 I want to officially invite us into this moment. Myself, Ferein Paris Meyer, Kaia Morris want two black women within a sea of black women and gender fluid and non-binary and trans black individuals that are here to say no more. In this community, in this state, in this country, we love to protect and make excuses and give multiple chances on chances to white men, to white patriarchy, to white supremacist energy leadership and we love to weaponize, violate and terrorize black femmes, black transgender folks, black non-binary folks. And I'm here with Kaia because for those who know my truth and my integrity, can you show love that you believe in what I say today? For those who know Kaia Morris and her integrity, can you show love that you believe in what she will say today? And out of protection for our Queen Taisha Green, because every time she speaks, the media is weaponizing her words to lead a story that is supporting whatever it is, Miro is trying to hide. I will let you know right now I have been black for 41 years. Nobody targets a powerful black women who stands in her truth unless you are threatened because they know your truth, they know the bidding that happened when they served here for two years, what happens in executive sessions, what happens behind closed doors, audits that you have altered Miro, audits that you have not asked for particular people who are doing very violent shit in this community. We have the director of the airport that was found guilty for toxic environments, embezzling shit, stealing stuff, yet no audit on the airport, we have no audit on the police station, but yet we want to have an audit for the first time we decided as a city to acknowledge Juneteenth that has been around for decades upon decades upon decades, a woman comes to the city and says we need to do better. The city is saying that racism is a pandemic, it is a national problem, let's do something about it. And when we do, we get fucked over. You invite us to do positions that you do not have the courage to do. You invite us to do positions that you literally don't have the emotional intelligence or the courage or the ability to center things not for your own growth and movement, but for the collective community. So people want to talk about tax dollars being wasted. I want to talk about how my tax dollars keep going to an individual, a man who is protected by Joan and Samantha and city lawyers. Where is my protection? Where is my protection and people are going to try to tell me. People are going to try to tell us that we need to be disciplined in the way that we speak. There has to be a particular way that you want to manage how I'm supposed to share my rage, my hurt. If you have had your name publicly shamed in newspapers and in the community, and it's impacted you to lose your job, to lose your finances, to blacklist you from doing work, raise your hand. Exactly. One, two, three, black people, okay? This is, it's interesting what people want to manage how we can feel when you literally have not walked that narrative. Back in 2017, my partner and I, Josh Meyer, at the time he was the men's basketball coach at St. Mike's, and we did a movement and literally our family paid the price. For what? For reminding us not to kill black lives? For reminding you that I too have a voice that I should speak? So we are here and we're interrupting this shit. And I'll tell you right now, if we continue to let the mayor and the agents of this city get away for this kind of witch hunt, our lives is on the city. Do you need black women to freaking die on this payment for you? Do you need my tears? Do you need that in order to wake up something? Listen, wake up something consciously in your soul. Because I'm sick and tired. Kaya's sick and tired. And Baker's sick and tired. Jessica LaPorte's sick and tired. Kathleen's sick and tired. Jada sparks like it is just wild. And news. News. You write articles. You pick titles to make energy. And it has a ripple impact on the quality of our everyday life. You get to go home after you've submitted your reports. You put them in, but I'm the one who's up sleepless with insomnia. Because people want to call me a criminal. People want to tell me to not bring my out business, my outside business into Vermont, like ignoring the fact that I don't have the capability to own a house in the new North End for almost 10 years and do what I need to do. I really ask you, however you cover this, tell the story that no one has had the courage to tell. This racial war, this racial whiplash on Taisha started three years ago when Mayor Weinberger and the CNA report, let's stop forgetting what has happened in the past to lead us to this moment right now. This is not just last week. This is not just last month. This has been a toxic cycle. And we love to use us black femmes, black women, black folks as scapegoats for your mediocrity or when you've messed up. And I'm asking when is the city going to stop catering to the majority, the people who have the money, the elite. I swear if you shift her color, if you shift her tone, if you shift her gender, she would not be unblast here right now. Nobody's fucking talking about Mayor Weinberger. This dude is a class act. The writing is on the wall. And I'm going to pause because it is so not also fair for me to unearth all my energy as if I don't have my own stuff that I'm worrying about and trying to do outside of this thing called racism that we fail to address as a city of Burlington. And at this point, I'm going to turn it over to my queen. She said a word, did she not? Now for those of you who don't know, I live in Chittenden County because I had to leave Bennington County because there were so many latent experiences of racism and of harassment and of the terrorization of black families here in Vermont that it was not safe for myself or my child or my husband to be in the town that my husband grew up in. And I came here to Burlington, as many do, seeing it as a Mecca where, well, at least there's more diversity so we can find community and that community is beautiful. But it is bleeding out. I've said so many goodbyes. So many goodbyes to some of the most incredible, beautiful, powerful, talented, passionate people who came to this state, invested in this state because they love this state and had to leave this state because it was literally killing them. I'm not telling Ty's story, but she don't live here no more and her beautiful wife is not here anymore and she's not able to do the work that she was doing that filled us with so much joy and pride for me to be able to share with my mother. Oh my gosh, Mom, do you know what we just had in Juneteenth? I can't wait for you to see it next year. Look at this beauty of what's happening here. Look at all of the things that Ty has brought to place for her to say, okay, I can rest a little easier now that my daughter is there because she's in a good place with the mayor in this city. And he's just one. He's just one. Let's not let him off the hook. Let's not let every other municipality where these beautiful black faces have fled from, from also not being questioned on their practices. There is a reason why some folks are literally not here today because they fear retribution in the workplace or in their communities because they don't want fair names in the press to then have targets on their backs. But I came here thinking this would be different and Miro showed his face so hard and so fast. And he was enabled. He was enabled by members of administration. He was enabled by some elected officials who choose to remain silent or are complicit and instead of creating a balance of power where you actually get checked, they acquiesce to his will and his strategy to both virtue signal how great we are, monetize and get profit off of showing our beautiful diversity and then treating us like we are less than human. And I can't stand for it anymore. I too am tired of crying over this. I too am tired of worrying about what this means for our children. I too am tired of what this story does for black people all over the state because if there's anything we learn from my experience is that everyone realized very quickly that if the most powerful black woman in state government at the time was not protected, none of us are. None of us are. None of us are. This fascism is winning and it's under a false political label. And so today we're bringing these voices. Don't let this be the only one. We have someone here, Rachel Siegel, if you would like to speak, if you are a black femme, trans, binary, non-binary person, what? Or white ally. They can sign up inside, right? They can sign up inside. We have sign ups here available. They are legit so that you can sign up if you would like to speak. There will be other opportunities. There are folks from state government here that will be here listening in. Know that this dialogue is not over. Know that we are not letting down. I said it before to Miro's face. I will say it again to all of you. He must step down. I tell you to do so is an affront. It is an affront to all of the good people of this city. Do not let him continue with this terrorism on our city. Do not do that. Do not do that. Do not let him be a symbol for the rest of the state that we are unprotected because we are standing strong. We have been reflecting on how this feels like a modern-day lynching. This feels like modern-day enslavery. Why? Let's look at the report that was released. The audit report that was done investigating Taisha Green came after the city had done an audit externally already of every department reporting to Mayor Weinberger. That report in early March on March 10th was voted in, accepted by the council, and there was no foul found across the board for all departments. Fast forward a week later after Taisha Green submitted a memo to the city of Minneapolis as their racial equity and belonging director citing things around racism and problematic behavior resulting from an expo that was curated, they asked her to step down. So I want us to understand then this, I want us to understand how disgusting white supremacy energy is. The city already did an audit on all departments reporting to the mayor. It came back Gucci. It was all good, accepted by the council. You catch wind that there's some energy happening in Minneapolis and you use this to fucking pour more salt into shit that you're not even paying attention to in Minneapolis and you're using that in order to help your political agenda and where you're trying to go next because you know our city does not want you anymore as our mayor. So what do you do when you're trying to move on up? You take out your threats. You take out the people who know your dirt. You take out the people who know what you have said behind closed doors. You take out powerful black women because if you look at history, we've always been on the right side. Y'all are late to the party. So I don't want fast forward freaking years from now that we are dealing with fucking a black woman that took her fucking life because we can't use the courage to stand up and have your liberation anchored in theirs and then we're finally doing something about it. I'm not trying to do 2020. I'm not trying to use George Ford, Brianna Martin, all of these people to wake up a moral compass in this city. It needs to be collective. Black liberation is our collective responsibility. We show up for the things that are easier. We have no problem co-signing on all these things. But if you ask yourself the questions, how are you in your day-to-day truly doing work that centers and uplifts what it means to exist in these bodies? Mayor Weinberger, it is about time that you take your knee off of Taisha Green and Casey Elderberry's necks. You are the officer who killed and murdered George Floyd. Give it up. She did not need you to be great in this city and you can't stand it. She did not compromise when you wanted her to agree to suspicious bidding. Why don't you ask people on city council how often the CNA report of 2021 was altered by our mayor? He has something in this right now. I want you to ask why is it an auditor wasn't used to do this on Taisha? They used a lawyer. Why do you use a lawyer? Because you have an agenda. And what they don't know is when she got interviewed by that auditor, I listened. Because as black women, we can't trust that people are going to have our back. So I'm telling you that in that report, there are things that she did not say. In that report, there are things that she... In that report, there are things that she did say that they omitted. Why aren't we talking about all the other individuals and organizations that need to sign off on checks, reallocate things at the end of a fiscal year? It does not fall on just the director of a department. Their building is filled with offices with people who needed to do their job. So when you're awakening fiscal shit two years ago, one year ago, there is something up. And I have reached out to Heather Ross. I have left her voicemails. And I am not just going to be here and ask us to hold Miro responsible. I'm asking us to hold Heather Ross responsible. I'm asking us to hold our papers. The Vermont Digger. That was really problematic, Patrick Crowley. And I told you that. I called you. I trusted you with my words. I trusted you. And your title in it says that there's something up that's starting an outcry. So black women leader revolution. And you want to use the word outcry at me? No, don't play that game with me. Don't play that game. Ty did not just simply say, oh, Miro is a white supremacist. Y'all know how fucking brilliant and educated this person is. That was not what happened. Okay, we need to understand and be able to use the word white supremacy culture. Because it's not about white hoods and fucking burning crosses. It is about urgency. It is about making decisions that are selfish to protect your own. When the mayor released a private audit report to the newspapers before even Taisha and Jersey had it. Why would you accept a report and write on it knowing that the person implicated didn't even have it. She wasn't even told this was happening. She found out from that bullshit seven days article that came out in March. Why aren't we asking the necessary questions? I know it's ugly. I know it makes us feel ashamed at literally what's being done by our city officials. But this is it. Forget Trump. Forget the White House. This is happening right here in our state. We need to do something about it. Burlington and Vermont actually has the capability to be so much better than this. I never wanted to live here. My black ass got dragged up here for like my partner's job. But then I found people. I found that you can talk to people and if they believe in it, they will let you figure out how to have your dreams. I found souls that were just so dynamic. I am trying to be here. I am trying to be here. But I swear if we don't get the justice on this if y'all don't do what we need to do to lift the truth my life is on you. Because what you don't realize is the freaking day to day day to day impact. All the women in me is tired. All the women is me and tired. You do not know unless you are literally in this warfare. It's existing. I am not a liar about this. I have no desire to lie about black trauma and pain. I want to thrive in this life like it looks like everybody else is doing. But people want us to survive. People want us to settle for crumbs. People want us to dim our life. And when we speak out this is the stuff that happens. And that is why we are here. They started with the mayor and he needs to go. He needs to go. We don't want your number. So I want to bring us back to a place of centering. We've got a lot of energy and it's important. And please don't let it dissipate into the wind. Please don't let smiles and platitudes fool you into thinking that the work is done. Please do not settle right now. We're not going to make it if you do. I'd like to invite those who know the words to join me in singing the Black National Anthem. And then we will make our way over to City Hall to go bear witness to what needs to happen next. Lift every voice and sing till earth and hang with the heart.