No, We Can’t Stop Saying Their Names
Notes from America with Kai Wright
WNYC Studios
4.4 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 29 May 2023
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ask a group of highschoolers, “who was Trayvon Martin?” and you’ll see some tragically blank stares. But replace that with “George Floyd”, and you’ll see heads nod. Kai’s struggling with how we memorialize anti-Black violence when we “say their names” – is that an effective response to anti-Black violence?
So he talks to:
Chelsea Miller, activist and co-founder of Freedom March NYC.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | When you hit the name George Floyd, what does that mean to you? |
| 0:04.8 | A black man whose life was taken on her votes, I think it represents a social movement |
| 0:11.1 | and something that's inspired a lot of people and sparked a lot of change in many people's |
| 0:16.1 | lives. |
| 0:17.1 | It's an empowering name. |
| 0:18.1 | When that event happened, it shocked the whole world and I feel like it pushed us to |
| 0:22.7 | be better, pushed us to be more demanding as a culture. |
| 0:26.1 | I think George Floyd is more than just a name of a person now. |
| 0:29.2 | I think it's more of like something that happened in our society. |
| 0:32.9 | George Floyd is just one example of many people out there of countless names that I think |
| 0:36.6 | could have been forgotten. |
| 0:37.6 | I really wish that we could remember all the names of victims, super least fatalities, |
| 0:42.7 | so they don't just become another statistic. |
| 0:44.6 | It means a lot because it's been having a few decades and decades and decades and centuries |
| 0:49.3 | actually. |
| 0:59.2 | It's Notes from America, I'm Kai Wright and Happy Memorial Day. |
| 1:15.7 | This holiday is one of remembrance and since 2020, it has for many people been inseparable |
| 1:22.6 | with the painful memory of George Floyd's murder. |
| 1:26.6 | He was killed on May 25th, launching a global protest movement that continued throughout |
| 1:31.5 | the summer. |
| 1:40.7 | Both his murder and those protests are inextricably tied with the other epic events of 2020. |
| 1:47.0 | COVID obviously and a presidential election that would end in an effort to violently interrupt |
... |
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