The Daily - Why They're Protesting

Episode Date: June 5, 2020

This episode includes disturbing language including racial slurs.They came together to protest the killing of George Floyd — and because what happened to him had echoes in their own experiences. Today, we speak with five protesters about the moments in their lives that brought them onto the streets.Guests: Donfard Hubbard, 44, from Minneapolis; Rashaad Dinkins, 18, from Minneapolis; Joe Morris, 32, from Tallahassee, Fla.; Azalea Hernandez, 12, from Minneapolis; and Joyce Ladner, 76, from Washington. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily

Sunday morning, I'm telling you, I was sitting in my house. I was contemplating. And I got up, I got in my car, and I just drove. I drove through North Minneapolis, then I drove through South Minneapolis, and I landed at the area where Mr. Floyd got killed. And when I got out, I walked up. And I felt comfortable. Like I was in a surrounding of my own people

that we're going to be out here, and we're going to try to make the best of a bad situation. So we out there chanting. They out there talking. I'm out there listening. And I feel good. And this is one of those things, it's like, it was so beautiful to see people come together and try to have their voices heard. No justice! No peace!

No justice! No peace! No justice! No peace! No justice! No peace! No justice! No peace! No justice! No peace! From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today, they came to protest the death of George Floyd and because his experience spoke to their own. Because his experience spoke to their own.

Five protesters on the moments that brought them into the streets. It's Friday, June 5th. No peace! No justice! No peace! No justice! No peace! My name is Don Farad Hubbard. I am 44 years old. I grew up in Minneapolis. I've been in Minneapolis since 1978. So when I was 10 years old, I was up at the park. It's like eight, nine blocks away.

Like nine of my friends, we was having a snowball fight. It snows in Minnesota. It was early evening, so it wasn't really dark outside yet. And the cops roll up. So when the cops roll up, we scattered. Nobody wanted to have interaction with the police. It's just one of those things. Nobody ever wanted to have interaction with the police.

As everybody scattered and took off, I ran around two blocks. I remember I ran around two blocks, and I cut through alleys, because in Minnesota we got alleys. And as I was cutting through alleys, the cop zoomed by, backed up, and sped down the alley and caught me as I was trying to cut through a yard. So I stopped. And I came back. And he confronted me and asked me what we was doing out there. And I told him we was having a snowball fight.

And he was like, y'all was having a snowball fight. I'm like, yeah. He's like, well, it's getting late. You need to take your black ass home. I'm like, what? And he was like, yeah, you heard me, nigger. And I'm just like, what? Once he said what he said and he took off,

I just figured that confrontation was over with. And so I just kept going. And then I didn't see no more cops. I went home. I didn't tell nobody about it. I just went about my evening. And it was what it was. It's one of those things that it sticks with you because you'd be like, why did he talk to me like that?

Well, he figured he could. You know what I'm saying? It was nothing to him to talk to me like that. At the time, it didn't bother me. I was just a kid, so I didn't know the magnitude or the word when he said it. It was more so of relief that I didn't even get brought home by the police. And then I work for Hennepin County now, but I used to work for the city of Minneapolis. At the time, I was on this concrete crew and it was early in the morning. So we was taking our morning break and we was going to a store on our way to the

next job site. And so he was driving. So I told him, you know, I want to run up in the store and grab me something to drink and probably some chips or some, I don't remember. And I went in the store and grabbed my items and I came back out and it was a cop out there, you know? And so I'm not thinking of it. So I'm walking back towards the truck I was riding in with my coworker and he stopped me. Yeah, he stopped me. He was like, what are you doing over here? I'm like, what do you mean what I'm doing? I just came out the store. He's like, I need to ask you some questions. You look like somebody that was gotten to a domestic dispute. I said, I didn't get into no domestic dispute.

I'm at work. And I pointed at the truck. Well, I'm pointing at the truck. My coworker, he sees this whole interaction. He don't get out the truck. He don't come over there. He don't do nothing. So me and the cop are going back and forth.

And he finally says, well, I need to see your ID. So I handed him my ID. We're going back and forth. And finally, he gets a call on the radar or whatever. He proceeds to say, yeah, you're not it and throws my ID on the ground. Like, here, go fetch. You know what I'm saying?

So I get back in the truck and do ask me what happened. That is the most ignorant thing a person could ask you. You sat there and watched so you know what happened. So basically, I said, well, he assumed I was somebody else. But why did you get out and confirm it? He was like, I don't know. I just thought you guys were talking. Why would I be talking to the police just randomly coming out of a store? I just think he was a coward for just sitting there and not interceding where he could have been. He didn't want to do that, but he looked though. White people don't want to get

involved. He looked. He looked dead at me and this cop sitting there for at least a five-minute conversation. He looked and then turned away. He didn't want to get involved. I'm not, like I said, I'm not asking you to go over there and we're going to fight the cop. You could have just simply walked out, got out the truck, walked over and said, what's going on? But then as soon as I get back in the truck, you want to ask me what's going on. I mean, if you want to know what's going on, you should have got out and asked. My name is Rashad Dinkins.

I am from Minneapolis, Minnesota, and I am 18 years old, and I am an actor, director, and a college student. So I work at Mall of America in the amusement park inside at a ride called Fly Over America. Fly Over America is a virtual flight experience where your feet dangle over. You experience wind, mist, and scent to make you feel like you're flying. Okay, so this was about 2018. And I had been working in the mall for about a year-ish. I started every morning the same.

I like listen to music as I go to work. It's kind of like my upbeat kind of going into it. So I take the bus there, cause I don't drive, and I'm happy, I'm like bumping, I'm ready to go to work. I think I remember the song I was listening to at the time. I think it was Demi Lovato, Confident,

cause I think her album had just came out. And so I was like, hey, what's wrong with me? What's wrong with me? What's wrong with me? Confident. I was wearing a red shirt that day that says Fly Over America. And I have a badge that says my name and it says the date that I started. So that's how you scan and how you do all that. So there have these back hallways that you can enter through,

kind of like a secret tunnel, if you will. And a lot of mall cops stand either guard or stand inside of it. But at this moment, a guard was standing in front of the door to me, getting into the entrance to the tunnel. Okay, all right. Why is he standing here? It's 8 a.m. No one ever really is here. And he has a white, mall cops usually have white button-up shirts with their badge and their holster. And he was about, I want to say, six feet. He had blue eyes, white skin, and he was very kind of muscular, very

built. And he stopped me and I said, hi, how are you? And he said, where are you going? I said, I'm going to work. I have to clock in. And he says, where do you work? And I said, Five America. I showed him my badge. And he said, well, I think you have to call your manager out to escort you to your job. I said, I know where my job is. I know where I'm going. He said, well, I just think for your safety, for who you are, I think it will be best for your manager to come out for you.

And so I called my manager, and she said she was unable to come out because she has to open the store. I said, okay, well, she's currently busy. So she can't come out here. He said, well, I really would like your manager to be here. And I said, I just told you that she can't come. I can call her again and put her on speaker so you can hear her say it yourself. But I have to get to work. Like, my shift starts in about 10, 15 minutes, so I have to go. And he said, okay, well, I just don't believe you. And so I had to go around the other entrance, the main entrance that's actually locked,

so I had to wait for my manager to see me through the glass and kind of just come and enter and escort me in. And that was what happened. I started to think, I started to just think angry thoughts about like things that I hate about myself. Was it me? Was I, what was I wearing? What was I acting? How was I acting like that to make him think that I was this? Or am I wrong?

Was I not smiling? Did I need to do something else? Did I try to be nice to him or comfort him or offer him a free ticket on the ride? Like what would I need to do to make him okay with me? And I think that's when I realized that there's nothing that I really could have done to make him okay with me. And I think that's when I realized that there's nothing that I really could have done to make him okay with me. He just kind of has to be okay. Thank you. My name's Joe Morris. I am 32 years old. I live in Tallahassee, Florida.

People tell me every day, those who know him, that, boy, you just like your daddy. And it's kind of weird talking about it because I don't even know how he would look today. He was a minister in the church. He did the best he could, you know, to be a great dad, you know. a great dad, you know. He loved everybody. He just loved smiling and grinning and chewing gum was his favorite thing to do. And he was in church with us on Sundays. As I grew up at the age of 12, it was the saddest day of my life when I was at church and I remember I believe I was on the front row I was pretty hyper growing up so they wanted to keep me from being in trouble so I was on the front row of church and never forget this moment ever.

Man. Yeah. We get a call to the church phone, and the call on the other line was that my father had been shot by the police in my hometown. And at that point, we didn't know, basically, was he alive or dead. And upon our arrival is when we saw that he was gone. And it was, oh man. so he was laying there um in the way that he died in the way that the police handled the situation um you know a bullet to the head is is is pretty um pretty steep and so um Pretty steep. And so I don't know what happened. I know that they I guess the cops, there was a call, I guess someone called. And he was going through a time where he was wrestling.

You know, I don't know if it was drug abuse or alcohol abuse. And, yeah, that's all the information I've ever gotten, even to this day, with that whole situation. So, I mean, that was his last time at home. Um. Oh, man. Oh, man. Oh, Minnesota. My name is Azalea Hernandez, and I'm 12 years old. I live in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I was in 6th grade, and I think I was either 10 or 11.

And by the way, when I say 10 or 11, it kind of sounds like it was just last year. I am about to be 13, so it kind of seems like a long time ago for me. I think it was the Women's March. We were marching with our signs, and we had pins on. And we weren't with any, like, adults or, like, our parents, but I was with people. And there was a couple older white men, and they were kind of just walking next to us. They were creeping up next to us. I remember trying to speed up with our walking, but they came up to me and the people that I was with and started calling us the N-word.

They were like, you N-words don't belong here, and this people that I was with and started calling us the N-word. They were like, you N-words don't belong here and this and that. I think I was kind of scared that they would like hurt me or my friends or something if I tried to say something back. hurt me or my friends or something if I tried to say something back. I didn't say anything, but one of, I don't exactly remember what one of my friends said, but they didn't say something. I think they just told the guys to go away. They didn't. They kept saying, like, you, whatever, don't belong here, and then we kept walking because we can't really defend ourselves against like old, they were like tall, kind of bigger people.

We don't really have the strength, like the body strength to do that. But, but that's just one thing that I remember well. I think that's because I had a long conversation with my mom after. well. I think that's because I had a long conversation with my mom after. Just that things are going to happen and to not let people like that get into my head and that there's going to be so many things that happen in my life until I die and I just have to move forward, I guess. I understood what she was trying to say. I understood that there's going to be people who don't like me for the wrong reasons, and that as long as I'm not dead, things are going to keep happening. I am Dr. Joyce Ladner.

I am 76 years old, and I live in Washington, D.C. I grew up in segregated Mississippi. I don't remember the precise time that I knew about Emmett Till's lynching. But you have to understand also that the media was very much censored so i bought the hattiesburg american each day i think it cost a nickel or a dime and read whatever i could find in it about emma till's murder yeah i was going on 12 years old i I was 11, soon to be 12 when Emmett Till was lynched. Everyone was discussing it, you know. People were talking about it.

And when I heard about it, I felt that just a profound sense of fear just washed over me. Because this was the first time we knew that a child had been murdered, and therefore it could happen to us. I felt it could happen to me. I especially felt that it could happen to my brothers. I expected that once they're arrested as murderers, in my young mind, okay, they will send them to jail because I knew, you know, that white people didn't get arrested for killing black people. But I don't know, maybe it was because I thought this is a boy.

And they did kill him. And there were witnesses to them dragging him from his home. witnesses to them dragging him from his home. And so, you know, much to my young sense of hope that people would be punished for what they did to him. They weren't, you know. And so what I did was take a lot of that anger about Emmett Till and later, you know, try and put it into civil rights activism. A lot of my friends, you know, it was one of the seminal moments that led them into the mood.

Almost to a person who was seeing the picture of Emmett Till, bloated body, on the cover of Jet Magazine. That's why I call ours the Emmett Till Generation. We were determined one day to exonerate his death on a larger scale I see a parallel between what

the young kids are seeing and feeling about this and I think they understand as much as I did that George Floyd is an adult form of an Emmett Till. He was murdered. I believe the reason so many people are out protesting against this is that the Emmett Tills of the world, you know, have gone, murders have gone unpunished and this was the straw that

broke the camel's back. We'll be right back. I've made a sign that says Black Lives Matter. I've made another sign. It has the power fist and different shades of skin colors to show that everybody is equal. I like to outline everything in black because I feel like it makes everything pop more. But I've been doing skin color.

So like tan and brown and a whole bunch of other shades. I was looking at the news and looking at the news and looking at the news and and then on Saturday it got even worse and kept getting worse. My eyes would tell me what I seen. You can't tell me nothing. I know what I seen. I seen that man he didn't resist arrest. He didn't do nothing and then them people out there told you to move and you still didn't do nothing. And then them people out there told you to move. And you still didn't move. And the other three sat there and let it happen. That's why it's different. I was conflicted to even go to the rally,

but then I thought to myself, that could be me. I jumped up out of the house. My friend DeRay sent a text to the group for a protest that was going on. I'm like, well, oh my goodness, I got to get back out there. We want justice! We want justice! We want justice!

The first day, I think I just went to the corner and had my sign. Had my sign up. I was with my mom and her friends. I had my sign up. I was with my mom and her friends. The first day that I went, actually, there was a march. But I didn't go all the way down. I didn't walk all the way down. It's like five miles, and I did not have the right shoes on because I didn't know that I was going to be marching. And I was wearing Vans with no socks on,

which I would have rather to be wearing tennis shoes. I still did walk like four miles though. I didn't walk all the way there, I was close. But I did get blisters. I have fat feet. So I got blisters, like three of them on the side. Like I said, I'm shy, but we end up leading a march of over a thousand people through the city of Tallahassee. We want justice!

Ain't no protest ever went like this before. This is all new. This is like, they had protests in Ferguson when Mike Brown got killed. They had protests in Baltimore when Freddie Gray got killed. They had protests in Baltimore when Freddie Gray got killed. They had protests in New York when Eric Garner got killed. None of them's been like this. All those other ones, you can add a little bit onto the story where it's not

clear-cut. You can't clear-cut this one. You can't clear-cut this one. We want justice! We want justice! Going through neighborhoods, it was such a unique demonstration of unity. We had people coming outside, joining the march. People's leaving restaurants, joining the march. The other day we did over 12 miles. I said, we're going. I am pumped up. I'm excited to march and

to play my role in history. And until today, I didn't even know. I thought rubber bullets were like little BB gun things. They're huge. They're like, they're ginormous. So like a BB gun, they're just little balls. But these things, it looks like, it's like the shape of like a bullet. But it's rubber on most of it. And then on the end, it's plastic. I don't know what to compare it to. It was like maybe like half of a phone.

I saw one in person. It was on the street. Yeah. And I know someone who got hit in the lip and their lip was ginormous. It was like half their face. I can't do anything but be black. I can't wash it off. I can't take it away. So me walking out of the house and walking into work, if you feel threatened by that existence, that is not my problem. That is not my place to try to change you and try to kind of morph you into the person that I want to be. You kind of have to do that for yourself. And if you're willing to do that for yourself, then I applaud you.

And if you're not, will I help you get to a place where you can? What's giving me hope? These people keep protesting. I love it. I turn it on every day. Listen, I got other stuff I could be watching. I come home every day. I've been watching this stuff morning, noon, and night.

On the weekend, I watch it. I come home from work. I'm watching it right now while I'm talking to you. My TV's on here. I got to be watching something else. What's important is I love seeing all these people come together and they protest. Now, am I proud of the people when they're looting? No. Do I care? No. That's part of the protest.

You're not going to get people's attention if you do friendly protests. It's like, you know when you're getting people's attention? When you start destroying stuff. Okay, oh, now they're destroying stuff. Now they got our attention. Now how do we stop them from destroying stuff? Okay, we got to hear what they're talking about. This feels different because there are people out there demonstrating

that we've never seen before. They haven't been in marches, protests before. I do think this was a watershed moment that caused things to be different. When I'm protesting, I am out also protesting, you know, for my father's death at the hands of law enforcement to make sure that our future is much brighter. We don't have to be fearful of traffic stops. We don't have to be fearful because we see a cop. That's what I'm marching for,

so that other young men in this world can see their father. And it's so unfortunate for the daughter of George Floyd. She's sort of in my shoes, you know. You grow up through life and, you know, who's going to take her to the father and daughter lunch and the father-daughter dance? And it was the same with me because my dad actually used to come to the parent lunchings. You know, when I had lunch, I would pop up and I would see him and he would surprise me. You wouldn't think nothing of it, you know. You wouldn't think nothing of it, you know.

I don't know if my parents is going to come, but it's lunchtime and, you know, he's out at the table before you. I mean, it was such a great experience, you know. I just want people to understand that it's evident that hate killed Mr. Floyd. Hate killed him. That was it. He's 46. Well, I'm 44. I've been harassed by the police several times. I'm a black male in America, and it's one of these things that I can relate to what happened to this man's family.

I got two boys. My youngest son, he's 13. My oldest son, he's 24. Now, the conversation I have with my kids is about this. You always got to be careful when you interact with white folks. Why do I got to keep having this conversation? Do I wish I didn't have to have that conversation? Yeah, but that's not the world we live in. So that's why I keep having this conversation with my kids, because I don't want nothing to happen to them. I think that it is about to get justice for George Floyd and to try to make one thing in the world fair.

Like, people have been trying for years and I don't think it's gotten any better. So I feel like right now we're trying to draw a line to all of it. I'm going back out there tomorrow because it's not about me no more. That's why I want people to know it's not about me no more. My son, he's 13. He's going to be an adult one day.

Do we got to live like this his whole life? No, he shouldn't have to. Will he have kids? Will his kids have to live like this their whole lives? No, they shouldn't have to. Will he have kids? Will his kids have to live like this their whole lives? No, they shouldn't have to. So we got to go out here and march every day or go downtown and sit in front of the city hall until they change these laws on the books.

Hey, I'm with it. I got time. I got time. No justice! No peace! No justice! No peace! No justice!

No peace! No justice! No peace! No justice! No peace! No justice! We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. On Thursday, George Floyd was honored at a memorial service in Minneapolis that was attended by hundreds of grieving friends, family, lawmakers, and community members. I want us to not sit here and act like we had a funeral on the schedule. George Floyd should not be among the deceased. He did not die of common health conditions. He died of a common American criminal justice malfunction.

Speakers, including Reverend Al Sharpton, said that Floyd's death at the hands of Minneapolis police officers would not be forgotten. It was just amazing. Everywhere you go and see people, how they cling to him. They wanted to be around him. You know, George, he was like a general. Every day he walks outside, there'd be a line of people wanting to greet him and wanted to have fun with him. During the service, Floyd's brother, Folonis, remembered sharing banana and mayonnaise sandwiches with him as a child and described him as a cherished figure in the community. When you spoke to George, they felt like they was the president because that's how he made you feel.

Everybody wants justice. We want justice for George. He's going to get it. He's going to get it. Thank you. See like the flesh from above threw it all I remember that he loves and he cares and he'll never

put more on me than I can bear. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you on Monday. Oh, no, no. Oh, no, no. God, I've come. I've come through the fire.