#1413 Reflec*on on Insurrec*on (Police, White Supremacy and their Champions) JAY TOMLINSON - HOST, BEST OF THE LEFT: [00:00:00] Welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of the Le; podcast in which we shall learn about the insurrec>on and police violence through the lens of White supremacy and the rise of the likes of Tucker Carlson who has become the leading spokesman for laundering White supremacist talking points through a marginally respectable facade. Clips today are from All In with Chris Hayes, a progressive faith sermon from Dr. Roger Ray, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, The Thom Hartmann Program, The Medhi Hassan Show andThe Muckrake Poli>cal podcast. And stay tuned at the end of the show for a big announcement about our first ever live event that you will be able to join and par>cipate in for free from the comfort of your own home. That's coming up on May 10th, and there's a link to detail's in the show notes. You can register just to be reminded there, but again, it's free. And as I said, I'll tell you all about it at the end of the show. But for now, enjoy. Jan. 6 would have been a massacre if police had reacted like it were a BLM protest - All In with Chris Hayes - Air Date 4-14-21 CHRIS HAYES - HOST, ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: [00:01:02] Today was a wrenching day in the Minneapolis area where the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin con>nued as his lawyers put forward their defense for the killing of George Floyd, all the while, in the streets, people are out mourning, angry, protes>ng, chan>ng, trauma>zed about the police shoo>ng and killing of Daunte Wright just a few miles away. And all of this happening as we approach the one year anniversary of George Floyd's death. The inescapable context of this is not just Floyd's death, it is the a;ermath of that death and the protest and the police response to those protests. And it is also inescapably what happened on January sixth at the US Capitol. And taking all this together it is very hard not to see some fundamental contradic>ons and how our country, the state, wields force against its ci>Zens. In terms of who has authority and who defers to whom in a police encounter, and who in the end fears whom. The case of George Floyd, Derrick Chauvin's defense is centered around Floyd being a threat, a figure so fearsome, so terrifying and unruly that he had to be subdued and knelt on for more than nine minutes, long a;er he took his last breaths. In their case, that is how dangerous he was, it's how terrifying he was, and you hear that a lot. Police officers, and they shoot civilian, that they were scared. In the case of Daunte Wright we have a 20 year old man was pulled over for an expired registra>on before officers discovered he had a warrant out for his arrest. And Daunte Wright was treated roughly, manhandled a bit. He was handcuffed. He was ordered around like a supplicant in a way that is fundamentally invasive to his dignity. It's not enjoyable if you've ever been at the other end of that kind of interac>on. When he a^empted to get out of that situa>on, he was shot, killed at point blank range by an officer who says she mistook her gun for a taser. Everything about that interac>on, everything about the George Floyd interac>on, the police are the ones with the authority, the control. They have the weapons on their side. They have the authority of the government. And in both cases, they let both, those men know they are in charge. The same dynamic plays out in so many of the protests we see right a;er these killings, with these enormous shows of police force. You remember Elijah McClain, the 23 year old black man who died in 2019 a;er police restrained him with a chokehold, who begged that he was an introvert, that he hadn't done anything wrong. His death got new a^en>on last summer following George Floyd's killing. And when people congregated to hold a peaceful violin vigil in his memory -- he played that instrument -- this is how the police in Aurora, Colorado responded: they stormed right into a peaceful vigil and ended up pepper spraying unarmed mourners at an event commemora>ng the life of someone killed by police. Now, this is an example, it's a bad one, but we sort of almost took it at random. I mean, this happened last summer in the middle of the largest civil rights protest against police brutality in modern history, literally millions of people par>cipa>ng in every state in the na>on. And it is true, we should be clear, that there are examples, they're documented, you can find video, right, of violence by those and other protesters, examples of lawlessness and property damage throughout the country in the context of tens of thousands of protests. But in the context of tens of thousands of protests and millions and millions of protestors, only a very small percentage of people were violent. And yet the police prepare, prepared and prepare for those protests like they were going to war. I mean, pick the city: Buffalo; New York City; Denver, Colorado; Portland, Oregon; Atlanta, Georgia; wherever. They look like that. They look like they're going to war. They have shields, they have big equipment. And they do that because they want to let people protes>ng know who is in charge, who holds the authority, who will bend the knee to whom. That's the point, explicitly. It's a psychological performance. That's what we saw on the streets of Minneapolis and Brooklyn Center over the last few nights, the show of force with curfews and tear gas and flash bangs. And now just take all of that, all of that footage we've seen before last summer, during last summer, and since, and now. Take all of that and just look for a moment at the u^er inversion of what happened on the steps of the Capitol in January. There was hardly any police presence at all. I mean, there were officers there, right? And I've covered mul>ple protests in Washington,. There tends to be a lot of cops around when people are protes>ng, par>cularly on the mall or the Capitol. But on January 6th, there was rela>vely speaking almost no one there. And they don't have the big MRAPs and the huge bits of equipment brought in, they had these li^le stanchions in front of them. Like they look like bike racks. But it's not just the actual for>fying, the presence, it's also notable in the interac>ons of the police with the people. Again, who's doing the in>mida>ng, who is ordering who around in those interac>ons. During the insurrec>on, it is the overwhelmingly white mob telling the cops what to do. Barking orders at them. It is the mob with the authority. It is the mob that has the cops trying to cajole and nego>ate with the rioters. I mean, you could hardly blame them. They're outnumbered, they're in physical danger. Right? But the fact that it got to that point, the fact that it got to that point, is what's so shocking. ARCHIVE FOOTAGE : [00:06:54] Any chance I can get you guys to leave the Senate wing? We will I just wanna make sure they ain't disrespec>ng the place. I just want to let you guys know. This is like the sacredest place. CHRIS HAYES - HOST, ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES: [00:07:07] "Any chance I can get you guys to leave the Capitol?" I mean, how many black folks in this country that are pulled over for a tail light, air freshener. How many get that as the opening line of the officer at the window? That police officer gently asking insurrec>onists to leave the Senate chamber. This was the aktude despite the fact, there are hundreds of people at that moment violently invading the center of American democracy in an explicit a^empt to subvert the peaceful transfer of power. Despite the fact that nearly 150 police officers were injured. Cops have their eyes gouged out and were beaten and tased and crushed and concussed and threatened to be shot with their own guns. And despite all that, there was one, one discharge of a weapon, as far as we know. And fair warning, it is disturbing a watch, the tragic shoo>ng and killing of rioter Ashli Babbi^, at the moment when she was about to bust through a broken window. With hundreds, upon hundreds of screaming, angry people behind her, bea>ng down the window, steps from the chamber that contained at that moment actual members of Congress. And in that moment, as a last resort, that officer there, fired a gun, fired one shot and he killed her. Today, the Jus>ce Department said it will not file charges against the officer who shot Babbi^. And it is awful that she is dead.