[00:00:00] Speaker A: Yeah, I bet you will. Try to skip it. They been lynching us in semen till. And that's really freaking generous. Cause honestly, they have been killing us since we were property. No stopping me from saying how it is. This ain't the whiz. Ain't no easing down the road where we live. That's a 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 bout to let it burn, just like gushers say. They be trying, but I do not care what gushers say. Putting back, screens up, make a few bucks. My life isn't marked. Who you think you trying to 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? Well, it's freaking tough. Cause I'm beIN loud and the people are not playing with you now. Yeah, you can burn the whole thing down.
[00:00:47] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:00:48] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't care if you're uncomfortable. We can burn the whole thing down. You can burn a whole thing 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 a whole thing.
Yeah, we about to go to work. Yeah, we about to let it burn, bro.
[00:01:09] Speaker C: Come on.
[00:01:09] Speaker D: 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 campbell of gas and a handful of matches. I know we ain't miss Em, fam. Fame is not my mission.
[00:01:22] Speaker C: Language.
[00:01:22] Speaker D: Be so complicit, watching all the leaders leading, banking on they minions. But we torture enough to take us, and we givin to survivors. City of liars. Making black people compliant coon rapids? Who are you askin' 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, send them people be so sucking mad. So pass 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.
[00:02:06] Speaker A: You can burn our the whole thing down? Yeah, you can burn it all down? 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 it autozone? You can burn the whole thing down?
Y'all don't really care about it, brother till we burn our whole thing down?
[00:02:26] Speaker E: Burn it down?
[00:02:28] Speaker A: Yeah, we bout to go to work? Yeah, we about to let it burn?
[00:02:55] Speaker E: Views from the ground?
[00:02:57] Speaker F: Views from the damn ground?
[00:02:58] Speaker E: Views from the ground?
[00:02:59] Speaker F: Views from the damn ground?
[00:03:01] Speaker E: Views from the ground?
[00:03:02] Speaker F: Views from the damn ground?
[00:03:03] Speaker E: And that's on that, on that, on that.
So, yeah.
[00:03:10] Speaker G: Welcome back. This is Brandon.
[00:03:12] Speaker F: And this is Jalen.
[00:03:14] Speaker E: And this is your host, DJ, your non binary host, wishing you a happy pride.
[00:03:20] Speaker F: Happy pride. My name's Jaylen. Sorry again, Jalen. She, her pronouns.
[00:03:24] Speaker G: Happy pride, Brandon, he, him, happy pride.
[00:03:27] Speaker E: So we're gonna kick right on off with our news.
[00:03:31] Speaker F: Second. So for this week, we are going to be discussing how one week ago, two former Minneapolis police officers charged in George Floyd's murder requested their trial to be delayed and for a new location, and the request was partially granted. The former officers are now scheduled to stand trial in early June. They were supposed to start trial next Monday, June 13, but it got pushed back. And so jury selection is going to be starting January 9. And open statements are attentively starting January 30. So it's gonna be in the new year.
[00:04:12] Speaker E: I swear, that trial's never coming.
[00:04:15] Speaker F: I mean, and there are a lot of conversations about if we'll see a trial. Unfortunately, they talked about how they wanted to see how the federal cases and those civil rights cases are going to go to see. Cause federal cases tend to hold a heavier weight, like you can't. Like, probation isn't an option usually.
And they wanna see how those go to see if the officers. Officers are going to follow Thomas Lane, who took a plea deal a week ago, two weeks ago, something like that, in the recent past. And so they're thinking that once they hear how those federal cases go, they'll be able to, quote, unquote, decide if going to trial is worth it. The judge, Cahill, who also was the judge presiding over the Derek Chauvin trial, did not change the venue. That part was denied. So they got the delay, but they did not get the venue changed. So it will be in Hennepin county in the government center like before. And that was interesting. I mean, they apparently Cahill did all the research and determined that no matter where this case would be, there wasn't a better venue. The media reach will be there, whether it's in Duluth or Fargo or wherever. And it's like, yeah. Cause we ain't going. We can't forget that like it was.
[00:05:45] Speaker E: And hopefully before the next year, we can get the cameras in the car, too.
[00:05:50] Speaker F: That is something that's in the, well, Cahill specifically said something of how when the cameras were allowed for Derek Chauvin's piece, that that was something new. And he wasn't sure how that went, but thought that it was much better alternative.
Also, the judge in the Kim Potter case, Judge Chu, I believe, also mentioned that she thought it went very well and that there should be some new rules about more trials being live streamed and having that ability for folks to listen in instead of just read the court documents and have to go through that process. So there are more conversations about cameras being in the courtroom and letheme folks see. And so we'll see how that goes.
[00:06:40] Speaker E: Well, hopefully, because as of the week before, they were going to have the trial, before they pushed it to January, the cameras are still not going to be in the courtroom. So hopefully we can get that changed in the meantime.
[00:06:54] Speaker F: So the attorney general, Keith Ellison, said that it's unfortunate for the victims, the witnesses in the community, that the opportunity to seek justice has been delayed. The state was ready for trial next week and will be ready next week, January.
It is one of those, like you were saying, we'll see if the cameras are being let in. But these delays just kind of make me, I don't know, interested in, like, in the effort to seek justice. How many times can things be delayed? Like, our system is very frustrating in that way. So we will keep an eye on that. So no big trial next week. The next thing we're going to talk about on Monday, the United States Justice Department charged Enrique Tarrio and four other leaders with seditious conspiracy in their involvement in the January 6 Capitol attack, which is upping the ante for criminal cases against far right extremist groups. Seditious conspiracy is as high as you get, actually.
[00:08:06] Speaker E: Is it?
[00:08:07] Speaker F: It is. It's as high as you get. It's bad. It's very bad. And they really hard to charge. But seditious conspiracy has that you try to take over the government piece, like, in the law. So it's not like, at first I was wondering, like, where's the RICo charges for the white supremacist? And then I guess this is it. This is even bigger than what young thug and them are going through right now currently. And while I do like that aspect of it, I think that they still need to do more investigating for far right extremists. They have these laws that come about, and they usually target left wing groups more and just people of color calling them some hate group, coincidentally, and I think it was in the Minnesota Department of Human Rights report that in Minneapolis, they didn't even start looking at far right groups until the January 6 Capitol takeover, or however you call it.
And it looks like these, like I was saying, these are the most serious charges that can be brought. And this or tomorrow, Thursday, there's going to be a hearing in Congress with the January 6 committee, and they're going to be asking them questions. And so folks can watch the, I guess, back and forth and those questions be made and see how they respond.
But I guess what led to this seditious conspiracy charge, what changed in the time that has passed is the DOJ added a cooperator with the Proud Boys. So someone snitching, basically. And before it was, well, now they have, or they're saying they allegedly have evidence that Enrique and some other leaders were part of the planning. And they have these group, these encrypted group chats that they've been reading, talking about how they were going to set it up and how it had to be January 6, the day that the electoral college was voting. And basically, if Mike Pence didn't vote in their way, that was when they, that was the opportunity to jump.
And it looks like last time it got charged, it was about 1015 years ago in Michigan.
And it talks about how there was, well, like I was saying before, like that initial, there was evidence that they were trying to, by force, to hinder, disrupt or delay a law from happening, and they were trying to disrupt the electoral college. And there's videos of Enrique talking about how he will not condemn what happened on January 6 because he likes that the government is scared of the people and thinks that it needs to be that way.
And it's just like, very interesting to watch because he says that this is not a race thing at all because he's cuban. And he's like, why would I be here? I'm cuban and I'm just like, well, the Proud Boys, I don't know how to say the proud Boys don't have some racial, I don't know, preference.
[00:11:29] Speaker G: What are they mostly proud of?
[00:11:31] Speaker F: Right.
[00:11:31] Speaker G: What they so proud of, right. Their whiteness.
[00:11:34] Speaker F: They said, oh, yeah, he got into it with someone who misquoted and called him a male chauvinist. When he prefers the word western chauvinist.
Like, okay. Like, really got into it. Like, how dare you call me a male chauvinist. I prefer the word western chauvinist.
[00:11:53] Speaker G: That I looked it up, and I think it said that the, like, maximum sentence will be like. It says you can be fined or imprisoned not more than 20 years or both. So you'll get a fine in a 20 year prison sentence, max, which, I mean, 20 years. There's people that did far less that are serving much more time.
[00:12:12] Speaker F: Yeah. Makes you think about our system and how they equate different offenses and how, like, seditious conspiracy, if that's the top, like, the top offense that can be had in 20 years in a fine. I think we, like, we, like Brandon just said, we all know folks who have done much, much, much less, and they've gotten 25 years and more years. And.
[00:12:37] Speaker G: Yeah, I bet if thug gets convicted, young thug gonna be gone for forever.
[00:12:42] Speaker F: Man a minute.
[00:12:47] Speaker E: Yeah, yeah. So the country starting to categorize gang violence as mass shootings, too?
[00:12:57] Speaker G: Yeah, I saw that. I saw it mostly on twitter where they're, like, trying to say that they want to make it fit, trying to make it look like we're trying to even out the race of the perpetrators of mass shootings. Like, they're trying to say when gang members do it, those are mass shootings, too. Basically just trying to say it's not.
[00:13:21] Speaker F: Just white people muddle the data and how. Yeah, yep. Exactly. Like, they just don't want. Yeah. They're wanting to categorize it the same to make it seem more, I guess, commonplace. Also. It's like, well, this is what it means to be in a free country. We have violence that looks like this and violence that looks like that. That's just the way it is.
And it.
It is just really frustrating in that they're not willing to address what the people need in these situations to prevent violence, because I think poverty speaks to a lot of it. A lot of people's needs aren't getting met, and so horrible things make more sense than getting the help you need. And violence is one of those things. When we think of gang violence, it's all, for me, a poverty conversation and a resource conversation. I don't think equating that in, you know, different mass shootings, where it's very clear while shooters didn't get their needs met. I think that's one thing we all can agree. I don't know if the gun violence with gangs and the gun violence with like, hateful white supremacists are the same and should be categorized as the same type of violence.
[00:14:46] Speaker E: Yep. So with that, we're going to move on to Brandon segment.
[00:14:54] Speaker G: Yeah. So we are back to words of freedom, a segment here on views from the ground.
[00:14:59] Speaker F: Views from the damn ground.
[00:15:01] Speaker G: I'm going to do it every week, so y'all better step your a game up. Yeah. Words of freedom, where we give local poets a chance to free their minds, free their hearts, and liberate their souls with their words of freedom. And again this week, week two of. What month is it?
[00:15:19] Speaker F: June.
[00:15:20] Speaker G: June.
What year is it?
[00:15:23] Speaker F: They say 2022.
[00:15:25] Speaker G: Hey, that's how I'm flying. But again, for week two, we have Juaria Jama, who's an 18 year old poet and climate justice organizer from north Minneapolis. We will listen to a little bit more of her poetry. The first piece we will listen to this week is titled my skin.
[00:15:45] Speaker H: At the right skin, my skin is a thousand shades of melanin coated in a rich honeydew and the sweetest aftertaste of watermelons, bananas and african fruit. It's true, our skin glows in the dark under the moon, the stark rich cones only for the afternoon cause when night comes, things are anew, it's true. Dark skin, brown skin, light skin, what is the right skin? Cause my skin comes from the depths of Africa, from the motherland to the west coast, from Algeria to Niger. My skin is dipped in the Sahara, encoded in the Shibelli river, painted in south african artisan wrapped in a somali dita. This skin is the most perfect creation from God so how dare I question its existence? Dark skin, brown skin, light skin, masked skin is beauty to be admired, not accosted. Our skin is beauty to be admired, not accosted. So how dare we lighten ourselves for a better complexion? We are not your presumption of melanin beauty. No skin is too dark to glow under the moon and that's true.
[00:16:46] Speaker G: And this next piece is titled in between.
[00:16:50] Speaker H: The day we met was evergreen with an ocean blue sky we learned to dance under the moonlight until our lips learned this gentle game of tug of war the night we confess we traced cities on our skin promising to escape the morning we made it official mirror the bright orange sun our love is hues of red brow and white a love so sweet the birds sang in our favor the day we said goodbye was echoed in hushed whispers, ears straining to hear as if we couldn't see it come but in between it all orange blended with red, blue and pink. Not far apart our moon waned perhaps calling for a new beginning. In between it all the stars glittered and hearts shattered in between it all we traced villages, ones we hope to have come from instead clawed away our cultures and gripped onto fleeting wishes we are as whole together as we are apart we couldn't see it then but in between it all.
[00:17:43] Speaker G: And this last piece we'll listen to this week is titled on a Friday afternoon, Kyle Rittenhouse is found innocent.
[00:17:50] Speaker H: There is something ironic about justice. How quickly it can find home in our bodies and death in our tongues. When I was seven, I swear I pledged allegiance to a flag at ten, I knew the words in Latin, but I still do not know what it means. We inject loyalty into our veins, strips of red, white and blue we swear our fingers turning to open a door of opportunity. They do not tell you your skin browns from the sun. It is not beauty. It isnt tint that you can wash off this off white paint you pull over yourself doesnt really matter. I mean, it never truly did. We pledge allegiance to a flag that co signs murder and its vigilante supporters. We pay money to bury bodies, and the rifles that kill them create new titles for the teen who is confident enough to go out and kill. This is the rebirth of a nation. One armed man to another, and countless bodies whose names are said, most times not enough. We pledge allegiance to the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. White supremacy. It will never fall in a kingdom of liberty and justice. For.
[00:18:55] Speaker G: So again, that was some beautiful poetry by Juaria Jama. If you want to follow her on instagram, she has her own poetry page, and that is Juaria's journal. That's spelled j u w a r I a s journal.
So go ahead and check that out if you'd like. Make sure you stay tuned every week for more poetry from her. And towards the end of the month, we will have her in the studio for an interview. So, yeah, I will kick it back to dj.
[00:19:26] Speaker E: All right, so next is going to be the nerdy spotlight. So I'm going to let nerdy take it away.
[00:19:36] Speaker A: Greetings and salutations to the VFTG nation. It's your boy nerdee. And I am back again with the artist spotlight. This month, we are rocking with juice, Lord, an absolute monster, the pad and pen. And if you missed it last week, don't you worry. I'm about to bring you the heat again today. It ain't no secret that our community is at the center of a cultural shift across the globe. So when we make music, it makes waves. And this track ain't no exception. So please turn your volume up and the nonsense down and listen to we the people by juice. Lord.
[00:20:11] Speaker G: We people people who are darker than blue blue now, we can't hardly stand for that.
[00:20:19] Speaker E: Yeah, yeah.
[00:20:20] Speaker G: Or is that really where you're sad?
[00:20:23] Speaker E: We people?
[00:20:24] Speaker F: Oh.
[00:20:31] Speaker C: This is what we doing, man.
It's for the people.
We the people have something to say. To the United States of America and across the world.
Look, I give y'all another song filled with pain. A song filled with rage. There's a war in my city there's a war against my. I see evil everywhere in every candidate even if intention's pure my people won't be okay, never reparations won't cure this trauma we even thought it was all good when we had Obama, but we wasn't straight, everything was still crooked, a couple benefits to it, but then Trump took it. But then I realized that he is just a puppet. There's more demons and monsters that live above him. Virus almost hit us worse than crack dead it left us, shook us still outside cause it's all or nothing. Your favorite celebs are hopped on the cool ancestors looking down ain't that a damn shame?
Ain't that a damn shame?
I won't never go I won't never go I won't, I won't, I won't never go I won't never go I won't, I won't, I won't never go I won't never go I won't, I won't, I won't never go hey, I give you another song where I'm wiping all the tears off her mother's face. They want a race war, planet of the apes they want the kings going we ain't going today the sun loves our skin we won't evaporate, we multiply every time one dies think it's time that we set up a meeting of all the minds? I told my homies we Negars and I but I ain't preaching at all. It's just a letter to the soldiers of ours, to those who really know who we are. See, even when we clock out, we live amongst the stars. This is raw passion for the people across the globe. I ain't just rapping. Don't call me a conscious rapper. I'm a conscious man. Your favorite rapper is as well. But in a room full of exact dance for an advance, damn, we at war, man.
[00:22:41] Speaker E: War.
[00:22:44] Speaker C: Yeah, most. What up are we? We the people have something to say.
Port live from St. Paul, Minnesota, twin Cities.
Got something to say. Hey, man.
Yeah.
Recipe. George Floyd, Rihanna.
First peace. All the kings queens that have lost their lives, man. This thing we call war. This life and being black, it's a war.
It's a war going on outside. No man is safe from nobody.
[00:23:21] Speaker B: Safe from man.
[00:23:22] Speaker C: But ten toes.
[00:23:23] Speaker B: We in it, man.
[00:23:25] Speaker C: My love.
Protect yours.
Protect yours.
That's all or nothing.
[00:23:41] Speaker E: All right. Thank you, nerdy, so much. And also, thank you, juice, lord. So with that, we're gonna have, we're going to have a quick break.
[00:23:55] Speaker F: Here in Ramsey county, recycling is for everyone. It's for gathering, recycling food scraps while passing along family recipes and making memories. It's for green thumbs making their lawn or garden a masterpiece and dropping off grass clippings, leaves and other yard waste. For composting, Ramsey county offers ways to recycle household goods, household hazardous waste, food scraps, and yard waste for free. Learn what to recycle and how you can recycle
[email protected].
[00:24:33] Speaker E: All right, so welcome back to views from the ground.
[00:24:39] Speaker F: Views from the damn ground.
[00:24:41] Speaker E: So last week, we had an interview with Kidel Smith on his brother Winston Smith being murdered in uptown by the us marshalse. Today we have los, who was at Winston way a lot, which was the garden that had formed around the uptown community. And we're just gonna talk about those first couple of days and kind of what the garden was.
But welcome to the show, los.
[00:25:13] Speaker B: Thank you for having me.
[00:25:16] Speaker F: Thank you so much for being with us today.
[00:25:19] Speaker E: Yeah, so, you know, our show is called views from the ground. Views from the damn ground. So I really, I really wanted to get someone that's been out there doing the work and, you know, los, you've done so much, especially around Winston way, and so much for the community. And I just extremely appreciate you, you showing up. So, yeah, so kind of, let's. Let's go over, like, where were you, like, the first day that, um, you heard that, like, Winston Smith was killed?
[00:25:55] Speaker B: Um, I remember I was at the people's way. Actually, earlier in the day, the city tried to clear out George Floyd Square. And sometime around, I think was two around, sometime around that time, there was talk on the ground that there was another police murder in uptown.
We could hear people talking about how maybe we should wait around to get full information. But that is, you know, relying on information from the city is kind of ludicrous at this point.
[00:26:30] Speaker F: Very true.
[00:26:31] Speaker B: And. Yeah. So a bunch of people got the idea to head over there, and later on in the day, I was. I made my way over there as well.
[00:26:44] Speaker E: Yep. I also remember that because I was at.
Yeah, I was at the square because they were dismantling the square earlier that morning.
[00:26:54] Speaker G: They were trying to throw a dj over a forklift.
[00:26:56] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:26:57] Speaker F: That's why I had to get out, get there.
[00:26:59] Speaker E: Oh, you know, they didn't try. They did.
Agape definitely pushed me over that forklift, so.
But, yeah, yeah, so. So we arrived. And what do you remember seeing when we arrived at the scene of the murder?
[00:27:16] Speaker B: Well, they had cleared out the entrance to the parking lot, and I remember there was different agencies there. There was the state patrol, I believe, the city police, and there was some organizations there as well. I remember. I don't know exactly how many or which one specifically, but it was. It was a very interesting sight to see, I would say.
[00:27:43] Speaker E: Yeah, I remember there was. Mother's love, was there?
[00:27:47] Speaker F: We pushed for peace.
[00:27:48] Speaker E: And we pushed for peace. Was there agape? Yeah, Agape was still at the square.
[00:27:53] Speaker F: Oh, yeah, they came later.
[00:27:55] Speaker E: Yeah, they came later. Oh, yeah. I do remember that. So I remember a mother's love put themselves between us and the officers on the yellow tape line, as the officers were just having a nice little sit down and lunch, whatever was going back there.
And I remember we were chanting black lives matter and stuff like that. And the mother's love kept telling people, well, y'all don't even know who this was. What if this was one of the people who murdered the babies? Are the babies?
Which was just a crazy thing to say. There was no reason to think anything like that.
[00:28:36] Speaker F: What a day.
[00:28:37] Speaker E: But they kept repeating that to people as a way to try to get them to stop chanting at the officers.
[00:28:45] Speaker G: And not to mention, the first headline that came out about it said that the person who was killed was a murder suspect.
And so I remember those first couple of days not to over, like, jump the story. We'll jump back. But those first couple of days, people were like, well, what are y'all doing? He was a murder suspect. But it took some time for them to clear up the narrative that, no, he wasn't a murder suspect. That's just why the marshals were in town, that they were looking for a murder suspect. But they happened to get a tip that Winston was in the area, and Winston had his own legal troubles. And they're like, well, let's go. Let's go get Winston. Since we were surveilling him, and we know that he's around. So Winston was never the murder suspect, but from the first day, they put out that narrative. And that's why, you know, there were all these numbers for George Floyd. There were all these numbers for Dante Wright. Winston Smith had numbers, but there was also still this. This narrative that was put out that was, like, in the back of some people's heads or some people didn't come out because, like, well, why did he do this? Or weren't they looking for this? And it was just never the case. They did a good job with the original narrative and with groups like a mother's love spreading, though. Well, he could have been this, could have been that. Just to try to get people not to come.
[00:29:57] Speaker E: Yeah, yeah.
[00:29:58] Speaker G: That's, like, how they start the COVID up.
[00:30:00] Speaker E: Exactly. I was in a ride over here to the station, and I remember I actually was talking to them about Winston Smith, and they said, wow, how did I never hear of that? And I actually brought up the fact that, yeah, they. They said that he was a murder suspect and, you know, everyone and just stopped carrying it, and that wasn't even true. So.
As if people who are suspected of kinds deserve to be murdered anyway, but.
[00:30:29] Speaker G: Yeah, and, like, even now, since after the murder of Amir Locke, there have been articles that, like, for the two year angeliversary of George Floyd, they're like, since George Floyd, there have been two black men killed in Minneapolis or surrounding areas talking about Dante Wright and Amiritehe, skipping over the fact that Winston Smith was also murdered in Minneapolis by law enforcement. Like, yeah, like, they're trying to erase these. These other murders as if they aren't significant or as if they. They were more deserving or they were more justified of what happened. And, like, it's. It's all part of the COVID up, and it's all part of them covering their own actions.
Yeah.
[00:31:16] Speaker E: Yeah. I actually remember when I was leaving the first day because we were at Winston. Winston way, and we were gonna go back to the square to do a rally, since they had just attacked it. And as I was leaving, we pushed for peace, who kept coming up to me and was like, stop chanting. Stop chanting. I'm gonna only tell you one more time.
[00:31:40] Speaker F: Stop chanting. Black lives matter, by the way.
[00:31:42] Speaker E: And I'm like, okay, that's weird. And I was like. And I was leaving. And so then they started following me, and they were taking off their shirts that said, we pushed for peace. They took all their shirts off. There's like, oh, you talking all that stuff. Let's talk now. Come on over here. Talk to me. I'll tell you where. Blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, okay. And they actually followed me for, like, what, three, four blocks.
[00:32:04] Speaker F: We had to take a couple extra laughs. We didn't mean to take, so.
[00:32:10] Speaker E: But, yeah, so.
So can we talk about the day that y'all really agreed that y'all were gonna do a garden, you know?
[00:32:19] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't think there was an actual, like, agreement or anything. And it just kind of happened on its own. You know, certain. There were certain circumstances that kept leading people back to that intersection, whether it was police intimidating a small group of people, which initially kept bringing the numbers out.
And throughout a good portion of a week or so, the small little actions that there was a significant amount of police presence was there. And it makes you question how much the state is willing to go and how much money they're willing to throw away in order to make sure that people stay in line and continue this cover up as it's been, you know, portrayed as well, like I said, there wasn't an actual agreement. Certain things happened.
Protests, rallies, and such things continued. And I believe at one point or another, there was flowers laying around, and random people decided to, you know what? Let's. Let's use these flowers to set up a tiny memorial, you know? And as the days went on, the empty parking lot or the empty lot just kept getting slightly bigger and bigger. You know, it was. There was never an initial, let's do this. You know, it was more, one person does this, the next person does the other thing, and next thing, you know, it's. It's a creation of its own that it was never supposed to be that way, but it ended up being something really significant.
[00:34:04] Speaker G: Yeah. I think one of the coolest things about uptown was, like, kind of what you're saying, it was never like anything that was agreed upon. It was just kind of like, y'all want to do this? Sure. Like, even if it was one or two people, one person, you want to do this, I'm gonna do it. Or if it was two people, it was a small group. People were doing whatever they wanted. And it seemed like the biggest thing that the city did not want was it to be another George Floyd square. Right. Because I remember there were always attempts at putting barricades in the street.
[00:34:33] Speaker E: Right.
[00:34:33] Speaker G: I remember there were folks, community members, who are known for their barricades, let's just say, came and brought their own barricades and brought all this stuff. And by a couple hours later, the city would come and take all of it down high, big police presence. And then a couple hours later, barricades were back up. At one point, there was a bus stop in the street. That was one of my favorite things. I saw barricades one day, and then I saw people clear out the barricades. And then I got there from after work. It was a bus stop, unbolted and face down in the road, shattered glass everywhere. I was like, man, these people go crazy. Like, I love it.
But during that time also, they realized that it was just an empty lot. And what happens if we cut this fence back? Nothing. They're so worried about the street. And then I think that kind of just led into, like you said, the lot slowly got bigger.
Yeah, yeah.
[00:35:26] Speaker B: And I think, too, what's important is that there was, like I mentioned earlier, there was no actual plan. It was very decentralized. There was no such thing as people telling people what to do.
It was just people did what they thought was right at the moment, you know? And I felt like being decentralized in that way was a big part of what. What became of that space in the following days.
[00:35:54] Speaker E: Yeah. And so you. When y'all was there, y'all built a lot of community, right? Like, it was definitely a space where a lot of people were welcome and able to contribute various of their skills and talents. Like, how did you foster that kind of environment?
[00:36:11] Speaker B: Yeah. So I believe a lot of that came about people staying after the rallies, you know, wanting to continue to hold space in whatever capacity they felt was necessary.
Even after the people on the ground were told to disperse or go home by other organizations or people.
That kind of thing wasn't necessarily taken serious because there is no such time frame to protest. You know, there's no actual, like, okay, well, we're done here now for today. You know, we don't get to punch in and punch out when you want to take whatever action it is you want to do, you know?
And that's kind of how the community started to build. People stayed. People talked.
They got to know each other. They got to know where else they have been, what type of.
What type of things the state has put each one of them through. And slowly but surely, everybody became to feel like a tiny community of people.
And, yeah, everybody had something to offer. Some people were artists.
They had paintings. They had poetry. They had different sort of things that everybody has something to offer. You know, you might not have the same talents or skills at the person next to you, but each person has something that can propel whatever situation is going on. And again, the fact that there was no plan, you never know exactly what was going to happen next, which made you want to be a part of this even more. Made you want to be like, well, this is something that I can contribute to in whatever way that I can. You know, we had food. We had. We fed people who were there. We. There was a lot of things going on every moment in each corner.
And the fact, like I said, that people contributed differently in their own way is what helped people, helped us become that community. You know, someone can contribute this and so on.
[00:38:18] Speaker E: Yeah. So when we were. When we had talked earlier, you said you kind of compared it to, like, a social experiment. Can you elaborate a little bit more on that?
[00:38:28] Speaker B: Yeah. So I think it was the reason why I saw it as a social experiment, because we were surrounded by a bunch of businesses, right. Just. It was kind of like a site of what the current state of the world is, you know, business and people being busy. People run into their next destination without necessarily having the time to think of, you know, what they feel or what's going on in the real world. And it was a social experiment in the way that there was no rush to.
To have something specific accomplished initially. It was to hold space to remind anybody passing by that a man was murdered here, a man was assassinated here. And this is something that you shouldn't just pass over by. You shouldn't just continue with your daily life and let the state of capitalism just gloss over this.
And it was something really unique.
Like I said, everybody contributed into their own way and created this tiny community. And I think, what am I trying to say?
[00:39:47] Speaker E: Yeah, yeah, I get what you mean. Like, you know, it was the social experiment, because when we talk about the square, right. We talk about a place that is, like, predominantly, like, has a lot of black and people of color. Right. And stuff. And stuff like that. But when we talk about Winston way, like, it's the middle of uptown, right?
[00:40:06] Speaker G: All the bougie and gentrification.
[00:40:08] Speaker E: Yeah. All the. All the upper middle class and the higher in, higher class folks live there, right? This is where they do business. There was a, you know, Stella's is across the street. They're busy. The.
The theaters down the street, that McDonald's, which is always busy, is there.
[00:40:30] Speaker G: All those rooftop bars, penthouse.
[00:40:33] Speaker E: And we definitely saw, like, a lot difference between the way they treated y'all versus the square. Right. With the square, they kind of was like, you know, they let it happen. They were real hands off. They're like, we're not going to touch it. And I just remember them, I remember trying to take a break. I was like, DJ, you need a mental health break. Everyone to tell you to take a break. And I remember there was like, oh, they just hit Winston way. I was like, DJ, just you calm, you're good, you're good. And then someone hit me up and it's like, they hit Winston way. I was like, no, no, no, that was earlier. No, they did it again. I said what? I was like, unprecedented. I was like, okay. And then I was like, all right, all right, that's fine, that's fine. And then I remember someone hit me up again. They're like, DJ, they hit us a third time. I was like, this is a. This is crazy. I was like, they're not just gonna let this happen around these like, rich white folks, cuz like, that's what they're like, trying to make sure, like they're trying to protect here. Right? Because, you know, so I just thought that was really crazy. But, you know, I think it's really interesting to use this peaceful, you know, making a garden, taking up space because it really, like, you know, can affect the property value. Right. Can you speak to that a little bit?
[00:41:48] Speaker B: Yeah, kind of like you mentioned, you know, they really valued that space, which is why they continue to hit it, as you mentioned, you know, they cared more about what it looked like to potential investors. And, and like you said, 38th in Chicago is not their priority. They let it. They let whatever happened in that area, they know that whatever goes down can bring up the property value on even blocks. Blocks away. Right.
So I feel like that's, like you mentioned, that's one of the reasons why they were very persistent on making sure that people left, but because the way that things were being run, you know, we were using a space that has been empty for over, I think it was eleven years or so and making it useful and not just letting it sit there for whatever reason, you know, I think that was another reason why they wanted to clear everything out as soon as possible and not make their city look as bad.
[00:42:55] Speaker E: Yeah.
And you could just see like, the extent that they were, like, willing to fight, like, the community and especially people of color. Right. Like, I feel like the height of that was CRG. Right. So can you speak to CRG and kind of like, who they are and what happened when they arrived and what their mission was?
[00:43:16] Speaker B: Yeah. So CRG was kind of like their last resort, I would say, because they definitely, they had other outreach groups there prior to CRG. They had we pushed for peace there, monitoring what was going on and trying to make sure that things didn't get out of hand, they weren't taken serious, you know, and. And like I said, things escalated. In order for them to maintain their property, to clear us out, CRG was their last resort to make sure that nothing bigger can come out of what was being built at that time.
And for a minute, they thought that they were going to be able to use this, quote, unquote community garden, as they called it, for their own personal gain as well. But the minute they realized that they couldn't take over what we created, that's when they said, all right, well, it's time to clear out. Let's call in professionals.
That's when CRG came in to touch.
[00:44:20] Speaker G: On a point that you kind of, like, brushed over. I think that's very important to emphasize when it comes to the garden at once. Way was like, seven points. Try to act like they gave it to y'all at one point, right? They put out their own signs. They put out seven point, like, blah, blah, blah. This property is still blah, blah, blah. Like, put out these big signs, put them up on the fence, gave y'all your own little barricaded in area, trying to act like it was given to y'all to use. But, like, like, to reiterate, it was never given. The people took it, right? And when they thought they gave y'all whatever they thought they gave y'all, y'all were like, well, we want this. Like, this is what we're taking. And backtracking again, to your analogy of, like, a social experiment, I think kind of like, what you were saying was like, there's just such, like, peak capitalism around, right? And what happened in that garden was, like, almost outside of the realm of capitalism, right? There was no profitable. There was nothing that you were looking to gain other than the sense of community, right? There was no money. There was no capital. I mean, you could argue property, but it was never about the property. And I think all the people there really, really, like, spoke to that principle. And rounding that back to CRG, like you said, that's why they had to get in these counter insurgency military contractors is who CRG is. Because they saw that you guys didn't care about, you know, capitalistic principles. You guys didn't care about what was given to you. You guys didn't care about being bougie and looking, like, uptown, you know, when. When someone's murdered and there's art and there's graffiti, which is art, and there's paint that looks like blood, which is art. When there's all these things, when there's a gorilla garden, that's what people want to call it. That's a beautiful thing, but not in the eyes of capitalism and not in the eyes of the society we live in. So that's why they had to bring in these counter insurgency militia groups, which is CRG. So I think those are all things that, like, I just don't want us to brush over for whoever's listening, realize that these were real things that happened.
They weren't designed to happen. Like Lo said, they didn't plan on any of it, but it happened because the people wanted it to happen.
[00:46:48] Speaker B: And, yeah, yeah, I was gonna say, I think that's exactly why I consider it a social experiment, because everybody was able to have some sort of input. And as far as capitalism goes, I've been a laborer since I was about 17 or 17, and most of the time, I've dreaded going to work. This was one of the first times, probably the first time I was happy to work for free, to give my labor to something that was meaningful and something that I felt could potentially outlast me. You know, I feel like a lot of the times, we sell our freedom for big companies to profit, and. And they'll have that capital for years and years after we're all gone. And like I said, that was one of the first times ever that I was happy and willing to give whatever labor that I could for something greater than myself.
[00:47:45] Speaker E: Yeah. And. Yeah. And I just want to talk more about CRG right there. It stands for conflict resolution group. Right. They're actually a mercenary group. And, you know, they had contracts in other countries.
[00:47:59] Speaker F: It's a nice name for a mercenary group.
[00:48:03] Speaker E: Yeah. They always sound so pretty, right?
Oh, man. Yeah. And they. And somebody naturally hired these people to guard the parking garage that Winston Smith was murdered at.
And it was just wild because, I mean, they were out there full garb and everything, like, and, I mean, they actually assaulted.
Yeah. Multiple people. I remember we did a press conference for Haley, who they assaulted that night, who was a. Who was a young woman, and.
Which was just crazy. And they tried to make a citizens arrest. And so, I mean, like, these were, like, mercenaries just on the loose in the middle of uptown. And it's. It's just crazy because every time I talk about it, like, you know, it's like, there were mercenaries in uptown because that was the extent that they were willing to fight.
[00:49:03] Speaker G: Black and brown folks literally had military vehicles with duct tape over the license plates, right? Isn't that what you. What the state should be against, right? Unknown militias roaming your streets. But they had, they had nothing to say about Crgde. If me and my homies got some Humvees, got some militarized vehicles, and put license, duct tape on our license plates, boy, we getting the whole National Guard on us. We getting the full force of the us military just to pull us over, guns drawn, to see what we're up to.
[00:49:39] Speaker B: I also think it's important to mention that seven points had initially agreed to give or hold that space for Winston's family and the garden for Diana's family as well, you know? And it just goes to show how quickly they are willing to change their mind, whatever, on whatever benefits them the most. You know, they'll say whatever sounds good at the moment, and they'll just completely change their plan based on how they feel.
[00:50:11] Speaker E: And so let's talk about when they murdered Deanna Marie. So were you there that night?
[00:50:26] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, that was. I remember we had a rally that day in uptown. And similar to how I was saying earlier, a lot of people decided to stay after, after the fact. When the rally was over, you know, there was makeshift barricades, there was music, people were dancing.
It was such a crazy thing to see how 1 minute there could be just so much joy and genuine love for that community.
And in a few seconds, it could be a tragic scene where a life is lost.
It's something that I still haven't really thought all the way through about. And so many other people could have lost their lives as well. And it's been said before, through divine intervention, that one car saved Diana Marie's car, saved possibly 20 people, for those.
[00:51:39] Speaker G: Of the listeners that don't know what happened. So they blocked off the street. They were playing like children's game. They were playing red light, green light.
So they were away from the car barricade. Deonna Marie was sitting next to her cardinal and some white man. I don't even think it's worth saying his name, like, revved his engine from about, like, two intersections away, sped up the entire way, rammed his vehicle into the barricade, which was Deanna Marie's vehicle.
His vehicle went flying. Deanna Marie's vehicle went flying and struck and ran over and killed Deonna Marie.
And the community that was there who was uninjured in the moment didn't necessarily know what to do. But they apprehended the driver, and that area was under such surveillance from the police. Right. They knew what happened. They were watching the whole time, not necessarily there on the ground, but through cameras or through whatever. So they showed up shortly after the driver was given to the police, and the cops came in, like, weapons drawn, like, ready to. To assault the protesters. Who were the victims of this crime? Who were the victims of this murder. The police came and harassed the innocent people.
So that's just putting context into Deonna Marie's murder and what was happening.
We can get back to discussing it. I just wanted to throw that out there for people who may not know what we are talking about.
[00:53:25] Speaker B: Yeah. It was a crazy sight to see following the incident, because you could see the cops laughing and just talking. Like a woman wasn't just murdered in front of so many people. And like you mentioned, they had weapons out, baton. They pepper sprayed people. They pushed them away. Like I said, they were laughing at the people who were there. Like, if this was a joke or a game, they went as far as to harass anybody who tried to talk to them. And even after.
I think that was even after they left, a lot of people stayed together, went over to the intersection to that post where the car ended up hidden. And honestly, we cried for a little bit. I cried for a little bit, and we cleaned up some of the mess that was left. It was.
I don't think I've ever seen something like that. And like I mentioned, it could go from people laughing, dancing, having genuine joy to experiencing such a tragic event.
[00:54:40] Speaker E: Yeah, I remember I was there that night, and I was gonna leave early.
I was like, it was, like, ten or 15 minutes. I was like, I'm taking off before it happened. And it was. My birthday was gonna be the next day, so everybody was like, no, no, you have to stay for your birthday so we can sing happy birthday at midnight for you. And I was like, okay.
And I remember, like, a couple of minutes before midnight, we were playing red light, green light, and the car came, and it kept coming faster and hit the car and then killed Diana Marie. And I remember just disassociating all night and staying there the whole time.
I don't know why I stayed there the whole time. I just. I don't know. I guess maybe I felt like maybe something might happen or. I don't.
Then I remember they opened the streets up and, like, low said, we want. And we cleaned, and we read some of her last posts that she wrote on her facebook, and we did a small visual for her, and there was a lot of crying. And, yeah, that was a really unfortunate night.
And I remember the next day was really powerful. You know, I remember I went to sleep and I turned my phone off because I didn't want. I just wanted to sleep and I didn't want to have to deal with anything.
And I woke up and, you know, we went down there, we met Deanna Marie's family and did a press conference with them. And then we came back and we did a great, like, rally in March around uptown in honor of Deanna Marie. And so, yeah, and so I think it's real important when we talk about Winston Smith that we also talk about Deanna Marie. So, yeah.
So where do you think that that leaves us now with here we are here removed from the murder of Winston Smith.
We have the us marshals who have all their surveillance and all the videos and stuff like that, and they've just been silent.
So where do you think that puts us now as a city that still needs to fight for this?
[00:57:46] Speaker B: I think it's important to highlight how the COVID up still continues to this day.
The amount of resources the state will go to to make sure that another George Floyd Square doesn't. Isn't created.
[00:58:06] Speaker E: Yeah. So, yeah. And it shows that they'll do whatever it takes to make sure that that doesn't happen.
So I just want to thank you, Los, for coming on today and talking to us and sharing your insights from, you know, everything that you've learned from being on the ground and doing this amazing work that you have been doing in the community. And, you know, you do a lot of films and documentaries and you're just really appreciate it and you're such a great asset to the community that we have here. So thank you.
[00:58:45] Speaker B: I appreciate much respect.
[00:58:49] Speaker E: All right. And then, you know, I want to thank Jalen and Brandon for coming in, as always, appreciate.
And we're going to be out for this today, so join us next week. Hear from views from the ground.
[00:59:01] Speaker F: Views from the damn ground.
[00:59:09] Speaker I: 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 tear gas and clocks in the 45. In between the protests, we protest every lies here. We always wake up, but then we go back to sleep again. In between the protest is when we be getting weak again. We hear about the looting, another shooting this week. Again, this gives the police another excuse to hit the streets again. White police, black population can never be a friend. Our mothers and our fathers and our families, they be seizing them. They, the overseers. We, the slaves to them. We gotta rise to the level where we ain't need them. Everybody organize, organize, organize. 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.
