Ear for Eye (2021) Movie Script
1
So you're gonna
just continue this like
like you don't see me,
like you can't...
- I can't.
- Wow!
There's this sound.
Feeling. A presence...
A presence, it's in the room
and it's getting closer...
You sound like you in church...
Gotcha!
- So, if I put my hands up?
- A threat. Threatening.
- Slowly?
- Provocative.
- Showed my palms...
- Inflammatory. Could be.
Resisting. No.
- But somewhere, like...
- Definitely no.
- To just... But. But...
- Uh-uh. Defying. Aggression.
- An act of aggression.
- But just to show that they're...
That won't work
that doesn't work son.
Belligerent.
- I didn't... but I wasn't...
- I know.
- But by my...? Not even by my...?
- Attitude.
Concealing.
Obscuring. Cocky...
But I'm just cold.
- Masking.
- What?
I know, son.
- My hands together...
- Sarcastic,
- challenging, provocative,
- But... Mom!
Which is, can be,
is incendiary to them.
Holding hands,
holding hands come on...
Collusion, complicity,
complacency and...
Who you holdin' hands with?
Attitude, arrogance,
insolence, defiance.
Don't do that.
Don't do that. Don't!
Don't. Don't son.
- Aggressive.
- But I haven't...
Aggressive.
I know, I know, son.
Antagonistic. Ignorant.
Just hostile.
- But...
- Hostile.
Right.
Nuthin about this right.
If... If... If I look...
If I look at them as a man
which you said was good.
As a man then, right?
Which you said was good.
'Confident', which you said
was... how you raised me.
We did.
So. Confident. Confidence.
Confidently looking at them...
It's good but not... Good.
- It is, but it's not.
- If I look away?
- Confrontational.
- Mom!
Bold, evasive, elusive,
ambiguous, cagey...
But if I turn away...
If I turn? Mom,
turn away to-to-to...
Go to make like I...?
No.
- If I turn away to walk away...
- Son...
- Turn, so that I...
- No.
So then... but I'd be...
Impudence, disobedience,
impertinence.
But I'd be... My back,
turn it so that my back...
Don't turn your back,
don't turn your back.
If I look away to avoid
looking at...
- Guilty...
- But if I look like I'm lookin'
but just look past...
No. Doesn't work, won't work.
If I look at the floor...
Hell no. We didn't raise you
to look at no floor son!
Then...
But if I...
Then...
Then.
Before the sun got cold,
turned the skies to grey,
before the wind got busy
and rain decided
it couldn't be fucked to fall.
Before the seasons decided
they weren't worth changing
we wasn't worth the effort
we weren't worth changing for.
Before the cars start up
before the streets start to fill
before the workers work,
before the cleaners clean
everybody else's dirt.
Before the air gets thick
before the air gets stale
before the air isn't and but...
Before the organised call,
the call and response
before the coverage,
the courage,
the placards, the publicity.
Before the official route,
the phone footage,
the T-shirts,
the graffiti, the street art.
Before the famous,
before the congregation,
before making it family-friendly
sound bite-friendly
before making us look friendly.
You okay?
Before leaders
appointed themselves
before speakers
lined up to speak
before people stood up and spoke
stood up and spoke for me
without askin' me if I needed
to be stood and spoke up for.
Before those
that want to be at the front
to be seen at the front
push up front being up front
pushing past to be present.
To be seen to be seen.
Before it was uploaded
- downloaded, offloaded, done...
- Son?
Before they tried to dissect it
disrespect it
tried to disrupt it
counter it, infiltrate it,
to destroy it.
Before they thought
they got away with it.
Before the liberals
tried to claim it,
reinterpret it
appropriate it.
Before the dogs spat
and the pigs barked
and the people spat
and the dogs barked,
before hateful eyes
more hate-filled
than their hate-fueled mouths.
When actions
were actively violent
violently violating us
and inaction was violent
violently violating us.
Before our children
had no chance to be children,
had no choice
have no choice
but to be involved.
When involved was physical,
was difficult, was dangerous,
is physical,
is difficult, is dangerous.
Is relentless.
When protest was risk... is risk
when lynching was sport
is sport.
When their norms
that weren't normal
aren't normal
were called out are called out
called on and challenged.
When what's been sanitised
was messy was painful
is messy, is painful.
When what's been epitomised
was, is and will be
fuckin' hard.
Before our history and her-story
got, gets, is shiny-fied
and simplified
by those who were never there.
Before those that's sleepin'
shout loudest 'bout they woke
And how.
The wokest of the wokest
of wokedom confusin' those
that don't know no better
confusin' theirselves.
Before the dead...
Our dead turn in their graves
'til they can't turn no more
tossing in their unease.
Before all that...
Before alla that...
I was here.
We was.
Is all I'm sayin'.
It's not a competition.
It's not no competition.
- It's not...
- But if it was...
shit.
We woulda won.
When I was picked up
and didn't know why
and asked and asked
when they told me
I was being aggressive
- when I weren't.
- You weren't.
When they said I was shoutin'
when I was speakin'...
You was speaking.
- Then changed it to I was...
- Acting aggressive.
When they wouldn't answer me
when I asked them
what "acting aggressive" was,
when they changed it to
"you're talking aggressive".
When they joked at themselves
that we all...
Sound aggressive.
To them, anyway.
When they said
I was being provocative...
And I asked them, "How?"
And they said, "Physically."
And I asked them, "How?"
When there's four a them
and one a me.
And they said,
"Asking was provocative,"
and I said "Asking ain't
physical," and they said...
"Your mouth will get you
into trouble
so best you shut up."
When I asked them, "Why me?"
"Fits the description of."
And the description
they described was so shit.
It was laughable.
When the second of the four
said, "Stop that."
The third of the four
a them cuffed my hands
sayin', "See?"
I stopped speakin'.
But then I started shoutin'.
I did start shoutin', fuck it!
And my people stopped to see
and saw the four of them,
and the one of me.
Some a the young ones
witnessing.
Filmin', phones out
like a high-tech self defence,
but then threatened
to keep walking with,
"There's nothin' to see here."
It being made
clearer than crystal
what would happen to them
if they didn't, so they...
An elder shouts back,
"Know your rights, sista!"
The four of us
got more rights than you
and we know them better
than the few you got
that I know you don't even know.
Your silence can be used
against you in the court of law.
Why is all of this even...?
You'll get all you need to know
down the station.
When they said
my reluctance was resistance,
and my hesitation
was obstruction,
when they dropped
"Resisting arrest"
like it was a lyric,
dropping me
to the concrete like a reflex.
When I was pushed in the back
into the back of their car
cuffs cutting my skin,
but holding my shakin' voice
to just about not shake
and steady say
as passively as I can that
"I think you have the wrong... "
"Your mouth
has already got you here.
You don't learn, do ya?"
When I sat in that cell,
with the fourth of the four
of them standing on his ones
tellin' me how we become unwell
can become unwell
tellin' me the suicide rates
of us in their 'care'
tellin' me
that they could say to you...
I feel sick...
- Come on now.
- Not sick-sick but sick
they got me feeling some toxic
mothafuckin'...
Excuse my fuckin' language.
You ain't the first.
Young thing. No way near.
Excuse my language.
There's been smarter,
will be smarter there is smarter
I'm not trying to-
but they'll be...
I say I was the smartest?
I say I was the best...?
There is smarter
there is better than you.
You sit and wait on perfect
if that's what you waitin' on
some-some super
freakin' college hero
some higher fuckin' being
intervenin' in this shit...
Young 'un!
You sit and wait on that perfect
because I never said I was...
Could be was...
You don't get
to put words in my mouth.
You waitin' on perfect,
still waiting.
Your ill-informed
not fully-formed
half-thinking words in my mouth,
shit words in my mouth?
You don't get to do that.
- I said...
- Sir, I ain't said... sayin'...
Would say that 'bout me. Sir.
So...
How you do?
How you do this?
How you do you?
And don't say, 'You know.'
- I do me despite the...
- I'm doin' me
tryin' to do me
won't let me be me
and I ain't despitin' nothin'
I'ma change some shit
to allow me to be me...
You gonna let me finish?
Did you finish?
If you finished
what you finished we wouldn't...
I wouldn't be...
You got a short memory
and a disrespectful mouth
fill one before the other
and I suggest
you start with that,
to affect that.
Stop you soundin'
like you stupid!
Don't shake it for me.
- Young 'un you tellin' me what...
- No, sir.
No Sir, but...
I said, give me a reason to not.
- It's not easy.
- Ask if it was?
- Don't get no easier...
- I said it did?
- It's hard to live with.
- I can live with it.
Aint in his name.
He ain't here to specify
that's the point!
- He never said for this!
- He never said, "Not for this"
and if he were still here
maybe he would've said
"Do somethin'."
Do fuckin' somethin'!
You do somethin' for me
if it was-
It wasn't and it aint.
You do something for me if it
was?
Would you?
Would you?
And if it ain't in his name,
there's a list,
century-long of names
that I could...
would...
will...
do it in if you ain't gonna
give me no good reason to not.
It will lead to a blood bath.
This is a blood bath.
- Would lead to a war.
- This is a war.
- You couldn't survive.
- Barely surviving now.
You ain't helping.
You ain't helpful like this.
How has this shit helped?
Read a book. What? Then what?
Shake your head at a article?
See a image, turn over the TV,
walk past a protest, then what?
Really, how has... and I
ain't talkin' about no dusty shit...
Young 'un don't question me.
Don't.
Go listen to those
who have lived more than you,
years on you,
talk quieter than you,
and listen harder to them
that don't say a damn thing.
Look at how they know
what they know,
what they seen, what they been
what they weren't able to be
so you could.
If you shut your damn mouth
for two minutes
you wouldn't have to be asking
half of your stupid questions,
Sir, I ain't...
And fuck
your disrespectful respect.
Excuse my fucking language.
Y'dun know!
I done somethin' you see me
do the thing I done?
Shittin' bricks trust me but
I know, I knew, I knew you know?
Aah! It's like...!
It's like... Look at my hands.
Look at my hands, they...
Look, look, look!
That's not me doing nothin'...
That's not me tryin' nothin'
that's them on their own!
That's not even me... Ah, shit!
- Shit!
- Adrenaline.
Fuckin' hell, fuckin' hell!
I feel it through
my fuckin' chest
pumping like a...
Could have a heart attack.
- You're not having...
- Coulda had a heart attack.
Could be having a fuckin'...
Feel it, feel it, feel it!
Fuck it, can you catch
a asthma or somethin'?
You're not having
an asthma attack.
- Man, it feels like it.
- You're not even asthmatic
- for fuck's sake.
- It feels like it!
No one tells you
bein' right is this painful.
Trust me, if this is
what being right feels like...
Man! I done somethin'.
I did, I went...
- You only went cos I...
- I went cos...
- You only went because I said.
- I went...
Because you aint never been before
because you started to feel bad
you one was missin' on somethin'
Went cos I was on you about
going from the times
I'd been without you, from day.
You're late!
Gave you shit to watch.
You watch it?
- Invited you to...
- Never knew there was a timetable.
- You read what I gave you to...
- Never knew I was on the clock.
You see what I WhatsApped?
What I shot,
what I showed, what I exposed,
what I spat out on my socials?
You watch what I risked
while I stood there
and stood there,
witnessing
and recording the Sista
shouting from across the way
with the four a them
in uniform and the one a her
- You watch that?
- I saw some...
Any of that? All a that?
Did you even bother?
I saw some shaky shit
shot from far.
Heard you filming
and complying with the,
"There's nothing to see here,"
with the, "Switch that off,"
saw that brief,
brave, brief encounter
as you switched up,
switched off and...
You'd never even bothered
to come to...
Ugh, we all know why you go.
Always tellin' everyone...
- Knowing why I'm supporting it, yes.
- Right on.
Large or small, hot or cold,
cause after cause.
Hear wot.
The two minutes I'm there
I've done more than you
in your two years
of attendin'
and flyering and talkin'
and marching and real talk,
achieving fuck all!
Wot?
I did somethin'.
I made a difference,
made a mark.
Did you even see what I've...
Or was you too busy
standing at the back
from behind the safety
of someone's back.
Back of the crowd,
back of the bus,
inconspicuous, ineffective.
Maybe you had your head
in a book on how to march
while I busy upfront doing it.
See, if it was me not comin'
out of no cell
or comin' out of some cell wrong
I'd want more than just hashtags
of fuckery to your ten family followers
or-or filming somethin'
from so far back
no one can even see
what the arse it was
we were meant to be seeing.
'Cos if I 'became unwell'
I'd want me marchin' for me
witnessing, filming
more than someone like you.
Wot?
Nah. If it was me...
But it ain't you.
Is it?
Ain't about you is it?
It's about all of us ain't it?
What?
Me goin' triggered your green-eyed
marching monster, is it?
From the two-minute fuckin' marcher,
glad you had a good time.
I ain't saying
I had a good time nothin',
'cos you made it clear
that would been doing it wrong...
- Glad you enjoyed yourself.
- That no enjoyment is to be had.
Glad you got yourself seen.
Take a selfie
while you was doing it, did you?
I was at the front.
People stepping back
don't mean you stepped up.
I was left up the front
stayed up the front
which is the same
as stepping up.
Cos me doin' my little bit looks like
it's a little more than whatever the fuck
you was doin' from wherever
the fuck you was not doin' it.
- It was a march.
- I marched.
- It was a protest.
- I protested!
- It was a demonstration.
- I did that!
Did that!
I did that and then some.
Didn't I?
That something will miss you,
someone will miss you,
miss you hard.
Harder than that.
- But that's not the point.
- No.
- That doesn't matter.
- No.
Means of value, of value.
- I am.
- Yes you are.
Yes you are, but you're not.
It means of worth.
Know you are.
You are more valuable
than I could think,
than I have thoughts for
than I have words for.
It means
that it would be meaningless
without you here.
I would be meaningless
without you here.
Your momma would be meaningless
without you here.
Your daddy couldn't,
wouldn't without you here.
I can't even remember
when you weren't.
Life was just as before you was.
My life just is before you was
now it's as good
as with you in it.
Wasn't this as good as
before you were in it...
And we were good.
But since you...
You grew me,
as much as we grew you, son,
that's how much.
But that's not the point.
If you weren't here
it would be
a crippling difference.
Yeah.
An indescribable, crushing,
unbearable,
agonising, excruciating,
horrendous,
unspeakable difference
if you weren't here son
I'd miss you.
- Dad...
- Your mom would miss you.
Me missing him
doesn't matter, wouldn't matter.
That's not the point.
- It means can mean...
- Substantial.
You are substantial.
You are, but you're not.
You are, but you're not.
You are. I get it from you.
And substantial
isn't invincible.
- Dad is.
- Substantial isn't invulnerable.
- You are!
- Substantial
shouldn't have to be,
shouldn't need to be...
But it needs to be.
Substantial isn't unshakable.
You don't shake, Dad.
Dad don't shake.
You don't shake.
You shouldn't
have to be unshakable, son.
But you do.
You mean the world to me.
You mean the world to me,
you mean the world to...
You mean the world to us.
- It means...
- Loved. Loved.
You are so loved.
- I am.
- You are.
More than this world could know
more than this world owes you.
And it owes you.
I love you.
I know son, but you're not.
You are.
But you're not.
I love you Dad.
Love you Mom.
Not the point.
Dad?
Dad.
What did you do with your hands?
You know, it...
I just -. I aint the one to...
You still talkin'?
I ain't someone to
march 'til I drop about it,
is all.
I know petitioning and
politic-ing does fuck all for it,
aint gonna hashtag it, aint
gonna Instagram it.
I ain't a one
to kneel and pray about it,
sit down, sing about it.
I ain't the one
with your patience for it.
Waitin' on their timetable
for it, nah.
Progress is a bitch, yeah.
Progress is a slow bitch
with a wandering mind
that drags her bare feet,
but change?!
Change kicks ass.
Change don't give a fuck.
Change gonna do its thing
with or without you
and it moves the fuck on.
Change fucks shit up
kicks progress' ass,
drop-kicks slow,
slaps up excuses.
And I'ma change shit
cos I gotta change this shit
- aint got no choice, but to.
- You got a choice in how you...
I wanna see... .
Cos we ain't doin' like you.
You all like to be liked
waited to be liked.
You ain't me.
You wanted to bring along.
I ain't looking their company...
- You soundin' younger than you is...
- I'll ride this shit alone...
You wait for respectable change
ain't fuckin' polite.
'Scuse my language.
We still having to have
the damn talk,
having to work around
a work around,
working around
the fucking basics their
base behaviors.
What the fuck
do I even do with my?
And I respect
the shit thatchu did,
even though
it don't sound like I do.
But you need to
respect and accept the fact
that it... failed.
You... Failed.
With all due.
Them is still taking liberties
still taking mine.
They ain't changed.
Don't wanna change.
They ain't got no intentions
of changing.
So let's start from there.
Give me a reason to not.
- Yeah? Same thing?
- Yeah.
We've done this -. At least.
We're on the same page.
- We'll speak-
- Yeah-
Let's do it. Let's do it.
Threat... Threatening.
- Provocative?
- What?
Shh!
Inflammatory?
No.
- But you can't just...
- Yes, I can. No.
Talk to him
like a man. He's a man.
Aggression?
An act of aggression?
You're not even sayin' anything.
'Cos you're taking over
the whole conversation.
Belligerent?
Attitude.
To them!
Oh, nice.
Dad!
Concealing, obscuring...
- No. This is not how it's...
- Cocky!
Go on then.
What, I can speak now?
Son?
That's all you gotta say?
What do you mean
'that's all I've got to say'?
- Oh, but...
- Look...
- What the hell did we...?
- After we-? After what we said-?
You never said shit.
I said something.
How would you tell him then?
Not like that.
You told me you got told...
Don't!
I'll let him know
what I wanna let him know
how I wanna let him know, yeah?
Cos I know.
I would know.
Wouldn't I?
Challenging.
- This isn't...
- Provocative.
- This isn't how we...
- What?
This isn't what we said!
Arrogance, insolence,
ignorance, see?
- How? How?
- Defiance!
Fuck!
To them, to them.
Too loud.
No too loud.
- See, I'm doing all the work.
- Can I even say anything?
Too loud!
Confrontational!
- Confronting.
- Yes.
- No!
- Yes.
No. No!
We didn't raise you
to look away, son.
You don't look away.
You don't look at the floor,
you don't look down,
you don't avert your gaze.
We ain't raised you to do that,
or be that, son.
I called him "Sir"
when I didn't have to,
afforded him that
when I shouldn't have had to.
Called him "Sir."
turning my empty palms
showing my emptier than empty
fucking palms.
Still called him "sir."
As I raised
my open, empty hands,
quietly called out
his wrong rights
that he was wrongly quoting,
and continued
to quote at me more wrongly.
Called him "Sir."
as I made his wrong position
calmly clear,
he clearly not appreciating
being questioned
or corrected,
or even in being correct.
And he was wrong.
But I still said "Sir."
Not raising my voice
more than my hands
though I got
every goddamn reason
upon reason to that,
to do that, but...
Calmly called him out
without cursing,
explaining my civilian position,
my civilian rights to his
uniformed wrongs and wrongness.
Got that right that is right.
- Right?
- Right.
I spoke level,
I conversed calmly,
I did not speak
with my hands or my body.
His voice rising,
I did not rise with it or to it,
his hype rising,
I did not rise with it or to it.
His control gone.
Mine? Intact.
That's right.
I did not gesture,
I did not sharply move,
I did not quickly move,
I did not make that mistake.
I thought
I did not make a mistake.
When I showed my palms,
I called him fucking "Sir."
When I raised
my empty, tired hands,
I called him "Sir."
When I moved
where he shouted at me to move,
stood where he barked
for me to stand
stopped filming his actions
when he screamed for me to stop,
at gunpoint,
his gunpoint.
As I stood there
unarmed and alarmed.
As I sat there
unarmed and alarmed.
As I lay there unarmed and
alarmed.
I still called him...
So, if I put my hands up,
if I show him my palms,
slowly showed my tired, empty
fuckin' palms...
If I'm struggling with self...
Don't struggle with self.
Definitely
don't struggle with self.
Right.
Although this shit is enough
to drive self to...
And I still...
called that motherfucker...
"Sir."
Premier
primero.
Forst.
Danish, baby, first.
Top of the damn class.
Them symbols,
numbers, equations,
that everyone thinks
is over hard,
are under control
and is my thing.
Head in books
'steada in the clouds,
though I'm the one
who knows exactly
what those clouds is made up of.
Ass in the library
'steada out and about
and Dad did say,
"Don't bother come home
if you ain't got
what you're capable of gettin'."
He funny like that
cos that's coming from
the man who ain't had nothin'
but built
himself up to somethin'
who I look up to as everything.
I focused,
and when I brought back
my high marks
from my hard work,
what that brought
to my daddy's face...
And my girls know
not to mess with me
when I'm on it.
"Geeking out",
their words, not mine
know not to distract with their,
"Leave her to it, y'all."
The brothers know
Oh, she gone in.
Letting me alone and proud of me
sticking with it.
So, I knew, before we saw,
what I felt,
when I felt, what we felt.
We gotta step
but the mood is still tight,
vibes still hype,
holdin' on to each other
for collective heat
as we placard holding, chanting,
our anger sang
as we marching our fury,
crowds of us,
was us is us. Beautiful.
Collectively strong.
Loud and prouder than proud,
a dark sea of us
as far as anyone can see.
And they have
and always have had,
something in hand, in they hands
fearing a fair fight.
And we pass the old woman
that's always out.
Always out first
looking at us like we late,
looking at us
like we ain't serious.
But this downwind tingle
in my mouth
is starting to...
We gotta move, people!
I get some turned heads
for my cold girls, "Huh"?
A too late What? from the
freezing Brothas
as the flash-bang does its job.
Hearing snaps back, jarred back
by my hacking and choking
and hacking
and choking of us all
the shouts and screams of us all
tears swelling,
racing, falling, swelling,
racing, falling,
not of sadness or anger,
too sad for that,
too angry for that,
but my eyes trying to flush out
the chemical irritant
that is infecting them.
And that old woman
who been out here
from before time goes down.
My skin burns it's meant to.
My nose burns it is meant to
breathing feels like you can't,
throat getting to closing,
and closing getting
to choking I'm...
I'm drooling like a baby.
Yo, don't rub your eyes!
Don't rub your eyes, y'all!
Beautiful crowds
of us scattering,
vomiting, crying, panicking,
placards dropped,
chanting stopped,
messaging blocked,
marching forgot,
protesting fucked.
Black bodies
staggering into each other
red eyes barely seeing
a watery half-nothin'
running the wrong way,
cos no right way can be seen
through that milky white mist.
As the Storm...
Mothafuckin' Troopers keep
advancing,
barking at us
to "Clear the streets!
Clear the streets!"
Knowing full fuckin' well
we can't.
Chlorobenzylidenemalononitrile.
To those who didn't study them
symbols,
numbers, equations,
they science,
they chemistry, they physics...
Teargas...
is a motherfucker.
Now you mad at me.
Now you're mad.
I'm not mad at you.
Sir.
I take out the one
who could be
the father of the father
of the one who could be
the father of the father
of the one
who takes out a son of yours,
that could be
the son of your son.
I take out
that father of the father
and history is better for it.
And your son of your son
could be the real
change maker.
Real game changer.
Revolutionary.
So I could've played
my part in a little way
with a big repercussion,
that's a big, good thing done.
A really
motherfuckin' big change.
In a small way.
In a one, small action.
That small action,
my small action,
that's all that I'm sayin'.
You won't know
who the father of the father...
- Neither do you.
- Or the mother of the mother,
or the child of the child
would or could be.
You losin' your own argument
before you...
The risk of being right
is a risk worth takin'.
It...
It would be in cold blood.
It's fire with fire.
Give you sleepless nights.
- Can't sleep now.
- It won't look good.
How is this looking good?
Would bring a backlash,
more of a backlash...
I'm' just lashing back
the backlash lashing me.
I'm provoked.
- It would bring...
- Have been for centuries.
And the backlash lashes back
at the drop of a hat
their drop of a hat, don't it?
You're...
You're better than that.
But...
This ain't working.
Is it.
You know...
when I was picked up
and didn't know why,
when they said
I was being aggressive,
and I weren't.
When they said I was shouting
when I was speaking,
I was speakin'.
When they said I was acting aggressive
when I never was...
You wasn't.
And told to shut up
when I asked them
what acting aggressive is,
when they switched that
I was talking aggressive,
then joked to themselves
that we all sound aggressive
to them anyway.
When they said
I was being provocative
and when I asked them, "How"?
They said, physically.
And when I asked them how, when there's
six of them and one of me, they said,
"Your mouth is gettin' you
into trouble,
so best you shut up."
When I asked...
they smiled.
"Fits the description of"
but the description
they described, was so shit.
So shit.
So shit.
Again.
When they said,
the second of the six,
that I was
gesturing aggressively,
and my palms raised
in a passive,
the second of the six
cuffed them.
Saying, "See? See?"
When they told me
to stop speaking,
so I stopped speaking,
and the second of the six
who had cuffed me smiled,
saying my silence could be used
against me in a court of law.
When they challenged me
to say something, I said nothing.
When they provoked me
to say something, I said nothing.
When they...
When they mocked me to speak,
provoking me to get a reaction,
I said nothing.
They in my face, said nothing,
said nothing. I said nothing.
They daring me
to do something, to do anything,
and when I
still said my nothing,
they challenge me, agitating me,
goading me, taunting me,
mocking me saying my nothing,
and when I didn't react to anything,
they baiting me to do somethin'
say anythin'
and when I did react,
they said
I was resisting arrest.
When they said
my hesitation was obstruction,
dropped "resisting arrest"
harder,
than they dropped me
to the concrete,
sayin' I'm makin' it worse
for myself...
With their knees in my back,
five of the six...
I couldn't think how much worse
it could fuckin' get.
Then it was.
Worse.
In the back of the van.
When they watched me
when I wouldn't,
then shouted again, "Strip."
"We told you to strip."
When I wouldn't and didn't,
and the second of the six,
not smiling now,
said that I would.
How I would,
how I will, that I will.
I still wouldn't.
"Not gonna tell you again."
When I was standing
in my boxers...
like a fuckin' five-year-old...
trousers around my...
"Strip."
"Thank you
for your cooperation."
Just like...
Like... like it was...
Like... Like it was fuckin'...
Fuck.
I put my hands up.
A threat. Threatening.
It was slowly.
That shit don't matter.
- But I didn't...?
- Aggressive.
- No, but I... Come on!
- Aggressive.
- Just to show that they're...
- Doesn't work.
Doesn't work, hun.
It was slowly.
Attitude.
- It's cold!
- Attitude.
Cocky, concealing.
- But I'm...
- Aggressive.
- No. I was just...
- I know.
Holding hands.
Holding hands.
Come on!
I put my hands up,
I raised them slowly...
I slowly showed my empty palms.
Did you see?
Did you see?
- Does it matter that I do?
- What I had the nerve to do?
You there to be seen,
doing it, or what?
You need me to see you doin' it.
You want an audience.
What?
Or you doing what you doin'
cos you know why you doing it...
- Did you see from the back?
- Or you dunno what you're doing
and you're confused
why you're doing it.
Back of the crowd,
back of the bus,
back of the line,
polite, liked.
That where you was?
Again?
Could you see from there?
Could you see me from there?
I wasn't looking for you.
Did you hear the,
"Yo! Don't rub your eyes y'all"?
You hear that from the Sista way
over from wherever you-?
Did your eyes burn
like mine did?
Or was you too up wind when I
was down of it?
Was you rush rinsing your eyes
with water - any water,
stung by the evil clouds of
fuckin'... . Or you just stood?
Casually sipping yourn,
watchin' the carnage
you couldn't really actually see
cos you so, so, far back.
Shit.
This ain't about you.
It ain't about me,
but it's about me. Collective.
- Selfish.
- Communal.
- Self-centered!
- Empowering.
Egotistical!
I was on point up front.
Made a difference. Made a
mark.
Made my mark.
And me doin' my little bit
looks like
it's a little bit more'n you,
and whatever the fuck
you was doing,
have been doin',
not doin', at the back.
It was a march!
Marchin' days is over.
It was organised!
Which does what?
It was a protest!
Protests fail.
It was a demonstration!
Demonstratin' what?
Again, again, again.
They don't listen
they haven't listened
and I ain't waiting
no more to be heard.
They ain't changed...
They don't want to!
I ain't wait no more
for them to bother.
I demonstrated. Demonstrated
that these hands - my hands.
Don't fuckin' play.
Man.
They offer crumbs.
You want a slice.
You want a slice?
I want the fuckin' pie.
- Twelve?
- Twelve.
Not eight, then?
Someone said that wrong,
written it down wrong somewhere
and it's been lazily repeated.
- It was...
- You're lazily repeating it.
- A male child...
- A boy...
Yes. Well observed.
- I...
- Almost teenage,
and... but you know,
a father leaving
is damaging in a boy.
Developing years...
Damage... Damage done.
- But I think that...
- The studies say, the studies...
- But I think...
- The studies say,
and I didn't come to you
to ask you what you thought.
You've come here to ask me.
I'm here, you're...
But the mother,
the mother wanted...
You know,
the leaving of the father
from the family home
at around that age,
for a child, or a boy,
or that boy, is dramatic.
It's traumatic.
But...
The kids testified
they were comfortable...
What I've told you, am telling...
There was very little drama...
Explaining,
is that it was a factor.
Possibly... Probably traumatic
to that 12-year-old child.
- Any child.
- That 12-year-old.
- Any child, though.
- Specifically.
Specifics, yes?
Yes?
No, sir.
- I think that...
- You've read what I've read?
I'm sorry,
you've studied what I studied?
- I...
- You've got the... that I've got?
That's the no.
I welcome discussions.
Discussions I do and I welcome...
- No, I...
- And I'm open and up for that,
but equally, I welcome people
to admit
when they're... Yes?
And I appreciate,
I'd appreciate people here
who come in here, asking
whatever it is you're asking
to have read the studies
and done your homework
- before they...
- I have.
Or, if they
don't know about, or...
have a lack of...
There is nothing wrong in that.
In admitting that.
In saying that.
And I know there's worse, I do know
there's worse than what he may have.
He had sisters...
And although not totally
comprehensive, the studies say...
One older sister, one younger,
both okay, both normal.
- Normal?
- Yes, and that...
Normal? Now, that's a term.
And as far as we...
They're fine, is what I meant...
Fine? Normal?
Now, are we gonna have to...
- What I mean...
- You know, those terms...
I know.
- I... Yes.
- A little outdated.
- Yes, I meant...
- Yes. Do you?
Yes.
- Relative.
- Very.
- I meant... What I meant...
- A course,
more than one course
for learning
about those kinds of terms.
- Did you?
- I don't have to...
- Have you?
- I don't... didn't...
Don't need to.
You think?
I am not underestimating you.
I would appreciate it if you...
Thank you.
And... But, with domestic
violence thrown in...
There was no domestic...
With domestic violence
in the mix...
- There was no domestic violence.
- I... With abuse of any kind.
There was no abuse.
Documented or stated.
Sir.
Well, we don't know exactly.
We don't know what's normal
behind closed doors, do we?
The mother categorically said...
Who's fine behind closed doors.
The kids said no,
as well as the sisters, I mean.
The normal sisters?
- I said...
- Are you speaking for them now,
as well as for everyone else?
Maybe the father was good at it.
Left no bruises,
left no marks...
Bit of an expert at it.
Maybe he was
as good at what he did,
as I am at what I do.
It's completely different,
kind of, you know, but...
Anyhow, an open... An open mind
and an open attitude are vital.
It's critical. Crucial.
The mom worked part-time...
Now you're mumbling.
The mom worked part-time
as a supportive,
loving homemaker,
God-fearing...
Dad worked. The dad worked.
Three kids between them,
all academically average,
income average or just above,
if it was a good year.
Economically stable,
childhood sweethearts,
married young, too young...
- In your opinion.
- Drifted apart and separated amicably
- I think if you read the report, studied the studies...
- There's nothing...
And it's not my opinion
I've studied...
- The studies it's in the report...
- Then you would see-
- There's nothing to see.
- You seeing it how you're seeing it, is subjective.
You seeing it your way
isn't necessarily 'fine'.
- I... What I...
- Or have I got to fall in with you
so we both can see it your way?
Your right way?
Which is only a way, by the way.
And is wrong.
Anything else you wanna state?
That I disagree.
Got that.
Think I'm capable of...
My problem is...
My problem with you is...
I didn't come here
to be a problem.
- My...
- I didn't come here
to be a problem, sir.
He was, actually still is,
as he's incarcerated now,
the son, not the husband,
a damaged young man
who did a damaging thing.
- 'Damaging!'
- A young man
doing a one-off act,
who gained access to firearms,
legally held within the house,
his mother's house,
after the father had left,
and who the mother, ironically,
and it's in the report,
- I've read it.
- Asked her husband, ex-husband,
to leave the firearm with her
as she felt
that she and the girls,
- and of course the son...
- I've...
would feel more vulnerable
without it.
- I've... I've read it all.
- All...
That she ends up being,
is sadly ironic and unfortunate.
A fantasist, destructive one,
yes,
but a one-off, violent act
by a young, damaged fantasist,
by a boy,
who by all means had issues,
that may have been exacerbated
by the leaving of his father
when he was 12.
- Twelve.
- Twelve, yes.
A fantasist. He's that.
Specifically.
- Nothing spontaneous.
- No, no.
Researched.
Before you could Google
your destruction of choice.
Not an adolescent,
not 11, not 8.
This one went with a friend.
But he wasn't, you know, they...
I don't think you know
they would've had
their whole social circle...
Exactly.
They had a social circle.
No one's saying
they were popular.
People knew them,
they knew people.
And it was 12,
but who really knows who.
- What?
- Who really knows...
- But...
- Who do you know?
- Sir, I...
- Really know, you know.
- This isn't about me, so I...
- No, but I was just...
Who do you know?
Really know then.
Sir.
I...
I don't really care
who you do or don't know.
And your lack of an answer
does really answer...
- I know people. I know people.
- I know people.
I really know people.
They really know you?
- This isn't about...
- No, it's not, but do they?
It is about my point,
as I've said.
You... Your people
really know you then?
Or you don't got no one
to know you good
in the first place?
Just trying
to understand your point.
Now, that's just sounding petty.
- If he...
- They.
They had
a large enough social circle,
someone would stop him. Them.
So, I think my theory
the theory, the studies stand.
Not if their social circle
all thought like them.
Which would
just make them all wrong.
- My point.
- All being wrong,
isn't the point.
You could be wrong.
Your friends, if you have any,
I'm not prying,
could all be wrong.
A hundred and twenty dead.
Right-wing radical disaffected.
- That's the...
- Eighteen children.
A disaffected right-wing
radical with his friend, is the point.
- They were...
- Non political.
Well, being pissed off
with the government
isn't exactly political,
and would cover most of it.
- But they were...
- No.
- Both...
- A domestic,
homegrown act of violence
carried out on a large scale,
I'll give you that.
Unprecedented,
I'll give you that.
A homegrown act of violence
carried out by disaffected
right-wing radicals,
that, yes.
Specifically yes.
It's what they were. Are.
Those two. Yes.
Kids shooting kids
isn't confusing.
They were high school
by high school.
Not confusing.
And these ones weren't loners,
and they weren't poor
and they weren't isolated.
- One of them was depressed.
- Had got beyond
8 or 11 years old,
which you seem
to find so risky for your...
Twelve,
and your sarcasm isn't helpful.
I'm just making sure
we've covered...
- It's how you're...
- No, no.
- Yes.
- I'm just trying to not...
No, you're not.
One of them
was struggling with...
He vlogged,
I think that's the term for it.
He vlogged it, though nobody
seemed to be watching,
seemed to have followers
of exactly two.
Depressed.
And obviously being depressed
and being teenage,
- can be a difficult...
- Depression is not an answer.
- We're not doing answers.
- Depression is not an excuse.
- I'm not giving excuses...
- Teenage is not...
I'm giving reasons,
if you would let me, even.
Reasons that are in the studies.
Two armed teenagers
shooting unarmed teenagers
at their same school...
One really was depressed,
probably clinical.
Actually, he wrote a manifesto.
And the other?
- You know, I think...
- Was a bit sad, was he?
Drew a picture
of intent on a Post-It?
- I'm really starting to think...
- And you know, really, I'm just trying to...
- Starting to think that you...
- I am just...
I dunno why...
- I'm just making...
- Why you're not taking this seriously.
- I'm taking this as seriously...
- Why are you even here?
Why are you here?
I am absolutely serious
about this.
Sir.
The second follower
he had on his vlog,
was his friend.
The only one they could find,
which was unfortunate,
as together they became, well...
The depths of disaffection
can be destructive.
Disaffection.
- And coupled with...
- Their young, tender years.
You wanna be taken seriously...
- I'm disaffected.
- You're disaffecting.
- Sir, I just...
- What?
- You're saying teenage is a factor.
- Yes.
Filming a miserablist vlog
and writing a note is a definition?
The studies say...
Being disaffected
is justification...
- What I'm...
- For you...
An aspect
for those two specifically.
All those definitions afforded
and... and both male...
- No, it's not.
- Is an aspect
- both from...
- No, it's not. Those specific two individuals.
- Both are...
- Not the issue.
- Both are...
- Not the point, not an issue.
And again, you know, if I can
just get a word in edge ways.
- I...
- It's domestic.
Domestic is different,
and depression is mental health,
and mental health
is a whole load
of other issues right there.
I get depressed.
I get depressed but...
And to make it personal.
I don't load up,
take aim and start...
This is your way of trying...
And I've come through teenage,
somehow managing
- not to massacre...
- They aren't you.
They aren't me, but me,
we aren't allowed to be them.
And are you?
Are you...
depressed?
- I'm fine, but you see my point?
- No.
- The fact that I... Mental health...
- Actually, no.
- Are you, or aren't you?
- What?
- Having a good day?
- A depressive.
Aah!
I...
Yes.
Yes.
I am.
And it's a bit
of a bullshit argument...
I think you're... I think you're
sort of taking what I say...
Excuse my language, sir,
bullshit to try and make that...
What I was trying to say,
you know, taking it out of...
And it's not helpful
to make it personal.
I didn't need you to disclose...
- I didn't disclose I just made a point.
- Disclosure's personal.
I answered your question
and made a valid...
And personal gets emotional,
and neither
are useful in this context.
This is not...
- As I said...
- Really, this is not me...
And I don't appreciate your use
of bad language, by the way.
And as I've said,
we are not here
to talk about you.
This is not me emotional.
She said emotionally.
With all due respect,
I think your personal
is clouding your judg...
You know,
it may have been personal
to the seven dead classmates
whose two peers armed themselves
with semi-automatics,
pipe bombs and a plan,
not forgetting
the handwritten 'manifesto'.
I think that was very personal
to those murdered.
Sir.
I'm not saying they're not bad.
- Or disaffected.
- 'Disaffected'!
- Depressive?
- A depressive psycho,
no offense,
with a death wish,
and an evil young man
with no moral compass.
An absolute domestic,
high school,
non-political disaster.
- No.
- A cultural phenomenon
that can sometimes
manifest itself
within some teenagers.
Yours?
You want...
a small word
for a big subject.
But... So.
No.
Specifics. Yes?
Specifics matter.
You and your personal issues
don't.
Dear God.
He had parents.
We don't blame the parents.
- You don't blame the parents?
- Not the parents.
He had family.
- We don't blame the family.
- You don't blame the families?
You can't blame the family.
You don't blame your families?
- Families aren't accountable for it.
- But ours are.
Do you blame their upbringing?
A lone wolf may have
specific psychopathic tendencies
- that may have been missed.
- I'm taking that as a no.
Mental health?
Asperger's, autism,
one of those undiagnosed,
- is suspected.
- Killer autism.
On the spec...
Semi-automatic, automatic pistol
killer Asperger's autism.
I've got Asperger's.
- I've got...
- Have you?
Have you.
I don't quite...
I don't quite get why you are...
No, you don't, do you?
I'm just saying
another aspect of...
And interestingly,
this lone wolf
came from a single parent.
Dad had left some time earlier.
- 'Twelve'?
- No, 14, actually.
- Fuck.
- I'm sorry, what?
What is it about facts
that you're finding so hard to...
His act wasn't political,
he acted in isolation,
and he may have had
issues with his mother.
It was his mother's gun,
in fact, he shot his...
- I know.
- It's unfortunate.
And there's other factors.
- Seventeen dead.
- A psychopath.
- 17, excluding his mother
- Yes.
19, including him,
if you wanna include him.
Well, if...
If he really matters.
Well, there was
a marriage breakdown
with his parents, actually.
- 'Actually'.
- A possible factor.
My marriage broke down,
and I didn't kill, feel to kill,
or actually have the urge
to kill 18, 17 strangers.
Funnily enough.
Maybe had the urge on occasion
to hunt down my ex
but that would be me
making it too personal again.
Maybe I should have written
a manifesto.
Your sarcasm isn't welcome.
Maybe that was me
in my depressive state
me being too fucking emotional.
Your language
is really leaving a lot to be...
- He was...
- Dysfunctional,
psychopathic tendencies
undiagnosed.
- He was a...
- Tragedy.
A homegrown,
heartbreaking tragedy.
Not trying to change minds,
or... or change politics,
or... Just a tragic,
acting alone
with possible mental health,
along with access to a firearm...
Several.
Well, I'm not saying
it's not a disaster.
It's a disaster.
A homegrown tragedy for all
involving
the lone wolf young man.
Terror-fying.
People were terrified.
- Children were...
- I'll give you
that terrified
is part of the definition,
but that's as close as it gets.
He used a gun, guns.
The case is different.
- No, no.
- Slight, but different.
And he's...
from here.
You're trying
to minimize and simplify.
I didn't say anything.
Copycats is what they are.
Copycats.
- It's a known...
- Copy cat killers, warm and fluffy.
That's not helpful.
You all have nine lives.
You're not being helpful.
Not here to be helpful.
You have a talent
for twisting what I...
And yes, you're not,
and no, I don't.
Mm?
Have nine lives.
You do,
and you don't even know it.
Why do you make this harder
than it needs to be?
Cos something
like comments like that,
- really don't help.
- I'm not here to help.
I'm only...
I'm trying to definitively
and precisely and concisely...
- I'm just trying to understand...
- Have this conversation...
How you persistently
and consistently manage
- to not say...
- If I could finish?
And keep a straight face
while you're doing it.
If I could finish -
if I could finish my point!
You'll finish your point.
If you let me finish my point.
When have you not ever
not finished your point?
I think...
you have issues
pertaining to you.
I think you,
as you have admitted,
have some...
unique to you,
that I didn't
and don't want to know about.
And it's quite ironic,
it is quite ironic
that you brought up the word
'normal', coming from someone like...
I think, cos sitting here,
hearing
your painstaking details,
your theories, their theories,
their studies, your studies,
their reasons - your reasons,
and following that shit through,
I'm starting to conclude
that you
and your non-subjective studies
are full of fuckin' shit.
Sir.
You asked me.
Come here and asked me,
so, I don't understand,
I'm just trying to...
You wouldn't know
where to start.
Okay, some other cases...
So, okay,
some are just angry.
What have they got
to be angry about?!
You're not prepared
to listen to my facts.
Do you
really wanna start on anger?
- I'm sticking to the facts...
- And justification?
- You're starting to get...
- Depressed?
You're depressing me,
that's for sure, compared to...
What the fuck have you got
to be angry about?
We are not here
to talk about you
and if you're not gonna listen
then what's the point?
What is the point?
Exactly.
You know, you're
coming across as quite angry.
Quite an angry...
Aggressive, even.
Are you having an episode,
of whatever
that autistic Asperger's thing
you have is?
Did you ever
get checked for that?
Can give you a number for
somebody if you...
Please fuck off.
Childish now.
Just trying to be...
Political.
- Barely deserves an answer.
- Structural.
Societal.
Well, we all live in a society...
Organized.
- Being organized, isn't...
- Violent.
In itself, violence isn't...
- Racist.
- Different conversation.
- Religious.
- Not a crime.
You're confusing yourself.
Murderers.
You've answered
your own question.
A murderer is that, just that.
- Multiple murderers.
- Are just that.
I mean, I could go on,
I think I will go on.
Are you depressed again are you
one of those manic ones?
Supremacists.
I see what you're doing.
- Trying to, but...
- White supremacists
- white male...
- No! No.
By their definition,
you just used their definition...
- The clue is in the title.
- Murderous, murdering...
- Said that.
- Mass murderers.
We can all list,
you know. Not helpful.
Child murderers.
Yes, indiscriminate, but...
- Indiscriminate?
- Indiscri...
Well, maybe
that's not quite the right...
No. It's not.
In every office of every county
in every state in this country.
Extremists.
Depends where you stand on...
Fanatics, fundamentalists.
This is just starting
to feel like name-calling
- which is...
- Very discriminate,
very precise, very accurate,
if we're gonna use
our definition
and this language
'specifically'.
A... A homegrown
domestic vigilante
racist, organized
subsection of society
with religious leanings,
their religious leanings...
Bullets, bombs
burnings, hangings
lynchings, mutilations,
shootings,
destructions, defacing,
torture, imtimidations,
abominations,
perversions,
organized, militarized,
uniformed, hierarchical,
vitriolic, ritualistic,
political death cult
European Protestant immigrant-
psychopathic-
white-sheet-wearing
cross-burning motherfuckers.
Terrorists.
That definition doesn't work,
as I have explained...
With your
lone wolves, your mentalists,
your fantasists, your
disaffected
your explicit
fucking excuses for you.
It can sound
a little bit hypocritical,
I know, a bit, but...
Terrorists.
Terrorists.
No Black,
mulatto person or Indian
shall be allowed
to give evidence
in favor of,
or against a white man.
Black citizens are prohibited
from serving on juries.
No person or corporation
shall require
any white, female nurse
to nurse in wards
or rooms in hospitals,
either public or private,
in which Negro men are placed.
It shall be unlawful
to conduct a restaurant
or other place for the serving
of food in the city,
at which white
and Colored people
are served in the same room.
Unless such white
and Colored persons
are effectually separated
by a solid partition
extending from the floor upward
to a distance
of seven feet or higher.
All persons licensed
to conduct a restaurant,
shall serve
either white people exclusively,
or Colored people exclusively,
and shall not serve
to the two races
within the same room,
or serve the two races
anywhere under the same license.
It shall be unlawful
for a Negro and white person
to play together
or in company with each other
at any game
of pool or billiards.
It shall be unlawful
for a Negro and white person
to play together
or in company with each other
in any game of cards, dice,
dominoes, or checkers.
It shall be unlawful
for any amateur
white baseball team
to play baseball
on any vacant lot
or baseball diamond
within two blocks
of a playground
devoted to the Negro race.
The commission
shall have the right
to make segregation
of the white and Colored races
as to the exercise of rights
of fishing, boating and bathing.
Every person operating
any public hall, theater,
opera house, motion picture show
or any place
of public entertainment
or public assemblage,
which is attended by both
white and Colored person,
shall separate the white race
and the Colored race
and shall set apart
and designate
certain seats therein
to be occupied by white persons
and a portion thereof,
or certain seats therein,
to be occupied
by Colored persons.
It shall be unlawful
for Colored people
to frequent any park owned
or maintained
by the city for the benefit,
use, and employment
of white persons.
All public parks,
recreation centers,
playgrounds, etcetera,
are required to be segregated.
All businesses
are prohibited from permitting
any dancing, social functions,
entertainments,
athletic training,
games, sport or contests
on their premises,
in which participants
are members
of the white
and African American races.
It is unlawful
for whites and Blacks
to purchase and consume alcohol
on the same location,
punishable by a fine
from $50 to $500,
or an imprisonment
in the parish prison or jail
for up to two years.
No Colored barber
shall serve as a barber
to white women or girls.
Mental hospitals.
In no case shall Negroes
and white persons be together.
The blind.
The board of trustees
shall maintain
a separate building
on separate ground
for the admission,
care, instruction,
and support of all blind persons
of the Colored or Black race.
An institution for the education
of Colored, deaf mutes
is to be established.
But segregation in this school
is still to be enforced.
The law does not allow
African American
physicians and nurses
to take post graduate courses
in public hospitals.
Separate buildings
for Black and white patients
in hospitals for the insane.
Books shall not be
interchangeable
between white
and Colored schools,
but shall continue to be used
by the race first using them.
Negroes are to use
separate branches
of county free libraries.
Separate textbooks
for white
and African American children.
There are to be no state funds
to non-segregated schools.
No separate school
is allowed to be located
within one mile
of a separate white school,
in cities and towns,
in those areas
not within 600 feet
of each other.
The children
of white and Colored races
committed
to the houses of reform
shall be kept entirely separate
from each other.
The warden shall see
that the white convicts
shall have separate apartments,
for both eating and sleeping,
from the Negro convicts.
It shall be unlawful
for any white prisoner
to be handcuffed
or otherwise chained or tied,
to a Negro prisoner.
There shall be
separate buildings
not nearer than one fourth mile
to each other,
one for white boys,
and one for Negro boys.
White boys and Negro boys
shall not, in any manner,
be associated together,
or worked together.
Separate wash rooms
in mines required.
Employment.
In addition,
separate rooms to eat in,
as well as separate
eating and drinking utensils
are required to be provided
for members of white
and African American races.
Blacks are not allowed to use
the same hearse as whites.
The officer in charge
shall not bury,
or allow to be buried
any Colored persons
upon grounds set apart,
or used for the burial
of white persons.
From the first day of March,
no Negro or other slave
in this island
shall purchase or buy any horse,
mare, mule, ass or gelding.
No Negro or other slave
should be allowed
to hunt any cattle,
horses, mares, mules or asses
in any part of this island
with lances, guns, cutlasses
or other instruments of death,
unless in the company
of his master, overseer,
or some other white person.
Or by permission in writing.
That any Negro or slave
shall fraudulently have
in their possession,
unknown to his or her master,
owner or overseer,
any fresh beef, veal,
mutton or goat,
or the flesh of horse,
mare, mule, or ass
in any quantity exceeding five,
and not exceeding
20 pounds of weight.
Such Negro or other slave
shall be whipped in such manner
as magistrates shall direct.
That if any Negro
or other slave shall,
after the first day of January,
steal any such horned cattle,
sheep, goat,
horse, mare, mule or ass,
or shall kill
any such horned cattle, sheep,
goat, horse, mule or ass,
with intent
to steal the whole carcass,
or any part
of the flesh thereof,
such Negro or slave
shall on conviction thereof,
suffer death.
That in all cases,
where the punishment of death
is inflicted
the execution shall be performed
in a public part of the parish.
Care shall be taken
by the jailer
that the criminal is free
from intoxication,
and the mode of such execution
shall be hanging by the neck.
No slave
shall be permitted on any day,
Sunday excepted,
to go out of his
or her master's plantation,
or to travel
from one place to another,
unless such slave
shall have a ticket
from their master, owner,
employer, or overseer,
expressing the time
of such slave setting out,
where he or she is going,
and the time limited
for his or her return.
From the first day of March,
any slaves found
at the distance of eight miles
from the house or plantation
to which he, she or they belong,
without a ticket to pass,
shall be deemed a runaway.
Without such, all
and every such slave or slaves,
shall be apprehended
and committed to jail,
and there be whipped.
Free mulattoes or Indians
granting runaway slaves
a ticket,
shall be
guilty of forgery, tried,
and on conviction shall suffer
their loss of freedom.
That any person
who shall apprehend
such runaways,
will be entitled
to receive from the owner,
overseer, or manager
of such slave,
the sum
of ten shillings and no more.
Besides mile money,
at the rate
of one shilling per mile
for the first five miles,
and six pence
per mile afterwards.
If any slave or slaves sentenced
to hard labour or life,
willfully runs away
or escapes from the work house,
upon capture and conviction,
such slaves
are punishable by death.
The fugitive slave who has been
on the run for one month,
from the day his master
reported him to the police,
shall have his ears cut off
and shall be branded
on one shoulder.
If he commits
the same infraction
for another month,
again, counting
from the day he's reported,
he shall have his hamstring cut
and be branded
on the other shoulder.
The third time
he shall be put to death.
All means and opportunities
of slaves committing
rebellious conspiracies
and other crimes to the ruin
and destruction of white people,
are to be prevented,
and that proper punishment
should be appointed
for all crimes
to be by them committed.
And be it further enacted,
that if any free Negro,
mulatto or Indian,
knowingly allows
unlawful assemblies
of slaves at his
or her house or settlement,
such free Negro,
mulatto or Indian
shall suffer
six months in prison.
No master or owner
shall allow slaves
to assemble together
and to beat
their military drums,
or blow their horns,
or blow their shells
upon any plantation,
pen or settlement,
or in any yard or place
under his or their care
or management.
We forbid slaves
to carry any weapons
or large sticks
on pain of whipping
and of confiscation
of the weapon,
to the profit
of those who seize them.
If any Negro
or slave whatsoever,
shall offer any violence
to any Christian
by striking or the like,
such Negro or slave
shall for his
or her first offence
be severely whipped
by the constable.
For the second offence
of that nature,
he shall be severely whipped,
his nose slit
and be burned in some part
of his face with a hot iron.
If any slave
shall offer any violence
by striking or otherwise
to any white person,
such slave shall be confined
to hard labour for life
or punished with death.
Several slaves have lately found
means to desert
from their owners
and depart from this island,
to the great damage
of such owners,
and, in evil example
to other slaves,
who may be induced
to attempt to conspire
to do the same.
From and after
the first day of March,
if any slave
shall run away and go off,
or conspire or attempt
to go off this island,
in any ship, boat,
canoe or other vessel,
or be aiding, abetting,
or affiliating
to any such slaves,
- he, she or they shall suffer...
- such punishment...
Give me a...
Give me a reason to not!
Give! Me! A Reason! To not!
Give me a reason to not.
Give me a reason to not.
Gimme somethin'. Come on.
What? Y'all not with me?
Come on man!
Please, man!
Come on! Come on!
Come on, please!
Come on. Come on.
Oh, shit.
Yo. Yo.
Come on, son.
Yo.
Nah fuck that, man! C'mon man!
Yo! Yo! Ya'll killing me
with this shit, man - come on!
Gimme somethin' man!
Yo...
Y'all killing me, man!
Yo, I can't fuckin' take...
I can't take it!
I can't take it I can't take it.
Yo. I can't fuckin' take it.
Yo! Yo. Yo.
Oh man, no! No.
Yo! Stop fuckin' with me, man!
Come on!
Stop fuckin' with me.
No, man.
So you're gonna
just continue this like
like you don't see me,
like you can't...
- I can't.
- Wow!
There's this sound.
Feeling. A presence...
A presence, it's in the room
and it's getting closer...
You sound like you in church...
Gotcha!
- So, if I put my hands up?
- A threat. Threatening.
- Slowly?
- Provocative.
- Showed my palms...
- Inflammatory. Could be.
Resisting. No.
- But somewhere, like...
- Definitely no.
- To just... But. But...
- Uh-uh. Defying. Aggression.
- An act of aggression.
- But just to show that they're...
That won't work
that doesn't work son.
Belligerent.
- I didn't... but I wasn't...
- I know.
- But by my...? Not even by my...?
- Attitude.
Concealing.
Obscuring. Cocky...
But I'm just cold.
- Masking.
- What?
I know, son.
- My hands together...
- Sarcastic,
- challenging, provocative,
- But... Mom!
Which is, can be,
is incendiary to them.
Holding hands,
holding hands come on...
Collusion, complicity,
complacency and...
Who you holdin' hands with?
Attitude, arrogance,
insolence, defiance.
Don't do that.
Don't do that. Don't!
Don't. Don't son.
- Aggressive.
- But I haven't...
Aggressive.
I know, I know, son.
Antagonistic. Ignorant.
Just hostile.
- But...
- Hostile.
Right.
Nuthin about this right.
If... If... If I look...
If I look at them as a man
which you said was good.
As a man then, right?
Which you said was good.
'Confident', which you said
was... how you raised me.
We did.
So. Confident. Confidence.
Confidently looking at them...
It's good but not... Good.
- It is, but it's not.
- If I look away?
- Confrontational.
- Mom!
Bold, evasive, elusive,
ambiguous, cagey...
But if I turn away...
If I turn? Mom,
turn away to-to-to...
Go to make like I...?
No.
- If I turn away to walk away...
- Son...
- Turn, so that I...
- No.
So then... but I'd be...
Impudence, disobedience,
impertinence.
But I'd be... My back,
turn it so that my back...
Don't turn your back,
don't turn your back.
If I look away to avoid
looking at...
- Guilty...
- But if I look like I'm lookin'
but just look past...
No. Doesn't work, won't work.
If I look at the floor...
Hell no. We didn't raise you
to look at no floor son!
Then...
But if I...
Then...
Then.
Before the sun got cold,
turned the skies to grey,
before the wind got busy
and rain decided
it couldn't be fucked to fall.
Before the seasons decided
they weren't worth changing
we wasn't worth the effort
we weren't worth changing for.
Before the cars start up
before the streets start to fill
before the workers work,
before the cleaners clean
everybody else's dirt.
Before the air gets thick
before the air gets stale
before the air isn't and but...
Before the organised call,
the call and response
before the coverage,
the courage,
the placards, the publicity.
Before the official route,
the phone footage,
the T-shirts,
the graffiti, the street art.
Before the famous,
before the congregation,
before making it family-friendly
sound bite-friendly
before making us look friendly.
You okay?
Before leaders
appointed themselves
before speakers
lined up to speak
before people stood up and spoke
stood up and spoke for me
without askin' me if I needed
to be stood and spoke up for.
Before those
that want to be at the front
to be seen at the front
push up front being up front
pushing past to be present.
To be seen to be seen.
Before it was uploaded
- downloaded, offloaded, done...
- Son?
Before they tried to dissect it
disrespect it
tried to disrupt it
counter it, infiltrate it,
to destroy it.
Before they thought
they got away with it.
Before the liberals
tried to claim it,
reinterpret it
appropriate it.
Before the dogs spat
and the pigs barked
and the people spat
and the dogs barked,
before hateful eyes
more hate-filled
than their hate-fueled mouths.
When actions
were actively violent
violently violating us
and inaction was violent
violently violating us.
Before our children
had no chance to be children,
had no choice
have no choice
but to be involved.
When involved was physical,
was difficult, was dangerous,
is physical,
is difficult, is dangerous.
Is relentless.
When protest was risk... is risk
when lynching was sport
is sport.
When their norms
that weren't normal
aren't normal
were called out are called out
called on and challenged.
When what's been sanitised
was messy was painful
is messy, is painful.
When what's been epitomised
was, is and will be
fuckin' hard.
Before our history and her-story
got, gets, is shiny-fied
and simplified
by those who were never there.
Before those that's sleepin'
shout loudest 'bout they woke
And how.
The wokest of the wokest
of wokedom confusin' those
that don't know no better
confusin' theirselves.
Before the dead...
Our dead turn in their graves
'til they can't turn no more
tossing in their unease.
Before all that...
Before alla that...
I was here.
We was.
Is all I'm sayin'.
It's not a competition.
It's not no competition.
- It's not...
- But if it was...
shit.
We woulda won.
When I was picked up
and didn't know why
and asked and asked
when they told me
I was being aggressive
- when I weren't.
- You weren't.
When they said I was shoutin'
when I was speakin'...
You was speaking.
- Then changed it to I was...
- Acting aggressive.
When they wouldn't answer me
when I asked them
what "acting aggressive" was,
when they changed it to
"you're talking aggressive".
When they joked at themselves
that we all...
Sound aggressive.
To them, anyway.
When they said
I was being provocative...
And I asked them, "How?"
And they said, "Physically."
And I asked them, "How?"
When there's four a them
and one a me.
And they said,
"Asking was provocative,"
and I said "Asking ain't
physical," and they said...
"Your mouth will get you
into trouble
so best you shut up."
When I asked them, "Why me?"
"Fits the description of."
And the description
they described was so shit.
It was laughable.
When the second of the four
said, "Stop that."
The third of the four
a them cuffed my hands
sayin', "See?"
I stopped speakin'.
But then I started shoutin'.
I did start shoutin', fuck it!
And my people stopped to see
and saw the four of them,
and the one of me.
Some a the young ones
witnessing.
Filmin', phones out
like a high-tech self defence,
but then threatened
to keep walking with,
"There's nothin' to see here."
It being made
clearer than crystal
what would happen to them
if they didn't, so they...
An elder shouts back,
"Know your rights, sista!"
The four of us
got more rights than you
and we know them better
than the few you got
that I know you don't even know.
Your silence can be used
against you in the court of law.
Why is all of this even...?
You'll get all you need to know
down the station.
When they said
my reluctance was resistance,
and my hesitation
was obstruction,
when they dropped
"Resisting arrest"
like it was a lyric,
dropping me
to the concrete like a reflex.
When I was pushed in the back
into the back of their car
cuffs cutting my skin,
but holding my shakin' voice
to just about not shake
and steady say
as passively as I can that
"I think you have the wrong... "
"Your mouth
has already got you here.
You don't learn, do ya?"
When I sat in that cell,
with the fourth of the four
of them standing on his ones
tellin' me how we become unwell
can become unwell
tellin' me the suicide rates
of us in their 'care'
tellin' me
that they could say to you...
I feel sick...
- Come on now.
- Not sick-sick but sick
they got me feeling some toxic
mothafuckin'...
Excuse my fuckin' language.
You ain't the first.
Young thing. No way near.
Excuse my language.
There's been smarter,
will be smarter there is smarter
I'm not trying to-
but they'll be...
I say I was the smartest?
I say I was the best...?
There is smarter
there is better than you.
You sit and wait on perfect
if that's what you waitin' on
some-some super
freakin' college hero
some higher fuckin' being
intervenin' in this shit...
Young 'un!
You sit and wait on that perfect
because I never said I was...
Could be was...
You don't get
to put words in my mouth.
You waitin' on perfect,
still waiting.
Your ill-informed
not fully-formed
half-thinking words in my mouth,
shit words in my mouth?
You don't get to do that.
- I said...
- Sir, I ain't said... sayin'...
Would say that 'bout me. Sir.
So...
How you do?
How you do this?
How you do you?
And don't say, 'You know.'
- I do me despite the...
- I'm doin' me
tryin' to do me
won't let me be me
and I ain't despitin' nothin'
I'ma change some shit
to allow me to be me...
You gonna let me finish?
Did you finish?
If you finished
what you finished we wouldn't...
I wouldn't be...
You got a short memory
and a disrespectful mouth
fill one before the other
and I suggest
you start with that,
to affect that.
Stop you soundin'
like you stupid!
Don't shake it for me.
- Young 'un you tellin' me what...
- No, sir.
No Sir, but...
I said, give me a reason to not.
- It's not easy.
- Ask if it was?
- Don't get no easier...
- I said it did?
- It's hard to live with.
- I can live with it.
Aint in his name.
He ain't here to specify
that's the point!
- He never said for this!
- He never said, "Not for this"
and if he were still here
maybe he would've said
"Do somethin'."
Do fuckin' somethin'!
You do somethin' for me
if it was-
It wasn't and it aint.
You do something for me if it
was?
Would you?
Would you?
And if it ain't in his name,
there's a list,
century-long of names
that I could...
would...
will...
do it in if you ain't gonna
give me no good reason to not.
It will lead to a blood bath.
This is a blood bath.
- Would lead to a war.
- This is a war.
- You couldn't survive.
- Barely surviving now.
You ain't helping.
You ain't helpful like this.
How has this shit helped?
Read a book. What? Then what?
Shake your head at a article?
See a image, turn over the TV,
walk past a protest, then what?
Really, how has... and I
ain't talkin' about no dusty shit...
Young 'un don't question me.
Don't.
Go listen to those
who have lived more than you,
years on you,
talk quieter than you,
and listen harder to them
that don't say a damn thing.
Look at how they know
what they know,
what they seen, what they been
what they weren't able to be
so you could.
If you shut your damn mouth
for two minutes
you wouldn't have to be asking
half of your stupid questions,
Sir, I ain't...
And fuck
your disrespectful respect.
Excuse my fucking language.
Y'dun know!
I done somethin' you see me
do the thing I done?
Shittin' bricks trust me but
I know, I knew, I knew you know?
Aah! It's like...!
It's like... Look at my hands.
Look at my hands, they...
Look, look, look!
That's not me doing nothin'...
That's not me tryin' nothin'
that's them on their own!
That's not even me... Ah, shit!
- Shit!
- Adrenaline.
Fuckin' hell, fuckin' hell!
I feel it through
my fuckin' chest
pumping like a...
Could have a heart attack.
- You're not having...
- Coulda had a heart attack.
Could be having a fuckin'...
Feel it, feel it, feel it!
Fuck it, can you catch
a asthma or somethin'?
You're not having
an asthma attack.
- Man, it feels like it.
- You're not even asthmatic
- for fuck's sake.
- It feels like it!
No one tells you
bein' right is this painful.
Trust me, if this is
what being right feels like...
Man! I done somethin'.
I did, I went...
- You only went cos I...
- I went cos...
- You only went because I said.
- I went...
Because you aint never been before
because you started to feel bad
you one was missin' on somethin'
Went cos I was on you about
going from the times
I'd been without you, from day.
You're late!
Gave you shit to watch.
You watch it?
- Invited you to...
- Never knew there was a timetable.
- You read what I gave you to...
- Never knew I was on the clock.
You see what I WhatsApped?
What I shot,
what I showed, what I exposed,
what I spat out on my socials?
You watch what I risked
while I stood there
and stood there,
witnessing
and recording the Sista
shouting from across the way
with the four a them
in uniform and the one a her
- You watch that?
- I saw some...
Any of that? All a that?
Did you even bother?
I saw some shaky shit
shot from far.
Heard you filming
and complying with the,
"There's nothing to see here,"
with the, "Switch that off,"
saw that brief,
brave, brief encounter
as you switched up,
switched off and...
You'd never even bothered
to come to...
Ugh, we all know why you go.
Always tellin' everyone...
- Knowing why I'm supporting it, yes.
- Right on.
Large or small, hot or cold,
cause after cause.
Hear wot.
The two minutes I'm there
I've done more than you
in your two years
of attendin'
and flyering and talkin'
and marching and real talk,
achieving fuck all!
Wot?
I did somethin'.
I made a difference,
made a mark.
Did you even see what I've...
Or was you too busy
standing at the back
from behind the safety
of someone's back.
Back of the crowd,
back of the bus,
inconspicuous, ineffective.
Maybe you had your head
in a book on how to march
while I busy upfront doing it.
See, if it was me not comin'
out of no cell
or comin' out of some cell wrong
I'd want more than just hashtags
of fuckery to your ten family followers
or-or filming somethin'
from so far back
no one can even see
what the arse it was
we were meant to be seeing.
'Cos if I 'became unwell'
I'd want me marchin' for me
witnessing, filming
more than someone like you.
Wot?
Nah. If it was me...
But it ain't you.
Is it?
Ain't about you is it?
It's about all of us ain't it?
What?
Me goin' triggered your green-eyed
marching monster, is it?
From the two-minute fuckin' marcher,
glad you had a good time.
I ain't saying
I had a good time nothin',
'cos you made it clear
that would been doing it wrong...
- Glad you enjoyed yourself.
- That no enjoyment is to be had.
Glad you got yourself seen.
Take a selfie
while you was doing it, did you?
I was at the front.
People stepping back
don't mean you stepped up.
I was left up the front
stayed up the front
which is the same
as stepping up.
Cos me doin' my little bit looks like
it's a little more than whatever the fuck
you was doin' from wherever
the fuck you was not doin' it.
- It was a march.
- I marched.
- It was a protest.
- I protested!
- It was a demonstration.
- I did that!
Did that!
I did that and then some.
Didn't I?
That something will miss you,
someone will miss you,
miss you hard.
Harder than that.
- But that's not the point.
- No.
- That doesn't matter.
- No.
Means of value, of value.
- I am.
- Yes you are.
Yes you are, but you're not.
It means of worth.
Know you are.
You are more valuable
than I could think,
than I have thoughts for
than I have words for.
It means
that it would be meaningless
without you here.
I would be meaningless
without you here.
Your momma would be meaningless
without you here.
Your daddy couldn't,
wouldn't without you here.
I can't even remember
when you weren't.
Life was just as before you was.
My life just is before you was
now it's as good
as with you in it.
Wasn't this as good as
before you were in it...
And we were good.
But since you...
You grew me,
as much as we grew you, son,
that's how much.
But that's not the point.
If you weren't here
it would be
a crippling difference.
Yeah.
An indescribable, crushing,
unbearable,
agonising, excruciating,
horrendous,
unspeakable difference
if you weren't here son
I'd miss you.
- Dad...
- Your mom would miss you.
Me missing him
doesn't matter, wouldn't matter.
That's not the point.
- It means can mean...
- Substantial.
You are substantial.
You are, but you're not.
You are, but you're not.
You are. I get it from you.
And substantial
isn't invincible.
- Dad is.
- Substantial isn't invulnerable.
- You are!
- Substantial
shouldn't have to be,
shouldn't need to be...
But it needs to be.
Substantial isn't unshakable.
You don't shake, Dad.
Dad don't shake.
You don't shake.
You shouldn't
have to be unshakable, son.
But you do.
You mean the world to me.
You mean the world to me,
you mean the world to...
You mean the world to us.
- It means...
- Loved. Loved.
You are so loved.
- I am.
- You are.
More than this world could know
more than this world owes you.
And it owes you.
I love you.
I know son, but you're not.
You are.
But you're not.
I love you Dad.
Love you Mom.
Not the point.
Dad?
Dad.
What did you do with your hands?
You know, it...
I just -. I aint the one to...
You still talkin'?
I ain't someone to
march 'til I drop about it,
is all.
I know petitioning and
politic-ing does fuck all for it,
aint gonna hashtag it, aint
gonna Instagram it.
I ain't a one
to kneel and pray about it,
sit down, sing about it.
I ain't the one
with your patience for it.
Waitin' on their timetable
for it, nah.
Progress is a bitch, yeah.
Progress is a slow bitch
with a wandering mind
that drags her bare feet,
but change?!
Change kicks ass.
Change don't give a fuck.
Change gonna do its thing
with or without you
and it moves the fuck on.
Change fucks shit up
kicks progress' ass,
drop-kicks slow,
slaps up excuses.
And I'ma change shit
cos I gotta change this shit
- aint got no choice, but to.
- You got a choice in how you...
I wanna see... .
Cos we ain't doin' like you.
You all like to be liked
waited to be liked.
You ain't me.
You wanted to bring along.
I ain't looking their company...
- You soundin' younger than you is...
- I'll ride this shit alone...
You wait for respectable change
ain't fuckin' polite.
'Scuse my language.
We still having to have
the damn talk,
having to work around
a work around,
working around
the fucking basics their
base behaviors.
What the fuck
do I even do with my?
And I respect
the shit thatchu did,
even though
it don't sound like I do.
But you need to
respect and accept the fact
that it... failed.
You... Failed.
With all due.
Them is still taking liberties
still taking mine.
They ain't changed.
Don't wanna change.
They ain't got no intentions
of changing.
So let's start from there.
Give me a reason to not.
- Yeah? Same thing?
- Yeah.
We've done this -. At least.
We're on the same page.
- We'll speak-
- Yeah-
Let's do it. Let's do it.
Threat... Threatening.
- Provocative?
- What?
Shh!
Inflammatory?
No.
- But you can't just...
- Yes, I can. No.
Talk to him
like a man. He's a man.
Aggression?
An act of aggression?
You're not even sayin' anything.
'Cos you're taking over
the whole conversation.
Belligerent?
Attitude.
To them!
Oh, nice.
Dad!
Concealing, obscuring...
- No. This is not how it's...
- Cocky!
Go on then.
What, I can speak now?
Son?
That's all you gotta say?
What do you mean
'that's all I've got to say'?
- Oh, but...
- Look...
- What the hell did we...?
- After we-? After what we said-?
You never said shit.
I said something.
How would you tell him then?
Not like that.
You told me you got told...
Don't!
I'll let him know
what I wanna let him know
how I wanna let him know, yeah?
Cos I know.
I would know.
Wouldn't I?
Challenging.
- This isn't...
- Provocative.
- This isn't how we...
- What?
This isn't what we said!
Arrogance, insolence,
ignorance, see?
- How? How?
- Defiance!
Fuck!
To them, to them.
Too loud.
No too loud.
- See, I'm doing all the work.
- Can I even say anything?
Too loud!
Confrontational!
- Confronting.
- Yes.
- No!
- Yes.
No. No!
We didn't raise you
to look away, son.
You don't look away.
You don't look at the floor,
you don't look down,
you don't avert your gaze.
We ain't raised you to do that,
or be that, son.
I called him "Sir"
when I didn't have to,
afforded him that
when I shouldn't have had to.
Called him "Sir."
turning my empty palms
showing my emptier than empty
fucking palms.
Still called him "sir."
As I raised
my open, empty hands,
quietly called out
his wrong rights
that he was wrongly quoting,
and continued
to quote at me more wrongly.
Called him "Sir."
as I made his wrong position
calmly clear,
he clearly not appreciating
being questioned
or corrected,
or even in being correct.
And he was wrong.
But I still said "Sir."
Not raising my voice
more than my hands
though I got
every goddamn reason
upon reason to that,
to do that, but...
Calmly called him out
without cursing,
explaining my civilian position,
my civilian rights to his
uniformed wrongs and wrongness.
Got that right that is right.
- Right?
- Right.
I spoke level,
I conversed calmly,
I did not speak
with my hands or my body.
His voice rising,
I did not rise with it or to it,
his hype rising,
I did not rise with it or to it.
His control gone.
Mine? Intact.
That's right.
I did not gesture,
I did not sharply move,
I did not quickly move,
I did not make that mistake.
I thought
I did not make a mistake.
When I showed my palms,
I called him fucking "Sir."
When I raised
my empty, tired hands,
I called him "Sir."
When I moved
where he shouted at me to move,
stood where he barked
for me to stand
stopped filming his actions
when he screamed for me to stop,
at gunpoint,
his gunpoint.
As I stood there
unarmed and alarmed.
As I sat there
unarmed and alarmed.
As I lay there unarmed and
alarmed.
I still called him...
So, if I put my hands up,
if I show him my palms,
slowly showed my tired, empty
fuckin' palms...
If I'm struggling with self...
Don't struggle with self.
Definitely
don't struggle with self.
Right.
Although this shit is enough
to drive self to...
And I still...
called that motherfucker...
"Sir."
Premier
primero.
Forst.
Danish, baby, first.
Top of the damn class.
Them symbols,
numbers, equations,
that everyone thinks
is over hard,
are under control
and is my thing.
Head in books
'steada in the clouds,
though I'm the one
who knows exactly
what those clouds is made up of.
Ass in the library
'steada out and about
and Dad did say,
"Don't bother come home
if you ain't got
what you're capable of gettin'."
He funny like that
cos that's coming from
the man who ain't had nothin'
but built
himself up to somethin'
who I look up to as everything.
I focused,
and when I brought back
my high marks
from my hard work,
what that brought
to my daddy's face...
And my girls know
not to mess with me
when I'm on it.
"Geeking out",
their words, not mine
know not to distract with their,
"Leave her to it, y'all."
The brothers know
Oh, she gone in.
Letting me alone and proud of me
sticking with it.
So, I knew, before we saw,
what I felt,
when I felt, what we felt.
We gotta step
but the mood is still tight,
vibes still hype,
holdin' on to each other
for collective heat
as we placard holding, chanting,
our anger sang
as we marching our fury,
crowds of us,
was us is us. Beautiful.
Collectively strong.
Loud and prouder than proud,
a dark sea of us
as far as anyone can see.
And they have
and always have had,
something in hand, in they hands
fearing a fair fight.
And we pass the old woman
that's always out.
Always out first
looking at us like we late,
looking at us
like we ain't serious.
But this downwind tingle
in my mouth
is starting to...
We gotta move, people!
I get some turned heads
for my cold girls, "Huh"?
A too late What? from the
freezing Brothas
as the flash-bang does its job.
Hearing snaps back, jarred back
by my hacking and choking
and hacking
and choking of us all
the shouts and screams of us all
tears swelling,
racing, falling, swelling,
racing, falling,
not of sadness or anger,
too sad for that,
too angry for that,
but my eyes trying to flush out
the chemical irritant
that is infecting them.
And that old woman
who been out here
from before time goes down.
My skin burns it's meant to.
My nose burns it is meant to
breathing feels like you can't,
throat getting to closing,
and closing getting
to choking I'm...
I'm drooling like a baby.
Yo, don't rub your eyes!
Don't rub your eyes, y'all!
Beautiful crowds
of us scattering,
vomiting, crying, panicking,
placards dropped,
chanting stopped,
messaging blocked,
marching forgot,
protesting fucked.
Black bodies
staggering into each other
red eyes barely seeing
a watery half-nothin'
running the wrong way,
cos no right way can be seen
through that milky white mist.
As the Storm...
Mothafuckin' Troopers keep
advancing,
barking at us
to "Clear the streets!
Clear the streets!"
Knowing full fuckin' well
we can't.
Chlorobenzylidenemalononitrile.
To those who didn't study them
symbols,
numbers, equations,
they science,
they chemistry, they physics...
Teargas...
is a motherfucker.
Now you mad at me.
Now you're mad.
I'm not mad at you.
Sir.
I take out the one
who could be
the father of the father
of the one who could be
the father of the father
of the one
who takes out a son of yours,
that could be
the son of your son.
I take out
that father of the father
and history is better for it.
And your son of your son
could be the real
change maker.
Real game changer.
Revolutionary.
So I could've played
my part in a little way
with a big repercussion,
that's a big, good thing done.
A really
motherfuckin' big change.
In a small way.
In a one, small action.
That small action,
my small action,
that's all that I'm sayin'.
You won't know
who the father of the father...
- Neither do you.
- Or the mother of the mother,
or the child of the child
would or could be.
You losin' your own argument
before you...
The risk of being right
is a risk worth takin'.
It...
It would be in cold blood.
It's fire with fire.
Give you sleepless nights.
- Can't sleep now.
- It won't look good.
How is this looking good?
Would bring a backlash,
more of a backlash...
I'm' just lashing back
the backlash lashing me.
I'm provoked.
- It would bring...
- Have been for centuries.
And the backlash lashes back
at the drop of a hat
their drop of a hat, don't it?
You're...
You're better than that.
But...
This ain't working.
Is it.
You know...
when I was picked up
and didn't know why,
when they said
I was being aggressive,
and I weren't.
When they said I was shouting
when I was speaking,
I was speakin'.
When they said I was acting aggressive
when I never was...
You wasn't.
And told to shut up
when I asked them
what acting aggressive is,
when they switched that
I was talking aggressive,
then joked to themselves
that we all sound aggressive
to them anyway.
When they said
I was being provocative
and when I asked them, "How"?
They said, physically.
And when I asked them how, when there's
six of them and one of me, they said,
"Your mouth is gettin' you
into trouble,
so best you shut up."
When I asked...
they smiled.
"Fits the description of"
but the description
they described, was so shit.
So shit.
So shit.
Again.
When they said,
the second of the six,
that I was
gesturing aggressively,
and my palms raised
in a passive,
the second of the six
cuffed them.
Saying, "See? See?"
When they told me
to stop speaking,
so I stopped speaking,
and the second of the six
who had cuffed me smiled,
saying my silence could be used
against me in a court of law.
When they challenged me
to say something, I said nothing.
When they provoked me
to say something, I said nothing.
When they...
When they mocked me to speak,
provoking me to get a reaction,
I said nothing.
They in my face, said nothing,
said nothing. I said nothing.
They daring me
to do something, to do anything,
and when I
still said my nothing,
they challenge me, agitating me,
goading me, taunting me,
mocking me saying my nothing,
and when I didn't react to anything,
they baiting me to do somethin'
say anythin'
and when I did react,
they said
I was resisting arrest.
When they said
my hesitation was obstruction,
dropped "resisting arrest"
harder,
than they dropped me
to the concrete,
sayin' I'm makin' it worse
for myself...
With their knees in my back,
five of the six...
I couldn't think how much worse
it could fuckin' get.
Then it was.
Worse.
In the back of the van.
When they watched me
when I wouldn't,
then shouted again, "Strip."
"We told you to strip."
When I wouldn't and didn't,
and the second of the six,
not smiling now,
said that I would.
How I would,
how I will, that I will.
I still wouldn't.
"Not gonna tell you again."
When I was standing
in my boxers...
like a fuckin' five-year-old...
trousers around my...
"Strip."
"Thank you
for your cooperation."
Just like...
Like... like it was...
Like... Like it was fuckin'...
Fuck.
I put my hands up.
A threat. Threatening.
It was slowly.
That shit don't matter.
- But I didn't...?
- Aggressive.
- No, but I... Come on!
- Aggressive.
- Just to show that they're...
- Doesn't work.
Doesn't work, hun.
It was slowly.
Attitude.
- It's cold!
- Attitude.
Cocky, concealing.
- But I'm...
- Aggressive.
- No. I was just...
- I know.
Holding hands.
Holding hands.
Come on!
I put my hands up,
I raised them slowly...
I slowly showed my empty palms.
Did you see?
Did you see?
- Does it matter that I do?
- What I had the nerve to do?
You there to be seen,
doing it, or what?
You need me to see you doin' it.
You want an audience.
What?
Or you doing what you doin'
cos you know why you doing it...
- Did you see from the back?
- Or you dunno what you're doing
and you're confused
why you're doing it.
Back of the crowd,
back of the bus,
back of the line,
polite, liked.
That where you was?
Again?
Could you see from there?
Could you see me from there?
I wasn't looking for you.
Did you hear the,
"Yo! Don't rub your eyes y'all"?
You hear that from the Sista way
over from wherever you-?
Did your eyes burn
like mine did?
Or was you too up wind when I
was down of it?
Was you rush rinsing your eyes
with water - any water,
stung by the evil clouds of
fuckin'... . Or you just stood?
Casually sipping yourn,
watchin' the carnage
you couldn't really actually see
cos you so, so, far back.
Shit.
This ain't about you.
It ain't about me,
but it's about me. Collective.
- Selfish.
- Communal.
- Self-centered!
- Empowering.
Egotistical!
I was on point up front.
Made a difference. Made a
mark.
Made my mark.
And me doin' my little bit
looks like
it's a little bit more'n you,
and whatever the fuck
you was doing,
have been doin',
not doin', at the back.
It was a march!
Marchin' days is over.
It was organised!
Which does what?
It was a protest!
Protests fail.
It was a demonstration!
Demonstratin' what?
Again, again, again.
They don't listen
they haven't listened
and I ain't waiting
no more to be heard.
They ain't changed...
They don't want to!
I ain't wait no more
for them to bother.
I demonstrated. Demonstrated
that these hands - my hands.
Don't fuckin' play.
Man.
They offer crumbs.
You want a slice.
You want a slice?
I want the fuckin' pie.
- Twelve?
- Twelve.
Not eight, then?
Someone said that wrong,
written it down wrong somewhere
and it's been lazily repeated.
- It was...
- You're lazily repeating it.
- A male child...
- A boy...
Yes. Well observed.
- I...
- Almost teenage,
and... but you know,
a father leaving
is damaging in a boy.
Developing years...
Damage... Damage done.
- But I think that...
- The studies say, the studies...
- But I think...
- The studies say,
and I didn't come to you
to ask you what you thought.
You've come here to ask me.
I'm here, you're...
But the mother,
the mother wanted...
You know,
the leaving of the father
from the family home
at around that age,
for a child, or a boy,
or that boy, is dramatic.
It's traumatic.
But...
The kids testified
they were comfortable...
What I've told you, am telling...
There was very little drama...
Explaining,
is that it was a factor.
Possibly... Probably traumatic
to that 12-year-old child.
- Any child.
- That 12-year-old.
- Any child, though.
- Specifically.
Specifics, yes?
Yes?
No, sir.
- I think that...
- You've read what I've read?
I'm sorry,
you've studied what I studied?
- I...
- You've got the... that I've got?
That's the no.
I welcome discussions.
Discussions I do and I welcome...
- No, I...
- And I'm open and up for that,
but equally, I welcome people
to admit
when they're... Yes?
And I appreciate,
I'd appreciate people here
who come in here, asking
whatever it is you're asking
to have read the studies
and done your homework
- before they...
- I have.
Or, if they
don't know about, or...
have a lack of...
There is nothing wrong in that.
In admitting that.
In saying that.
And I know there's worse, I do know
there's worse than what he may have.
He had sisters...
And although not totally
comprehensive, the studies say...
One older sister, one younger,
both okay, both normal.
- Normal?
- Yes, and that...
Normal? Now, that's a term.
And as far as we...
They're fine, is what I meant...
Fine? Normal?
Now, are we gonna have to...
- What I mean...
- You know, those terms...
I know.
- I... Yes.
- A little outdated.
- Yes, I meant...
- Yes. Do you?
Yes.
- Relative.
- Very.
- I meant... What I meant...
- A course,
more than one course
for learning
about those kinds of terms.
- Did you?
- I don't have to...
- Have you?
- I don't... didn't...
Don't need to.
You think?
I am not underestimating you.
I would appreciate it if you...
Thank you.
And... But, with domestic
violence thrown in...
There was no domestic...
With domestic violence
in the mix...
- There was no domestic violence.
- I... With abuse of any kind.
There was no abuse.
Documented or stated.
Sir.
Well, we don't know exactly.
We don't know what's normal
behind closed doors, do we?
The mother categorically said...
Who's fine behind closed doors.
The kids said no,
as well as the sisters, I mean.
The normal sisters?
- I said...
- Are you speaking for them now,
as well as for everyone else?
Maybe the father was good at it.
Left no bruises,
left no marks...
Bit of an expert at it.
Maybe he was
as good at what he did,
as I am at what I do.
It's completely different,
kind of, you know, but...
Anyhow, an open... An open mind
and an open attitude are vital.
It's critical. Crucial.
The mom worked part-time...
Now you're mumbling.
The mom worked part-time
as a supportive,
loving homemaker,
God-fearing...
Dad worked. The dad worked.
Three kids between them,
all academically average,
income average or just above,
if it was a good year.
Economically stable,
childhood sweethearts,
married young, too young...
- In your opinion.
- Drifted apart and separated amicably
- I think if you read the report, studied the studies...
- There's nothing...
And it's not my opinion
I've studied...
- The studies it's in the report...
- Then you would see-
- There's nothing to see.
- You seeing it how you're seeing it, is subjective.
You seeing it your way
isn't necessarily 'fine'.
- I... What I...
- Or have I got to fall in with you
so we both can see it your way?
Your right way?
Which is only a way, by the way.
And is wrong.
Anything else you wanna state?
That I disagree.
Got that.
Think I'm capable of...
My problem is...
My problem with you is...
I didn't come here
to be a problem.
- My...
- I didn't come here
to be a problem, sir.
He was, actually still is,
as he's incarcerated now,
the son, not the husband,
a damaged young man
who did a damaging thing.
- 'Damaging!'
- A young man
doing a one-off act,
who gained access to firearms,
legally held within the house,
his mother's house,
after the father had left,
and who the mother, ironically,
and it's in the report,
- I've read it.
- Asked her husband, ex-husband,
to leave the firearm with her
as she felt
that she and the girls,
- and of course the son...
- I've...
would feel more vulnerable
without it.
- I've... I've read it all.
- All...
That she ends up being,
is sadly ironic and unfortunate.
A fantasist, destructive one,
yes,
but a one-off, violent act
by a young, damaged fantasist,
by a boy,
who by all means had issues,
that may have been exacerbated
by the leaving of his father
when he was 12.
- Twelve.
- Twelve, yes.
A fantasist. He's that.
Specifically.
- Nothing spontaneous.
- No, no.
Researched.
Before you could Google
your destruction of choice.
Not an adolescent,
not 11, not 8.
This one went with a friend.
But he wasn't, you know, they...
I don't think you know
they would've had
their whole social circle...
Exactly.
They had a social circle.
No one's saying
they were popular.
People knew them,
they knew people.
And it was 12,
but who really knows who.
- What?
- Who really knows...
- But...
- Who do you know?
- Sir, I...
- Really know, you know.
- This isn't about me, so I...
- No, but I was just...
Who do you know?
Really know then.
Sir.
I...
I don't really care
who you do or don't know.
And your lack of an answer
does really answer...
- I know people. I know people.
- I know people.
I really know people.
They really know you?
- This isn't about...
- No, it's not, but do they?
It is about my point,
as I've said.
You... Your people
really know you then?
Or you don't got no one
to know you good
in the first place?
Just trying
to understand your point.
Now, that's just sounding petty.
- If he...
- They.
They had
a large enough social circle,
someone would stop him. Them.
So, I think my theory
the theory, the studies stand.
Not if their social circle
all thought like them.
Which would
just make them all wrong.
- My point.
- All being wrong,
isn't the point.
You could be wrong.
Your friends, if you have any,
I'm not prying,
could all be wrong.
A hundred and twenty dead.
Right-wing radical disaffected.
- That's the...
- Eighteen children.
A disaffected right-wing
radical with his friend, is the point.
- They were...
- Non political.
Well, being pissed off
with the government
isn't exactly political,
and would cover most of it.
- But they were...
- No.
- Both...
- A domestic,
homegrown act of violence
carried out on a large scale,
I'll give you that.
Unprecedented,
I'll give you that.
A homegrown act of violence
carried out by disaffected
right-wing radicals,
that, yes.
Specifically yes.
It's what they were. Are.
Those two. Yes.
Kids shooting kids
isn't confusing.
They were high school
by high school.
Not confusing.
And these ones weren't loners,
and they weren't poor
and they weren't isolated.
- One of them was depressed.
- Had got beyond
8 or 11 years old,
which you seem
to find so risky for your...
Twelve,
and your sarcasm isn't helpful.
I'm just making sure
we've covered...
- It's how you're...
- No, no.
- Yes.
- I'm just trying to not...
No, you're not.
One of them
was struggling with...
He vlogged,
I think that's the term for it.
He vlogged it, though nobody
seemed to be watching,
seemed to have followers
of exactly two.
Depressed.
And obviously being depressed
and being teenage,
- can be a difficult...
- Depression is not an answer.
- We're not doing answers.
- Depression is not an excuse.
- I'm not giving excuses...
- Teenage is not...
I'm giving reasons,
if you would let me, even.
Reasons that are in the studies.
Two armed teenagers
shooting unarmed teenagers
at their same school...
One really was depressed,
probably clinical.
Actually, he wrote a manifesto.
And the other?
- You know, I think...
- Was a bit sad, was he?
Drew a picture
of intent on a Post-It?
- I'm really starting to think...
- And you know, really, I'm just trying to...
- Starting to think that you...
- I am just...
I dunno why...
- I'm just making...
- Why you're not taking this seriously.
- I'm taking this as seriously...
- Why are you even here?
Why are you here?
I am absolutely serious
about this.
Sir.
The second follower
he had on his vlog,
was his friend.
The only one they could find,
which was unfortunate,
as together they became, well...
The depths of disaffection
can be destructive.
Disaffection.
- And coupled with...
- Their young, tender years.
You wanna be taken seriously...
- I'm disaffected.
- You're disaffecting.
- Sir, I just...
- What?
- You're saying teenage is a factor.
- Yes.
Filming a miserablist vlog
and writing a note is a definition?
The studies say...
Being disaffected
is justification...
- What I'm...
- For you...
An aspect
for those two specifically.
All those definitions afforded
and... and both male...
- No, it's not.
- Is an aspect
- both from...
- No, it's not. Those specific two individuals.
- Both are...
- Not the issue.
- Both are...
- Not the point, not an issue.
And again, you know, if I can
just get a word in edge ways.
- I...
- It's domestic.
Domestic is different,
and depression is mental health,
and mental health
is a whole load
of other issues right there.
I get depressed.
I get depressed but...
And to make it personal.
I don't load up,
take aim and start...
This is your way of trying...
And I've come through teenage,
somehow managing
- not to massacre...
- They aren't you.
They aren't me, but me,
we aren't allowed to be them.
And are you?
Are you...
depressed?
- I'm fine, but you see my point?
- No.
- The fact that I... Mental health...
- Actually, no.
- Are you, or aren't you?
- What?
- Having a good day?
- A depressive.
Aah!
I...
Yes.
Yes.
I am.
And it's a bit
of a bullshit argument...
I think you're... I think you're
sort of taking what I say...
Excuse my language, sir,
bullshit to try and make that...
What I was trying to say,
you know, taking it out of...
And it's not helpful
to make it personal.
I didn't need you to disclose...
- I didn't disclose I just made a point.
- Disclosure's personal.
I answered your question
and made a valid...
And personal gets emotional,
and neither
are useful in this context.
This is not...
- As I said...
- Really, this is not me...
And I don't appreciate your use
of bad language, by the way.
And as I've said,
we are not here
to talk about you.
This is not me emotional.
She said emotionally.
With all due respect,
I think your personal
is clouding your judg...
You know,
it may have been personal
to the seven dead classmates
whose two peers armed themselves
with semi-automatics,
pipe bombs and a plan,
not forgetting
the handwritten 'manifesto'.
I think that was very personal
to those murdered.
Sir.
I'm not saying they're not bad.
- Or disaffected.
- 'Disaffected'!
- Depressive?
- A depressive psycho,
no offense,
with a death wish,
and an evil young man
with no moral compass.
An absolute domestic,
high school,
non-political disaster.
- No.
- A cultural phenomenon
that can sometimes
manifest itself
within some teenagers.
Yours?
You want...
a small word
for a big subject.
But... So.
No.
Specifics. Yes?
Specifics matter.
You and your personal issues
don't.
Dear God.
He had parents.
We don't blame the parents.
- You don't blame the parents?
- Not the parents.
He had family.
- We don't blame the family.
- You don't blame the families?
You can't blame the family.
You don't blame your families?
- Families aren't accountable for it.
- But ours are.
Do you blame their upbringing?
A lone wolf may have
specific psychopathic tendencies
- that may have been missed.
- I'm taking that as a no.
Mental health?
Asperger's, autism,
one of those undiagnosed,
- is suspected.
- Killer autism.
On the spec...
Semi-automatic, automatic pistol
killer Asperger's autism.
I've got Asperger's.
- I've got...
- Have you?
Have you.
I don't quite...
I don't quite get why you are...
No, you don't, do you?
I'm just saying
another aspect of...
And interestingly,
this lone wolf
came from a single parent.
Dad had left some time earlier.
- 'Twelve'?
- No, 14, actually.
- Fuck.
- I'm sorry, what?
What is it about facts
that you're finding so hard to...
His act wasn't political,
he acted in isolation,
and he may have had
issues with his mother.
It was his mother's gun,
in fact, he shot his...
- I know.
- It's unfortunate.
And there's other factors.
- Seventeen dead.
- A psychopath.
- 17, excluding his mother
- Yes.
19, including him,
if you wanna include him.
Well, if...
If he really matters.
Well, there was
a marriage breakdown
with his parents, actually.
- 'Actually'.
- A possible factor.
My marriage broke down,
and I didn't kill, feel to kill,
or actually have the urge
to kill 18, 17 strangers.
Funnily enough.
Maybe had the urge on occasion
to hunt down my ex
but that would be me
making it too personal again.
Maybe I should have written
a manifesto.
Your sarcasm isn't welcome.
Maybe that was me
in my depressive state
me being too fucking emotional.
Your language
is really leaving a lot to be...
- He was...
- Dysfunctional,
psychopathic tendencies
undiagnosed.
- He was a...
- Tragedy.
A homegrown,
heartbreaking tragedy.
Not trying to change minds,
or... or change politics,
or... Just a tragic,
acting alone
with possible mental health,
along with access to a firearm...
Several.
Well, I'm not saying
it's not a disaster.
It's a disaster.
A homegrown tragedy for all
involving
the lone wolf young man.
Terror-fying.
People were terrified.
- Children were...
- I'll give you
that terrified
is part of the definition,
but that's as close as it gets.
He used a gun, guns.
The case is different.
- No, no.
- Slight, but different.
And he's...
from here.
You're trying
to minimize and simplify.
I didn't say anything.
Copycats is what they are.
Copycats.
- It's a known...
- Copy cat killers, warm and fluffy.
That's not helpful.
You all have nine lives.
You're not being helpful.
Not here to be helpful.
You have a talent
for twisting what I...
And yes, you're not,
and no, I don't.
Mm?
Have nine lives.
You do,
and you don't even know it.
Why do you make this harder
than it needs to be?
Cos something
like comments like that,
- really don't help.
- I'm not here to help.
I'm only...
I'm trying to definitively
and precisely and concisely...
- I'm just trying to understand...
- Have this conversation...
How you persistently
and consistently manage
- to not say...
- If I could finish?
And keep a straight face
while you're doing it.
If I could finish -
if I could finish my point!
You'll finish your point.
If you let me finish my point.
When have you not ever
not finished your point?
I think...
you have issues
pertaining to you.
I think you,
as you have admitted,
have some...
unique to you,
that I didn't
and don't want to know about.
And it's quite ironic,
it is quite ironic
that you brought up the word
'normal', coming from someone like...
I think, cos sitting here,
hearing
your painstaking details,
your theories, their theories,
their studies, your studies,
their reasons - your reasons,
and following that shit through,
I'm starting to conclude
that you
and your non-subjective studies
are full of fuckin' shit.
Sir.
You asked me.
Come here and asked me,
so, I don't understand,
I'm just trying to...
You wouldn't know
where to start.
Okay, some other cases...
So, okay,
some are just angry.
What have they got
to be angry about?!
You're not prepared
to listen to my facts.
Do you
really wanna start on anger?
- I'm sticking to the facts...
- And justification?
- You're starting to get...
- Depressed?
You're depressing me,
that's for sure, compared to...
What the fuck have you got
to be angry about?
We are not here
to talk about you
and if you're not gonna listen
then what's the point?
What is the point?
Exactly.
You know, you're
coming across as quite angry.
Quite an angry...
Aggressive, even.
Are you having an episode,
of whatever
that autistic Asperger's thing
you have is?
Did you ever
get checked for that?
Can give you a number for
somebody if you...
Please fuck off.
Childish now.
Just trying to be...
Political.
- Barely deserves an answer.
- Structural.
Societal.
Well, we all live in a society...
Organized.
- Being organized, isn't...
- Violent.
In itself, violence isn't...
- Racist.
- Different conversation.
- Religious.
- Not a crime.
You're confusing yourself.
Murderers.
You've answered
your own question.
A murderer is that, just that.
- Multiple murderers.
- Are just that.
I mean, I could go on,
I think I will go on.
Are you depressed again are you
one of those manic ones?
Supremacists.
I see what you're doing.
- Trying to, but...
- White supremacists
- white male...
- No! No.
By their definition,
you just used their definition...
- The clue is in the title.
- Murderous, murdering...
- Said that.
- Mass murderers.
We can all list,
you know. Not helpful.
Child murderers.
Yes, indiscriminate, but...
- Indiscriminate?
- Indiscri...
Well, maybe
that's not quite the right...
No. It's not.
In every office of every county
in every state in this country.
Extremists.
Depends where you stand on...
Fanatics, fundamentalists.
This is just starting
to feel like name-calling
- which is...
- Very discriminate,
very precise, very accurate,
if we're gonna use
our definition
and this language
'specifically'.
A... A homegrown
domestic vigilante
racist, organized
subsection of society
with religious leanings,
their religious leanings...
Bullets, bombs
burnings, hangings
lynchings, mutilations,
shootings,
destructions, defacing,
torture, imtimidations,
abominations,
perversions,
organized, militarized,
uniformed, hierarchical,
vitriolic, ritualistic,
political death cult
European Protestant immigrant-
psychopathic-
white-sheet-wearing
cross-burning motherfuckers.
Terrorists.
That definition doesn't work,
as I have explained...
With your
lone wolves, your mentalists,
your fantasists, your
disaffected
your explicit
fucking excuses for you.
It can sound
a little bit hypocritical,
I know, a bit, but...
Terrorists.
Terrorists.
No Black,
mulatto person or Indian
shall be allowed
to give evidence
in favor of,
or against a white man.
Black citizens are prohibited
from serving on juries.
No person or corporation
shall require
any white, female nurse
to nurse in wards
or rooms in hospitals,
either public or private,
in which Negro men are placed.
It shall be unlawful
to conduct a restaurant
or other place for the serving
of food in the city,
at which white
and Colored people
are served in the same room.
Unless such white
and Colored persons
are effectually separated
by a solid partition
extending from the floor upward
to a distance
of seven feet or higher.
All persons licensed
to conduct a restaurant,
shall serve
either white people exclusively,
or Colored people exclusively,
and shall not serve
to the two races
within the same room,
or serve the two races
anywhere under the same license.
It shall be unlawful
for a Negro and white person
to play together
or in company with each other
at any game
of pool or billiards.
It shall be unlawful
for a Negro and white person
to play together
or in company with each other
in any game of cards, dice,
dominoes, or checkers.
It shall be unlawful
for any amateur
white baseball team
to play baseball
on any vacant lot
or baseball diamond
within two blocks
of a playground
devoted to the Negro race.
The commission
shall have the right
to make segregation
of the white and Colored races
as to the exercise of rights
of fishing, boating and bathing.
Every person operating
any public hall, theater,
opera house, motion picture show
or any place
of public entertainment
or public assemblage,
which is attended by both
white and Colored person,
shall separate the white race
and the Colored race
and shall set apart
and designate
certain seats therein
to be occupied by white persons
and a portion thereof,
or certain seats therein,
to be occupied
by Colored persons.
It shall be unlawful
for Colored people
to frequent any park owned
or maintained
by the city for the benefit,
use, and employment
of white persons.
All public parks,
recreation centers,
playgrounds, etcetera,
are required to be segregated.
All businesses
are prohibited from permitting
any dancing, social functions,
entertainments,
athletic training,
games, sport or contests
on their premises,
in which participants
are members
of the white
and African American races.
It is unlawful
for whites and Blacks
to purchase and consume alcohol
on the same location,
punishable by a fine
from $50 to $500,
or an imprisonment
in the parish prison or jail
for up to two years.
No Colored barber
shall serve as a barber
to white women or girls.
Mental hospitals.
In no case shall Negroes
and white persons be together.
The blind.
The board of trustees
shall maintain
a separate building
on separate ground
for the admission,
care, instruction,
and support of all blind persons
of the Colored or Black race.
An institution for the education
of Colored, deaf mutes
is to be established.
But segregation in this school
is still to be enforced.
The law does not allow
African American
physicians and nurses
to take post graduate courses
in public hospitals.
Separate buildings
for Black and white patients
in hospitals for the insane.
Books shall not be
interchangeable
between white
and Colored schools,
but shall continue to be used
by the race first using them.
Negroes are to use
separate branches
of county free libraries.
Separate textbooks
for white
and African American children.
There are to be no state funds
to non-segregated schools.
No separate school
is allowed to be located
within one mile
of a separate white school,
in cities and towns,
in those areas
not within 600 feet
of each other.
The children
of white and Colored races
committed
to the houses of reform
shall be kept entirely separate
from each other.
The warden shall see
that the white convicts
shall have separate apartments,
for both eating and sleeping,
from the Negro convicts.
It shall be unlawful
for any white prisoner
to be handcuffed
or otherwise chained or tied,
to a Negro prisoner.
There shall be
separate buildings
not nearer than one fourth mile
to each other,
one for white boys,
and one for Negro boys.
White boys and Negro boys
shall not, in any manner,
be associated together,
or worked together.
Separate wash rooms
in mines required.
Employment.
In addition,
separate rooms to eat in,
as well as separate
eating and drinking utensils
are required to be provided
for members of white
and African American races.
Blacks are not allowed to use
the same hearse as whites.
The officer in charge
shall not bury,
or allow to be buried
any Colored persons
upon grounds set apart,
or used for the burial
of white persons.
From the first day of March,
no Negro or other slave
in this island
shall purchase or buy any horse,
mare, mule, ass or gelding.
No Negro or other slave
should be allowed
to hunt any cattle,
horses, mares, mules or asses
in any part of this island
with lances, guns, cutlasses
or other instruments of death,
unless in the company
of his master, overseer,
or some other white person.
Or by permission in writing.
That any Negro or slave
shall fraudulently have
in their possession,
unknown to his or her master,
owner or overseer,
any fresh beef, veal,
mutton or goat,
or the flesh of horse,
mare, mule, or ass
in any quantity exceeding five,
and not exceeding
20 pounds of weight.
Such Negro or other slave
shall be whipped in such manner
as magistrates shall direct.
That if any Negro
or other slave shall,
after the first day of January,
steal any such horned cattle,
sheep, goat,
horse, mare, mule or ass,
or shall kill
any such horned cattle, sheep,
goat, horse, mule or ass,
with intent
to steal the whole carcass,
or any part
of the flesh thereof,
such Negro or slave
shall on conviction thereof,
suffer death.
That in all cases,
where the punishment of death
is inflicted
the execution shall be performed
in a public part of the parish.
Care shall be taken
by the jailer
that the criminal is free
from intoxication,
and the mode of such execution
shall be hanging by the neck.
No slave
shall be permitted on any day,
Sunday excepted,
to go out of his
or her master's plantation,
or to travel
from one place to another,
unless such slave
shall have a ticket
from their master, owner,
employer, or overseer,
expressing the time
of such slave setting out,
where he or she is going,
and the time limited
for his or her return.
From the first day of March,
any slaves found
at the distance of eight miles
from the house or plantation
to which he, she or they belong,
without a ticket to pass,
shall be deemed a runaway.
Without such, all
and every such slave or slaves,
shall be apprehended
and committed to jail,
and there be whipped.
Free mulattoes or Indians
granting runaway slaves
a ticket,
shall be
guilty of forgery, tried,
and on conviction shall suffer
their loss of freedom.
That any person
who shall apprehend
such runaways,
will be entitled
to receive from the owner,
overseer, or manager
of such slave,
the sum
of ten shillings and no more.
Besides mile money,
at the rate
of one shilling per mile
for the first five miles,
and six pence
per mile afterwards.
If any slave or slaves sentenced
to hard labour or life,
willfully runs away
or escapes from the work house,
upon capture and conviction,
such slaves
are punishable by death.
The fugitive slave who has been
on the run for one month,
from the day his master
reported him to the police,
shall have his ears cut off
and shall be branded
on one shoulder.
If he commits
the same infraction
for another month,
again, counting
from the day he's reported,
he shall have his hamstring cut
and be branded
on the other shoulder.
The third time
he shall be put to death.
All means and opportunities
of slaves committing
rebellious conspiracies
and other crimes to the ruin
and destruction of white people,
are to be prevented,
and that proper punishment
should be appointed
for all crimes
to be by them committed.
And be it further enacted,
that if any free Negro,
mulatto or Indian,
knowingly allows
unlawful assemblies
of slaves at his
or her house or settlement,
such free Negro,
mulatto or Indian
shall suffer
six months in prison.
No master or owner
shall allow slaves
to assemble together
and to beat
their military drums,
or blow their horns,
or blow their shells
upon any plantation,
pen or settlement,
or in any yard or place
under his or their care
or management.
We forbid slaves
to carry any weapons
or large sticks
on pain of whipping
and of confiscation
of the weapon,
to the profit
of those who seize them.
If any Negro
or slave whatsoever,
shall offer any violence
to any Christian
by striking or the like,
such Negro or slave
shall for his
or her first offence
be severely whipped
by the constable.
For the second offence
of that nature,
he shall be severely whipped,
his nose slit
and be burned in some part
of his face with a hot iron.
If any slave
shall offer any violence
by striking or otherwise
to any white person,
such slave shall be confined
to hard labour for life
or punished with death.
Several slaves have lately found
means to desert
from their owners
and depart from this island,
to the great damage
of such owners,
and, in evil example
to other slaves,
who may be induced
to attempt to conspire
to do the same.
From and after
the first day of March,
if any slave
shall run away and go off,
or conspire or attempt
to go off this island,
in any ship, boat,
canoe or other vessel,
or be aiding, abetting,
or affiliating
to any such slaves,
- he, she or they shall suffer...
- such punishment...
Give me a...
Give me a reason to not!
Give! Me! A Reason! To not!
Give me a reason to not.
Give me a reason to not.
Gimme somethin'. Come on.
What? Y'all not with me?
Come on man!
Please, man!
Come on! Come on!
Come on, please!
Come on. Come on.
Oh, shit.
Yo. Yo.
Come on, son.
Yo.
Nah fuck that, man! C'mon man!
Yo! Yo! Ya'll killing me
with this shit, man - come on!
Gimme somethin' man!
Yo...
Y'all killing me, man!
Yo, I can't fuckin' take...
I can't take it!
I can't take it I can't take it.
Yo. I can't fuckin' take it.
Yo! Yo. Yo.
Oh man, no! No.
Yo! Stop fuckin' with me, man!
Come on!
Stop fuckin' with me.
No, man.