 Hi, welcome to like not my normal show Usually I do a show on here live on Facebook Called the hippie report at the hippie report and that is me doing a kind of a Smokeout kind of a show like a community hangout kind of a show in long month and And the purpose of that is just to like provide a little sense of grounding and But it's a comedy it's it's a it's to make people laugh and That's not what this is gonna be So I'm not like I'm that's the creepiest chair. I'm sorry I'm not wearing like a flirty little tie or a jacket or anything today Because I'm not trying to be flirty and cute today and I Want to talk very seriously about the black lives matter protests and I want to talk about that. It's probably some length. I've got like five real things. I want to say about it But before I say anything, I just really want to point out like The very first thing you need to know is You should definitely listen to someone else on this topic what I mean is Somebody that doesn't like look like this. You know, I mean I can speak to it as like a for myself white man and I have high levels of empathy and caring and kindness and I That's true and I Know that the truth is I Don't have full context on this and so you should definitely listen to someone from that community not me on this topic, okay? Totally listen to me if you want to I feel like I should say something in a pretty official capacity here, but like What god damn it listen to somebody else and and because like I care But I can only like I can only cognize so much of it And like I I'm way behind because I'm I grew up being me and not being someone else and I really do believe that I can't see certain parts of it And I did and not really qualified to speak much on it in that way now. I think that's right So fucking first things first listen to somebody else, but So like I guess the second thing is like why make a video at all, right? If I think my my opinion that is valid because I love people, right? And that's the most important thing I think that's gonna be the spoiler alert. Oh man. I'm probably gonna make a long video here So let me just give you the cliff notes In case you're a lazy motherfucker and can't stand to listen to someone talk for more than a minute and a half on the goddamn internet The I believe and this is again, I'm gonna catch everything. It's just my opinion from somebody who cares and I Believe that love fixes this. I really believe that shit. Oh I'm gonna cry. No, I'm not. Oh God and we're not gonna do we normally do on this show But I may cry a little bit. I care about this. I believe in love and I think I Think love fixes this and I think if you're in love You'll be a servant That'll happen with the grind problem. That's not to be disrespectful toward the topic. I Know it's a serious topic. I'm not trying to get all baked about it Can't correct the fucking first thing I say fuck. Well, there's your cliff notes fuckers Love does fix it man. I really fucking believe that everything else I say is gonna be echoes of it Love fixes it if you're in love You will serve that person It is that easy I could stop everything. All right. Sorry boy, you know what in that little joint did help me Pull it together. So I don't do that to be disrespectful toward the topic at all So like why would I even make this video if I think like my opinion is sort of like optional and it is Man I'm making this video because I just think If I don't speak up about this and all of my capacity that I can I'll regret that and you never know like You never know what changes somebody's mind so Recently I've been doing this show the hippie report. It's me getting high and rambling forever and They've been they decided to air it on the local TV thing and so like I Feel a special responsibility to Talk about the most important thing that's happened in American history in a long time the Black Lives Matter movement Specifically the protests. I want to talk a lot about that too But I told you my punchline that's it's what I'm gonna say Now let me say These protests have been Characterized as violent protests. I think I disagree with that. I think I disagree with that because um our language is really important in this conversation and I don't think vandalism is violence. I don't think burning a police car is violent at all in fact It's extremely vandalists or whatever, you know, it's uh, it's a very extreme thing to do And I don't think we ought to just burn every cop car in America Um, but I'm basically in favor Um, I don't believe that should be characterized as violence. I don't think that's right So that's my first thing. Yes, of course, I'm in favor of the protests I haven't seen the protesters do very much that I disagree with frankly Um So that's the first thing I wanted to say vandalism is not violence. It's important. We get that right The violence is the police officers It's so important to draw that line Burning a car is not like extinguishing someone's life It's not the same Words matter so much Seems maybe like a silly thing to point out and and beyond the verge of tears, but It's not the same if you watch our show at all You'll know I'm an easy cry And I feel big about this second thing This is really important. Um, there are agent provocateurs in the crowd Um, people from racist groups Um People from the fucking polies Showing up to fuck shit up Um, they want to like increase the intensity so that they the police can respond with a bigger response Um, they're called agent provocateurs Their job is to go into a crowd and fucking Provoke them into Doing trick them almost into like I don't know busting up some mom and pop shop or whatever It's so hard to know who's doing what because so many people have these masks on and shit and But boy a lot of them have police boots on I don't fucking know And boy here. Let me say some shit before I talk too far out about this when I talk about the police and shit Yeah, I know that they're a good police and I love that I respect public servants um I I love public servants. I have friends that are politicians and um Or the police I I just I love that that segment of the population willing to serve That's kind of me. Um, and the here's the thing I really want to say especially about my community in Longmont um Boy, we got we seem to have like pretty good police You know and uh You know, I did a podcast a while ago. Uh, a couple years ago, I guess now um With the uh Longmont public safety chief and dig this That motherfucker's a good guy All of our cops wear fucking cameras Um, they got clinical therapists on staff. I mean like they're working hard to to like Serve the public So when I talk about the fucking police and shit the fucking You know, I'm not necessarily talking about my community and when I talk about like Why it might make sense contextually that a a protester might start a fire in a police car Even if that wasn't an agent provocateur like Even if that were The the the true protesters I'm kind of loosely in favor of that symbolically You know, um, I believe that when the officer in question when that officers When the officers murder the people they're supposed to protect That officer's wrong, of course Murderer The officers around enabling that are accomplices Um every officer that doesn't turn in a dirty cop is a dirty cop to me Okay, so that's how my morality works and the officer when When they do this, they are acting on behalf of their communities. That's the job of a police officer You represent the community, that's what it is So it becomes the community's responsibility that it happened at all So I just want to be careful when I'm talking about the cops I believe they are good cops. I think I know them. I know some good cops So There's fine line there Whatever, I know I'm gonna get my dick kicked in so much no matter what I say Oh my god, I'm You know, I knew I'd be a mess. I'm so glad we're not abiding by our usual rule on the show Which is I have to lose an article of clothing each time I begin to cry because You know, I can't afford to do that in this outfit There's only a couple more things I want to get to now when it comes to like The big acts of vandalism and stuff like that I'm in favor of it symbolically but against it because like I defer to the leaders in that community that we're trying to protect with our protesting, you know, shouldn't we Shouldn't we defer to the people we're trying to protect? I see a lot of white motherfucking hands Swinging these sledgehammers and shit That don't seem right You know, what are you doing there? I don't know. I don't know. It's a whole movement about protecting An endangered class because our society has this horrible relationship With this certain community and where we as good people of the fucking future Are trying to fucking slowly fix that and like we're running out of time To slowly fix it. We're trying to take drastic action. I think that's noble But if you're going to one of these protests and bless you and Check yourself before you go Who are you in the protest? Do you fucking look like this? Yo, then like you sort of have an assigned role here Okay Just saying You can be a protector and an ally Nobody has invited you to be a leader This is me not trying to be a leader You know, I'm trying to be a servant These are frustration tears Here's some pointers if you're a white dude and you know, let's just be real about this white dude That's that's that's basically who I'm talking to. Do your white dude go into the protest Here's some notes from another white dude Uh, uh, you know, if I don't mind crying on the internet, so I'll take it for what it's worth But uh, if you go into the protest, here's some notes Uh Don't go there to like Be an alpha male Don't go there to be a leader Think of yourself as somebody going there to protect protesters By protesting with them That's a good way to maybe think about it. Don't think of yourself as like some active ingredient kind of bring my sledgehammer and shit Here's a oh, you know, here's a fucking note Maybe like if you got white hands like don't bring tools of escalation How about that shit? If you got white hands, maybe don't put a sledgehammer in it for the day and shit like that there's just a note because like When you escalate shit that The black lives matter movement will get associated with that even if they didn't approve of that Even like we've seen videos of people begging them. Please just stop doing that. That's not what we're asking for Yo, that's what the fuck's up and um Nobody likes to be told what to do and I dig that and like, you know, I'm fucking this is just general friendly advice from the local idiot, but If you got white hands, don't bring tools of escalation to this event Bring tools of like protection and healing Good idea. Um You can still be for this community what the police wouldn't be Protectors servants I know it's a weird thing to talk about. It's a weird thing to watch your favorite fucking little clown crying. She had that Heavy shit. I would have bet that I would cry, but I would have hoped that I wouldn't All right, fourth thing Jesus out of five things. It's not that many motherfucking things. I'm gonna get through them all number four thing There's a meme going around it's it's uh It's very powerful and it says Silence is violence And I and with I in my heart agree and and I'd also like to be picky again about the wording Just like we were before when we talked about violence Being interchangeable somehow with vandalism. That's not right That those aren't the same, right? So I'd also like to say like, you know silence I wouldn't call that the same thing as violence But I would say that if you're at this point in this with this issue If you're being silent, you are being complicit in violence And here's how I think that works It's like, um It's like a when uh, we'll all be voting soon. Hey, we'll all be voting soon Um When when when we'll be voting that one of the things that all you'll feel you'll all the strangers on the internet will be demanding of you and telling you is like Um, you have to vote a certain way. Um now My friends, of course, will all say and they'll be right, of course That if you that if I don't vote There's a very good chance that that is like giving a vote to the status quo Which in this case would be the republican party Trump By not voting You don't sway it toward the good anyway. You you neutralize yourself and that's how the fucking And I'm I'm not trying to equate the republican party with the darkness and shit But I'm trying to show a likeness in in the situations here. So I'm not I'm not calling Um A certain party evil or a certain party absolutely good That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is when you don't vote the status quo wins. That's what the fuck I'm saying Is that helpful? Throw away that analogy if it was confusing not trying to pick on your favorite thing, whatever I'm trying to say if you neutralize yourself The status quo will win Because it's easier to let things stay than it is to change it And if you don't put your weight behind something, it's not gonna change That's one of the reasons I'm making this long-ass post Today, uh because like I'm trying to throw my weight around it a little bit as much as I have and it's Trying to be humble. I don't fucking know but like Trying to show where my heart is We shall be doing that we shall be showing where our hearts are I'll bet we agree really. I'll bet we really do agree That like really we want to love people we think that's a virtue in our society We want to lean into I think that's right. So then the next conversation is what is the best way to love this community Now that's a way more helpful conversation If we could get there Shakey man emotional. I shouldn't have tried with my left hand. Anyway, it's my shaky hand fuck One more thing Okay, maybe one of the more important things except the very first thing I said which was listen to somebody else um But listen to this too, maybe Um, I don't know anybody personally now. This is just my experience, but I know a lot of people I don't know anybody that doesn't think love is a virtue I don't know anybody like that that there's probably somebody out there with some kind of like, uh Uh, some kind of uh mental, uh impairment, maybe Or I don't know. I don't know Maybe somebody that can't perceive something. I'm not sure um But I think on on average Most people would say love is a virtue There are obvious benefits to love so If we think love is a virtue and I think that we do I think people believe that If we're gonna say we love people we have to love all the people Just seems so obvious What does that mean? And wait, let me catch this again I don't know, but I think when you love someone it changes how you act Oh my god, I'm gonna try and muscle through that cry. Fuck. I think when you love someone it changes how you act Love makes you do things It changes how you act As a society we haven't been showing that community that we love them We have to change how we act. It's not so hard It's I mean like it's more than laws To survive in the future. We have to love each other Sorry Tough yo, that's why I said right at the top of the show is like Listen to somebody else on this topic for sure because like I have a very specific um experience in the world White male in America. Yo I don't even understand all the differences truthfully. I know that I don't and I try Man, I just try to equalize that so Yo, I do a show called the hippie report That's because like in some ways. I'm just like an old-fashioned hippie and I really do think Peace and love man More like love and peace because love creates peace And it's confusing because english only has one word for love That's fucked up We talk about that another time If you're not offended at the idea that you're part of a culture that has to be reminded That and they're right that we need reminding. I'm not offended when like a police station burns down Nope That's a symbol of the uh fucking uh aggressor for sure. I'm not offended but like Oh, it's a complicated world and I trust the people in that community to make that decision Hey, man, if you got white hands, don't start a fire. How about that? Is that a good rule? Sort of a weird racist thing, but yeah felt like and if you got some white hands Don't escalate anything. That's not your job Just an opinion from the local idiot, but there it is friends Those are my five fucking things What were they? I don't know listen to it again a long video. Fuck me Oh man, here's the punchline I believe love really fixes it But it's purposeful as beyond purpose like a real relationship We're in the information age everybody's gonna find out everything and uh As more of the information pumps out all the time Um, we're trained to notice pain And I'm I'm so glad that we as a society are waking up to the thing that the black lives matter movement is trying to point at And uh boy, I just couldn't be more with all right fine There I did my thing my fucking talk to the community about it Man I do it because I love you too Oh man, I make my art on purpose just to help My little way, you know Here's my little post. Yo, I'm gonna try and lay back out of the spotlight again about it because like You ought to be listening to other voices on this topic. Um What don't you hear where I was and I can't really Make a facebook post that has my heart in it. Not really and uh I know I'm gonna get attacked no matter what I said I've maybe left out some important thing That's why you should listen to someone else But you I know that somebody's gonna blame me for not saying the right thing or saying the wrong thing. I don't know Uh said what was on my heart and I'm I'm behind my heart's open about it. I'm trying to learn But that's where I'm at man. We're all responsible for where we're at and that's mixed news because If we're all responsible for where we're at as a society Then that's true in the future And if we all remain responsible And purposeful Then we can aim at a better place together It just doesn't sound like that big of an ask really Body cameras. How about a body camera? How about like Oh, Jesus How about me not talking about some shit? I'm not an expert in listening to somebody else on that there's some really common sense changes to be made And uh boy, I'd I'd recommend donating money toward getting people out of jail That have been arrested at these protests um There's plenty of websites I can post uh links to that Anyway, I hope you have A thoughtful day I'll fucking get back to trying to make you laugh soon Because that's who I am too but like heavy day Again See you next time