(15:42:00) Pastor's Speech, Khalil's Speech

Pastor [00:00:00] I want you to take note of who is not here. I want you to go back to every conversation that they said they were for you. And they're not here. I want you to remember that you cannot say all lives matter by skipping over the value of a black life. Period. I want you to remember that each one of you have value.

Pastor [00:00:25] I am so proud of you guys. I'm proud to see that you, the generation behind me, refuse to inherit a world broken by your forefathers. I'm glad that you are standing together beyond race, creed, color, gender, wherever it is, and saying this is not the world we want. I got good news with good. The Good Book agrees with you. That where there is injustice you should speak up. And here's what I want you to do.

Pastor [00:00:59] Very Simple. Yeah. Register to vote. But I need your help here in South Plainfield.

Pastor [00:01:04] Here's the action step. Campaign Zero has a list of police reforms that can be adopted in every local town.

Pastor [00:01:13] So after we finish Black Lives Matter, after we finish, don't kill us. Stop killing us. After we finish all of this, what we need to do is make sure the mayor, the chief of police and the city council are tough reforms that say and value black lives matter.

Pastor [00:01:37] Now you don't have to be in the church to say Amen to that. Cause that is what we need.

Pastor [00:01:45] We at Impact Church are here with you, we need you. We will put this petition out. I hope that you will sign it. I hope that you can join us in every public forum. We cannot let them forget it. We cannot let them go. You have to say, at least in this one town and then the next town in South Plainfield, in North Plainfield, in Plainfield, that we take it to state. One last thing I need you to do, and you can do this. We got to have the strength to find our voices in private spaces.

Pastor [00:02:15] Stop playing diplomatic. Stop playing nice. Stop. Stop trying to have everybody your friend. You're going to have to disrupt some people. You have to call out truth. Is not about racial truth. It's just about truth. True is true. Speak the truth. When you go to work, protest and resist. If that's paying up at the the job you're working at, speak up and say. Even if you lose your paycheck over it. Say it, say I want more.

Pastor [00:02:49] When you see people being discriminated against because they won't be hired because they are a certain class of people say not at this workplace, make them hire somebody else.

Pastor [00:02:58] If you go to class and the professor says something racist, walk out. Stop paying your tuition. In other words, we're going to keep resisting in every realm. Even the church. It's time out for black church, white church, and everybody go back to their nice corners.

Pastor [00:03:19] There's only one God. Who made people of all color. Last they start say you don't see color. It's an accumulation of your ignorance. We were made with different colors and creeds for a reason.

Pastor [00:03:40] I'm a musician. To make a chord you need three notes. Each note is different. That's called a harmony. If we want harmony in America, we have to stop saying silly, stupid, ignorant things like I don't see color. You seeing color is not the issue you're judging based upon it is.

Pastor [00:04:01] So tell your plain speaking of bosses, speak to everyone you know.

Pastor [00:04:07] You say I'm a human being and I support human rights. And that's why I stand with black lives. Yall keep this up. Proud of you. You're the next generation.

Pastor [00:04:16] Your hope. I love you. You encouraged me. I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you.

Pastor [00:04:32] Thank you.

MOC [00:04:38] I'd like to bring our keynote speaker, Khalil to the floor.

Khalil [00:04:58] How everybody doin? Everyone have some water? That was a long march, wasn't it?

Khalil [00:04:58] I just wanna say, I never thought it would happen in South Plainfield.

Khalil [00:05:01] I was sitting in my room and I saw the notices on my Instagram [talking about everybody else having something.] Edison was having something. New Brunswick, Plainfield, Franklin, Piscawatay, and I said, "well... [Actually, what did say in person was.] Wait, so we're not having one?" Oh, Well, I don't know, I don't. So far, I don't know.

Khalil [00:05:26] Then about a day later, Chris DMed (texted) me and said, "Hey, me and Savanna, talked to the man, talked to the Chief, we wanna have something, want to get this together. Well, we need your help. Do we have organized, organize or him do it right? Because we're your allies. So, we're here for you. Black Lives Matter is for you. So we want to help you put this together and want to do it, you know, in the right way? So I said, sure. We're gonna put this together, we're gonna do it right. Well, I wanna thank everybody for coming out first and foremost, you guys, you made your impact on this community, South Plainfield has never seen anything like this. Marching on Maple Avenue, screaming black lives matter.

Khalil [00:06:02] Screaming say his name? What's his name? George Floyd.

Khalil [00:06:06] Scream and say her name. What's her name? Briona Taylor.

Khalil [00:06:09] Never seen anything like this. This is history. Just take it in. Take this moment to recognize you broke this group, in this town. The whole municipal building to kneel for eight minutes and forty six seconds. [In the honor of George Floyd]. It's history. So I just want everybody to take in that moment. And I want to thank the mayor. I know that you may not be here, but I want you to thank you for allowing you to do this and cooperating; and let us peacefully demonstrate and protest. We have to respect those who are within the office and that we're going to work with them. You know, we can't do it just on our own, but we do have to come together on our own. Come up with what we want? And when we want it, make our demands and hopefully we can meet somewhere in the middle. It will happen today. We marched down Maple Avenue. We come here, we're going to have some Speakers. We're going to have another Pastor, my Pastor the reverend Howard gonna come and give us a blessing of the word. We have a couple South Plainfield High School alumni and the students want to share the world with you. So I just want to bring that out to the forefront. This was put together by South Plainfield High School alumni and students.

Khalil [00:07:12] And we also need to help of all of our elder persons who are teaching us and guiding us and giving us the courage to come out and have this platform to speak these words.

Khalil [00:07:23] I have been seeing a lot of things on social media. Somebody said, "We are still crying tears over Emmett Till." They think this is about George Floyd but we are still crying tears over Emmett Till. I thought, that struck a chord with me. Because a lot of times we are caught up in these moment and these movement and it becomes just a moment.

Khalil [00:07:38] I don't want this to be a moment. I want this to be something that we just keep going. We don't have to stop, just keep going. We know there is an attitude to be in this neighborhood somewhat in our country of. Oh, that can't be us, you know. Yeah, that's true. Oh, famine. We don't have famine here, that can't be us. War torn country, the people who are starving and brutalized and rapes and murders, that can't be us. That's not us, that's that's not America. We have this idea that we don't put up with a place like. But 2020 has showed up and said that it can be you. You can have a global health crisis affect you. Hundreds of thousands people are sick and dying. You can face war torn cities and streets. You know, I don't I don't condone violence, but, it happened. You could face persecution and oppressed people. You have to speak up for them and make sure your voice is heard so it can be used. By my White colleagues and friends and other races, too.

Khalil [00:08:36] But they tend to act like they know what happened because they know who I am. So, What do you think about that? You see them marching and protesting, you see Trayvon Martin killed, Eric Gardener on the street, George Floyd, What do you think about that? I think that an insensitive question. How do you start with what do I think about that? Because before I think anything I feel. Before I think about what happened to Trayvon Marton, or think about what is going on with George Floyd, or think about what this means for our future. I feel I'm a black man. From the moment I'm born I am taught it can be you. You can be shot by the wrong person being in the wrong place. You can be pulled over and arrested and taken to a place where you may be tortured and not even an equal opportunity legal rights to fight for your justice. So it can be you. I want for all of us to realize that again, 2020 it can be us. We can be the negative. We can also be the positive. We can be the change. I never thought I'd see some of the worst in all, 50 states had protest marches and people getting together. 50 states and 18 countries [getting together] for us? Wow.

Khalil [00:09:46] So, yes, it could be I could be ugly, it could be effective or all the negative things that are in the world, but we can also we can make change. So it can be you. Do go around having this attitude thinking that it can't be us. Racism, it doesn't live here.