07x14 - Police

[bunniefuu]

LAST WEEK TONIGHT
WITH JOHN OLIVER

Hello there,
and welcome to the show!

We're gonna do something
a little bit different tonight.

Our show is gonna be
about one thing,

and you probably know what,
and you probably know why.

Protesters have continued
to fill the streets in all 50 states

in the wake of the horrific m*rder
of George Floyd by the police.

In response to those protests,

a stirring push back against
institutional racism and brutality,

it's been frankly sickening
to see them met with this.

Across the country, peaceful protests
have too often devolved into standoffs

with heavily armed police
using military-style tactics:

flash bangs, tear gas, rubber b*ll*ts,
helicopters, armored vehicles.

We're peacefully protesting. But they
are armed like they're going to w*r.

Yeah, they are. If police
are trying to convince the public

they're not guilty
of displaying excessive force,

it's probably not a good idea
to repeatedly display excessive force

on national television,
including in this city,

where Mayor de Blasio praised them
for their "tremendous restraint,"

and Governor Cuomo threatened
to send in the National Guard.

Having said that I couldn't wait to go
back to hating Andrew Cuomo again,

I didn't think the opportunity
would come quite this soon.

And these protestors
have received a great deal of support,

with massive marches
taking place all around the world.

The protestors' message has taken
many forms, from chants, to signs,

to a man who called into an LA Police
commission meeting held over Zoom.

He had been given 30 seconds, which
he used with maximum efficiency

to deliver a message
for police chief Michel Moore.

I find it disgusting that the LAPD
is slaughtering peaceful protesters.

I had two friends go to the protests
in Beverly Hills a couple of days ago,

and the protest was peaceful
until the police showed up

with their violent force, sh**ting
rubber b*ll*ts and throwing tear gas.

Is this what you think of protecting
and serving? I think it's bullshit.

f*ck you, Michel Moore. I refuse
to call you an officer or a chief,

because you don't deserve
those titles, you are a disgrace.

Suck my d*ck and choke on it.
I yield my time. f*ck you.

If the president is taking notes,
that is what a perfect call looks like.

My favorite part: after he's finished
unloading on that police chief,

he yields his time, realizes
he still has a couple of seconds left,

so un-yields it,
and throws in a bonus "f*ck you."

As for the president, he initially
hid from the protesters in a bunker,

later claiming he wasn't hiding,
he was just "inspecting it,"

then his attorney general had police
gas protestors outside the White House

so that Trump could have
an inexplicable photo op at a church,

while holding up a Bible like it's
the ticket for his sandwich order.

In announcing job numbers on Friday,
he also invoked George Floyd's name

saying, "This was a great day for him",
which is utterly f*cking disgusting.

But we're actually not going
to focus on Trump tonight.

Nor are we,
unlike some in cable news,

gonna dwell on the incidents of looting
that occurred, except to say:

if you've said "Macy's"
more than you've said "Breonna Taylor",

you can very much f*ck off.

If you're asking why a spontaneous,
decentralized protest

can't control all of its participants
more than you are asking the same

about a taxpayer funded,
heavily-regimented, paid workforce,

you can also, in the words
of this generation's Robert Frost,

"Suck my d*ck and choke on it,
f*ck you."

Instead, tonight,
let's talk about the police.

Because we've seen graphic videos,
which are going to be hard to watch,

of them driving directly into crowds,
beating people with sticks,

and sometimes assaulting the right
to assemble with speed and barbarity.

Prematurely sh**ting people?
Prematurely using excessive force?

Get your scary ass on somewhere.

No, dude. Don't do that.

What the f*ck?
What the f*ck did we even do?

What the f*ck?

It's genuinely impossible
to overstate how enraging that is.

They're protesting
excessive force by police

and the police start pepper-spraying
them like it's f*cking sunscreen.

And that's just one of hundreds
and hundreds of videos.

And we're taping this
Saturday morning

who knows what will have happened
by Sunday night?

Maybe they'll be using grenades,

even as "The New York Times"
weighs in with an op-ed titled,

"Why We Need to Bring Hitler Back
to Life as a Robot Right Now."

They just think it's valuable
that you read that point of view.

They didn't,
but they think that you really should.

For any viewers at home, shocked
by the scenes of police brutality,

I get it, I'm white too,

but it's worth remembering:
that's the tip of a very large iceberg.

It didn't start this week,
or with this president,

and it always disproportionately falls
on black communities.

Because here are some hard facts.

In Minneapolis,
where George Floyd was m*rder*d,

police use force against black people
at 7 times the rate of whites.

Black Americans

are 2,5 times more likely than whites
to be k*lled by police.

About one in every thousand black men
can expect to be k*lled by police.

If you're black in America,
I can't even begin to imagine

how scared, angry,
and exhausted you must feel.

Not only this week,
but constantly.

Medical groups say police v*olence
against black and brown Americans

is just one of many physical
and psychological factors

that make racism
a serious public health issue.

And look:
clearly, the police are just one part

of a much larger system
of racial inequality.

But for tonight,
we are gonna focus primarily on them,

and try to address
three basic questions:

how the f*ck we got to this point,
what the obstacles to reform have been,

and what we can do going forward.

And let's start
by just acknowledging that the police

have long enjoyed an exalted role
in American society.

In pop culture, they're the heroes
of beloved movies and TV shows like,

"Cranky g*n Grandpa",
and "Cocaine Cops Who f*ck",

and "Manic Bigot
and His One black Friend."

America loves nothing more

than a renegade cop
who doesn't play by the rules.

But the reality of policing is,
and has always been, very different.

And it might be worth going
through some of the history here,

because it's important to understand
how deeply policing in this country

is entangled with white supremacy.

And I know you might be thinking,

"Join the club, policing.
This is America.

Olive Garden is the only institution

not deeply entangled
with the history of white supremacy.

That's only because it's always been a
powerful symbol of white inferiority."

But the police have not
been incidentally tainted by racism.

For much of U.S. history,
law enforcement meant enforcing laws

that were explicitly designed
to subjugate black people.

Some of America's first law enforcement
units were the sl*ve patrols

tasked with capturing and returning
people who'd escaped from sl*very.

When sl*very ended,
white people had no intention

of letting that
be the end of white power.

As one Alabama planter
said in the wake of emancipation,

"We have the power to pass stringent
police laws to govern the Negroes

this is a blessing, for they
must be controlled in some way

or white people
cannot live among them."

And I know
that's uncomfortable to hear.

It's certainly uncomfortable
for me to say.

But if we want to talk
about how we got here,

it's important to remember
that we got here on purpose.

Now, for a century after that,
police in the south were responsible

for enforcing segregation,
while allowing,

and sometimes participating,
in lynchings and anti-black terrorism.

And as black people migrated
to the north by the millions,

they were met there,
yet again, by brutality.

All of this-coupled with the denial
of economic and housing opportunities,

not always particularly subtle,
meant that, by the summer of 1967,

there were a series of high-profile
uprisings against racial injustice

across the United States,

or as white people describe
that exact time.

The summer of 1967.
It is known as the "Summer of Love."

Yeah, it is known as that.

And that's a pretty big disconnect,
isn't it?

And it honestly makes me slightly
worried that what's happening now

will be remembered by white historians
as "The Summer of Chromatica."

Things did not improve
from the sixties onward.

Nixon pledged fealty to law
and order and started the w*r on dr*gs,

which Reagan later turbo-charged,
and by the time we got to the nineties,

a school of thought
called "broken windows"

or "zero tolerance policing"
had started to take root,

which held that,
if minor crimes are left unattended,

it will lead to more serious crimes.

Police had better crack down
on those minor offenses.

That fueled the saturation of police
in low-income communities of color

and gave way to policies
like stop-and-frisk,

which essentially allow police officers
to search people at random.

At that policy's peak, in 2011,

of the nearly 700,000 stops
recorded in New York,

the vast majority
were of black and Latino people.

Or, to put that another way,
those policies, too often,

amounted to this f*cking bullshit,
just under a different name.

And that sort of aggressive policing
was accompanied by constant calls

to increase the number
of police officers on the street.

Let's be clear: Democrats
were very much involved in that,

from big-city mayors
all the way on up to this guy.

An initiative to put 100,000
more police officers on the street.

More prisons, more prevention,


in communities of all sizes.

We need to finish the job of putting


Last fall,
Congress supported my plan to hire,

in addition to the 100,000 community
police we've already funded,


in high crime neighborhoods.

Thanks very much for that, Congress.


You know what's cool?

Expanding a broken institution
to score cheap political points.

And if you can do that while playing
the saxophone, that gets even cooler.

And all the while, as we were
continuing to boost funding for police

and give them more authority,

we were simultaneously slashing
spending on key social services.

That meant that in many communities,
the police were the only ones

left to handle
almost any issue that people had.

Which is a real problem, as this former
Dallas police chief readily admits.

We're asking cops
to do too much in this country.

We're asking us to do too much.

Every societal failure,
we put it off on the cops to solve.

Not enough mental health funding,
"Let the cop handle it."

Not enough drug addiction funding,
"Let's give it to the cops."

Here in Dallas,
we got a loose dog problem.

"Let's have the cops
chase loose dogs."

And he's absolutely right. We are
asking police to do far too much.

They have a massive array of
complicated duties that, in many cases,

they aren't equipped to handle,

making them very much
the Jared Kushners of local officials.

Without the expression, complexion,
general demeanor of a haunted baby.

While we should absolutely
be angry at the police right now,

let's also be angry at the series
of choices that left them

as essentially the only public resource
in some communities.

And on top of all of that,

we've made those bad choices
even more dangerous in recent years

by needlessly arming police
to the f*cking teeth.

As we discussed
six years ago now,

we've issued the police
literal military grade equipment,

some of which you have seen used
to control and intimidate protestors.

And it's frankly not just
the hardware that's a problem here.

Because a whole sub industry
of police training

has also cropped up to reinforce
the message that cops are at w*r.

And perhaps no one takes that idea
further than this guy.

Once you've made the decision
to take a human life,

you're a transformed creature,
a predator.

What does a predator do?
They k*ll.

Only a k*ller can hunt a k*ller.

Are you emotionally, spiritually,
psychologically prepared

to snuff out a human life
in defense of innocent lives?

If you can't make that decision,

you need to find another job.

The problem with telling someone
that they're a predator

is that it primes them to see the rest
of the world as potential prey.

And cops who went through this
training could wind up on edge.

You wouldn't train a barber
by saying,

"Here are your scissors
and snip like this,

and this is how to puncture
the carotid artery.

Now, you won't need
to use this 99% of the time,

but if you don't think
you can make that decision,

you need to find another job."

That gross man
is actually called Dave Grossman.

And he calls himself
an expert in "killology,"

a term that he invented
and defines as,

"The scholarly study
of the destructive act,

just as sexology is the scholarly study
of the procreative act."

Which... And also, I'm pretty sure
that the first lesson in sexology is

"Never call sex the procreative act,

if you want anyone to pro creatively
act with you ever again."

As batshit as Grossman is,

he is by no means
a fringe figure in police culture.

He's on the road giving trainings


The officer
who shot Philando Castile

had taken a class
based on Grossman's theories.

And when, in the wake of that sh**ting,
the Minneapolis mayor banned officers

from participating
in warrior-style training,

the head of the police union Bob Kroll,
announced plans to defy that decision.

If they deem
that this training is in violation

and they're on their own time
and they want to attend it,

I'm gonna encourage officers to do it.
I myself will be the first one to do it.

If I would be disciplined,
it would never be upheld.

I honestly don't know
what's more alarming there:

his determination to train
police officers to be predators,

his air of casual impunity,

or the fact that he has a sign
in his office that says

"Let Me Drop Everything
And Work On Your Problem."

Which is always the office
decor choice of a grade-A assh*le,

but especially if it's someone
whose actual job

is to work
on other people's problems.

And that confidence
that he's above punishment

actually brings us to the second point
that we want to look at tonight:

what the major obstacles
to reform have been.

Because one of the biggest issues
is police unions.

Even in cities where the mayor and
police chief say all the right things,

it's important to know
that the union can stop

whatever they are proposing dead
in its tracks.

And unions can make it incredibly
difficult to discipline officers,

even for egregious misconduct.

Take what happened in Minneapolis,

with two officers
who belong to our friend Bob's union.

Two Minneapolis police officers
are on paid leave

for allegedly decorating
a Christmas tree at the 4th Precinct

with a bunch of items
that are viewed as r*cist.

Bags of hot Taki chips,
a cup from Popeyes Fried Chicken,

menthol cigarettes
and cans of malt liquor...

Holy shit!
That is not just disgusting,

it's also arguably the most r*cist
thing to happen to Christmas

since people decided that this child
born in the Middle East was white.

And not only does that incident raise
serious questions about those officers,

it also implicates
the entire precinct,

because they presumably thought
that none of their coworkers

would have a problem
with what they did.

To his credit, when that story broke,
the mayor of Minneapolis

announced that the officers responsible
would be fired by the end of the day,

only to have to almost immediately
walk that statement back, saying

that there was a process that they
were required to go through by law.

We checked. Despite the fact it's been
a year and a half since that happened,

one of those officers' cases
is still under arbitration.

I get, unions fighting for their
workers, that is what they do.

But police unions
take that to a dangerous extreme

and negotiate language into contracts
that makes removing a problem officer

incredibly difficult.

A "Washington Post" analysis of some of
the nation's largest police departments

found that they'd fired at least


but were forced
to reinstate more than 450 of them

that's almost 25 percent, after appeals
required by their union contracts.

Police unions can also oppose even
the most basic, common-sense reform.

A few years back, the Cleveland Police
started being required to file a report

every time they unholstered
and pointed their g*n at someone

and their union head
was absolutely furious.

I'm afraid that officers are gonna be
hesitant to pull their g*n

in an appropriate situation because
they don't want to do the paperwork

that's gonna be associated
with having to pull your g*n.

Okay, first:
the idea that the risk of paperwork

is a greater deterrent to police
officers drawing their g*n

than the risk of k*lling someone
is legitimately terrifying.

And it's hard to take that
glib dismissal from anyone,

let alone someone who looks like
a boiled Mr. Potato Head

or an angry egg with a mustache.

I know those comparisons
probably make him mad,

but what's he gonna do,
sh**t me?

I don't think so! Think of
the paperwork involved.

That attitude
is particularly hard to take

considering that
just six months previously,

Tamir Rice had been k*lled
by a Cleveland police officer.

When faced with accountability
that they don't like,

unions will often issue
the ultimate threat

to simply pull back
and let crime rise.

Listen to how the head
of New York City's largest police union

reacted when a judge
recommended firing the officer

whose chokehold led
to the death of Eric Garner.

The criminal advocates
have gotten what they want.

The police department is frozen.

The police department
can't stop the K*llers,

they can't stop the criminals,
they can't effectively do their job.

I'm sorry to say that we have
to tell our police officers:

"Take it a step slower."

"Take it a step slower."
He just basically threatened

inaction against "the K*llers"
as a bargaining chip.

And besides that
being morally reprehensible,

it is a tool that most labor unions
don't have at their disposal.

When the unions representing TV
writers fight for their members,

the worst thing that they
can thr*aten the public with

is fewer episodes of "Bull",
or "The Blacklist" or this show.

That's just not
a compelling argument.

That wasn't even an empty threat,
because following that statement,

policing did slow down in New York
for a bit last year.

There was an 11 percent
drop in felony arrests,

an 18 percent drop
in misdemeanor arrests

and a 32 percent drop
in moving violations.

But the thing is,
if you lived in New York then,

you probably don't remember it as
the time the city devolved into chaos.

Because it didn't. People still
went about their lives,

subways were still as delayed
as they usually were

and rats still dragged slices of pizza
up stairs to feed their rat families

after a hard day of rat work,

making you wonder
whether all those arrests

were really in the interest
of public safety at all.

One good way to attempt to get
reforms past a union's resistance

is if the federal government
steps in.

Which it actually can. It has the power
to investigate police departments

for a pattern
of civil rights violations

and enter
what is called a "consent decree",

in which the police department agrees
to make institutional changes

that are then overseen
by a federal court.

That can be a powerful tool
to force change.

That paperwork requirement
in Cleveland that pissed off this egg,

that came from a consent decree.

The problem is, how or even
whether the government does that

depends on who is running it.

And right now, it's this wildly
unsuccessful Bible salesman.

And he clearly has no interest
in police reform.

In George W. Bush's first term,
his Justice Department launched


into police departments.

In Obama's first term,
it was 15.

Trump's DOJ has launched
just a single investigation

and has entered
zero consent decrees.

Trump has made it clear where
he stands on the police use of force.

He not only rolled back

Obama's restrictions on giving
the police military equipment,

listen to what he said to an audience
filled with law enforcement.

Please don't be too nice.

Like when you guys put
somebody in the car

and you're protecting their head,
the way you put the hand over it.

Like, don't hit their head,
and they've just k*lled somebody.

Don't hit their head. I said:
"You can take the hand away, okay?"

It's bad enough when it's just
a bunch of random shitheads

cheering
on Trump's lawless rhetoric.

It's a lot more alarming
when that applause is coming

from the people whose main job
is to see lawlessness and stop it.

So, if the unions won't act
and the federal government won't act,

what else can you do as a civilian

to get accountability
if the police violated your rights?

You could try and sue the city
or the individual officer in question.

In high-profile cases especially,

they can be incentivized to settle
for astonishing amounts.

In fact,
over a period of five years,

the 10 cities with the largest
police departments paid out

a billion dollars in settlements
and court judgments.

I'm no comptroller.
Believe me, I wish I were.

A hard-to-explain, lethally boring,
elected accountant

whose title took a real word and
stuck an "mp" in the middle of it?

Come on!
That's my dream jompb.

Even I can tell you,

if you're spending a billion dollars
on misconduct settlements,

you might want to seriously
examine what conduct looks like.

And if a city doesn't feel
that it has to settle with you,

you're in real trouble,

because civil suits against cops
are nearly impossible to win.

Listen to a defense attorney
explain one reason

that it was gonna be difficult
for Michael Brown's family

to sue the Ferguson officer
who k*lled him.

Civilly, sure,
they could go after him civilly.

The problem is
he has qualified immunity.

He's gonna say that "I was acting
within the scope of my employment."

Yeah, and he is right about that.

Police officers are often protected
from consequences

due to something called
qualified immunity,

which sounds like something
you'd get from a horrifying cheat code

in "Grand Theft Auto".

I turned on qualified immunity
and now my car runs on prostitutes!

But it's actually worth taking
a moment to talk about that term.

Very basically,
qualified immunity means

that a public official is immune
from lawsuits,

unless their exact conduct

has already been ruled unconstitutional
in a previous case.

And I do mean exact.

Because small, tiny variations can
result in the case being thrown out.

This happens all the time.

One case was thrown out
because of the difference between

unleashing a police dog to bite
a motionless suspect in a bushy ravine

and unleashing a police dog

to bite a compliant suspect
in a canal in the woods.

Which I totally get, those are two
different kinds of outdoor holes.

And then, there was this case.

A federal appeals court has ruled
Seattle Police used excessive force

when they tasered a pregnant
woman during a traffic stop in 2004.

She was shocked three times
with a stun g*n

for refusing
to sign a speeding ticket.

Although the ruling was
in Brooks' favor,

the officer who fired the Taser
was given immunity

because the law on stun g*n use
was not clear yet.

That is absolutely ridiculous.
The method the officer used

to as*ault that woman
clearly shouldn't matter.

It's like if Jeffrey Dahmer
was declared innocent

because he cooked his victims
in an Instant Pot.

The crime is the k*lling, not what
f*cking appliance he used.

Now, the good news is there
is a chance that the Supreme Court

will soon decide to reconsider
qualified immunity.

There's actually a bill in Congress
right now to abolish it.

Even if it passes, it may have to wait
for a new president to sign it.

We may not get one of those anywhere
from the next four years to never.

But while ending qualified
immunity would be great,

that alone
isn't gonna be nearly enough.

And that brings us to our final point,
here: what do we do now?

There are a lot
of suggestions to look at.

Unfortunately,
some prominent Democrats

have been spitballing ideas
that are embarrassingly small.

And perhaps none
more ridiculous than this.

The idea that instead of standing
there and teaching a cop

when there's an unarmed person
comin' at 'em with a knife

to sh**t 'em in the leg instead
of the heart is a very different thing.

There's a lot of different things
that can change.

That lack of imagination
is not particularly inspiring,

but also not particularly
surprising coming from Joe Biden,

who is the "getting shot in the leg
instead of the heart" candidate now.

While that's obviously absurd,
the instinct that Biden displayed,

that the key question is not
if an officer should sh**t someone,

but where,
is shared by many politicians.

In New York, Bill de Blasio
has balked at making it illegal

for police to use chokeholds,
despite the fact that a chokehold

is precisely what led
to the death of Eric Garner.

But the fact is, the incremental
reforms that we've tried,

like the wider use of body cameras

and implicit bias
and use-of-force training,

are not, on their own,
going to cut it.

I'm not saying
that we shouldn't still try them,

but in many cases you are contending
with an entrenched police culture

resistant to any effort
to compel reform.

That is why many are advocating
we rethink police from the ground up.

One small example of this
is Camden, New Jersey,

which 10 years ago was policed

by a deeply troubled,
corruption-ridden force.

But in 2013, they dissolved
their city police force entirely,

with officers having to reapply
for their jobs.

And in doing that, they've been able
to meaningfully shift the culture,

while also instituting policy changes

that have led to both a drop
in excessive force complaints

and some re-building
of community trust.

I'm not saying
that it's been easy, perfect

or even
that it would work everywhere.

But, it should expand
our idea of what is possible.

One even broader idea
that's gaining momentum right now

is defunding the police.

That's a phrase that, on its face,
may sound alarming to some.

Just watch this professional alarmist
be alarmed on his very bad face.

Defund the police. No more cops.
That's what they're fighting for.

Seems like a fringe position, but in
the Democratic Party, it isn't anymore.

If you live in a gated community,
it might sound like a good idea.

You've got your own police force.

You have no plans to replace them
with rapid response social workers.

So, you're set
no matter what happens.

There aren't gonna be any r*pes
on your street.

But what about everyone else?
What's gonna happen to them?

Okay. First of all, in all sincerity,
Tucker, you seem nervous.

This is a difficult moment and I hope
that you're taking time for yourself,

and whether it's through meditation
or yoga, or just kidding...

f*ck you forever, Tucker Carlson,
you sentient polo mallet.

Second, given the shockingly
low number of r*pe cases

that actually result in charges,
much less, convictions,

I wouldn't be holding that up as proof
that our system is working well.

And finally: defunding the police
absolutely does not mean

that we eliminate all cops
and just succumb to "The Purge".

It's about moving away from
a narrow conception of public safety

that relies on policing
and punishment,

and investing in a community's
actual safety net,

things like stable housing,
mental health services

and community organizations.

The concept is that the role
of the police can then shrink,

because they are not
responding to the homeless,

or to mental health calls,
or arresting children in schools,

or really any other situation
where the best solution

is not someone
showing up with a g*n.

That is the idea
behind "defund the police",

if you actually listen to it.

Tucker Carlson
has the exact level of understanding

about the Black Lives Matter movement
that you would expect

from a man who always looks like
he just saw his first black Barbie

and feels confused,
but mostly scared.

As we know, many police will likely
resist any redistribution, hard.

Police unions often
paint themselves as essential

and everything else
as somehow frivolous.

Remember Bob Kroll?
When Minneapolis asked his union

to accept a pay freeze due
to Covid-19, here is how he reacted.

The first thing we said was:
"Okay, let's see the city budget".

They're pissing away millions
and millions of dollars to projects.

They're giving $15 000 a year

to the transgender coordinator
for the city.

Let's set aside the risks of v*olence
against transgender people,

particualrly trans women of color.

And instead, consider that the budget
for the Minneapolis Police Department

is $193 million,
meaning that 15 000

amounts to 0.008 percent
of their annual budget.

If that's pissing money away,

the city should really
see a f*cking urologist.

But guys like Bob rolling his eyes
at anything transgender-related

is exactly why it is time for
our conversation to go

beyond "How should
the police do their jobs?"

to "What, really, do we
want the role of the police to be?"

Too many still seem to think that
this is an issue of a few bad actors.

Listen to one officer unsuccessfully
try to make that argument

to some protestors just this week.

One bad hamburger at McDonald's
does not make McDonald's bad.

What the f*ck does that mean?

That protestor's right.
What the f*ck does that mean?

One hamburger
should mean a health inspection.

A few bad hamburgers might mean
McDonald's getting shut down.

And bad hamburgers
regularly k*lling people on the street

would mean that we'd maybe
all consider going f*cking vegan.

This clearly
isn't about individual officers,

it's about a structure built
on systemic racism

that this country created intentionally
and now needs to dismantle and replace

with one that takes into account
the needs of the people that it serves.

And this is gonna take sustained
pressure and attention

over a long period of time,
from all of us.

Black communities
have had to be perpetual activists

while also
routinely being disenfranchised.

And it is long past time
that the rest of us joined

to make sure that their voices
are heard and acted upon.

'Cause it's gonna be far too easy for
nothing to meaningfully change here.

That is what
has always happened before.

After the unrest
in the late sixties,

a commission was set up
to investigate and issue advice.

Many of its conclusions resemble ideas,
like police demilitarization

and broad reinvestment
in marginalized communities,

that are still being pushed today.

Testifying before that commission
was the social scientist Kenneth Clark.

He made this observation,
which remains depressingly true.

He said: "I read the report
of the 1919 riot in Chicago,"

"and it is as if I were reading
the report"

"of the investigating committee
of the Harlem riot of 1935,"

"the report of the investigating
committee of the Harlem riot of 1943,"

"the report of the McCone Commission
of the Watts riot of 1965."

"I must again in candor
say to you..."

"It is a kind of Alice in Wonderland
with the same moving picture"

"reshown over and over again,
the same analysis,"

"the same recommendations
and the same inaction."

We're in the same shit now
that we were in back then.

And if you're not
directly impacted by it,

it is tempting to look for a reason
to feel better about the world.

To look at cops kneeling and think:
"Well we just need more of that!"

But we need so much
more than that.

Because ours
is a firmly entrenched system

in which the roots
of white supremacy run deep.

And it is critical that
we all grab a f*cking shovel.

To do anything less
would be absolutely unforgivable.

And actually, to that point,
there is one person I saw this week

whose words have been echoing
around my head.

And you've been listening
to me talk for a while.

I'm gonna let her have
the last word tonight.

When they say: "Why do you
burn down the community?"

"Why do you burn down
your own neighborhood?"

It's not ours!
We don't own anything.

We don't own anything.

Trevor Noah said it
so beautifully last night.

There's a social contract we all
have, that if you steal or if I steal,

then the person who is the authority
comes in and they fix the situation.

But the person who fixes
the situation is k*lling us.

So, the social contract is broken.
And if the social contract is broken,

why the f*ck do I give a shit
about burning

the f*cking Football Hall of Fame,
about burning a f*cking Target?

You broke the contract

when you k*lled us in the streets
and didn't give a f*ck!

You broke
the contract for 400 years.

We played your game
and built your wealth.

You broke the contract
when we built our wealth, again,

on our own by our bootstraps in
Tulsa and you dropped bombs on us.

When we built it in Rosewood

and you came in
and you slaughtered us.

You broke the contract,
so f*ck your Target.

f*ck your Hall of Fame.

As far as I'm concerned, they
can burn this bitch to the ground

and it still wouldn't be enough.

And they are lucky

that what black people are looking for
is equality and not revenge.

That's our show. Thanks for watching.
Good night.