In this episode, Eric Butler is joined by the co-founder of Black Lives Matter Greater New York, Hawk Newsome, and Shavonna to discuss the recent victory for the Brooklyn Nets over the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA All-Star game.
00:12:31.060We're actually warriors who have minds, you know?
00:12:34.800So this mayor, and what's really sad to me is the press has given him a pass.
00:12:41.760From what I, last time I checked, Fox News was giving him a pass because he's pro-police.
00:12:45.740And liberal media in New York are just letting him do and say whatever without saying, hey, bro, you said you had a plan, and it's non-existent.
00:12:57.220Nobody is holding him accountable except for us.
00:12:59.560And the fact that he called us out was nonsense, but we had already been working on a plan to de-escalate the violence in our communities for a few months now.
00:13:09.340We're going to launch around the time of George Floyd's death.
00:13:12.020So we're going to keep working and doing what we're doing and let everybody else keep doing what they're doing.
00:13:17.240Eric, do you think it's weird that the New York City mayor would say, hey, activist group, you need to be more responsible for violent crime?
00:13:26.140Or do you think there's another side to this at all?
00:13:29.520Well, of course, Eric Adams, I mean, he's just a pure politician, right?
00:13:33.380He's not going to – he's a political puppet.
00:13:39.040But I think that this does sort of give us a glimpse in – like, this does sort of let us know that, hey, this actually isn't all about race.
00:14:32.520But I think there is also something to be said for, you know, maybe there is an avenue for Black Lives Matter to reach out.
00:14:42.080I don't know what they're doing as far as, you know, some of the gang violence that I was accustomed to and what's really going on in the streets.
00:14:48.640But maybe there is an avenue for them to combat that a little bit.
00:14:53.260But is it the mayor's place to say it and deflect from his responsibility?
00:15:20.240Have you had to answer for any of that sort of stuff?
00:15:23.400I know you're not, I don't think you're directly involved with the national group there.
00:15:27.380Have you had to sort of answer for that if people come down on you for that?
00:15:32.380Man, I am so tired of this conversation.
00:15:35.900Like, what's interesting to me, right, is, like, why people don't care about who in American politics, what senators, what congresspeople, had invested into these vaccine companies?
00:15:53.460Who was it that was involved with Halliburton when we went to war in Iraq and we were buying all the weapons from a company that somebody earned?
00:16:03.440Rumsfeld and the vice president, I think, as well.
00:18:15.820I don't want people to feel any type of way.
00:18:19.560The problem with Americans right now is they are lazy and they listen to people that sound like they know what they're talking about, but they're full of fucking shit when all you have to do is read.
00:18:32.980Like, there's this thing called redlining, right?
00:18:38.180And black people couldn't buy houses, right?
00:18:41.240So these houses that black people weren't allowed to get were sold for $10,000, right?
00:18:47.800And a great way to pass on – two great ways to pass on wealth, generational wealth is housing and insurance.
00:18:57.000So those $10,000 houses now on average are worth $500,000.
00:19:02.040So this is something that we were kept out of, that we could have built solid foundations on.
00:19:06.440If you talk about insurance policies, black people weren't allowed insurance policies to pass down generational wealth.
00:19:14.920If you want to talk about racism and policing, then you could talk about Eric Adams and his new stop and frisk policies that he brought back and how it's like 99% black.
00:19:27.000You could talk about the era of – the reason why I like talking about mass incarceration to conservatives is because Donald Trump came out and said, hey, you know what?
00:20:25.360I just don't – I just don't – I feel like even like what you said about the cops and how they try to prove to their superiors that they're not part of the streets or whatever.
00:20:37.920I mean, you know, we could talk about, oh, you know, I was a lawyer, I was a cop, I was all this, all that.
00:20:42.840But the truth is I don't think you genuinely know what all these people are thinking.
00:20:47.460I mean, how can you possibly know if a man doesn't genuinely want to be a cop and doesn't genuinely want to help his own neighborhood and just say that he's trying to impress somebody?
00:21:07.000When there's racism, when there's racism in policing, I have chiefs, I have white shirts, I have executives in the NYPD and call me to work a case.
00:23:02.780If you want to talk about people, if you want to talk about people not getting arrested in 2020, well, the attorney general, I love facts.
00:23:10.200The attorney general, Patricia James, Letitia James, actually filed a lawsuit against the NYPD, citing mass acts of brutality during the uprising of 2020.
00:23:24.340So not only were they arresting people, they were beating the shit out of people to the point where the attorney general has filed a lawsuit against them.
00:25:31.660And the second thing is, this is coming from a group of people, and not all, not every, but this is coming from a group of people that three years ago was,
00:25:41.320Believe All Women, I'm with her, you know, there was pussy hats all over the place, Me Too, all this stuff.
00:25:48.660It was all about women, Hillary Clinton.
00:25:50.680And then when they need to jump through their hoops, she says, I don't know what a woman...
00:25:58.400I mean, remember when Amy Coney Barrett was getting confirmed, and there's definitely some problems with her as well, but that's not what this is about.
00:26:03.920When she was getting confirmed, asked her for her religious beliefs, and she adopted kids and all this stuff, and they said, well, that's too ideological.
00:26:13.020But her pretending that she doesn't...
00:26:14.760And I say pretending because she obviously knows what a woman is.
00:26:18.720So she knows exactly what the truth is.
00:26:20.680But for her to jump through those hoops is very telling, and it doesn't fare well, I think, for just reality.
00:26:27.920That's going to slip reality right from under us and make it to the point where we see it now with the prisoners and the swimmers and, you know, the track stars and...
00:26:37.340Not stars, but track athletes and stuff.
00:26:54.580Do you have an opinion on her as, you know, a justice, a woman going into that position, a person going into that position, I should say?
00:27:00.080And two, do you think when Joe Biden says, the person I'm going to nominate has to be a black woman, do you think that sort of, you know, lessens any achievement or status she might have just by, you know, nominating her without saying that?
00:27:17.700We have been fighting for equity for so long.
00:27:21.560The reason why there were things like affirmative action, the reason why there's these pushes for inclusion is because white people kept us out of a lot of things.
00:29:41.200I'll take my crew of black folks who I'm out here running around trying to save my nation.
00:29:46.660And if you got some poor rednecks with some common sense, then we can sit down and we can have a conversation.
00:29:53.660Because at the end of the day, if these poor black folks and these poor rednecks are going to agree on this, this world is out to screw poor people.
00:30:02.580These politicians are prostitutes that are bought and paid for.
00:30:06.260Ninety percent of the people you see on the news don't care about the truth or advancing humanity.
00:30:13.080They just care about arguing their sides.
00:30:27.840And not saying that God is speaking directly through me.
00:30:30.180But, like, if you're a Christian, if you're a Christian, like, people will deny immigrants access to the country for food and water, right?
00:30:43.060But Jesus talked about feeding the poor and giving them a cup of water.
00:30:48.860Like, this country is so hypocritical.
00:30:54.200You have Mayor Adams who's literally kicking homeless people off the street, taking their belongings and throwing them in dumpsters.
00:41:49.100So you're comparing people who run a bank, who are given incentives, who make seven to eight figures a year.
00:41:57.820And then when they leave, they get something ridiculous in the seven to eight to nine figures.
00:42:04.980You're comparing those people to non-profits.
00:42:08.960So you're comparing an industry where people are giving tons of things to buy a bunch of property, to buy whatever they want, to people who aren't really supposed to be having that much money.