aren't as engaging in our kind of longer and I guess not as scandalous, even for a lack of a better term. And they're nervous that that may be intentional and may not have the same impact that folks had for Watergate, for this. And so we'll see what we do. But this is part of our democracy checks and balances, being able to have this committee to ask questions that can't do much. But, you know, democracy, we love it. And we'll just continue to keep up with this for the next couple weeks.
Friendly reminder, the US was not created with the intention of ever recognizing black, indigenous, or oppressed minorities.
So I'm not.
It's.
I'm not really sure where we're going to go with this hearing, but I think folks should pay attention and just see how they were able to organize all of this and how white supremacy can build this foundation and how Trump does plan to use this influence and continues to in the weeks coming. We have some big midterm elections coming up in 2020. So I think don't be sleep, stay woke. But that is what I have to say on that.
All right.
And so then moving on.
So a bipartisan group of senators announced an agreement on principle for gun safety legislation Sunday, which included needed mental health resources, improves school safety and support for students, and helps ensure dangerous criminals and those who are labeled as mentally ill cant purchase weapons. Notably, it includes ten republican senators, which weve been trying. I mean, theyve been able to use this great thing called filibuster to stop most anything from happening. So its pretty big that this is happening with the supporterton senators and theyll be able to combat that filibuster. Its actually the first time in 30 years that anything like this has happened. So thats pretty wild.
[00:17:40] Speaker F: And it's a shame that it took all of those children since Sandy Hook and before then and since then, and now it's finally happening. It should not have taken that much. But we'll see what even comes from this.
[00:17:56] Speaker E: Yes, because this is like agreement on principles. So we'll see what actually gets written and finalized in that fine print.
And let's see. So in the proposal, it talks about how one of the things that will, I mean, that is part of it is major funding to help the state pass and implement crisis intervention orders or red flag laws that allow law enforcement to temporarily take dangerous weapons away from people who pose the dangers to other in themselves.
And I think, I mean, as a black person who thinks of community defense first, I'm nervous how they're going to use this to attack oppressed minorities first and, well, more so. And not that there shouldn't be provisions, but also, that's just where my mind.
[00:18:47] Speaker F: Goes on, that, like, people that look like us are already viewed as a danger to ourselves or to others. So if they're allowed to then disarm us just because that's how they view us, there's definitely gonna be some not so good negative effects to that.
[00:19:04] Speaker E: So these, the other things in the bill are, I mean, I just want us all to look at them and understand that what we were just saying of they will be used against us more heavily. They will.
We just need to be mindful of that. And when we think of gun control, I think I spoke about it a little bit. Gun control for us and not for the cops is something I think we need to think more about and have more questions on so we'll see what they actually sign and see what that does and how fast it goes. And hopefully there's no last minute crazy things to happen in the Senate, but like.
[00:19:44] Speaker C: Yeah, they would never do that in politics.
[00:19:47] Speaker E: Yeah. So, I mean, it's crazy that they're talking about it. So we'll just see how crazy it gets. But that is all I have for us this week.
[00:19:54] Speaker G: Thank you.
[00:19:55] Speaker C: Thank you so much. So I extremely appreciate it. Yeah. So moving on, next, we are going to have.
[00:20:05] Speaker F: Before I get there, I got the last little bit of news. Somebody had a birthday recently this week.
[00:20:12] Speaker E: Very true.
[00:20:13] Speaker F: Maybe even yesterday.
So, I mean, I'm just saying, if y'all didn't know, if y'all didn't see it on the news, if y'all didn't see it on Twitter, Facebook, anything. Breaking news. Our main host, DJ Hooker, had a birthday yesterday. I'll let them say their age if they like to. They've told me about ten different ages, but they don't.
[00:20:34] Speaker C: We don't gotta keep it that official.
We all need the government information. Like, you know, I survived another round around the sun or some stuff like that, right?
[00:20:45] Speaker F: Something like that, yeah. So the earth is flat.
[00:20:47] Speaker B: So I don't know.
[00:20:50] Speaker F: I'm playing.
[00:20:50] Speaker C: I'm playing. Okay. We gotta adopt your plan. These days. You never.
[00:20:56] Speaker F: But yes. So I just wanna give a little bit of my time to give a shout out to somebody who.
[00:21:00] Speaker E: Very happy birthday.
[00:21:01] Speaker F: Yeah, very, very, very happy birthday. A year of change and a year of growth for them. Them coming into their true selves. Not the final form yet says them, but they're working on it. They're getting close.
[00:21:13] Speaker C: You know, like Frieza got like three, four. You know, in Dragon Ball z got like three, four, five levels. You know what I mean? I might be on level three, you know what I mean?
[00:21:20] Speaker E: Take your time. Don't gotta go too fast.
[00:21:22] Speaker F: But getting back on track, we're gonna start back into the segment of words of freedom. A segment here on views from the ground.
[00:21:30] Speaker E: Views from the damn ground. Sorry.
[00:21:33] Speaker F: Oh, I'm gonna try.
[00:21:34] Speaker E: We'll get there.
[00:21:35] Speaker F: Where we give local poets the freedom to liberate themselves with their expression. This week again. And now this month we have Juaria Jama, 18 year old poet and climate justice organizer from north Minneapolis. This week we will hear two poems from her. This first one titled Home.
[00:21:56] Speaker H: 4 July not unknown. American patriotism thing we love. Fireworks sprinkling all these colors. Stars we love like summer nights on your doorstep in rainy days where all we can do is talk. We talk like time is endless circling the planets on your arms. We spend days carving our feet into the ground, the ground a confession of our presence. We present ourselves like starved lovers. We consume holy as if nutrients was born inside us. And so we plant like we need to keep the world alive. We live like the world is running out. We run to the edges of Earth. Not no flat Earth conspiracy thing, but that the earth is so round we want to make cycles around and cycle back to the idea of forever and see a never ending bond within us. Within us, home is more than a four letter word or brick walls that surround us. See, Merriam Webster defines home as a place where a person lives. And I think to myself, how depressing that must be for your idea of home to be minimized to four walls in the wooden bedrest in your room. How my heart breaks for you to think of home as a place and not a feeling. See, home greets you wherever you are. She doesn't wait for you to return because her footsteps are quick to follow. Home is the ground tickling your feet in dance parties where no one is looking. Home shines light on you when it rains and pours tea into a mug without ashe. She brings you slices of fruit and makes sure you're well fed. Home tells you to pick yourself up, pick yourself up, pick yourself up. And so you pick yourself up because home doesn't have a location.
You can't pinpoint home on a map and expect to be led somewhere. So instead, home forces you to take Polaroid pictures and stuff them in the back of your phone. Case makes you call twice a day.
Home gets angry for you and at you gets worked up when you don't take a break or remember to say no to that one boss. Home pushes you, yet is the railing that keeps you from falling. She is fireworks. She's the seeds that keep you planted when you want to be reborn, home sprinkles you with water and forces your roots to grow. See, home is not a place. There is no place in the world that can give you this, no location that can convey this feeling. So when you ask me what home is, my definition might be different.
I may not know much, but I know home sees no boundary lines, is not separated by oceans or migrating birds. My home is not seasonal flowers that we plant every October and wait to see blossom. My home doesn't dry out during the summer, does not say goodbye when I go to find my myself. Home doesn't expect much from me or kick me out when things go wrong. She doesn't break down when it gets too windy or a natural disaster hits. Home is sturdy and reliable and kind and loving. Home is mister worldwide because wherever I go it is near and this next.
[00:25:06] Speaker F: Piece is titled from a cell in Forest City.
[00:25:10] Speaker H: From a cell in Forest City my brother writes, don't worry about me, I'm doing good. Tell me about you. I have little words to type. Constant I misuse and I love yous from previous conversations play on repeat over and over again.
I'm standing outside of a prison in 80 degrees weather with an overheated phone in my pocket. It feels like it'll explode. My heart and the phone.
On family trips, we sit across each other for 8 hours playing games. We purchase snacks from the vending machine with only quarters they let us bring in. In this hall, there are families like my own scared to voice thoughts and let things out into the open air. We do not talk about how much we miss each other or how the house feels empty or the fragile pieces of our heart we store away. When it is time to take a picture, I hug my brother close. These attachments will only last so long. These pictures will age with time, reminding me how far apart we really are. I was eleven once. I'm 18 now. It still feels like a tsunami is ripping through our home. I still feel like I'm waiting for a cleanup crew to come. We are still waiting for the day it gets better.
[00:26:31] Speaker F: And again, that was some beautiful, beautiful poetry by Juari Ajama, 18 year old here from the north side of Minneapolis. We'll hear more of her poetry these next week and then the following week, I believe. I don't know how many Wednesdays there are in this month. I'm being told it's different than every other month. I don't know, somebody lying, but yeah. So we will get an interview with her in a couple weeks and get a couple more pieces of poetry from her. So that is Juaria again. If you want to follow her poetry page on Instagram, that is j u w a r I a S journal. Juaria's journal on Instagram.
[00:27:10] Speaker C: All right, thank you so much.
Coming up next, we're gonna actually have the nerdy spotlight, so take it away. Nerdy.
[00:27:19] Speaker A: Hello, everybody. If you are out there hearing the sound of my voice, remember, you are loved, you are cared for, and you're listening to the artist spotlight. Speaking of love, I don't know about you, but I love it when artists collaborate together, getting the community music scene going. And this next track is featuring JJ, the amazing Destiny Roberts. And of course, our artist spotlight for this month, juice lord. Check this out. The title track from his breakout album, spread Love.
[00:27:49] Speaker B: Oh, J, what up?
From Detroit to Minnesota, it's that midwest. Yeah, you know.
Oh, yeah. Destiny. What up?
Let's go. Yeah, check.
[00:28:09] Speaker D: Uh.
[00:28:10] Speaker B: Love is love. I couldn't hate if I tried to shade before but couldn't stop my rise. This is simply for my dogs. Dressing well in the sky, wing soaring like Jordan watching over us now. Been planning for better days, praying for better ways to expand in this game when seek for a name, my hopes is that my ones never change on me. I lost a few and yet I'm lost to put a stain on me. I spread love cause the hate come around too often and time tick faster when you out here stalling. I spent years dwelling on things that wasn't worth it. Loafing, losing all the sight of my purpose. Self love is key and without it you gone down bad, you know, mentally gone. So for that, I write those moments and songs with the hopes that motivates the next to keep. Especially in the places where the chance is slim and people tend to forget when you don't go above the rim. You gotta spread love in the place you win. You never know you can't be them.
[00:29:02] Speaker G: Gotta be the season wait. Gotta be the season wait. Spread love. Gotta be the season way. Gotta be the season way.
Gotta be the season way. Gotta be the season way.
Gotta be the season way. Gotta be the season way.
You see a lot of it. The energy ain't worthy. Plenty dog me, plenty people demi dirty. I'm not responsible for other people's actions. I make a joke for how I.
[00:29:32] Speaker B: Think in my reaction.
[00:29:33] Speaker G: That's what the little things will have a bigger purpose. They smart minded, gotta be the bigger person. Show em love. Cause that's the only thing that's working. Show em love. Cause folks be really out here hurting. They be really out here hating, trying to dead love. I'm just here to give a toast. I'm tryna spread love. Yeah, that's my gym. Ain't no space up in my heart for hate. Cause you get back but you'll be serving right up off your plate. Yeah, I break it down, but they my tony a many ways. Life will show you love's the only way. Yeah, just know I'm clapping for you. Pray for the best, always love ya, I'm happy for you. Gotta be the season way. Gotta be the season way. Just bad luck. Gotta be the season wait. Gotta be the season way.
Gotta be the season wait gotta be the season wait gotta be the season wait gotta be the season wait spread love, come on spread love, hey you.
[00:30:31] Speaker B: Know you gotta spread love hey spread love with it come on spread love you know you need to spread love hey your desperate love, yeah hey oh, like that, like that hey, not like that hey, hey, not like that spread love is the season way spread love is the season way hey spread love is a season way hey, hey, hey young saw love from St. Paul with love type shit.
[00:31:16] Speaker C: All right. Thank you so much, nerdy.
I appreciate you bringing in this amazing local, talented. And that is just so phenomenal.
[00:31:27] Speaker E: This is a good summer bop. That one windows down. I loved it.
[00:31:33] Speaker C: With that, we'll take a quick break, and we'll be right back.
[00:31:35] Speaker D: Is kfai the fountain of youth? Let's find out what this old person that doesn't listen to kfai.
[00:31:42] Speaker C: I don't like anything. Everything hurts. My soup is cold. Who are you?
[00:31:47] Speaker D: And after listening to Kfai for just one week.
[00:31:50] Speaker C: Hey, man, like, things aren't perfect, but it's cool. Like, you know, ice cream is still out there, man. And it can't be all bad if you still have ice cream.
[00:32:02] Speaker D: And do you feel more hip, man.
[00:32:05] Speaker C: Go easy on the hip. That poseidon is a bummer.
[00:32:09] Speaker D: There you have it. Kfai may not be the fountain of youth, but it's not a bad place to start.
Where community grows.
[00:32:17] Speaker C: Let's go get some ice cream, man.
Support comes from two Bettys providing green cleaning services to twin Cities homes and businesses since 2006. Two Bettys.
[00:32:31] Speaker D: Fact number twelve.
[00:32:32] Speaker F: Tube Bettys likes to replace paper towels.
[00:32:35] Speaker C: With microfiber cloths with microfibers. Thousands of plush fibers on the cloth grab more dirt, grime and bacteria than paper towels, and they're reusable.
[00:32:46] Speaker F: After a quick spin in the washer.
[00:32:47] Speaker C: They'Re ready to go again, just like two Betty's. Learn
[email protected] that's twobettiesclean.com.
[00:32:56] Speaker F: Negative.
[00:32:58] Speaker C: I'm always like, so, yes, we are back here on views from the ground.
[00:33:04] Speaker E: Views from the damn ground.
[00:33:05] Speaker C: And we are here with Deb.
[00:33:08] Speaker D: Deb, good afternoon. It's evening, actually. Good evening.
[00:33:12] Speaker C: Yes. And Deb is Deanna Marie's mother.
And so I am. I invited Deb on just to kind of tell us, like, more about Deanna Marie, because I feel like, a lot, you know, that can happen in the movement. Like, we can really start martyrized people, right, and see them as a martyr, but, like, it's not like, you know, these people, you know, then die for this cause, or, you know, these people were murdered, and these people were taken and stolen from us, and they had real lives, and these were real people. And I feel like it's important to make sure that we remember that and humanize. Yeah. And so I really just wanna hear some stories about Deonna Marie and who she was as a person. So take it away, Deb.
[00:34:04] Speaker D: Thank you. So, Deanna Marie, she was two days shy of turning 32 the day that she was murdered. She is a mother of two beautiful girls.
Right now, they are 14 and twelve, very active, and I get to spend most of my days with them.
Diana was my oldest daughter, my only daughter.
She's a mother, a sister, an auntie, a granddaughter, a great granddaughter.
She's well known through many friends and family as she's grown up her whole life. But some of her funniest moments is because she was such a spirited person, wanting to be the center of attention, but not to be the center of attention, to draw it to her, but to draw people together.
But she would do funny dances, you know, just to get everybody in the groove. And I think you guys got to get, you know, you were able to see that down at lake and Girard, where she kind of just pulled everybody together to play a simple game. That was how she grew up. One of her. My biggest things about her was that she would make concoctions in the kitchen, and then, you know, she would come with this plate of whatever this concoction was, and you never knew what it was made out of. It was just whatever was in the kitchen. And then she would tell us that, no, no, I tried it. It's really, really good. And we would be like, we're pretty sure you didn't try it, and we're not going to try it. No, really? And 99.9% of the times, they were not very good. And she didn't develop very well as a cook as she grew up, either. She was not the greatest cook. She cooked, but she wasn't very good at it, so. And, you know, we were pretty active and family, because back then, there wasn't social media, there wasn't video games galore. So. I'm sorry, I'm getting messages from people. They can hear me on the radio. Hi, Courtney. I love you.
But so we didn't. We had to entertain ourselves as families. We had to be outside. We had to be doing things. And one of our things that we enjoy doing was rollerblading.
And so we went rollerblading. And I don't know if I can clean or not, but we call them teacup butterflies, and they're just these tiny little butterflies, like, they have paper wings and they're light yellow and they flutter around Clover and. And stuff like that in the field. Well, Deanna was coming down a hill, and this whole patch of clover, which was close to her, had all these butterflies, and they came up off the ground. And she swore, and she would swear to this day if she was talking with us right now that they were attacking her. They were not. But anyway, so she bited on concrete and smashed up her face and her knees and her hands. And from that day forward, she was afraid of butterflies and moths, which I thought was really funny, because as we grew up, as she was growing up, we knew she was afraid of them. But I always had resemblance of butterflies around me all the time. I got tattoos, and I had a tattoo of her as a butterfly. And after she had passed away, funeral home had sent us out these invitations, and we had not had them created. They sent them to us, and they were butterflies. So we kind of just went back to. There she is. She was fearful of them. But here's the representation she has with us every single day, is that she's in flight. Weezer was a bug that she didn't like. We still see her all the time in flying wings of butterflies.
So that's, you know, that's who we get to who we miss, because, you know, we didn't get. We don't get to see those crazy moments anymore.
She spent a lot of time with her girls, obviously, age wise, and they wanted to stay busy, so they were always doing crafting. Deanna got into. Is it called pour painting?
Yeah. So we call it pour painting. So that was one of Deanna's last creative outlets. After she had went back into her sobriety, that was the one thing that was her go to thing. To keep focus on staying positive is beautiful creative paintings. And it started while she was working in the field, and she was a very giving person. Her field of employment was working with developmentally disabled adults. And she started that when she was quite young and carried on, and she was very, very good at it. And so missing her from being able to be in that field again, when it's a field that is in need of so many people. She was an expert at it. She trained me in it.
So I was very blessed. I had to be trained by my own daughter to work in that field.
So her creativity, and she was always caring about everybody that's the whole thing is she came last. Even though she looked like she was out front in the center of attention, she still considered herself to be last. Everybody came first. Taking care of others, standing up for somebody else's rights were always first. Before she could have, amazing things could have happened in the background before that day of, you know, after Winston Smith.
That didn't matter, that that cause became her passion. She told me flat on phone, this is what I'm compassionate about, mom. I need to be here. And that's what happened. Anything that needed to be done for her got put on pause and she was working for someone else. And I guess that's where I'm so grateful I was able to instill some of my morals and values, to see that happen in the 31 years that Deanna was here and that it's carrying on to her children that we still have that close knit of who we were while she was here and who we are while she's not here.
[00:39:56] Speaker C: Thank you for sharing all that. I feel like that's very important to talk about. Can you tell us how old her kids are?
[00:40:07] Speaker D: Yeah, the oldest one is 14 and the second one is twelve.
[00:40:13] Speaker C: Oh, okay.
And what do they do? Like, like, what are their hobbies that they do?
[00:40:19] Speaker D: And both of them are very active in our church, so they do a lot of that stuff. They do a lot of stuff with grandma and grandpa. It's, I think probably one of their most favorite things to do is spend time with us. They're leaving on their first big family vacation. They get to go to Florida, go to Disney World this year.
So that'll be a nice break for them to get away after this week. They actually leave on the 20th. So it's. We got through this week as a family and then they get to go enjoy themselves down there for, you know, five days, so. But, yeah, they're active in school. They're both very good in school. They have choir and we're really involved in our church, so that's very helpful. But, yeah, around there, super important for them.
[00:41:07] Speaker C: Yeah. How, um. How can you talk about how, um, it's been for them the last year, um, you know, without their mother.
[00:41:20] Speaker D: Yeah, without Deanna, period. We've had all of our firsts. I think we've gone through them now. We've been through the whole year. So, um, having all of our firsts without her, obviously, the first one was having her, being without her for her birthday two days afterwards.
But we were together for that. We did a birthday party, kind of like birthday party. Yeah, we did a birthday party. And then for all the other first, all the holiday first and the birthday first, we made sure that we were all in proximity each other. If, you know, we had to be together that day, what we had to do to support one another.
There were struggles, and we knew they were going to be.
But we have very open communication. We don't shut anybody down. There isn't a wrong motion. You know, they can come to us and talk to us about boyfriends or arguments or, you know, any life event and not be judged. So I think that makes a big difference that it's okay to cry when you need to cry. If you need to, you know, scream, you can scream. But I've watched these girls grow. I've watched them flower through the pain. Not that they've gotten through it completely, but they've blossomed. And they still think of other people in a positive way that just because a man committed a crime and murdered their mom, that hasn't darkened the light that they see people through. You know, I mean, it's like, there are still great people in the world. This person just was not. And, you know, he took our mom. You know, he took our mom. But the rest of the world still isn't all evil. You know, they still see bright lights through it all. They can still feel the colors of the rainbow. It's just not this darkness where they want to stand behind the doors and be hidden for the rest of their lives. That has not happened. This, in this case, thankfully.
[00:43:23] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:43:24] Speaker F: I feel like that's almost like the light that they see is their mother. You know, like, you were saying. You were saying you were proud that she was able to take that compassion and that selflessness and do exactly that when she needed to. And so, yes, as dark of an event and how tragic it was, like, knowing that someone as selfless and someone is caring and someone is loving and someone is joyful, like Deanna was their mother. I think that's. I mean, that's. It's the most beautiful thing in the ugliest situation you could find yourself in.
Just.
I'm not trying to get off topic, but I think, like, Deonna has, like, almost changed the course of, like. Like, who we are as people. Everyone who was, like, on the ground or everyone in the city who was paying attention to things. Like, when Deonna was murdered, like, we all felt anyone who had ever been to a protest literally was, like, stuck. Yeah.
[00:44:30] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:44:31] Speaker F: And again, I don't even know where I'm going with this, but it's just with her daughters knowing that they have that light, which was their mother. Yeah.
[00:44:45] Speaker C: Yeah. So, Deb, can you tell us about the terrible and tragic day that you found out that your daughter had just been murdered?
[00:45:00] Speaker D: So I didn't. I kind of knew she was down there because I talked to her Sunday, earlier in the afternoon, because she. We had our family dog, one of our oldest family dogs was dying, and we had. I had let her know that early Sunday, I said, we're gonna have him put to sleep on Monday. And she's like, can you wait? I'm not gonna come up. She didn't come up. She's like, but I want to go down there to Lake Girard. So can you wait until tomorrow morning? And then I'll come up right away, and then I'll say to my goodbyes, and then you can put him to sleep.
So she went to Lake and Giraffe. We don't watch the news. We haven't watched the news in years just because it's destructive to trying to stay positive. So we don't watch the week nightly news. We just don't. So, of course, we went to bed at about 615 am.
We heard pounding at the door. We could not figure out what the heck it was. And so my husband jumped up. We have two doors, and he went up, and he went to the other door. And then whoever it was was knocking at the secondary door. So I thought, oh, my gosh. Somebody trying to break into our house. Well, when I'd gotten down to the end of the hallway, my husband said, the sheriff's department is here. They want to talk to you.
And the last time I had sheriff's department at my door, it was to tell me that my late husband had taken his own life. So it was like, okay, it can never be really big news. But I wasn't anywhere near thinking it was going to be what it was. And the voice that the sheriff had said to me has filled astounds me that he said that, but he's like, ma'am, have you been watching the news?
And I looked up and like, no, it's quarter after six in the morning. Of course I haven't been watching on the news. Oh, we're sorry to tell you that your daughter has been.
Has been killed. And the reason it had taken them so long. I mean, this incident happened at 1150. She died at the hospital at like, 150 ish, I think was the last documented time.
They couldn't find me. And next of Ken, because she was still legally married, and they were trying to find him.
So after they had left, I went to go grab my phone, and I didn't messenger on my phone at that time. I had over certain messages from people. I had no idea who they were, not whatsoever. And still, like, I was, because it was like, I don't know if you know the phone or not, but your daughter's dead.
Some people I hadn't even didn't even know, you know, or she's still a same person, like, would write, oh, she was in an accident. Two, wait, she's okay. Three. No, she's not. Four. She's dead. Oh, I'm so sorry. I don't know know if you know that. So that was my morning of.
Yeah, so that people I hadn't even known didn't know, my son didn't know. I mean, we were literally the last people to know that our daughter, Diana Marie, had died. We were the last people to know.
[00:48:25] Speaker C: And. And how did that make you feel the rest of.
[00:48:30] Speaker D: I mean, today it's not. It's not as bad as it was, but when the people on the news, the world knew before the mother knew, it just kind of rattles the system that some people just don't have any decency to think about whether those people have been contacted or not, or what gives them the right to blow up somebody's facebook after a tragic accident like that, that it gives them that right to do that to another person. But after a couple hours, and I knew I needed to come down to Lakenger art, and I did. And at first, it was over. It was overwhelming, you know? You know that your daughter was just laying there a couple hours ago, and first she was standing there. She was laying there dying, you know, but then I met so many people and was surrounded by all this and was able to have a press conference down there right away and then go to the state capitol. There were so many positive things that developed from. From that, and that it was hard to be angry at what had happened. It was just when it was just had to be put away that some people just don't think about other people.
[00:49:54] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. And I just.
I just want to say that day, too, because that was the first day I met you. You were able to be so eloquent with your words and so precise, and it was just really powerful to see someone, you know, that was going through such a tragic and terrible situation be able to stay composed and precise and articulate through the entire thing and.
Yeah.
So can you.
[00:50:33] Speaker D: Sometimes a mom just has to do what a mom has to do, you don't have to.
Sometimes falling apart on the ground doesn't serve any purpose. And it was one of those things. I knew I couldn't drop to my knees and just scream and yell. It wouldn't have served a purpose. It never does. The outcome of doing that is never. Nobody remembers what you said. What were your words when you were screaming or yelling or, you know, being, if you say the words that you want people to hear, they're going to remember the words you said. And it's always very important. And sometimes you can't always think of it right at that moment. But if you just stay, you know, kind of somewhat focused, the right words will come out and people will hear them, and they will be impactful. You don't have to have them written down. But if you stay as composed as you possibly can, even though those baseline emotions are there in the background, you can get out what you need to hear. And I needed people to hear that she was a person and that was my daughter and what we stood for as a family, and that we, you know, lead our life by God. And that she didn't want. She wouldn't have wanted this to become a negative event. All those things are still true, the exact same things I said that day. And I'm glad that I was able to come find it in myself to come down there, to be able to stand that and be there and then watch that group grow as well and come with the garden. I know it went bad after that, after a while, but it was still this community that started to grow and to grow relationships that I never thought I was going to have. I've had that opportunity, too. So. So out of tragedy, we also found some wonderful things and some wonderful people to be in our lives for the rest of our life. And so I get to be here and I get to have these people supporting me as we move forward for the next part of this event from the murder is the trial.
[00:52:24] Speaker C: So tell us about the trial.
And because I know it's coming up here.
[00:52:31] Speaker D: Yeah, it's coming up. The trial is scheduled for July 11. And when people hear trial, they automatically think we're all going to be able to go into the courtroom and it's going to start. However, that is not the case. So July 11, he will be seen in front of the judge. This is at the point where he can.
He can make the decision to have a jury trial or a speedy trial with the charges that have been presented. He has not been charged. So it's what they would like to charge him with, which is currently intentional murder two. He has two other assault charges as well that are aside from me. They're not. I don't have anything to do with my case, so I can't say anything more about those. So that's what we're hoping will happen, is he'll go, yep, I'm going to plead guilty. There's just not a plea yet. That doesn't happen till you're very, very close to whatever I is going to happen. So after that initial date and being in front of the judge, then it's determined what will be the next step. Well, they'll assign to us to finish that time period in that week. We got set back because of an older murder case.
Kind of when the court systems opened up a little bit, it kind of pushed Nicholas Crowell's case back more because of this case.
And so that's why we didn't have it in March. This other case took precedence because it was so old. And that was exactly what happened, is that he will see the judge on that Monday, and then they determine what the events will be as followed for the rest of the week. So if he decides not to do a speedy trial or does a jury trial, however that will be, or if he accepts a plea at some point, if it's offered, those are the things. What we do know right now is that he has done all of his competencies, and those are all showing facts to who he is as a person. And so those things will come out as court unrolls. I'm not gonna say anything. I can't say anything more on the legal action because I'm not an attorney. I'm not his attorney. I don't know what he has said to other people. We all know what he has said in the news or in his, you know, statements that have become public. And so we don't. And we. We all know that there's phone footage, camera footage, eyewitness, you know, I mean, so there's so much evidence against him that there's nothing that he can't say he didn't do it. I mean, we always have that. There was always some, you know. Cause that, you know, hey, maybe he didn't do it. Well, he said he did, and then we have all this to say he did. So it's now basically just waiting for the system to get caught up and to find a jury of his peers that will find him guilty of murderous.
That's. That's what we need to have done. And so we haven't talked about Deanna in a year. It's been a long time. And so her birthday and the anniversary of her death all this week, and then just a few short weeks from now is the start of the jury. So bringing her faith forward again for just a little bit so everybody remembers who she was so that they, you know, can go, oh, my gosh. Yes, we remember this. Let's really take a look at this again. When we going into the courtroom, people see it. The press opens up a little bit and says, here's what's coming up. Instead of, you know, it's kind of just pushed away to the side, and he'll maybe have a picture in, you know, in the newspaper when the trial starts. Well, now we have. We have nothing, because there's really nothing that led up to it. People have forgotten about it. And that's okay. I don't have. I just would like to have the impact of what we had going on at the very beginning, at the beginning of the trial so that people focus on it again so that this man is charged and prosecuted and receives the correct sentencing for what he did that day.
Taking my daughter's life.
[00:56:18] Speaker C: Yeah. And I think it's important to make sure, like, you know, these people get charged. Right? Like, that's, like, what we want. But we need to also make sure that these people get convicted. So we need to stay there through the whole trial, just like we did with Floyd, just like we did with Winston, and, you know, and we'll continue talking in Dante. Yeah. Yeah. Dante Winston. So, so, yeah, yeah. So I just really appreciate you coming on the show. I do want to. I do want to tell people that there is a happy birthday injustice for Deanna Marie gathering tomorrow at 1006 Summit Avenue in St. Paul.
[00:57:01] Speaker E: Governor's mansion.
[00:57:02] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:57:04] Speaker D: Yep. Governor's mansion celebration for Deanna's birthday. Yep.
[00:57:08] Speaker C: 05:00 p.m. so I just wanted people to be aware of that.
And, yeah, I just really appreciate you coming in and really humanizing and getting to talk about who Deonna Marie was as a person and talking about her daughters. And I just think that's so important here in these days and times. And thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to come here.
[00:57:35] Speaker E: So, you know, I would just like to shout you out as a. Oh, I apologize.
[00:57:38] Speaker D: Thank you for letting me, prompting me, telling everybody to have me call you. I really appreciate your patience and then letting me come on and talk about my daughter. It's very important. And I appreciate that. I'm very grateful for all of you.
[00:57:50] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:57:51] Speaker E: And I would just like to do a quick shout out to you as a mother. Thank you for raising a beautiful person. And just hearing you speak today like your granddaughters have a beautiful person to be with them. And I love that you guys are close and I just wish you all the best and please know that the community has your back and we will be supporting and making sure the pressure is on this. And thank you so much for being with us today.
[00:58:17] Speaker D: Thank you very much. You guys have a great evening.
[00:58:19] Speaker C: All right? You have a great evening too, Deb.
So I also, since we're here at the end of the show, I want to thank Jalen and Brandon for coming in. I extremely appreciate it. Thank you for adding so much to the show of views from the ground.
[00:58:39] Speaker E: Views from the damn ground.
[00:58:41] Speaker C: And with that, we're out.
[00:58:51] Speaker I: Do away with all the lies, all the lies, all the lies they call me with the magnum, the black and the 45. In between the protests we protest and realize, yes, we have to organize, organize, organize. Do away with all the lies, all the lies, all the lies. They come in with the tickets and clocks in the 45 in between the protests we protest every lies. Yes, you have to follow me, follow me, follow me. It's my philosophy that white law, monopoly makes the democracy hypocrisy in a capitalist economy. It's no democracy. I demand the return of my sovereignty. No apology, independence, autonomy. No need to mommy me. I could run my own country if you could just stop bombing me. Give me my land back, give me my gold back. My heritage, my birthright. You outright stole that. Organize, organize, organize. Do away with all the lies, all the lies, all the lies. They coming with the magnum, the clock and the 45. In between the protests we protest and realize, yes, we are organized, organized, organized. Do away with all the lies, all the lies, all the lies. They come in with the tear gas blocks and 45. In between the protests we protest and realize.
