“Van Jones on racial justice” by Tara Brach
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[0:00] Van Jones: I’m glad that we’re doing this this week.
[0:03] If we had done this
[0:06] a week ago, I probably couldn’t have...
[0:08] couldn’t have been a part of it.
[0:09] Just because there was so much heartbreak.
[0:14] I think the world saw something that’s been happening
[0:17] in our country for... centuries...
[0:20] saw a black man
[0:22] lynched by a white man.
[0:26] That’s what that was, that - that video.
[0:27] And it broke us,
[0:31] that broke the black community
[0:34] to watch something like that happen.
[0:37] One minute.
[0:38] Two minutes.
[0:41] Three minutes.
[0:44] Four minutes.
[0:46] Five minutes.
[0:48] Starts calling out for his mother,
[0:49] his mother’s been dead for years.
[0:51] Six minutes.
[0:53] Urinating on himself,
[0:55] begging for his life.
[0:57] 15 times, “I can’t breathe.”
[0:58] Community screaming in horror.
[1:00] Eight minutes and 46 seconds.
[1:07] These videos have been a part of American life now for
[1:09] almost seven-eight years.
[1:!2] IT was always so, “Well, it was a quick decision
[1:15] and cops gotta defend himself.
[1:16] He was talking back, he was fighting back.
[1:17] What’d you want?
[1:18] What’d you expect, you know?
[1:19] Can’t second guess the police,”
[1:20] But this one, this one.
[1:25] Filed from beginning to end.
[1:29] Stunned the world.
[1:31] And for all of the times that we have been lynched,
[1:34] we’ve never had a situation where
[1:36] a billion people could see it all at the same time
[1:39] on their smartphones.
[1:42] And it shoved a piece of glass into the eyeball of everybody on the planet
[1:48] and it hurt - it hurt them.
[1:50] People couldn’t sleep,
[1:53] having seen it, they couldn’t rest.
[1:57] And if we had tried to have this conversation a week ago,
[2:00] we probably couldn’t have.
[2:04] But a miracle is taking place.
[2:08] A miracle is taking place.
[2:11] A continent of new common ground has
[2:15] emerged from beneath the waves where
[2:19] there are twenty-thirty-forty million
[2:22] white Americans saying,
[2:24] “racism is real,
[2:26] more real than I thought.
[2:29] There’s something wrong with our justice system.
[2:30] It’s more broken than I knew.
[2:34] What can I do about it?”
[2:35] As an African-American man,
[2:40] it’s a miracle.
[2:43] It’s all I’ve wanted is to be acknowledged.
[2:49] That what is happening is happening,
[2:51] and that we need to do something about it.
[2:54] And now we are in the middle of something we don’t know what it is.
[2:58] We don’t even have a name for it.
[3:00] You know the Civil Rights Movement at the beginning.
[3:04] At first it was just people trying to fix a problem
[3:06] and later on they called it the Civil Rights Group.
[3:10] We don’t know what this is.
[3:14] NASCAR says they’re not gonna let confederate flags fly anymore.
[3:19] The NFL is apologizing
[3:22] for not supporting Colin Kaepernick’s peaceful protests
[3:26] years ago when he was trying to call attention to this.
[3:29] You have people, corporations
[3:31] across the world saying “Black Lives Matter”.
[3:37] What is this?
[3:39] We don’t even know what - we don’t know what to call this.
[3:43] 1964
[3:45] they called it Freedom Summer when those students
[3:48] went south to register voters.
[3:49] Some were killed, some were beaten,
[3:51] but they changed history.
[3:52] But they didn’t call it Freedom Summer then, they called it -
[3:55] it was two years later when a book came out
[3:57] called Freedom Summer.
[3:58] They didn’t know they were in Freedom Summer.
[4:02] So we’re in some awakening,
[4:04] some great awakening.
[4:06] We’re much more as possible
[4:10] than we had dared to hope for.
[4:21] Somebody killed a black man
[4:23] and everybody cares. It’s a miracle.
[4:30] It’s never happened, it’s never happened.
[4:34] Somebody killed a black man
[4:36] and everybody cares.
[4:40] [Van Jones sighs]
[4:42] I wish my parents were here to see this.
End of transcript
Video Channel: Tara Brach
Video Description:
This clip, from a recent online event, is featured in Tara’s talk on 6/17/2020, Sustaining Our Caring. You can watch the full talk at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VoW8...
Listen in at: https://www.tarabrach.com/sustaining-...
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Disclaimer and preface: None of the videos I transcribe belong to me. They belong to the content creators and the crew behind the videos.
My transcripts may not be 100% as I am not a professional. I'm just someone who wants to provide video transcripts for people to understand and enjoy these videos.
For this video, I focused on the speaker. If there are any corrections you would like me to make, let me know in the comment section of the post.
If you like this video or any other video from Tara Brach, please support by watching her videos on the YouTube platform and through other means by her.
If you wish to support Van Jones, he has a website which includes his socials such as his YouTube channel.
Consider these sites below as a starting point:
https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/#
https://blacklivesmatter.com/resources/
https://www.archives.gov/research/african-americans/vote/freedom-summer
https://www.blackpast.org
https://www.horizonsfoundation.org/black-led-lgbtq-nonprofits-making-history/
https://blackfilmarchive.com
If possible, check out any organizations, bookstores, libraries, community/youth centers and more in your communities and outside of it.
If you know any other resources, please comment them below.
Personal Notes: This was the one I accidentally deleted. The funny thing is, usually you get a box that says like “Are you sure you want to delete this post?” or something like that and I must of clicked yes. Anyways, it’s back up. End of story.
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