Speaker 1: Before we get into this excerpt of my one woman show,
Speaker 1: What Would the Ancestors Say? The Live from LA twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five edition, I want you to know that you
Speaker 1: can check out the full two and a half hour show,
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Speaker 1: the Ancestors Say is now also available as a book
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Speaker 1: Took the assassination of the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King
Speaker 1: Junior to push the pen for housing rights. So MLKA
Speaker 1: had been a very prim and proper negro right. He
Speaker 1: was very much that in the part in the Fight
Speaker 1: for Black he marched, he got arrested, all of that,
Speaker 1: but he was willing to work with the whites from
Speaker 1: a place of moral grounds. He really believed, like he
Speaker 1: genuinely believed that the issue we faced as black folks
Speaker 1: in the United States was really much more of a
Speaker 1: disconnect from it's humanity. Like if we just show them
Speaker 1: that we are human like them, then they'll get it.
Speaker 1: You know. We just haven't had the chance to do that.
Speaker 1: So using passive resistance was a way we could disarm
Speaker 1: their hatred love. I mean, it was a noble vision.
Speaker 1: It was a noble vision. What's I hate? Or should
Speaker 1: I say a dream? It was right there, however, and
Speaker 1: where do we go from here? Community or chaos? The
Speaker 1: last book he wrote before being assassinated on that fateful
Speaker 1: balcony in Memphis, Tennessee, he laments that a year after
Speaker 1: the Voden Rights Act had passed, though the law changed,
Speaker 1: the American sentiment toward the Negro, the black, the colored,
Speaker 1: whatever you want to call us, had not, Malcolm Pete
Speaker 1: marchers in Chicago were being attacked by thousands waving Nazi flags.
Speaker 1: Sorry s s okay, all right. Negro leaders present in
Speaker 1: Selma were removed from the offices of their organizations huh,
Speaker 1: and political candidates like Ronald Reagan, who was running for
Speaker 1: governor of California, or campaigning on a message of make
Speaker 1: America great again. This was the burning house that MLK
Speaker 1: Junior feared. He'd integrated people into, one that, though built
Speaker 1: on a blueprint of morals right, was not furnished with them.
Speaker 1: In the book, he lists a series of frustrating realities
Speaker 1: that led him to a damning conclusion. The great majority
Speaker 1: of Americans are suspended between these opposing attitudes. They are
Speaker 1: uneasy with unjust, they are uneasy with injustice, but unwilling
Speaker 1: yet to pay a significant price to eradicate it. Does
Speaker 1: this seem familiar. We're so often sold a version of
Speaker 1: doctor King that is palatable to the oppressor, like one
Speaker 1: that depicts him as like an obedient subject, passively asking
Speaker 1: for their rights on bended knees like Pisa or rights,
Speaker 1: rather than forcefully demanding them when in actuality, he was
Speaker 1: only twenty six at the start of the Montgomery Boycott,
Speaker 1: and by his death he was thirty nine. You know
Speaker 1: how much you change and that amount of time. Like
Speaker 1: I was dating drug dealers in twenty six, I still
Speaker 1: was at thirty nine. We fall down, we grow up.
Speaker 1: So like though MLK may have started seeking integration. He
Speaker 1: eventually saw through the diyes and understood that it was
Speaker 1: capitalism that was allowing racism to subsist. Like Ooh. He
Speaker 1: began to support the labor unions. He questioned government allocation
Speaker 1: of resources. He advocated for reparations where we cut in
Speaker 1: the jack. It was after all of this, when he
Speaker 1: had evolved into Martin Luther Lucking, that this nation thought
Speaker 1: to be rid of him. And upon his exit, the
Speaker 1: cities went up in flames. Folks had been living through
Speaker 1: assassination after assassination after assassination after assassination, I mean riots
Speaker 1: broke out, with anger and frustration and betrayal pouring into
Speaker 1: the streets. The powers that be knew there was no
Speaker 1: control to be found without causing a massacre. It was
Speaker 1: righteous rage that screamed you will not ignore us. And
Speaker 1: in their fear and desperation of a populace living in
Speaker 1: their power, the American leadership did what they always do.
Speaker 1: They pacified the people with another hen Nigger law, the
Speaker 1: Fair Housing Act of nineteen sixty eight, signed just days
Speaker 1: after we lost MLK, and it outlawed discriminatory practices in
Speaker 1: the sale, rental, and financing of housing. The fact that
Speaker 1: they had to make laws to outlaw the discrimination tells
Speaker 1: you everything. They never wanted us here, Not when we
Speaker 1: had to use the Green Book to navigate a safe
Speaker 1: route through the South. Not when the officers who beat
Speaker 1: Rodney King, the officer who killed Eric Gardner Garner, the
Speaker 1: officer who killed Eric Garner, and the wannabe officer who
Speaker 1: took the life of Treyvon Martin all walked free. Not
Speaker 1: when Breonna Taylor was shot asleep in her bed, Keisha
Speaker 1: McHale was shot thirteen times sitting in the park car.
Speaker 1: We still have no idea what happened to Sandra Bland.
Speaker 1: They never wanted us here, Not when they abandoned New
Speaker 1: Orleans after Katrina, calling them people refugees in their own country,
Speaker 1: Not when the maternity mortality rate of Black women remains
Speaker 1: three times that of white, Hispanic and Asian women due
Speaker 1: to discriminatory healthcare. They never wanted us here, And so
Speaker 1: I do not consider myself American. I'm Black like I'm
Speaker 1: of us, but I'm not them. If we were, we
Speaker 1: wouldn't have had to raise our voices again during BLM
Speaker 1: to declare an inalienable fact Black lives better. The footage
Speaker 1: of George Floyd being lynched by the chokehold of that
Speaker 1: bastard cop. The same rage as the beatings of Bloody Sunday,
Speaker 1: the pouring of acid into that swimming pool and the
Speaker 1: taking of another leader's life. By the way, I just
Speaker 1: I think a lot of relationships were saved due to
Speaker 1: them protests during COVID, because like, after being cooped up,
Speaker 1: I think folks was like, you know what, let me
Speaker 1: get out of this house, get in this revolution before
Speaker 1: we get at a boss my beret and this time
Speaker 1: flurri few all over the world, but people in London
Speaker 1: were knocking over statues of white men. I didn't know then,
Speaker 1: I take that lunch Chessel, what fucking Tony you gotcha? Cottons,
Speaker 1: Bloody broy Once again the people rose, but before we
Speaker 1: could turn our pain into praticis and coalitions, once again,
Speaker 1: they found a way to quiet our descent. Happy Jonesy
Speaker 1: here nigga. Watch the full two and a half hour
Speaker 1: show of What would the Ancestors Say? Live from La
Speaker 1: now streaming only on Patreon. Amanda Seals Smart finding It.
Speaker 1: Thank you for your support of SMARTPHNNY and Black Productions.
Speaker 1: We are a completely people powered movement, and you will
Speaker 1: allow us to continue to do the work of decolonizing
Speaker 1: minds by any joke necessary.