Van Lathan Jr. (77:00)
All right. I think that that's, I, I, I hear you. I do this kind of way I look at it. So I gonna, you know, I don't like binaries. I don't like binaries. Binaries a lot of times rob a situation of nuance, and I have to be better about that. My knee jerk is to say there are no good cops. But that's really what I believe. And the reason why I believe it is because the structures and culture of policing is just rotten to the core. And it's been rotten for so long and it's been deteriorating for so long, it would take a while to build, build it back up. I obviously have no problem with the video. I think that the rage in the video is actually more useful than politeness would be because from a group like the police, respect invites victimization. To me, when you show too much deference to a police officer, in my opinion, most police officers, the power trip that they often are on to me is heightened. It's heightened. When you show too much deference, too much respect to a police officer, the power trip is heightened. There should be a stern and a direct interrogation of what are you doing here? Whenever you are stopped by the police. Now, I'm not the type of guy to hurl insults at people and do all of that stuff. That's just kind of like not my way, right? But I would prefer that way than anything that seemingly accepts the authority of a police officer in a situation where you're not doing anything wrong. If I'm not doing anything wrong, get from out of my face, like, legitimately. No, hey, officer, we're just right here doing right here. Because what happens after that is okay, I know you guys are right or just right here doing this, but I don't want to see this invalid. You know, we're around here, blah, blah, blah. No, no, no, no, no, no. None of that. Not doing anything wrong. I'M well within my rights. Get back into your cruiser, break out. As a matter of fact, what are you doing wrong in the middle of the street? Can't do that. Whatever. Get out of my face. Break out. To your point though, everybody has different jobs. Everyone has different jobs. And when I say I don't like binaries, I also don't like one size fits all way of looking at things. Meaning we have to have brothers like the Panthers. And what the Panthers have always occupied from a historical point, which is self reliability programs to feed children, programs to educate youth, programs to make people politically aware, but also guns. Like the gun laws in California changed because brothers with guns said we are not going to let brothers and sisters, excuse me, with, with guns, said we're not going to be intimidated in the communities that we live in. And Reagan and them was like, nah, we can't let black people have weapons. So we got to take that away and make guns very, very hard to get. Right. But these are people who say my rights and my freedom is not up for debate and I'm not going to politely ask for it. As a matter of fact, when you encroach upon it, I'm going to say get the fuck out of my face and why are you doing this? Like I'm a say get the fuck out of my face. Like what are you doing? I'm not doing anything. I haven't done anything. I'm not going to do anything. Get out of my face. Break. That's here. Also though, if you want to be somebody that works in concert with the police or policing or other structures like that, have at it. Like, like have at it, go for it, have at it, make. There have to be people that say defund the police. And then there also have to be people that say abolish the chokehold. Meaning there has to be a reimagination of public safety, but there also has to be an understanding that the police are here. And then you have to have people who are trying, trying in ways to reduce the harm that police can do to communities. All of these mayors that we talked about on the last time, these guys are working with the police. These guys are sitting down and having conversations with the police. And the stuff that they're doing in these, in, in these communities, that stuff is working right? But at the same time, you either are an American or you're not. There is no middle. Malcolm X said that he, Malcolm X said there's no such thing as a second class citizen. There is a citizen and a non citizen it doesn't come in way either. You can be like, I'm not doing, get the fuck out of my face. And the police get back in their cruisers and get the fuck out of your face. Or the police say, nah, nigger, you can't talk to me like that. You are dead. The second person is not a citizen. The first person is your anger as a police don't give you the right to do anything differently than uphold the law the way that it is written. And so when I watch this and I saw a lot of people go. Because there are two things that are happening. One thing that is happening is people are responding to this, looking at those two brothers as police. But another thing is people are responding to this, looking at those two brothers as black men. And I completely understand, I completely understand when people don't like to see black people talk to each other like that. Sure, yeah, I do. I call it out though, because I'll be honest with you, there are certain black people that you don't give a fuck how, what kind of names we call them or what kind of. And we, there's certain black people, we don't care. And the question is, why don't the police meet that standard in this situation? Maybe you, maybe you don't believe that there's no such thing as a good cop. Maybe you do think that they're a good police. Maybe you think the police. A lot of black people that I know at the, the peril of rambling here, which I'm good at, a lot of black people that I know when I would go back home and I would say, hey, let's reimagine, defund, abolish, whatever, they would be like, hell no. The only thing that's like protecting us from these is these cops. And they will say, and they would say that, they would say, we would actually prefer there's a. So this is not an issue where there is as much cultural oneness as we think that there might be, but there also doesn't have to be. As long as we're properly educated on what policing is. As long as we're properly educated on what policing was and the way policing really affects communities, then deal with it in the way that you, that you need to.
