 We're going to turn now to Margaret Kimbley. Hi, how are you all? Okay, Margaret, thanks for joining us. Margaret, of course, is an editor and columnist at the Black Agenda Report, and we're really happy that she's joining us to give her perspective. And I want to specifically ask you now about the role of violence in social protest. Martin Luther King's quote about a riot being the language of the unheard is making the rounds again online, and the blaming of the outside agitators has come again from the 60s in the Deep South and sounds like something Middle East dictator said in 2011 in the so-called Arab Spring. So authoritarians, Margaret, authoritarians have fond of saying that they're enemies. The only language they understand is that of violence. Can that be turned around to say that the only language that oppressive leaders understand is violence? It is true, and I wanted to follow up on something that Brian said. He said Trump is in trouble. They're all in trouble. The mayor of New York City is in trouble. The governor of New York is in trouble. De Blasio ran for office as the liberal, the tail of two cities, blah, blah, blah, but now he backs the police. We saw two police vehicles plowing to cars. Fortunately, no one was killed, but he praised them and then backtracked. Then Cuomo, and it's complicated in New York, because the governor and the mayor hate each other, and then Cuomo criticized the police, then the police got mad, then he backtracked. All of this shows they're all in trouble. There has been a complete loss of legitimacy by all of these people, and the system did it to itself, so that when there is a crisis like this and the precipitating event, of course, was the killing of George Floyd, which was preceded by, we saw another killing, it wasn't cops, it was vigilantes, Ahmed Arbery in Georgia. We saw him die. We saw Floyd die. There are other things going on. We have more than 30 million people, newly unemployed in the last few months, with nowhere to turn, with the political party that lives off its old reputation and claims to be the party of working people doing absolutely nothing for them. Another primary rigged, where Sanders, who capitulated sadly, where those people who wanted to see some of the things he was talking about being told you're not getting it, and not only are you not getting it, we are giving you the most right-wing Democrat who was running one of the worst people for a variety of reasons. So here we are now in a situation, and I want to say something about the word violence. I think of that as being a crime against human being. Property crimes to me are not, I don't think of those as violence, but I also think it has been, well I'll put it to you this way, I don't think it was coincidence that the killer cop in Minneapolis was arrested the night after a precinct was burned. I believe that that heightened their anxiety. They knew that the old method of first they said well we fired them, and that was supposed to calm everybody down, but it didn't calm everybody down, and then when they arrested the one cop that didn't calm everybody down. So now then they arrested all of them and charged all of them and increased the charges against them. That has not dissipated the actions in the streets, and most of the violence has come from the cops. Here in New York it is the police that have attacked people. They have assaulted, for some reason they take people's bicycles. I don't know why they're focusing on bicycles, hopefully someone can explain that to me. They beat people up, they snatch their bikes. The curfew, this is our third night of curfew in New York. Two nights ago there were thousands of people on the Manhattan Bridge connecting downtown Brooklyn to lower Manhattan, and the police blocked both ends of the bridge in an effort to intimidate people, but none of it is working. People are angry. They are angry about these police murders. They're angry about their own situations. They're angry that the duopoly in this country keeps telling people no, you can't have what you want, especially people with passes for a left in this country are constantly told, you can't ask for anything. If you don't vote for Joe Biden who's a train wreck for a variety of reasons, then it's your fault that Trump wins. We get Joe Biden going to a black church talking about the police shooting people in the leg, and then he takes a knee and that's what we're told is our salvation. I think this has some staying power. Whether people throw bricks or not, and by the way the agent provocateurs have been cops. Here in New York we're told that these bricks were found all over town and that proves outside agitators and nothing is more disgusting to me than to hear black elected officials sound like George Wallace. They should all be ashamed. I think the provocations are coming from the police. It's obvious the violence against journalists, against kids, against women is coming from them. This is a moment of deep crisis for the entire establishment and they are all in trouble and they don't know what to do. Margaret I had a question for you first and that was that on social media you pointed out that one of the officers charged in the killing of George Floyd is black and I wanted to ask you what it was that you make of this and what does this tell us about the reality of systemic racism in the police force? Well cops are gonna cop in the vernacular. Two of the cops who killed Freddie Gray and Baltimore were black. This cop in Minneapolis is apparently biracial but he's clearly as soon as I saw his photograph I could tell that he was a person of African descent and he is. But cops do what they do. One of the cops was Asian but that's not surprising. We've had Asian cops, Latinos, a Latino cop who killed Philando Castile in Minnesota who arrested Sandra Bland in Texas, a Chinese cop who killed a man named Akai Gurley here in New York. So we see that being on the police force in particular grants a kind of whiteness as it were so the basis of racism in this country I believe is anti-black racism and so it's easy for people who aren't white but not black either to be a part of this power structure and they get a kind of honorary whiteness. The police, Garland was talking about cops in Baltimore, most of whom are black, that engage in acts of brutality as well. So the police in this country they function as a modern-day slave patrol. So all of them can turn into slave patrollers regardless of race. I also believe the police forces being what they are officers are not likely to talk back to say in this case for example we see all three of them, nobody said stop, nobody said that's enough, nobody said okay let's just direct, nobody did anything because that is the culture of the police force. So we will see people like this officer who also engage in brutality. So I'm I'd say shot not shot about when I made that discovery. It's a great point about the relationship between slave patrols and the police force. For the listeners who aren't aware of that connection do you want to expand on that as well? Sure in the days of chattel slavery any white person could be part of a slave patrol. That slavery could not exist without a force of people not just the slave holders but a civic force that helped to enforce the system and that is some argue the basis of the second amendment that these militias were in fact the slave patrols. And so any white person had the right to act as a police person against any black person and that's how the police operate today so that regardless of income education level any black person can at any moment find themselves in the clutches of the police. What would legislation to address systemic racism look like to you? Would it be removal of qualified immunity for police and you know if so would there be other aspects as well that need to be addressed and secondarily to that do you think that any real change can be implemented at a legislative level or does it have to come from the ground up or can some combination actually work in a real way? Well I think we ought to focus on the killing of George Floyd but we have to talk about the qualified immunity here in New York cops get to kill somebody and they don't have to talk for 48 hours as an example. They are in bed with the prosecutors they work hand in hand but I think there are bigger problems. We've been talking about the COVID pandemic and we have not talked about the impact it had on black Americans. There are some cities where the only people who died were black places like St. Louis, Milwaukee almost every victim was black so there are a lot of people who died saying they couldn't breathe from this illness that the country was so ill prepared for and obviously that means we're the ones who suffer first so there's so much inequality we see it play out because that's the role the police play in defending this system but when you have a country where the minimum wage is meager and hasn't gone up for years when there are fewer and fewer living wage jobs the mass incarceration system that starts with a police encounter two million people in jail the militarization of the police this 1033 program which gives surplus military equipment every podunk in the country can have a police department can have armored vehicles which they're now talking about repealing and that is positive but we can't have a system a country where 60 percent of the budget goes for defense spending where the country gets to practice violence around the world and expect to have a just peaceful country so I'm happy that people are talking about these forms of the police but I hope the conversation gets bigger and we talk about the many inequalities that take people's lives in this country I've also seen you Margaret speak often about the attacks on the media and journalists that we've seen during this revolt can you discuss that do you think that it is in any way tied to the situation with WikiLeaks and Julian Assange and just any of your comments in general on that well we have a general disregard for the the press as journalism declines as newspapers fold as jobs disappear as the presence of journalists disappear they are people who are without respect and importance plus the fact that the police are just many of them are just goons that's all they are so they don't care if someone has a press pass and we've all seen the footage of people saying I'm pressed I gotta pass a CNN guy who was arrested on camera other people who've been beaten up they don't care now they're mad and here in New York all their vacations have been postponed everybody's expected to work for the next week and so I'm sure working with this militaristic semi-fascistic organization in the first place which abuses people in so many ways now they're just mad so they don't have respect for anyone so their anger is now more diffuse black people are not going to be their only victims everybody potentially can be their victim and that's not going to change either and we see these mayors and governors curry favor with these police departments it's constant and lastly I wanted to ask you before I turn things back over to Joe was just for your comment on the report that obviously while serving as Minnesota's chief prosecutor between 99 and 2007 Amy Klobuchar declined to bring charges against more than two dozen officers who had killed citizens while on duty including against the cop that killed George Floyd that's from Mint Press News what does that say about the Democratic Party that Klobuchar is on the shortlist of Vice Presidential picks for the Biden campaign I know you've spoken a lot about Joe Biden and I like your thoughts on the whole Klobuchar situation well it tells you how I hope this year that the Democratic Party finally dies I really do this woman should be unacceptable but we have a party that does not care what its people want which disregards their feelings all the time so this woman who is a player in who played a role indirectly perhaps but who played a role in the story of George Floyd's death is still being considered so what do they do they leak the story to her that the other three cops are going to be charged as well so she gets to leak the story before the Attorney General Ellison gets to make the announcement I mean it's very clear corruption and it's allowed to go on also because our black elected officials the black political class as we call them at black agenda report the blackness leadership class work hand in hand with these people they're joined at the hip they owe their positions their prominence their money to being a part of the Democratic Party establishment and that's why we have a democratic a presumptive democratic nominee who in the black church can talk about shooting people in the leg instead of in the heart Margaret let's give you the last word yes just a quick last word you know these demonstrations these actions have been spontaneous but there needs to be grassroots organizing it could be rather dangerous frankly you can't just live on this euphoria and this energy people have to express their outrage over so many things their needs and by taking to the streets people are showing that they want to know what to do next every action has an equal and opposite reaction there's going to be a reaction against the protests so we don't know where this this can go either way i'm hoping for positive results but in the absence of uh it's been decades now since we had viable grassroots movements that's what i'm hoping to see i think that will help the situation greatly thanks so much for inviting me thank you for joining us