Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 My way. See I'm bitching all the starters and he watching me play Run. I'm coming. Ain't free. He ain't Harry and Tubman the wax. But if you need some it cost stack like three.
Speaker 1 00:00:17 I'm
Speaker 0 00:00:17 Just that on. I should start slapping you with stacks Ever been hit in the face with money.
Speaker 1 00:00:26 <laugh>.
Speaker 2 00:00:41 The viewpoints expressed in this program are the opinions of the people expressing them and are not necessarily those of fresh air incorporated it's staff or its board of directors.
Speaker 4 00:01:01 You can burn whole thing down. I don't care if you are uncomfortable, we can burn a whole thing down.
Speaker 3 00:01:11 Couldn't
Speaker 4 00:01:12 Care about a another zone. You can burn a whole thing down. Y'all don't really care about a brother till we burn all thing down.
Speaker 3 00:01:23 Yeah,
Speaker 4 00:01:23 We about to go to work. Yeah we about to let it burn. Like send Quill. Yeah I bet you will tried to skip it. They've been lynching nothing in till and that's really freaking generous cuz honestly they have been killing us since we were property. No stopping me from saying how it is, how it listen. Ain't the whizz, ain't no easing down the road where we live that the biz. We can't go out for a jog. Marisa swim fucking a dog. Fall asleep in the car, fall asleep where we live. So we about to let it burn just like gusher. Say baby trying but do not care what gusher say. Put back screens up, make a few bucks. My life is in marketing. Who you think you trying to play Mom? I like it better when like nerdy was all fun and stuff. This is really angry.
Speaker 4 00:02:05 Like don't you think you said enough? Well that's freaking tough cause I'm being 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 are uncomfortable. We can burn a whole thing down. You can burn a whole thing down. Couldn't care about a zone. You can burn a whole thing down. Burn down. Y'all don't really care about a brother until we burn our whole thing down. Burn it down, down. Yeah we about to go to work. Yeah we about to let it burn.
Speaker 5 00:02:36 Come on the Youngs what I'm focused on. I'm so old then. Golden then I ain't know you was talking about Pokemon huh? But I'm more like me and nerdy next to a burndown system with a candle of gas and a handful of matches and know we ain't miss some famous. Now my mission ladies be so complicity watching all the leaders leading think Nona Minions but we torture enough to take us and we give to survivors city liars making black people compliant. Coon Rapids. Who are you asking? I'm proof. Survive the boomba trick bro. Ethics got me laughing at your message and in Black Lives Matter you would not get so defensive. We got cops and ths and rhyme reasoning gas light us. We are not the same. We on the scene we passed typing cuz y'all don't care about us and we ain't come ask. We just mind our businessing and people be so sucking mad. So pass the gun and mask and pastor the athe. Nu y'all can really kill us for anything. Y'all just bend the laws the same performance art, the same performative saving the racist head of normative. You can burn
Speaker 4 00:03:34 The whole thing down. You can burn it all. I don't care if you're uncomfortable. We can burn a whole thing down. You can burn it, burn it, burn it down. Couldn't care about it. Not a zone. You can burn a whole thing down down. Y'all don't really care about a brother till we burn all thing down. Burn it down. Yeah, we about to go to work. Yeah, we about let
Speaker 6 00:04:28 Views from the ground,
Speaker 7 00:04:29 Views from the damn ground views from the ground views from the damn ground views from the ground views from the damn ground. And
Speaker 6 00:04:36 That's on that on that on that. Hey boo boo boo. This is DJ your favorite agender host. I use they dumb pronouns.
Speaker 8 00:04:44 My name is Brandon. I use he him pronouns.
Speaker 9 00:04:47 What's up y'all? I'm reporting this week. I'm Francisco and I use he him pronouns.
Speaker 6 00:04:51 All right, so, uh, so the first thing I want to cover before we go to Francisco's um, part is I just want to say that yesterday on Lake and Hawa they ended up, um, raiding and encampments and displacing about 30 unhoused folks. Um, so they continued to do this in the middle of winter. Um, yeah. And then they set up cops everywhere around the um, area to make sure that they didn't go to places that they had been to before the make sure they kept walking. So, I don't know, sounds like cruel and unusual punishment to me. But
Speaker 8 00:05:37 Recently there was a, uh, a statement made by somebody, I think it might have been Mayor Fry, and he said that there's been an increased police presence at these encampment evictions because of an increased presence of activists that are coming to incite trouble and, and uh, be violent and aggressive is what they said about people who are just standing up for their community members. Um, you know, again, every time we talk about this, we talk about the definition of violence. Um, cuz the city does not see their evictions as violence, but they see people saying that these people have a right to live here. They say that that's what is violent. So it, it just really shows the difference in where we stand and, and how we view, uh, what people have the right to do on this stolen land on land that nobody here has the right to own, but you're trying to say that these people can't stay here or these people can't stay there. And people who say, well I think they should be able to, those are the violent people. Okay,
Speaker 6 00:06:37 Yep. Um, you know, overwhelming, um, indigenous people. Um, and yeah, they trying to say the activists are the dangerous ones despite the fact that they're the ones with the guns. So Yeah, exactly. But with that, um, take it away, Francisco.
Speaker 9 00:06:55 Yeah, I just wanna appre appreciate y'all for, for, for bringing that up. Super important. And now I'm gonna start my segment. It's Pancho where I talk about different issues, contemporary issues in Latin America through an indigenous lens. So this week we're actually gonna be talking about an unfolding situation, a situation, um, in the situation in Valor. Um, but actually before I was listening, I don't know if y'all were listening to the show before this one, but, uh, I was really, I was getting into it on the tribe over here and it was very entertaining and I just wanted to make a slight comments. They they were, they were going off on Harry styles on how, um, how he, how he didn't deserve to win album the year, yada yada. And I thought that, uh, there was a little piece of information that I kind of belongs in Pancho spk too, cuz it's about the, you know, the, the Latin American diaspora.
Speaker 9 00:07:48 And it's just the fact that, um, people are really celebrating Harry styles for his, you know, outfit choices and stuff, thinking he is like, you know, super revolutionary when if, when it's like very clear that he's stealing, like literally he's steal he's stole his outfits from, um, legendary Mexican singer Juan Gael. And if you look it up, you can literally see them like pictures next to each other where Harry Styles is wearing the same suits that Juan Gael got. Um, just incredibly homophobic, uh, you know, you know, rhetoric spew towards him for, for wearing the same exact stuff. So yeah. Now getting back to El Salvador. So I'm gonna be talking about, you know, a current contemporary issue and my friend Rudy's gonna be helping me out with it. But, um, for it to make sense, I kind of wanted to give, you know, how I do a Pancho I give a, a deep dive history, um, into, you know, the colonization of the country and the fight for indigenous sovereign scene for it all to make sense.
Speaker 9 00:08:45 Cuz if you don't get that, that understanding then, you know, we're kind of just here wondering like, how did we get it to this really, really violent point? Um, so yeah, before colonization, um, I don't know if you guys know, but, but El Salvador and, you know, central America in general has some of the most fertile lands in, in the entire world. And it was actually pretty easy for, for the folks to, you know, um, cultivate the land. Obviously they had like a really, really rich understanding of the cycles of Mother earth, of the cycles of the moon and, and how that affected the land that they themselves lived on. And that was super helpful as they cultivated corn and beans and, and, and so many different things that helped them sustain themselves. Um, and unfortunately through colonization, those really, really fertile lands turned from a blessing until a really, really violent curse.
Speaker 9 00:09:38 Um, because just as in many other countries in Latin America through colonization, um, the land was, the land was originally just like communal land. Like people were on it, people used it, people cultivated it, people lived in harmony with the land and all the, all the creatures who lived upon it with them. And, and when the colonizers came, they, well, they first, you know, killed people, killed the indigenous people, and they, and they stole their land. And then they would sell their land to other foreigners and they would sell other it to other foreigners so that they could exploit the land and then funnel the profits into mostly European banks and then turn into US banks as well. So, um, this land was, was purchased, quote unquote purchased by, um, all these white settlers who were coming in just like a lot of other countries in El Salvador.
Speaker 9 00:10:34 I, I mean in Latin America. And because coffee was becoming such an important, um, an important commodity on the international market, all these rich landlords didn't care about the, the, the, the, the people of the country. So they're like, okay, how can we just make money? So instead of planting, um, stuff to sustain the people they were just planting, they, they were just planting coffee and you know, it was over, it was about 50% of the exports coming out of El Salvador was coffee. And, you know, more than 90% of of the, the money coming into El Salvador was, was from this, these coffee sales. And obviously it wasn't the indigenous people who, who had been cultivating the land for years. It was, it was these rich white settlers who were the ones who were making all the money off of it. And this was going on for, this went on for, for centuries, man, this, this was going on.
Speaker 9 00:11:29 Um, so by the mid 20th century following a brutal massacre by actually the US Marine Corps, um, which which is now popularly known as Laa, when 30,000 indigenous, um, Salvadorians were, were brutally murdered in an effort to suppress, you know, it was, it was a spread going across Latin America of, um, of indigenous folks, working class folks, poor people trying to regain that control over their over, over their, their land, regain some service, sovereign regain some sort of sovereignty. It was, it was fueled a lot by, you know, the, uh, just like a really a fight for socialism. Um, and this fight for socialism was suppressed, um, from the outside, literally by the, the US Army and the Marines. And, and, um, and then yeah, fast forward, you know, El Salvadorians are still suffering from nutrient deficient deficiencies. You know, a quarter of the population was dying, um, literally just because they didn't have enough nutrients to sustain their bodies because, um, a country that has some of the most rich soil in the world, like I mentioned, was now importing every single one of their, you know, um, produce, produce goods.
Speaker 9 00:12:50 And they weren't, they weren't consuming their, even their coffee, they weren't even able to get their hands on. Um, but I mean, that doesn't really matter cuz you know, that doesn't really have, have nutrients in the first place. But, so now we're gonna move on to, you know, there, there, there's already this struggle, you know, but with the struggle that was in the thirties was violently suppressed, you know, the, the 30,000 people were, were murdered in a massacre. And this, this includes women children as well. Um, and then, and then we get into 1979 and that, and there was a non-violent coup that happened in El Salvador, um, which is pretty rare. I'm sure you can imagine where a whole government is overthrown, uh, and like no one dies. It, it's kind of insane. Um, but this government that was in, that has been in control, like their party specifically had been in control for 20 years.
Speaker 9 00:13:42 But this government that was just supporting the upper class had been in control since, you know, the Spanish arrived in El Salva. Um, so third, third government was overthrown by a new revolutionary government, um, that was called the, that was, I don't remember exactly what the revolutionary government was called, but it was, it was really, um, based in this foundation of this coalition of leftist and indigenous, um, groups that came together to be one group. And they were called <unk>, um, which is widely known as the FM len. And so this new revolutionary government enacted a limit of a hundred hectors of land being owned by a single person. They nationalized coffee sugar and banking and set a new date for, for a national election, which was actually just three years following that, which is pretty unprecedented for like a coup to, you know, put that in so, so soon and be like, okay, we need, we need democracy now.
Speaker 9 00:14:45 And what we had before wasn't working. Um, so a lot of the rich landowners responded by burning their fields. They shot their livestock and they, they just crossed the border. They just crossed the border and took Guatemala where they also owned, you know, these, these vast plots of land that were stolen from indigenous peoples. And this newly formed F M L N was actually armed by the Soviet Union. They were armed ua and they fought against, uh, US backed military. El El Salvador's military, um, was being funneled literally millions of dollars. Um, and by the end of the conflict, um, over $4 billion. But the United States backed military, um, fought against the, the newly formed indigenous, um, you know, coalition and really mili and gorilla military, um, and the US fought to, fought to keep the power in the hands of the, the power and the land, um, in the hands of, of those rich white landowners.
Speaker 9 00:15:47 Um, the Civil War lasted from 79 to 1992 and gave rise to some of the world's most brutal counters against human rights, including kidnapping, rape, and torture directed towards really anyone who was considered to be a sympathizer, uh, of that leftist movement. And yeah, like I said before, it was funded through roughly 4 billion of what is the US was calling aid at the time. And, um, they justified this all because this was kind of during the same time as the Cold War. They justified this all through the fight against communism. And actually another thing that's interesting about ties into that fight against communism, they used really similar, um, tactics that, that the US military used in Vietnam called scorched Earth, which is where the, the Marines again would go into communities in Vietnam and really the, I mean, they'd, they'd be going to Vietnam and any, any structure they saw, they would burn any person.
Speaker 9 00:16:50 Doesn't matter if they were a baby, they would murder. And, um, the, the US um, trained El Salvador was military to, to do the exact same thing. So obviously people were, people were fleeing, um, people were trying to get into the us people were fleeing to Guatemala, um, people were flee. And one of the deadliest single massacres is remembered today is the, as the <unk> massacre, where, um, this obviously trained US trained anti guerrilla task force killed over a thousand civilians, including women and children, um, in, in a very, very short period of time. And the US actually denied that this ever happened, um, that they denied that the Mok ever happened. And then when, like it was leaked, like their, their messaging was literally leaked and journalists who reported on it were, were like slandered and blacklisted within like all major media outlets. And this was in 1990.
Speaker 9 00:17:51 Um, and yeah, this whole, this whole time, like I said, people were trying to get into the US almost a, a ton of people were denied asylum in the us. Um, and then, you know, just as any country that receives large amounts of military aid from the US El Salvador was left in shambles after the Civil War eight in 92. And um, and then with an ending, FM land signed the triple peace accord with the Salvadorian government. Um, and you know, and, and, and it's important to remember that all of this conflict was between a predominantly indigenous, poor working class population fighting for the land, fighting for the sovereignty, um, versus an ultra rich class, uh, of, of mostly white settlers or or descendants of white settlers. Um, and the fight for indigenous sovereignty continues in El Salvado. And, um, my friend Ruti is gonna give us some more specific example. Um, go ahead and introduce yourself. Ruti,
Speaker 10 00:19:02 My name is Ruti. I am Froman, now known as El on my father's side on the na and on my mother's side on the Maka.
Speaker 9 00:19:14 Yeah, thanks Rui. So with this extremely well armed right wing militia as and other anti leftist groups in the country, there was really no hope for peace after that civil war ended and the country was thrown into a constant state of violence, armed with US weapons and ammunition, and now funded indirectly through the US but really kind of still through the us through the illicit, uh, drug trade and ruti. Can you talk about how the US imported gang rule and violence from their, from the US prisons into El Salvador?
Speaker 10 00:19:44 The people who started the gangs actually weren't even in El Salvador. It was actually in the United States where it started. The, um, ma Salva the gang was started and then they started deporting members of those gangs in which they had a platform because again, the country has been left in very terrible shape. I think of it as just a big huge like cycle of like the US doing destruction and then, then blaming it on like our country and then being the reason why gangs rise and the Civil war rises. And so then we enter this, I call it like the very, the dark times of like every, everybody's just living in fear because like, you never knew if you were going be able to survive or walk outside or even have a meal outside.
Speaker 9 00:20:27 Yeah. So these gangs were, were formed in US prisons. Um, a lot of 'em started in LA and then when these, you know, they, they didn't wanna keep 'em in the prisons no more cuz they, they were getting super organized. All these, uh, Salvadorians who were, who were either, you know, flee, fleeing from their country before or, or descendants of people who fled. And they were getting super organized in these prisons and, and the US didn't wanna deal with them no more. So they just kind of deported, um, these gangs and masses. And they added up back in El Salvador are literally already organized in, in these hierarchies. And those dark times, like you mentioned, have now taken us into, uh, new presidency in El Salvador.
Speaker 10 00:21:04 Here comes our current president, Nabu. He is north from either like conservative or, um, leftist. He is considered to be independent and socialist and yada yada. And so he comes and presents this new idea of like, El Salor becoming a peaceful country again. And this man goes into war with the gangs. You think there isn't really a plan other than catch as many gang members as you can and lock 'em up. And that's the end of that. There is no programming for them to come and be reintroduced or like, the expectation is that as soon as they catch all of these people, um, that they, um, just lock 'em up away in jail cells where they can't see the light. There is this current regime and the regime is like anybody who looks or is accused of being a gang member is automatically apprehended by the police. Not even investigated, but just apprehended and taken into custody.
Speaker 9 00:22:06 Yeah. So this iron fist approach that, uh, the president Nae, um, is taking, is making extremely dangerous for any young boy to be outside really in the streets. And, and like Rudy you were saying, um, there's no fair trial process, you know, it's is based on any, it's based on assumptions and I'm sure all of us can, can empathize with the, with the population in El Salvador. Like just imagine, uh, there's all powerful police force. Um, so Ruth, do you organize and are learning your ancestral language now? What's, um, from a school in your local community? Can you talk a little bit about the issues going on with, with this current, current administration and, and those schools that you're learning from?
Speaker 10 00:22:44 Currently in Sango, deman and in Naco, there are three schools that we call <unk> having all the grandmothers be the core teachers, the ones who create the curriculum, the ones who provide all the materials that are very much relevant to the language that we speak. Nobody tells us how we can live and be or be or not be a nation in our own land. The department of public, uh, education inor recently without any heads up inor, um, the same three nawas are currently trying to be taken into the public education system. They, these schools are now gonna be pretty much become public schools. Having the public school system be the ones to dictate what can be taught and what cannot be taught is a way of colonization.
Speaker 9 00:23:44 Yeah, exactly. And, and, and just a reminder before I close off my section, really all of these attacks that I've mentioned, um, the massacres, the monocropping, the stealing of land, the funding of civil war, the exploitation of gangs locking up of innocent youth and now and, and this very specific attack, uh, uh, on communal education are all attacks on in indigenous sovereignty in El Salvador. And to end Ruti, in your personal perspective, why is it so important to uphold sovereignty?
Speaker 10 00:24:13 For the longest time we weren't able to to practice any of our ceremonies, and in some places we're still not allowed to practice it. Our ceremonies, it's once again important for our community to maintain the language, to maintain even how we present ourselves with our traditional clothing. That's also how we honor those who have fought to, to maintain them alive. And as we all know that colonization is still very much happening in different forms. It's just a part of us that we've unlocked that has been locked away due to all the disruption that has happened because of colonization, because of the civil War, because of everything that has come into, at least for my community, it allows me to live my authentic self and allows me to also understand my relationship with earth, my relationship with my other relatives in a way that is, um, a coexisting and a co and like really that kingship between all of our communities.
Speaker 9 00:25:12 Thanks, Richie.
Speaker 6 00:25:16 Well, thank you, um, Francisco, um, for really just, you know, teaching people about what's going on in Al Salvador and we just really appreciate it. So
Speaker 9 00:25:28 Thanks for listening everyone.
Speaker 6 00:25:30 Yeah. With that we're gonna move to our words of freedom segment.
Speaker 8 00:25:36 So yeah, how y'all doing this, Brandon? And uh, this is another segment of words of Freedom, which is a segment here on views from the ground, views
Speaker 6 00:25:43 From the damn
Speaker 8 00:25:44 Ground. Or we give local post a chance to free their mind, free their hearts, free their souls, and liberate themselves with their words of freedom. Um, we've listened to plenty of dope artists over the past year, um, and this month, which is Black History Month, and also my birth month, I got birthday and, uh, week and day, um, so guess who's your poll of the month? Me, <laugh>. So we're gonna listen to one of my poems. I might perform something live for y'all. We'll see what we got time for. But, uh, we're gonna listen to a live performance, uh, or a audio from a video of me performing live of a piece titled this is at the two year, um, anniversary, uh, of the murder of George Floyd.
Speaker 11 00:26:28 This is
Speaker 11 00:26:34 To paraphrase an African proverb. If a child is not embraced by the village, they'll only feel the warmth when they burn it down. So look around, it's no wonder why this was burnt to the ground. This is Minnesota where all they have to offer are cold stairs and cold shoulders where black folks don't grow older. So when we're killed in cold blood, the only weights of warm up is to make things smolder. That fire that's inside us all keeps us united and to conquer us, they try to keep us divided. Let's not forget their violence was the first to be incited. They call it a riot, but if they don't want no smoke, then don't ignite it. This is the twin cities where they'll kill you in the street, sweep it under the rug justified and blame it on drugs and build a roundabout around it.
Speaker 11 00:27:16 Like, don't look at that. But they forget that these are our streets. So we took them back. This is Minneapolis where the tensions run high between cops and civilians, where your tax dollars pay for police misconduct by the millions where the politicians will cry at funerals, they could have prevented whether a lie during campaigns just to get reelected. This is where they don't listen to the people. They only act like they care what we think. So the only way for us to voice our opinion was at the third precinct. If you really want to know how we feel, give us the money y'all wanna spend on the precinct rebuild. You'd be amazed at what we build. If you really want to listen to what the people say, come and sit at a meeting at the People's Way. This is 38th of Chicago. When the video showed the world the cops did wrong, and that was where we showed the world that George Floyd will live on in this intersection.
Speaker 11 00:28:06 We will always feel this pain in this intersection. We will always scream his name in this intersection. We come together in unity. We show the whole world the true definition of community. We are the least protective of those who took an oath to protect and serve us. So why would we look for healing from those who hurt us? We will heal ourselves by serving radical love to one another. We break bread, we bump heads, we laugh, we cry, we hug on each other, we celebrate, we mourn, we cook and we eat. We make art, we dance. We march and we shut down these streets. This is George Floyd Square and it will always be. And these streets will be shut down every angel anniversary with or without a permit. The people will find a way. We will never let y'all forget what happened on the 25th of May.
Speaker 11 00:28:50 We will never let y'all forget how you tried to justify it. We will never let y'all forget how you only listened after the riot. We'll remind you what side you are on as we live through modern history, and we'll show you that we won't stop fighting until we declare victory. This is how we heal with the power of the people standing side by side in the fight of good verses evil until we're all equal. And so we're all free until we no longer need to make memorials in the streets. This is how we heal and this is how we fight. This is how we come together and demand justice for every stolen life. And this right here is how we will keep on healing us until we exist in a world where they don't keep on stealing us. Say his name,
Speaker 13 00:29:36 God, say his name, God say his name, scream his name, scream his name. All power to the people.
Speaker 8 00:29:54 Yeah. So that was my piece, uh, from the two year anniversary of George Floyd. Um, I'm gonna read one for y'all. Um, you know, there's been a couple more updates in the Tyree Nichols case. Um, uh, did y'all hear that? Uh, one of the officers like took five or took photos of Tyree's beating body and sent them to like at least five people? Yeah,
Speaker 14 00:30:15 Some other cops
Speaker 8 00:30:16 And some friends. So, you know, when we talk again, when we first talk about Tyree, it's like the perfect example of how, um, reform will never be enough. Uh, so the piece that I'm going to read for y'all is titled Reform or Abolish Reform or Abolish. Better Be Careful What you Ask for. Gotta take a closer look at history. It's what you go to class for. How could we ever reform a system whose existence is rooted in my oppression when my people are in chains? How could better training ever be the answer to the question? And the ones with the badges, just trying to uphold the laws that are in place, making sure that their community stay safe. So of course they give chase when you run away, they imagine the damage you could do. So they ain't gonna put their gun away when they see you living freely.
Speaker 8 00:30:58 That's a threat to the way of life. The patrol just of their job, whether they're wrong or if they're way is right, regardless of intentions, they're blind to the impacts that they don't see. So even if they're a good person without it, with the badge on, they won't be not just those with the badges, their bosses, the lawmakers. It's really the whole institution reform. Wanna eradicate the racism. So abolition is the only solution. And before you get mad and start waving your flag with a thin blue line, just realize I was talking about the runaway slave patrol and slavery as a whole this whole time. Interesting how when I talk about abolishing slavery, it changes your whole perspective. See, abolition has always been viewed as a radical objective. It's not about laws, it's about morality. So don't talk about what's legal because at one point you could buy, sell and own other people.
Speaker 8 00:31:41 So what would you have done if you were around then? If I read about you in my history book? Tell me how was your tale told? Would you have had a t-shirt supporting the slave catchers of what your house been to stop on the Underground Railroad? Would Harriet Tub's black life mattered to you? Or would you say she was a thug or a criminal? Would you support Frederick Douglass or would you just stay out of it because you don't like to get too political? Would you tell those abolitionists if they didn't like it, they could leave? Well instead they stayed in this country so they could better it. It's funny how the last people who didn't like it and left succeeded and became the Confederates, you would've been hating during Lincoln's proclamation. And that's the truth. When the 13th Amendment was signed, would you have wanted to seat at that table?
Speaker 8 00:32:16 Would you have been sitting at John Wilkes booth? So did they ask for slavery reform or did they fight for abolition? See, they knew that we could never survive within that system, free our people from the chains. That was the mission. But I'm gonna look around and I ask myself, is anything different? Black folks are still in shackles in the jails and the prisons, but you gotta look at the way the 13th Amendment was written. You can't have slaves just to have 'em, but you can under certain conditions. They didn't want us to fly free. So they used Jim Crow to guarantee our convictions. So it went from Massa to Warden Overseers to prison guard, auction block to cell block, plantation fields to prison yards, black codes to stop and frisking the war on drugs, slaves to criminals, to super predators, to thugs. It used to be the Slave Patrol. Now it's the police. It used to be our blood on the leaves. Now our blood's on the streets, the fight for liberation has been passed on to us. So our goal is still the same. They fought for abolition, but only got reformed. So that system still remains. And until it is abolished, life will, my people will never change. And so we fight because we still have nothing to lose, but I will change.
Speaker 15 00:33:16 Whew. Woo.
Speaker 8 00:33:17 Yeah, man. So
Speaker 6 00:33:20 Let's go.
Speaker 8 00:33:20 I don't think I can sum it up any better than that. Uh, but yeah, thank y'all. This has been brand new on another, uh, segment of Words of Freedom. Uh, listen next week for a little bit more of my poetry and uh, we'll have something special for you at the end of the month. Just make sure y'all stay tuned. Thank y'all.
Speaker 6 00:33:34 Yes, yes. One of my favorite poems. Thank you so much, um, with that one. Um, uh, now we'll transition over to the Nerdy spotlight. So take it away. Nerdy.
Speaker 4 00:33:46 Hello once again, Mike guys, gals and non-binary pals. It's your boy Nerdy. And we are back again with the Artist Spotlight. You already know what it is. Every month we do the same thing that's taking an artist from our community. Give them their flowers, give them their shine, and a little bit of time to show off their artistry to everybody listening. And this month is no different while we focus on SJ the Afrocentric Ratchet. It is rare to find an artist so fearless in their lyricism. And I feel like SJ really embodies that. Every time she hits the track, she's gonna tell you exactly what she's about, exactly what's going on. And I love that in an mc. And that's why we're gonna take a little bit of time right now and listen to the song pillars. Check it out.
Speaker 15 00:34:44 All of my, I left alone my vision. Now how you gonna, so how you gonna bring I the So Sleep wreck Fast. Heard your record turn fast. It was trash. No baby, same way. You should accept my name. Summer Greatness, green fries, tomato Potatoe. This are my children. I don't love my daughters rather than whip rather baby daddy show some blood to the cash app and we trying to invest. I ain't thinking cash that I'm a 90 figure 13 when he dropped that with the cash. So don't surprise when you talk to me, maybe Boy Yu ask that cuz I need that as, as not see that I ain't trying to, so I'm just trying to that and love I lost for these boys and trust that with my demons. And you ain't trying to buy us, boy. So I ain't down for no, all of my ex kept looking back, didn't trust the they was lacking.
Speaker 15 00:36:00 Faith left them alone. My vision. You tighten up butt up. So how you gonna breathe? So how Eat all my looking back lacking faith, vision gonna tighten. So how Breathe. So, so how gonna sleep? All my s my s they eat it for free in for seconds. They get me a feel. I check shooting, I'm stepping, I'm creeping, I'm stepping at your after steaming pressure 30 piece my depriving depression. I'm me who I'm kicking. You ain't seeing me track that heming me and respond. He jail rag for your bill. Jail check Real to Baby's 14. Win you take, come back if you inches I need As when I see it. And I ain't trying to regret that, so I'm just trying to lost and trust that with my and trying to drive crazy. Well how you figure with no guard my is up. Myk kept looking, didn't trust in the God was lacking the faith. I left him alone. Vision. You gonna see tighten up butt up. So how you gonna breathe? I in the kitchen. So how you gonna eat? So how you gonna sleep? All of my ex looking trust was lacking faith left alone.
Speaker 16 00:37:47 K F E I is proud to present the Cafe Accordion Orchestra at the Dakota on Wednesday, February 22nd, Dan Newton and the Cafe Accordion Orchestra brings to the Dakota an evening of dancing to the sounds of swing ballads, tangos, ChaCha's, Rumbas and Kumbias to create a wonderfully varied show. Tickets for the cafe Accordion Orchestra can be found at the Dakota website. Visit dakota cooks.com for more details.
Speaker 6 00:38:15 Black History Month. So here we are, back on views from the ground. Views from the Dare Ground. Um, tonight our guest is, um, actually the, um, north Star Health Collective. Um, and go ahead and introduce yourselves. All right.
Speaker 17 00:38:35 I am Kat. I am Kat, I'm a street medic with North Star Health Collective. Are you she her pronouns?
Speaker 6 00:38:41 Yep.
Speaker 17 00:38:42 And my name is Mags. I also, she her pronouns and I'm a street medic with North Star Health Collective. Yeah.
Speaker 6 00:38:48 So I guess we're gonna start kind of like the history of, of street medics. So
Speaker 17 00:38:56 Take it away. All right. Um, street medics in this country have a long, am I too quiet? Yeah, sorry. I, let's see. Street medicine in this country have a long history. Um, I was trained as a street medic in 2001 in the Bay Area, um, right after the Iraq war. And um, I think you were trained earlier than that. Yeah, I was trained in the spring of 2000, um, by Doc Rosen and, um, in, uh, at an anti-globalization demonstration.
Speaker 6 00:39:35 Yep. Just move a little bit closer to the mics. Oh,
Speaker 17 00:39:37 Okay. We're so used to being like quiet, but Yeah. But yeah, stream medics have, uh, a long history, I guess we could say. I mean, you could, you could trace it before that, but generally, um, we look to the civil rights movement and the doctors and nurses, um, who would support, um, things like the March in Selma. If you look at pictures from that, you might not know it, but there are doctors and nurses who are taking care of folks who are being beaten by the police. Yeah, the medical committee and Human rights is where Doc Rosen came from. And Doc, that was his start in activism. And Doc is the one that trained, trained mags and trained a lot of the street medics, especially coming out of, um, the protests at the W two O in Seattle in 99. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And, uh, let's see.
Speaker 17 00:40:26 I was, I worked with Bay Radical Health Collective in San Francisco, um, through 2006. Um, and we went as a collective to a lot of the big protests, um, that were part of the anti-globalization movement. So, um, they went to Montreal in Miami, um, Manhattan, the R n C in Manhattan in oh four. And um, and then down to Common Ground, um, after Katrina. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. And then in 2008, <laugh> R came here. R Lawrence C came to St. Paul <laugh>, um, which is where North Star came from. Um, that's when we started is the RNC in 2008 in St. Paul. And so I was one of the people that started it and myself, um, and a couple of other activists here in town. Um, I didn't get consent to share their names, but you will know who they are, <laugh>. Um, and we ran a clinic during the RNC and then, um, supported the RNC eight and, um, local community through everything that happened after the R N C, all the trials and, um, court dates and did a lot of wellness work after that. Um, stayed active through, um, the occupation of the capitol in Madison, and then of course Occupy and, um, the occupation of the precinct after DeMar Clark was murdered. The occupation of the governor's mansion <laugh> after Philando Castile was murdered and, um, have remained active up until now here today. And when the pandemic started. And then of course after George Floyd is murdered, the collective has shifted quite a bit. Quite a bit, yeah.
Speaker 6 00:42:17 Shifted in what ways?
Speaker 17 00:42:19 Yeah, so I would say so, um, I came back to Minneapolis full-time in 20 end of 2015. Actually, the first thing I was able to get out and participate in was the day that the, um, precinct in North was cleared. And there was a big march. That's where I learned that in Minneapolis, we march long, long marches, um, <laugh>. And shortly after that, um, I found, uh, north Star, I found Cat, I did some retraining. And for a while there, north Star was, I I would say maybe, you know, a handful of folks who would meet occasionally and do trainings, maybe a dozen active medics, you know, who were running things like when Trump came to town. And then the pandemic happened and we were, you know, really trying to solidify and focus on taking care of community. And then when George Floyd was murdered, um, we went out that night, you know, it started just like any number of marches have started here in the cities.
Speaker 17 00:43:21 And then obviously as, as we know, things shifted. And immediately in that time, so many people were just kind of rushing into the streets to help. Um, and that in and of itself is a longer story. I could, we could talk about. But the main thing is that we really were like, okay, we're gonna stay in our lane. We are street medics, which means we go out in two or three people. We're always in at least a buddy pair. Like literally tonight we do everything in buddies, <laugh>, <laugh>, um, and so we're gonna go out and take care of folks in the street. And in the days and weeks that followed, people wanted to join us. And so we created, um, and, and this is something that we've talked about in a report that we've released. We, we vetted medics in as quickly as we could.
Speaker 17 00:44:10 Um, now remember, we're still in a pandemic, so we can only train people so much because otherwise it's really risky for transmitting covid. Um, so we mostly focused on vetting in people who are already health professionals, but really needed to learn the ethics of street medicine because street ing is not just being like a medical professional in the the streets. There's a lot of ethics that we use to override the racist, sexist, homophobic, ableist, and just all out crap that is the dominant medical system in, in the United States. And so basically what happened is, so all these people came in and over the year following the uprising, we settled into a collective of our street Medic loop is about 75 75, and we have 20 to 30 active organizing members in various working groups. But to sort of rewind a little bit over that summer, we vetted and trained 200 people.
Speaker 17 00:45:08 And so people I think, um, respond to that, that moment of urgency that we all had summer of 2020. And, um, I think over time people went back to their lives in some ways. I mean, again, these were all busy medical professionals in the middle of a pandemic. And so, um, the people that have stayed, I think have made, um, made an effort to, to really be in the collective and be in that, that world of operating with consent, with, um, doing no harm, with um, really the intentionality of providing care, um, where someone is, um, experiencing that moment of urgency, that injury or that um, that trauma, that panic, whatever it is. Um, we can meet people literally where they are.
Speaker 6 00:46:02 Yes. And, and that is important. I also want to just say, you, you did 200 people, you're saying you helped train them, but I also want to point out that like you didn't, like you still did like a really good job because like I hear so many people around the movement talk so highly, even other medics about how well that y'all actually train folks. And I think that also needs to be highlighted that, you know, there was 200 people that were trained in this short amount of time, but it was still very high quality training as well, so mm-hmm. <affirmative> and you know, we just like appreciate you y'all for that. So
Speaker 17 00:46:43 Thank you. Yeah. We appreciate hearing that. Um, we definitely tried to be intentional about it and one of the things that I feel like was our strength, especially in that moment, in that summer and in the first few days, is that we relied on the National Street Medic, um, organizations that exist in other cities and other communities and we had a lot of people come and help us, um, to, to do that, to pull that off, to expand our capacity very quickly mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so, um, yeah, we're really able to, to call on our communities. And to be honest, they came to us. I mean, three days in something that most people might not know is that at North Star we also run a dispatch system. So when our street medics are out, we're take, we're keeping an eye on them and making sure that they get home safe, um, and that they have the resources that they need so there's someone offsite doing dispatch, um, as well.
Speaker 17 00:47:35 And so in the few days after when we were building and running and doing all this stuff and we weren't sleeping, there were amazing folks from around, um, uh, around, um, the so-called United States who, who literally called in and said, how can we help? And they helped us build a dispatch system cuz you can dispatch and we still have dispatchers who are active, who don't live here, um, who just support Oh wow. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So there are people who are literally supporting the work of Minneapolis and St. Paul in the streets from, uh, you know, across the, the US.
Speaker 6 00:48:07 Yeah. Um, y'all spoke about a little bit how y'all have to like, you can't just be a trained professional and then come and be a street medic cuz you have to unlearn some of those things. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, can you speak a little bit to some of the things that you have to unlearn in order mm-hmm. <affirmative>.
Speaker 17 00:48:23 Yeah. And I wanna add that, you know, in the uprising and because of a pandemic, we were what we call bridging in medical professionals, but we also trained folks who have no medical background. It's just a different training. No,
Speaker 6 00:48:36 That was me. <laugh>.
Speaker 17 00:48:38 Yeah. I, through the training <laugh>. Exactly. And so we wanted to be accessible, um, to folks who haven't been through that training. Um, and to be honest, some of those folks coming out of movement, these ethics and values are often less difficult than untraining them from folks who've come through, um, EMS especially, or Western medicine, general medicine. Yeah. So-called Western Medicine. Um, and so really, I mean, I, I think the first thing maybe we can bounce back and forth some of these values. The first thing is, and you know, being through a training, you know, that's consent mm-hmm. <affirmative>, we start with consent, consent, consent. I can't say it enough because that is not something that exists for most people, um, in the so-called Western medicine. And so that is utmost like we, before we even get to First Aid or any sort of like technical training, we spend several hours talking about our values and that's the number one is consent. There's always consent from the people that we're working with. Yeah. And I would even expand on that to informed consent. I think, um, something that Western Medicine really emphasizes is that there's a hierarchy to decision making, to knowledge having. And, um, we spend a lot of time remaining horizontal remaining, um, in community, in relationship, in partnership with the people that we're caring for.
Speaker 18 00:50:10 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah.
Speaker 17 00:50:13 <laugh>, thank you. Yeah. Um, I, I think a few things that I could add just to, to answer that are, you know, some, I think some people would, would consider us potentially kind of like conservative in a certain way because we are really strict about do no harm. Um, and so that means like we're not handing out medications even over the counter stuff because like in a moment in the streets, like, I can't take your history, I don't know what your allergies are. Um, so other medications Yeah. Whatever it is. Things like that. People, especially in the uprising when we had so many people rushing into the street, really spent about 30 seconds on Google and came up with a variety of things that they thought would be helpful in protest situations. I cannot tell you how much liquid and acid I threw away. <laugh> it, I mean gallons, <laugh>, gallons of it and Yep. <laugh>, <laugh>
Speaker 6 00:51:05 Can confirm
Speaker 17 00:51:07 Baking soda, hydrogen peroxide, like all of it just went straight out. Yeah. You know, I think we donated anything that seemed useful mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But, um, it, uh, yeah, it, um, we really work on using those do no harm principles to, to extend to every aspect of the care that we provide. And so when we say like, water, water for your eyes only ever, it's because of these do no harm principles. Um, you know, it's, uh, it can seem almost like when people come in and they, they're hoping that we're secretly Batman, you know, we're gonna like, have a million technical tools. Um, it can be kind of a kind of a grounding moment when we say like, we are carrying water <laugh>, we're carrying calm, calm is a tool that we carry, and, um, yes, we're carrying like some basic supplies. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, that is what we're bringing.
Speaker 6 00:52:08 Yes. And don't ever underestimate the, uh, value of calm. Um, that is one of the main things I feel like I learned and took from my training with North Star was the ability to spread calm, um, which I feel like I've gotten better at since taking the training <laugh>. Um, I've not always practiced it well in theory mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, but, um, I appreciate that reminder. Um, but yeah, we're here with, um, north Star Health Collective and, um, yeah. Um, so, so tell us, uh, about your, your, like, report back that mm-hmm. <affirmative> that y'all did mm-hmm. <affirmative>
Speaker 17 00:52:48 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. So we, coming out of the last, um, two and a half years since the uprising, we felt it would be good for, um, transparency's sake and for just communicating with, um, the community to, and we've, we've had open letters that you can find on our website, and this report will be on our website soon. Um, we wanted to wrap it at the end of 2022. And, um, and we'll be findable. I'm, I'm assuming we'll like, throw it on socials and stuff, but basically it's just to tell the community the kinds of things we're talking about here, how we've changed as an organization over the last couple of years, how we've grown. It's a report on the kinds of trainings that we do and what trainings we have done. And then a huge chunk of it, in addition to, to telling that story, A huge chunk of it is also financial transparency, because like many organizations, we received a lot of donations and then we made, did a lot of intentional work to actually get rid of those donations, um, and not go like the, the supplies we shared with community when continue to use, but I'm speaking very specifically about financial, um, donations.
Speaker 17 00:53:52 And so it goes over what those numbers are, how we worked with Voices for Racial Justice to re disseminate that money into community and who that went to, because we feel like it's just important for a community to know, um, about that work.
Speaker 6 00:54:06 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 17 00:54:07 <affirmative>. Yeah. Meg's touched on Voices for Racial Justice, which is, uh, one of the organizations that we work closely with. They're our fiscal sponsor, but also, um, did a lot of the work of redistributing our financial donations from the uprising. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, there's a number of community partners that we work with. Um, and I think, um, outside of supporting people in the street, um, we've done a lot of intentional trainings for organizations. So like, um, rep, rep for Minnesota, um, um, but also, uh,
Speaker 6 00:54:41 We How, what does that stand for?
Speaker 17 00:54:44 Um, the, it stands for several different things. Yeah. <laugh>, because they, uh, for different kind of sides of the project. Um, but, so it's relationships, evolving possibilities. And then, um, revolutionary, revolutionary emergency partners. Okay. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. They do a lot of educational pod work about, um, building your own mutual aid, teaching people how to form a pod and know your community's better. Yeah. But then also run an alternative to 9 1 1, um, on the weekends. Yep.
Speaker 6 00:55:10 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.
Speaker 17 00:55:12 Yep.
Speaker 6 00:55:13 Um, what keeps y'all beam medics? Hmm. <laugh> What, what, what, what inspires y'all to keep going out there? Said,
Speaker 17 00:55:21 I've seen the two been around for a minute.
Speaker 8 00:55:23 You've said plenty of people have gone back to their normal lives. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and for some people life has still yet to go back to normal mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So what has continued for this, like, for this continued to be part of your life? Mm-hmm.
Speaker 17 00:55:34 <affirmative>, I've been a street medic since 2001, um, which dates me, <laugh>, uh, and it was, I had a different life before that. I, um, I went to college for physics and worked in physics and did that research, and then I really found this work and, um, in my own life it, it changed, um, the way that I look at the world, the way that I care for the world, the way that I am in community. I've always been an activist. I've always been, um, you know, active and political in that way. Um, it is the clearest way to show love and care and, um, undo the work that, um, that, that I'm coming into this world with undo my ancestors', colonial work, undo, um, all the harm that white people have done in the world and move forward. And so a lot of the work that we do in training in, um, offering these skills to the world free, um, no charge because it belongs to people.
Speaker 17 00:56:40 Your health belongs to you. Your bodies belong to you. And the healthier we can keep people, the healthier we can, um, enable them to, to move through the world, to, to have a healthy body, to, to live your life and do whatever it is you need to do. Um, the better we are as a world, the better <laugh> the better we are as communities. And I think, um, you know, this business of, uh, of holding knowledge that, that Western medicine does. Um, I don't, am I allowed to curse on the radio? No. Okay. Sorry. <laugh>. Uh, sorry. Thank you for asking. Good catch <laugh>. Uh, it's junk. It's junk. Um, and, uh, it's, it's the work of the rest of my life to, to give this knowledge to people, to offer this care to people, to, um, to do this work. It's, it's my, my, my job, <laugh>, it's my, um, it's also my life.
Speaker 17 00:57:36 And it is, um, it's, it's it's love, um, care. Like this is love. People joke sometimes that food is love, healthcare is love. Um, and so, um, that's what keeps me mm-hmm. <affirmative> in community, in activism, in street medics. I mean, I don't know if I have much more to add to that. I mean, I, I, yeah. I guess specifically I'll say, yeah, it's, I do this because I've been an organizer for 20 years and I wanna continue to be an organizer. I do other organizing and community. Um, but this, you know, north Star specifically in street medics, um, like we do this work so people can keep fighting. Literally. I wash your eyes out cuz I want you to be able to run back in and keep fighting. That's what I'm there for. We, that's one of these things we are trying to keep people to unlearn from folks is like, we are on the side. Like we are on the side of the people. We are not neutral say
Speaker 6 00:58:27 That.
Speaker 17 00:58:27 Like, we are not neutral. And so I I also really think that like for North Star, like we are trying to build, we're trying to build alternative institutions to like move the movement forward and to like move the fight forward and to like learn our own skills so that we can get rid of this crap. Yes. And like that's why, that's one, that's a lot of why I'm still in it.
Speaker 6 00:58:48 Yes. And I just want to thank both of y'all. Like we appreciate all the, uh, work that y'all have put into the movement and the structure that y'all built that consistently gets people out to protest to keep us safe while risking your lives day after day. We just really appreciate it and it doesn't go unseen. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> much
Speaker 17 00:59:10 Appreciate you. Yeah. Appreciate your today so
Speaker 6 00:59:12 Much with that. Um, I also wanna give a shout out to Brandon and Francisco and nerdy for the amazing segments tonight. Really appreciate it. Um, with that, I am your host, your agender host dj. Um, and this has been views from the
Speaker 7 00:59:28 Ground, views from the damn ground, views from the ground views, from the damn ground views, from the ground views from the damn
Speaker 6 00:59:34 Ground. And that's on that, on that, on that
Speaker 19 00:59:39 Organized away with all the lies. All the lies. All the lies. They come in with the of the black and the 45. In between the protests. We protest our Rio lawyers. Yes, we are the organized, organized with all the lies. All the lies. All the lies. They come in with the tear as blocks and 45 in.
