George Floyd protesters in their own words: 'We are human beings that want justice' - NBCNews.com

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For many of the thousands of protesters in cities across the country, there seems to be one primary demand — justice for George Floyd's death and an end to police brutality against African Americans.

"The injustice has been going on for so long," said Ben Hubert, 26, who lives in the Minneapolis area. "It’s been swelling for years.”

"That could be my father; that could be my brother. That could be me," one Atlanta protester, a black man, told NBC News of his thoughts when he saw the video of a Minneapolis police officer kneeling on Floyd's neck as Floyd pleaded, "Please, please, please, I can't breathe."

"It just happened too many times," the Atlanta protester said.

Floyd died in police custody Monday after he was pinned to the ground for over eight minutes. Derek Chauvin, the since-fired officer who knelt on his neck despite pleas from Floyd and onlookers, was arrested and charged Friday with third-degree murder and manslaughter. Three other officers were also involved in Floyd's detainment.

Public officials around the country decried the violence and chaos that broke out at many demonstrations Friday night, with the Minnesota governor saying "wanton destruction" in his state came from people who live elsewhere. About 80 percent of the arrests in the Twin Cities on Friday night were of people from outside Minnesota, officials said.

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The Minnesota governor said demonstrations that were peaceful earlier in the week, after video of Floyd's death came out on Tuesday, have devolved and no longer have anything to do with Floyd or a demand for racial justice.

Protesters near Barclays Center following a rally over the death of George Floyd on May 29, 2020, in Brooklyn, N.Y.Frank Franklin II / AP

But not everyone in protests around the country appeared to engage in violence, and some who spoke to the media said their message is simple: “We are human beings that want justice for our people,” as one demonstrator in the nation's capital told NBC Washington.

Another protester, Anzhane Laine, said that until Chauvin is convicted "there will no peace until we get justice."

"I spent all day crying because it's completely unfair," Laine said. "We have yet another innocent man being killed by a police officer."

Those who gathered outside the White House chanted, "Don't shoot" and "Black lives matter." Many people held up signs that read, "We stand together #BLM" and "We r not thugs," in reference to President Donald Trump's labeling protesters as "thugs" in a tweet early Friday.

Some demonstrations have turned violent and even deadly. In Atlanta, vehicles were set on fire and buildings, including the CNN Center, were vandalized during a Friday night protest. Police officers fired tear gas into the massive crowds as they tried to get people to leave.

In New York City, officers pepper-sprayed a crowd after a police vehicle was set on fire, and in Louisville, Kentucky, — where Breonna Taylor was shot and killed by officers executing a search warrant — seven people were shot during a Thursday night protest.

Circumstances of the Louisville shootings were not immediately clear, and police said officers were not involved.

In Detroit, a 19-year-old man was killed after someone in a van fired shots into a crowd of protesters. A police spokesperson said an officer was not involved. And a security officer with the Federal Protective Service of the Department of Homeland Security was killed in Oakland and another injured after someone in a vehicle opened fire around 9:45 p.m. on Friday, the FBI said.

Demonstrators said that despite tensions running high in some cities, they hope the message of why they are gathering does not get lost.

"It keeps happening. No matter what's done, no matter how many protests it keeps happening," an Atlanta protester told NBC News, adding, "It's always been happening, but now it's just recorded and getting seen more."

Minyvonne Burke

Minyvonne Burke is a breaking news reporter for NBC News.

Associated Press contributed.

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In 'Humankind,' Rutger Bregman Aims To Convince That Most People Are Good - NPR

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Rutger Bregman begins his new book Humankind: A Hopeful History with what he calls this "radical idea" that most people deep down are pretty decent.

Bregman is a historian and writer for The Correspondent in the Netherlands and author of the previous bestseller Utopia for Realists.

"If we can actually trust each other, if we do have the courage to move to a more realistic, hopeful view of human nature, then we can move to a very different kind of society as well — and build very different kinds of schools and democracies and workplaces," Bregman tells NPR.

Interview Highlights

On whether this is a good – or bad – time to make his argument

You know, I think it's actually exactly the right time. We often assume that during times of crises, the veneer that we call civilization cracks and that people reveal their true selves. And that we really become quite horrible versions of ourselves. But in the first chapters of the book, I go over all the evidence of sociology that we have – and it's quite a lot. It's actually more than 700 case studies that show that, especially in times of crisis, we show our best selves. And we get this explosion of altruism and cooperation. This happens again and again after natural disasters, after earthquakes and after floodings. And I think that, if you zoom out a little bit during this pandemic, you see the same phenomenon.

On thinking this way amid all of the discouraging news

It's one of the ironies of writing a book about the power of human kindness is that you have to go on for hundreds of pages about all the dark chapters in our history. Right? Because on the one hand, biologists say we are one of the friendliest species in the animal kingdom. And they literally talk about survival of the friendliest, which means that for millennia it was actually the friendliest among us who had the most kids and so had the biggest chance of passing on their genes to the next generation.

But then, on the other hand, we're also the cruelest species, right? We do things that other animals just don't – when you think about wars or ethnic cleansing or, you know, racism, discrimination, you name it. It's true. Both of these things are true at the same time.

On media raising misperception of risk, anxiety, contempt and hostility

Well, the news is mostly about things that go wrong, right? It's about sensationalist incidents that happened today, instead of things that happen every day. So if you watch and follow a lot of the news, at the end of the day, you know exactly how the world is not working. And you'll have a quite bleak view of human history and human nature. And this is what you can see with people who, basically, just follow too much of the news. You know, they've become cynical and depressed and feel anxious. So, yeah, there's a real mental health hazard here. ...

Maybe we have to make a distinction here between the news and journalism. So I think that good journalism helps you to zoom out, to focus on the structural forces that govern our lives. And I think that good journalism is also not only about the problems, but also about the solutions, and the people who are working on these solutions. So I'm not saying that journalism should all be happy ... But it can give us hope, because there are a lot of reasons for hope in this world today as well.

On rules to live by

I think it's rational to assume the best in other people because most people are pretty decent. And it's, as I said, it's actually the reason why we have conquered the globe. You know, human beings are just incredibly good compared to other species at cooperating on a skill that other species just can't. Do you really want to live your whole life distrusting other people? That price is way too high to pay. I think it's more rational to say, OK, this is just going to happen a couple of times in my life that I'll be the victim of some confidence game. And if you've never been conned, then maybe you should ask yourself the question: Is my basic attitude to life trusting enough?

I'm just saying that we have to remember here that cynicism is, in the first place, it's a synonym for laziness. It sort of gives you an excuse to do nothing. And in the second place, it's often used as a legitimization of hierarchy, because if we cannot trust each other, then we need them – we need the CEOs and the monarchs and the generals and the kings and you name it. But if we can actually trust each other, if we do have the courage to move to a more realistic, hopeful view of human nature, then we can move to a very different kind of society as well — and build very different kinds of schools and democracies and workplaces. So people may think, oh, this is this guy has written this nice book about the power of kindness, but it's actually quite revolutionary in a subversive idea to go in that direction.

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