The Breakdown with Shaun King

1 year ago, right outside of Philadelphia, in a town called Sharon Hill, local police shot and killed an 8 year old girl named Fanta Bility, and tried to claim it was in a shootout.

But there was no shootout. And police have offered no credible explanation on why they unloaded their guns into the car of Fanta's family - killing Fanta, shooting her sister, and injuring other innocent bystanders.

Now, police are saying that since it can't be proven which of their bullets killed Fanta, that none of them should be convicted. So we MUST take action to stand up for this family.

ACTION STEP: Click the link in my bio on Instagram and you'll see everything you need to do to email and call every single person on this case, OK?

Yesterday I told you how a conservative white woman named Katie Bernhardt has become the chair of the Democratic Party of Louisiana - and blocked the endorsement of Gary Chambers.

Now, it turns out that the Black man that she hand-picked as her Vice Chair is so conservative that the most conservative Republicans in Texas are throwing fundraisers FOR HIM. And not as a practical joke. This man, C. Travis Johnson, is also another wolf in sheep's clothing. He's SO BAD that he recently side with Republicans and voted FOR their racist gerrymandering and redistricting plan. Black folk in the legislature could not believe it.

But it's not just that. The man is skipping important votes for Black voters and voting against the priorities of Black people REGULARLY. In other words, both the chair and vice chair of the Democratic Party in Louisiana, a party dominated by Black voters, are actively working against the interests of Black voters. They both need to be removed immediately.

Her name is Katie Bernhardt. She is literally a lifelong ultra conservative Republican that campaigned and donated to the worst conservatives in Louisiana and she is now somehow leading the Democratic Party in one of the Blackest states in America.

And now she single handedly tanked the Democratic Party's endorsement of Gary Chambers - against the wishes of the majority of Black voters and party members that actually make the majority of the party. This woman needs to be removed from her position immediately.

Listen to me - the enemy of your enemy is not always your friend. That's a cute saying, but that's about all it is. Yes, Donald Trump and conservatives are now attacking the FBI and calling to defund it - and because Democrats hate Trump so much, liberals are now cheerleading the FBI.

But that's a HUGE mistake. The FBI has done more harm to Black people, Black leaders, and Black movements than the KKK. They have had their hands in destroying Black leaders and movements all the way back to Marcus Garvey. They are not our friends. I can count on 1 hand the good they've ever done for us while entire books have been written about all the harm they've done to Black people - including assassinations.

Nobody in America has more monuments honoring them than white men. It's not even remotely close. In fact, HALF of the Top 50 most represented people with monuments were enslavers that literally bought, sold, and traded human beings. This is not ok.

But I think a big part of the problem is that we are too often waiting on other people to imagine and build these monuments for us when the truth is we're going to have to build them ourselves.

I'd like to begin with us building monuments to Malcolm X and Nat Turner.

What do you think?

With every day that passes, we are learning more and more about the blatant corruption that has overtaken the San Francisco DA's office. And what's wild here, is that Democrats can't blame Republicans for this corruption, because it's conservative Democrats, from top to bottom, running the whole thing.

We just learned that the new DA, Brooke Jenkins, was literally paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to be the face of the effort to recall Chesa Boudin, but presented herself to the public as an unpaid volunteer.  Once she then took the office that she paid to undermine, she then immediately began firing every prosecutor and staffer that had anything to do with prosecuting police or overseeing wrongful convictions and replacing them with people that have a long history of actually protecting the police.

Let me unpack and explain it all.

Listen, Americans everywhere are tired of politics and tired of politicians, but some truly BRILLIANT leaders continue to step up and run for office. Let me tell you about 4 great leaders that won their races and why those races matter so doggone much!

Donald Trump is under active investigation by city, state, and federal offices all over the country. And yesterday some of those chickens started coming home to roost - when the FBI executed a search warrant on his home and office in Florida and recovered at least 15 boxes of material.

Today, I'll unpack and explain what I know about the raid/search. What's wild is that it increasingly appears that Trump will never be held accountable for any of the monstrous things he did while in office, but that he made so many mistakes after Election Day in 2020, that it's going to be the window between Election Day and his exit from The White House that ends up truly jamming him up legally.

Calling it anything other than a massacre is a lie. Not a single Israel was killed while hundreds of Palestinian homes and businesses were hit with bombs and missiles - destroying everything in and around them - including at least 15 young children. It's despicable.

What's almost equally despicable is how hard honest coverage from the American mainstream media is to find. Before I recorded this episode I went to every major outlet in the country and hardly a word has been said in the headlines. And the articles and stories that were written made it out like a fight happened between equals. That's not what happened at all. It was a brutal, ugly massacre where children were literally blown to unrecognizable bits. I saw it with my own eyes. And people are asking why these kids aren't being treated with the love and attention given to Ukrainians - and the answer is simple. The American taxpayers are funding and arming the Ukrainians AND the Israelis. How can you speak out on what you wrote the check for?

This needs to be a national story! In the Deep South, voters in Memphis, Tennessee showed up in a MAJOR way to oust conservative DA Amy Weirich for a progressive reformer and civil rights attorney. It's a HUGE deal.

And it wasn't even close. Amy strangely made her campaign about ME, of all people, running ads blasting me, and my support of her opponent, but voters knew better and saw right through it, thankfully.

Here's the thing - when a progressive loses somewhere, it's all over the news. We need them to now keep that same energy for Memphis.

Shout out to the new DA, Steve Mulroy, who ran a great campaign. And shout out to the voters and volunteers in Memphis who made it happen. Proud of you!

Today 4 current and former Louisville Police officers were charged by the DOJ and arrested by the FBI for their role in the murder of Breonna Taylor.

First, I want to thank my dear friends @ Until Freedom for literally moving to Louisville to fight for a moment like this. And I want to thank the brilliant attorneys for the family of Breonna Taylor - who've never given up. And of course, local activists and organizers that have stood by the family every step of the way.

Does this heal the heart of Breonna's mother, Tamika Palmer? Of course not, but it does lift some of the burden she's had to carry. I am sure of it. These charges, we know, are not convictions, but when the DOJ charges police, they get convictions 99% of the time.

Above all, today is a reminder to never give up in your fight for justice and accountability. It's all so rare and so damn so slow, but we should never give up.

For most of my 42 years, I've aimed to take the thing that we call "the high road." I wouldn't even say that I fully regret it, because I meant well.

But 42 years of taking the high road has made it such that anybody, anywhere, can attack and spread dangerous information about my family without any consequences. Normally, I will defend myself, and my own reputation, and I will continue to do that as I need to, but now, I am going to use the same strategies that have been used against me, against those that have caused us harm. I am returning your strategies back to you.

I wouldn't say that I'm shocked that the NFL only suspended him for 6 games, but I am absolutely disgusted. Men have been suspended more than that for having fights on the field.I believe he did every single thing that the women said he did. I've spoken to some of these women directly. They are honest, hardworking Black women that were cornered and sexually assaulted by Deshaun. He's a disgusting pervert.

I am a HUGE fan of the brand new phone number, 988. Save it in your phone as "LIFELINE" or whatever else will help you know what it is.

You can call or text them 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, if you or a loved one is having a mental health emergency. They have 200 crisis centers across the country staffed and ready to support you the best they can.

My hope and prayer is that all of us will use this number as we need it. Our tax dollars are helping to pay for it. And we've seen way too often that when we call 911 for mental health emergencies police show up and get violent.

Make 988 the new default number you call or text in a mental health crisis, OK?

Hundreds of micro-factors impact what makes a home safe. A neighborhood. A community. A side of town. An entire city. But NOTHING impacts the safety of a place like the health of its economy. The economy is the single biggest factor impacting public safety in America.

When a home, a block, a neighborhood have true economic security, crime absolutely plummets. And, of course, the inverse is true. Without true, deep economic security, where people earn enough money to make it through the month, to care for all of their needs, and to grow and thrive, where that is missing, the toxic mix of poverty and despair rises.

Nothing would solve drastically reduce crime more than addressing the root economic issues at play that cause it.

I am HUGE Dave Chappelle fan. I've met Dave. Been to his shows. I am friends with many of his friends. But it is absolutely time for him to move on from telling trans jokes.

Here's the thing - in America - we do indeed have freedom of speech. And because of that freedom, Dave can continue to tell trans jokes for this rest of his life if he wants to. And people can protest Dave for the rest of their lives if they want to.

But here's my rub... you can really only crack jokes about oppressed groups that you ARE NOT A PART OF a few times before people get irritated. Dave has hit that threshold.

This is true for all comedians. Jewish comedians can crack jokes about Jewish people for the rest of their lives, but limits exist for anybody else that wants to move into that space.

The same is true for white comedians telling jokes ABOUT Black people, at the expense of Black people. I don't wanna hear that shit AT ALL. Do it once or twice and you can get away with it, but anything more than that, and a line has been crossed. Does that make sense?

Generally speaking, I want all of us to have broad freedoms about what we are able to say, myself included. But sometimes we have to censor ourselves when our words are doing more harm than good.

I get it. Joe Biden is terrible. 82% of Americans don't want him to run again. And he shouldn't.

But it is FOOLISH to allow our frustration with him to cause us to stop caring about who our District Attorney is. Or who are Mayor is. Or city councilperson or school board leaders.

Don't fall for that trap. We all must be simultaneously frustrated with the President AND fully plugged into important races.

In America, our deepest wounds rarely heal because the wrongs that have been done here are rarely made right.

Verbal apologies are rare when it comes to racial injustice in this country, but anyone who thinks a verbal apology is enough is sorely mistaken.

Enter Bruce's Beach. This week, the descendants of the original owners of the Los Angeles beachfront property that was stolen from a Black family 100 years ago, were given the deed back to the land - the first known time this happened.I commend the Bruce family, their attorneys, local organizers, and all of the government officials that helped make this happen.

Now, let's see it duplicated in every city, county, and state in America.

We all deserve to be safe in our homes, neighborhoods, and communities. And we all want this. But it is NOT police that make communities safe.

STOP FALLING FOR THIS LIE. The safest communities in America hardly have police. They have these 3 things...Wealth, access to resources, and quality education from pre-school to grad school. That's ACTUALLY what makes communities safe.

Let me unpack and explain it.

This weekend, a healthy, vibrant, young pregnant Black woman and her husband went to the hospital in Texas. 24 hours later, both the baby and the mother were dead.

Now her children are without a mother and her husband, Brennon, is without a wife.

And what we know, is that pregnant Black women all over the country are having HORRIBLE struggles with their pregnancies at rates far worse than white women. And every expert has said that it is basically systemic racism embedded in the medical field.

As soon as you can, please click the link in my bio on Instagram to chip in and help this family TODAY, OK?

Love and appreciate you all.

On most episodes of The Breakdown, I come here to inform you of one important idea or issue going on in the world, but today I have one VERY important question...Budgets are moral documents. They show values and priorities.

And almost every developed country in the world, and many developing countries for that matter, fully fund education and healthcare, from birth to death, but not here in America.

We fully fund mass incarceration and all of the jails, prisons, and incompetent police money can buy but then saddle our people with student loans, co-pays, deductibles, and outrageous health insurance premiums every single month.

Why have we accepted this? It's foolish. Let's dig in together.

I know what OJ did. You know what OJ did. We all know what OJ did. That's very different than him going on CNN and openly admitting to it.

In essence, that's what former US Ambassador and National Security Advisor John Bolton did yesterday on CNN when he openly admitting to overthrowing governments around the world. We always knew this about the United States, but now a living official is on the record admitting it.

Let me unpack and explain it.

A brand new poll was just released showing 64% of Democrats do NOT want Joe Biden to run for President again. That's a DEVASTATING number and should immediately cause other Democrats to prepare and announce that they are actually going to run in 2024. Conservatives, from Trump, Desantis, and more already have those wheels in motion.

On today's episode of The Breakdown I will unpack and explain this poll and make sense of why these numbers are SO bad for Joe Biden now.

On today's episode of The Breakdown, I just want to pause a little and reflect on my self-care journey. I'm no guru or master, but for the past 3 years I've been working very hard to figure out what it means to actually take care of my mind, body, and soul.

Two things first come to mind for me: boundaries and therapy.

I'll tell you why those things were ever a struggle for me and what embracing both has made a HUGE difference in my life.

Nearly 2 months ago, a long range Israeli sniper shot and killed beloved journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, an American citizen. Nearly a dozen different newspapers and media companies conducted exhaustive investigations and all came to the exact same conclusion - she was shot and killed in cold blood by the Israeli military.

The United States, though, has chosen to ignore all of the facts from those investigations, including forensic evidence, videos, audio clips, interviews, and so much more, and instead issued a statement saying that they don't quite know who did it, and that if it was Israel, it was an accident.

It's utterly shameful. The US Government has chosen to protect and defend another country over one of its own citizens.

Mass shootings, gun violence, and police violence are so prevalent in this country, EVERY SINGLE DAY OF THE WEEK, that if I had to name just one thing to describe the actual reality of this place, it would be "violence."

And yesterday, which was the 4th of July, was as quintessentially violent as any other day, with a mass shooting literally interrupting a parade outside of Chicago and other events all over the country. While this country has BEEN exhausting for Black folk, more and more I see that a larger percentage of the nation is just thoroughly exhausted by the stress of this place.

And what compounds it all, is America's complete unwillingness to actually address its most difficult and dangerous problems.

What police did to this young brother, firing 90 shots at him, riddling his body with bullets from head to toe, is something almost exclusively reserved for young Black men.

Because what I know is that white mass murderers aren't treated like this. Period. And Jayland had never been in trouble a day in his life.

After 67 years, an unexecuted arrest warrant for the woman that helped get Emmett Till lynched has been found. And I have SO many questions.

This much I am clear on. Arrest this woman, RIGHT NOW.

We knew 2 months ago that it was all but a sure thing that Roe v Wade would be overturned and that millions of women would lose their civil and human rights as a result.

Joe Biden and The White House had MONTHS to prepare for this moment. Months. And instead they've offered a few badly delivered words and a bunch of fundraising emails in response to it all.

Guess what conservatives did? They passed robust laws months ago, state by state, that would be immediately triggered if Roe was overturned. THEY were prepared to meet this moment.

And even though Democrats have real options on what they can do, and what they should fight for, they've taken virtually none of them.

It's time that we begin thinking of new people to lead the party - from the top down.

Better late than never? Maybe. But the new congressional hearings that are underway on the January 6th white supremacist insurrection are too little, too late. Conservatives have moved completely on. That door is closed altogether. And the truth is, I think 90% of Americans have as well. It's sad and crazy to say that. People waited. For weeks. Then months. Then seasons. Now years.

And life is hard right now. From gas, to inflation, to Covid, to gun violence, to mass shootings, and everything in between - we'd still like to see justice and accountability for January 6th, but the moment has been missed. I'm sure of it.

This makes my blood boil. Even though millions of dollars was given to GoFundMe to support the families of victims in Buffalo, an organization thousands of miles away, that has nothing to do with Buffalo, is lording over the money and is saying it might be as late as December before anyone gets it.

This organization should never be allowed to do this again. Had we all known better in the moment, we would've stopped them then and there. Moving forward, we MUST make sure that families have direct control of the money being raised for them.

We're at the point now where mainstream moderate Democrats like Congressman James Clyburn are calling out Merrick Garland. Garland MAJORS in failing to meet the moment - with the attack on the Capitol, with confronting white supremacy, and with confronting police violence.

He never should've been the nominee, but the best we can hope for is that he will step down soon and pass the work on to someone with more drive and determination to take care of essential issues.

FYI: Today is the next to last day this podcast will be on Instagram - we're moving everything back to Apple and Spotify and hope you will be joining us there.

Yesterday was both bitter and sweet. Men and women that are deeply dedicated to justice and equality won elections all over the country in super important races.

And then voters also recalled our friend Chesa Boudin as DA of San Francisco.

Let's unpack and explain it.