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Jan. 5, 2021 - Slightly Offensive - Elijah Schaffer
19:57
Burning Down America | Ep 58

Madness in the streets. Rioters are burning down America. Here's the hypocrisy.

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So far, at least two more people have been killed during the protest in Minneapolis.
I think the rumor is that one of them was shot by a pawn shop owner while he tried to loot it, and the other might have been stabbed.
Still unconfirmed exactly what happened.
But just get this in your mind.
Two more men died in the midst of a riot over the death of one man.
So the entire narrative already that, you know, people's lives are at a loss because of police brutality might already be called into question simply based on the fact that more people have died and been injured in the community by the community itself than by the officers.
We're going to be talking a lot about the George Floyd scenario.
And this is not a for or against him.
This is what's really going on.
And I do not like to comment on police shootings because I think everyone just needs to shut the hell up sometimes and let the justice system do its job.
Everybody says, oh, I know what really happened.
Here's what really needs to happen.
Maybe you don't know.
And so I'm not going to try to pretend to have some sort of special knowledge, but there is riots going on right now.
There are protests and my specialty is in protests.
So we're going to be covering this in a lot more in just a few minutes.
Welcome back to Slightly Offensive with your favorite host, me Elijah Schaefer.
If you didn't notice, we are actually inside of a hotel room.
I'm with my wife.
She's sitting there on my left on the bed.
We are traveling and moving to Texas.
So apologies for the low production value.
It doesn't really matter at this point because this is a serious problem.
Before we jump into the first story, I want to give a big shout out to the sponsor of the show, Black Rifle Coffee.
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So our first story today comes from the Blaze.
George Floyd, did he deserve to die?
Well, the cops say that he was resisting arrest.
The black community says that this is police brutality, and a lot of Americans seem to agree.
But of course, there's always that small portion of the population that says, well, was this guy really a criminal?
I mean, was he resisting arrest?
Well, the footage doesn't seem to show that.
This article released says George Floyd reportedly died over a counterfeit $20 bill at the deli.
So authorities reportedly arrested Floyd because he attempted to pay a deli with a $20 bill that was allegedly counterfeit.
Newly released details also note that when medics arrived on the scene, Floyd had no pulse.
And the officer involved in the incident reportedly did not release his knee from Floyd's neck until medics arrived.
Floyd died on Monday after a police officer kneeled on his neck for at least eight minutes during a detainment.
Video of the incident has since gone viral.
Four officers were fired in connection with the incident.
And the FBI has since launched a probe into Floyd's death on a possible civil rights violation.
Mass rioting and looting erupted across the city beginning on Wednesday.
What are the details?
Mohamed Abumalaya, I don't know how to pronounce it, sorry, co-owner of Cup Foods Delhi said that one of his employees phoned authorities after Floyd purportedly tried to hand over a fake $20 bill in order to pay for his purchases.
My staff then called the police practicing protocol.
This man said, and when the police arrived, Floyd was still outside, and that's when police officers approached him.
Video confirmed this, and authorities did approach Floyd while he was in his vehicle and forcibly dragged him out.
Floyd did not appear to resist arrest.
Was it justified that he was killed?
I would say no.
It wasn't justified.
What the police officer did, was it racially motivated, is the key question.
Is the officer who killed George Floyd just not trained well?
Or did he kill him because he had black skin?
Well, that doesn't matter now because the city's burning down.
Washington Post has an update, day-by-day update that says this is what's happened so far.
So to bring you guys up to speed, local and federal officials have yet to announce any charges against the officers involved, but emphasized at a Thursday evening press conference that they are making the inquiry into Floyd's death a top priority.
The mayor of St. Paul asked people to stay home amid a rapidly devolving situation in the Capitol as police said they are trying to disperse groups, damaging property and looting.
Officers have used tear gas and on protesters gathered outside a St. Paul target where police have struggled to maintain order throughout the day.
The region's main public transportation operator said it was suspending bus and light rail services over safety concerns.
Floyd's family then will seek an independent autopsy of his body because it does not trust Minneapolis city officials.
An attorney for the family said Thursday on CNN.
Floyd's death has also sparked rallies in other parts of the country.
Wednesday in Memphis, a crowd gathered outside and as well as in Los Angeles.
So a riot ensued.
What began as reportedly a peaceful protest has turned into people burning down their own city.
This brings up the really interesting connection to me about the difference between the way different races handle racial tension.
I want to bring up a story.
I don't know if you remember this story about a Minneapolis cop who shot an unarmed woman in her pajamas was charged with murder.
So similarly, I believe back in 2017, 2018, on this article is 2018, there was this woman.
She was, I think, Australian.
It says here the Minneapolis police officer who shot and killed an unarmed 40-year-old woman in July has been charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.
Officer Mohamed Noir turned himself in on Tuesday, the Guardian reported, eight months after Noir shot and killed Justine Damond, just minutes after she called 911 to report a possible crime.
So this story kind of breaks down where there was this woman in her front yard.
She was in her pajamas.
She was reported there was a crime taking place.
This man who was not white, an officer, shot and killed her cold blood.
I believe he's in prison now for 12 years.
Now, she's a white woman, a very stereotypical white woman.
Doesn't get more white than this.
The blonde hair, the blue eyes, the seemingly sun-kissed, tan skin.
Very pretty girl, too.
Probably had a whole nice life ahead of her.
She was out here in the United States.
And oh my gosh, she's unarmed.
She's even looking to the police for help.
And a man of color comes and he kills her.
He shoots her cold blood.
Then all around the country, white people demanded justice for this woman.
They demanded that the police be arrested and taken to jail and they burned down Minneapolis.
No, I'm just kidding.
That didn't happen.
It didn't happen, but I don't want to make this just like, oh, hey, you know, certain people burn down cities and others don't.
I want to ask the question, really, why when in the same city, the same situation of a woman not just being kneeled over, but literally brutally shot with no understanding of the situation, she's killed, are there clearly no riots?
But yet when a black man is killed, there are riots.
Well, I mean, the answer might seem obvious to you, as it does to me.
There's obviously an understanding and a belief in black communities that the police are against them.
Police brutality is targeting them, that they are the victims of a constant and barrage systemic racism, that white people in power are using their authority to destroy them.
And every single time a killing like this happens, it opens up a wound in the black community where they feel like, I don't know, they all feel like they died.
They all feel like George Floyd.
And I know people, black people that sympathize a lot with this, white people, everybody who just says, man, enough is enough.
But are black people really being killed by the hundreds?
Well, thousands, millions, even unjustly.
I mean, well, people in Minneapolis think it.
Right here, it says from Fox 9, Minneapolis Fire Department responded to 30 intentionally set fires during overnight protests, 30.
The Minneapolis Fire Department says it responded to approximately 30 intentionally set fires overnight Wednesday through Thursday morning that began during the protest along East Lake Street over the death of George Floyd.
Deciding 911 calls, the department said at least 16 of those fires were structure fires set during the protest.
Crews are still on the scene of the fires.
So the people in Minneapolis are so upset at the system.
They're so upset at what they believe to be systemic racism that they're willing to burn down their own city.
Literally.
Loot the stores.
If you want to watch the footage, you can take time to watch it.
I implore you to watch it, to go to Twitter, to go to Google, and watch the clips of what people are really doing in their city.
But they're doing this because they're angry.
They're doing this for a lot of reasons.
Some people have their own ideas, but really, truly, it's because they're upset.
And I know this because I myself was, I wouldn't say almost killed, but I could have been killed at a Black Lives Matter protest out front of Maxine Waters unit in Los Angeles.
Los Angeles has a big Black Lives Matter community.
They did assault me physically.
The local news did admit that they tried to, basically they did try to, or wanted to kill me.
They came up with me with bats and chains, threatened my life.
They said I survived because a pastor intervened.
But what was I?
I'm just a white guy.
Well, I wasn't doing anything there.
I wasn't even hurting them.
I didn't kill anybody.
I was just asking them questions.
But obviously, there are tensions in large cities where black people just think white people are out to get them.
But who's spreading that narrative?
Is it black people spreading the narrative?
Maybe not.
To point out the picture of what the footage looks like, check out this footage right here outside in Minneapolis, where you can actually see some of these fires outside of an Aldi.
Talk about, I mean, Aldi has fire prices, but I've never seen prices like this.
They're straight up free and everyone's dancing and cheering with masks on and drinking.
I mean, I don't know.
I wouldn't do that.
Maybe you wouldn't either.
But there's obviously a reason they're doing it besides just a lack of education.
And it comes down to that.
It comes down to a real question of what is the problem.
But what's really what I want to bring up is it's interesting that black people, though, and minority communities don't fully not trust the government.
You know, it's like so ironic that like while looting this target in Minneapolis, they were wearing masks.
Check this out.
This is really bizarre.
So while people are looting this, this, I don't know, this place, they're wearing COVID masks.
So they believe the government enough that COVID is killing them, but they don't believe the government enough that they can handle this investigation and that they should stay home as their mayor asked them and to let the situation calm down.
I mean, what a bizarre situation this is.
People are, you can see the weird confusion in minority communities and the fact of how reliant they are on the government.
The government tells them COVID is ravaging minority communities.
It's racist.
It's this, it's that.
But at the same time, it's like they're wearing the masks, listening to the government while also disobeying all laws and breaking into a target and just taking whatever they want.
Something has got to change.
There is something crazy going on here.
As I mentioned, it also happened in Los Angeles.
Check out this footage that was posted right on the 101 freeway, which was just a few minutes about where my old studio was.
Check this out.
So there's this police officer driving on the 101 and cars, I mean, a bunch of protesters surround them, start breaking the back windshield with a skateboard, and then a man was on the front, falls off, and he seems to be injured.
Luckily, he seems to have only had moderate injuries and survived.
But what the hell is going on?
Is this really about Ahmaud Arbery?
Is this really the case?
Are people just mad about black people?
Well, I'm about to debunk that.
No, the answer is no.
Look at this footage here for me.
I was in Minneapolis, the same city back in October.
Or when was this?
I don't know.
Maybe I'm, oh, I don't even know at this point.
Maybe it was October or November, but it was last year and Donald Trump was in town.
But it didn't take very long for people to be holding up Black Lives Matter signs, as well as rioting in the streets, breaking down barriers, assaulting each other.
check this out and welcome to the protests here what all right guys we got into straight up Oh, I'm just going to go to the house.
Skipping ahead a little bit, you'll see that there's a lot of police.
All right, they're dragging a barrier through the street.
For those of you that are my blind viewers, I always call my listeners my blind viewers because you can't see.
Minneapolis is no stranger to mayhem and destruction.
No matter what happens with the Republican cause or whatever happens on the right wing, these people are tense and they are fired up.
As I mentioned, these people are no stranger to violence.
There was many people assaulted that day during my reports.
So, you know, to say that there's just violence and riots in the street because of racial tensions isn't exactly true.
There's political tensions in the area as, well, but I want to bring this up.
Why is this being tolerated?
Why is this being allowed?
Well, check out the mayor actually here of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, who makes an excuse for the violence.
This is what Democrat lawmakers do.
This is why I don't want to make this a partisan issue.
But I want to say that there's a narrative being concocted that says that, you know, black people are victims, that police are the aggressors.
And unfortunately, that this case with George Floyd is not an isolated incident from an untrained officer, or even if he was racist and killed him because he was black, though I don't think there's evidence for that at all at the moment.
If we ran with that narrative, how do you expect people to behave any differently, especially when their mayor says something like this, making excuses for the violence?
Seen over the last two days and the emotion-ridden conflict over last night is the result of so much built-up anger and sadness.
Anger and sadness that has been ingrained in our black community, not just because of five minutes of horror, but 400 years.
If you're feeling that sadness and that anger, it's not only understandable, it's right.
It's a reflection of the truth that our black community has lived.
While not from lived experience, that sadness must also be understood by our non-black communities.
To ignore it, to toss it out, would be to ignore the values we all claim to have that are all the more important during a time of crisis.
Okay.
Well, first of all, Jacob Fry, who looks very similar to the character from Futurama, looks like 27 years old.
My gosh, I didn't realize we had such young mayors in our country.
His response is not condemning the rioting, not condemning the looting, not saying, hey guys, don't burn down your city.
It's, by the way, those of you guys that are upset about what's going on, it's because you're bigoted and you don't understand the sadness of what people are feeling.
No, Jacob Fry, I understand the sadness.
I get it.
But you know what?
Because one of your ancestors 400 years ago was enslaved and you are working to create a better life, that doesn't explain the high crime rates and different things in black communities.
There's a point where people need to move beyond and outside of these things and not live in a backwards mindset.
America is not about looking at the past to justify the present.
It's about progress.
And if you think to this day that people burning down a target and an auto-part store, setting a low-income housing unit on fire is due to the fact that an ancestor was enslaved, you're out of your damn mind.
Yes, there are real issues in the black community, but it's these kinds of politicians like this.
Let me go to this one.
Ilhan Omar saying, I am heartbroken, horrified at the needless death of George Floyd, another innocent black man murdered by police in our community, frustrated that we keep finding ourselves in this position as a city, angry that justice still seems out of reach.
Our anger is just.
Our anger is warranted and our priority right now must be protecting one another.
Ilhan Omar just says that she says it's just.
What happened out there is just.
No condemnation of the violence, no condemnation of what's going on.
No saying, hey, guys, we get it, man.
You think and believe or you feel or whatever is going on, but you can't burn this place down.
The mayor to the congresswoman representing the district, it's like we're living in Mad Max.
We know what's going on.
I don't believe that George Floyd's death is justified.
But I've learned from instances like the Covington example, when people and prominent conservatives were quick to condemn the Covington kids until more evidence came out that showed that they were actually innocent.
I try not to jump the gun and decide who's right and wrong, but I can condemn one thing, and that's the rioting.
I can let you know that this is not okay.
And if you think that it's not, if you think it's okay and you think you're over-exaggerating, check this out.
A verified Francis Fisher said they want a race war.
We'll give them a race war.
I'm with Black Lives Matter.
We will win.
It is our duty to fight our freedom.
It is our duty to win.
We must love each other and support each other.
We have nothing to lose but our chains.
Asada Shakur, she's quote, tweet quoting somebody.
These people say they want a race war.
They're trying to make a race war.
They invent race wars.
From many hoaxes across the centuries to finding out that many of these unarmed black men were actually committing crimes to people saying, well, there still wasn't a justified death.
I hear you all.
I know what you're saying.
There's truth in many of your perspectives.
But the reality of the matter is that even if there's truth in your perspectives, there's ultimately a truth, the truth.
And that truth cannot come out when we're all bickering and fighting, trying to prove a narrative.
George Floyd is a man who unnecessarily died as it seems, though I could still be proven wrong.
I don't know.
But I will say this.
Burning down your city does not help the black community.
Committing more crimes and killing more people does not stop the violence.
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