Ep. 249 - From Tulsa to Minneapolis - Why History Repeats Itself

Jun 1, 2020

Ninety-nine years ago today, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, one of the most beautiful, prosperous, wealthy Black communities in the world was destroyed by terrorists. Today, with George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, protestors across the globe, and the 1921 destruction of Black Wall Street in mind, Shaun teaches a lesson on how and why history repeats itself. 

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99 years ago today in Tulsa Oklahoma one of the most beautiful prosperous wealthy black communities in the entire world was destroyed by terrorists call them what they are they were white supremacist terrorists and they burned down thousands tens of thousands of homes and businesses

and slaughtered hundreds of men women and children by plane by fire by Firearms by lynching and more and here we are 99 years later fighting the same terrorists who still think they can Lynch our sisters and brothers

in broad daylight in the open for us all to see today with my mind on George Floyd on Brianna Taylor and Ahmad all Brie with my mind on protesters across the country and my mind on the destruction of Black Wall Street 99 years ago

I want to teach you a lesson

if you don't mind I want to teach you a lesson on why history repeats itself and tomorrow I'm going to give us a plan this is Shaun King and you were listening to the breakdown the breakdown

I'm actually not a professional Instagram guy and I think a lot of people know me for the work that I do on social media and the work that I do as an organizer but I'm actually a historian by training my undergraduate and graduate degrees are in history

and every time we end up in this moment of another black man another black woman brutally murdered by police

I feel the repetition of it all and I think that's a lot of what's going on in the streets with protests and demonstrations and these protests and demonstrations they're not just in New York and Los Angeles I literally am seeing them happen in Fort Wayne Indiana and Erie Pennsylvania I'm seeing them happen in small towns medium-sized cities big cities megacities not just in the United States but all over the world

because I think the accumulative effect of it all has really beaten us down it's too much it's too much for our hearts it's too much for our minds we are we are ready in many ways to act out in response to it because when we demand Justice we rarely get it when we say this needs to stop it doesn't

and it's put all of us in a position where we feel like we're backed against the wall in a corner and when you Corner somebody after a while they're going to respond to get out of that corner and that's what I think we're saying that 99 years ago

one of the most beautiful brilliant prosperous black communities listen to me in the entire world was destroyed by white supremacists terrorists that's all it was domestic terrorism one of the deadliest acts of domestic terrorism in all of American History perhaps the single deadliest hate crime in all of

can history as thousands tens of thousands of people lost their homes as thousands of homes and businesses were burned destroyed set Ablaze from planes from above and people on the streets men women and children were killed people were lynched

and it destroyed not just Black Wall Street a beautiful community in Tulsa Oklahoma

it destroyed a part of what would have been a brilliant black future like when we think of Tulsa today we don't think Prosperity we don't we don't think black Brilliance you might think Atlanta you like there are cities you that may come to your mind but it changed it altered the entire future of what was possible for Black Folk in the midwest at that time

and it took forever not just for Black America to recover but to this day and I've been to Tulsa I've been to Oklahoma I don't think they ever recovered that was 99 years ago and I want to teach us a lesson for a few minutes and it's

the primary lesson of my book make change which comes out in August I wish you had it in your hands right now it was actually supposed to come out several months ago but we delayed it because of the pandemic but God I wish you had it in your hands

in the book I teach a lesson that is one of the lessons that I have taught all over the country

is that history continues to repeat itself but we are not in this steady upward Progressive trajectory where humanity is getting better and better and better over time I know we want to thank that the 60s were better than the 50s and the 70s that were better than the 60s and 80s than the 70s that's not actually how time works it's how we want it to work we want to thank

that we're getting better and better and better over time it's not how time works instead time is cyclical where sometimes we are getting better other times we are getting worse and we repeat the patterns of progress and pain progress and pain progress in pain we get better we may take two steps forward but then the world takes multiple steps back

back if we were getting better and better over time think about this let's say human beings have been alive let's give it a round number for 10,000 years if human beings have been here for Ten Thousand Years the transatlantic slave trade took place four hundred years ago all the way to the 1860s like it took place in the last one percent of human history how do we explain

if human beings are getting better and better over time how do we explain the Holocaust how do we explain Rwandan Genocide how do we explain the famine and War in Yemen how do we explain the rise of mass incarceration how do we explain the explosion of police brutality if human beings are getting better and better over time that means we've had 10,000 years to do this and we should be so good that there should be virtually no

no evil we explain it because that's not how time and history actually unfolds instead human beings seem virtually incapable of learning real hard sustainable lessons from the past

and so we see painful things that happened 99 years ago that happened last year but happened last month we see them repeating themselves over and over and over again and I need to explain to you why that is it's because on a psychological sociological level human beings make decisions out of their values

so in 2020

when a police officer has to make a decision they don't think about Eric Garner they don't think about Amadou Diallo they don't think about Tamir rice or Brianna Taylor they don't think about 2014 or 2015 they don't think about Freddie gray they make a decision and let me let me let me even be more specific you and I make decisions out

of our values our decisions emanate out of a place of value of principal who do you value what do you value that determines your decisions not history not the lessons from history now if you value the lessons from history maybe what happened in one of the thousands and thousands of police shootings or

or moments of brutality maybe that informs the decisions you make but if you don't value history and this is where the rubber meets the road if you don't value black people

the decisions you make and the decisions you avoid making will reflect the fact that you don't have a value for black people in your heart in your mind in your ethics and the decisions that you make or refuse to make come out of that place of a devaluing of black life and black people so when we say black lives matter which is a phrase we never should have had

say when we say black lives matter

it's because we are constantly faced with people and systems and institutions that don't treat black lives like they do do you hear what I'm saying and so when a police officer here's brother George Floyd saying I can't breathe get off of me when they hear George Floyd say I'm dying when an EMT not an EMT who was on the

seen But of but someone who just happened to be there when George was dying checked his pulse and said listen he doesn't have a pulse and they continue to remain on him

it's not just that they are repeating history as it was done with Eric Garner they are literally just making decisions that come out of their value system they don't value black life if they did they'd have got up off of George if they did they probably never would have been on him in the first place

you've heard me say this before but I always try to replace

George Floyd with some white man or woman of privilege and to understand the Injustice of it I just asked myself would they have done that to fill in the blank white person of privilege would they have done that to to somebody of means who is white period would they have done that to a famous white person would they have done that to to any white woman

they have done that to any white man and I began to interrogate those questions and when you look at what they did to George Floyd for nearly nine minutes including nearly three minutes after he was either dead or completely unconscious

and ask yourself would that have been done to anybody white I don't think there's a single person in America who will say yes

and it's because they made a decision from their value system

we are up against people whose values are disgraceful

whose values and principles and ethics are disgusting and bigoted and racist and you don't have to be a police officer or a person who uses Force to have problematic values at some of what I've been trying to talk about here even over the past week is that your worldview your philosophy of the world you may say well shit Sean I don't even know that I have a philosophy we all have what I would call an operating

philosophy you might not have written it out and saved it in a Google Document but the way you live your life that's your operating philosophy the way you see the world whether you spell it out or not that's your operating philosophy and what we are learning is that in 2020

the operating philosophy of so many people looks just like it did 99 years ago and Tulsa

whether they are killing us from Planes of fires that are mod all Brianna Taylor and George Floyd were lynched as if it was

Tulsa as if it was 99 years ago it might as well have been in fact we have now more people killed per year by American police then were lynched per year all the way back to the early 1900s that's where we are right now we are in that period of American History where the number of unarmed

violent Black Folk who are killed by police Rivals the single worst years of lynching which takes me to our action steps for today tomorrow which is Tuesday I'm recording this on Monday but you could be hearing it anytime tomorrow we are launching the Grassroots law project now

we have been working and organizing with the families of a mod Aubrey and Brianna Taylor and George Floyd and we have had over six million people sign up and participate and make phone calls and do all types of actions with us and we are still fighting for justice for a motto Opry we're still fighting for justice for Brianna Taylor we're still fighting for justice for George Floyd we're still fighting to save the life of Rodney Reed

still fighting to free Chris Kearney we're still fighting to to do good work all over this country but now the Grassroots law project needs you tomorrow we're asking you to sign up to become a volunteer to become a backer a donor a supporter we're going to have practical ways that you can get on board we're going to have a plan a policy

Ian and a plan of action and we need all hands on deck tomorrow Tuesday you're going to be able to go to Grassroots law dot org and check it out listen I've got to run we're prepping for that launch we've got a lot to do history repeats itself because the values don't change I hope you caught that point tomorrow we're going to change how we respond we're also going to point us in a way that's

active and not just reactive make sure you're following at Grassroots law on Instagram and prepare to meet us tomorrow at Grassroots law dot-org take care of your body break it down break break break break break