EXCERPT:
WEST: “Now, I come from a people who have been demonized and vilified and terrorized for 250 years in the American experiment. That‘s what it is to n*ggerize a dignified black people: make sure that they are intimidated, terrified, full of fear, and not able to straighten their backs up. But thank God, the black freedom movement straightens our backs up. Well, what we‘re witnessing, and this is why the larger picture is important here, we're at a — we‘re right on the edge of the cliff in terms of the possibility of America sustaining itself as a social experiment in the best sense, or just becoming an empire full of might and force. So when you n*ggerize a whole country, you start treating all of your citizens the way black folk have been treated for 250 years. So when I see the police killing these two precious folks, sister Renee and my dear brother Alex, and I — I‘ve had so many partners killed by the police growing up on the chocolate side of town, right? What has been the response? Thank God for Martin king. How do we learn how to love in the face of this hatred? How do we learn how to fight for freedom for everybody in all parts of town, in the face of all of this terror. And America now has the blues. If you don‘t learn something from the best of blues people, we‘re going to lose the democracy. So this is not just about meticulous details. We‘re talking about something huge at stake."